April 2020 Q&A: Ian Kar With FTPartner’s Steve McLaughlin
Hey everyone, Ian here.
Hope everyone’s doing well and staying safe. I had fun Saturday afternoon—I spent an hour talking to Steve McLaughlin, founder and CEO of FTPartners.
There’s a lot to admire about Steve—he left Goldman Sachs at 32 to bootstrap an investment banking business, a pretty non-traditional track for most people in banking. FTPartners is now (reportedly) makes $400 million in annual revenue, according to a Bloomberg profile late last year. We spoke about his beginnings and how he got started in banking, and a lot more.
- Leaving Goldman and starting FTPartners
- Building credibility
- How he was able to identify fintech companies
- FTPartners’ high quality research, and why it matters for the firm
- Advice for founders
- The impact COVID has on VC investing in fintech
- Why FTPartners has doubled down on COVID-related content
- What should founders look out for in fundraising and M&A deals
- Qualities in successful fintech entrepreneurs
- Snoop Dogg, Lenny Kravitz, Eddie Vedder, and FTPartners’ epic Money 2020 parties
You can view the full interview here. It’s about an hour long.
Thanks a ton to Steve for taking the time to chat. I learned a ton and hope you do too. I also want to mention that Steve and FTPartners have a great panel line up this week with Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky and Chime CEO Chris Britt to talk about building a digital bank during COVID. Highly recommend tuning in at the link here.