In March, Singapore-based fintech startup Chocolate Finance faced its biggest challenge to date. Within the span of just a week, customers withdrew around S$500 million (US$386 million) – approximately half of their assets under management. Check out episode 2 to hear the factors contributing to this original crisis.
Now, two months later, we sit down with Walter de Oude, founder and CEO of Chocolate Finance, to hear more about the experience from his perspective. In this episode, we cover the lessons he learned from what happened, what keeps him building, and how he’s cracked the most important part of any startup journey – scaling.
Hot takes of the week include the prospects for a merged Grab and GoTo financial services platform and the demise of Skype, the OG video calling service.
Listen on your preferred platform: YouTube | Spotify | Apple
Timestamps
00:00 Intros by Prashanth
03:08 Is Walter de Oude the world’s most exciting actuary?
06:10 The journey of building SingLife
14:02 How to raise US$50 million
16:00 The joy of building
17:10 Why the Chocolate product works
21:03 There’s no such thing as a free lunch (or chocolate)
24:20 The dark side of hyperscaling
27:55 What Walter would have done differently
33:00 The power of finfluencers
35:00 Where does Chocolate go from here?
37:00 Ain’t my first rodeo
39:20 Chocolate AI
41:28 Where AI will impact the financial services industry first
42:58 The joy of doing fun stuff
44:30 A blessing in disguise
46:20 Grab/GoTo – how the financial services support each other
50:34 Farewell to Skype, the end of an era
Special thanks to our guest, Walter de Oude, founder and CEO of Chocolate Finance.
60/40 is a bi-weekly podcast hosted by Prashanth Ranganathan, Peter Bithos, and Maria Li.
Editing by Lorenzo Kyle Subido
(And yes, we’re serious about ethics and transparency. More information here.)
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