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#aiaccounting #SwissStartups #FintechForSMEs #b2bsaas
AI accounting software is changing the game for startups — especially in conservative markets like Switzerland. In this episode, Blas Pegenaute (CEO of Sequence ERP) shares how he’s building a full-stack fintech platform combining banking, bookkeeping, and automation for SMEs.
Discover how Sequence ERP evolved from an internal accounting tool into a licensed fintech challenger that could redefine SME operations in Europe.
🔑 What you’ll learn in this episode:
Why Swiss startups face unique fintech challenges
How Sequence ERP automates accounting with AI agents
What KPIs matter most when raising VC in SaaS
Blas’ founder journey from nightlife to fintech
Why embedded banking + AI is the next SaaS frontier
🧑💼 About the Guest:
Blas Pegenaute is a serial entrepreneur and the CEO of Sequence ERP. With a background in hospitality and B2B distribution, he’s now building a fintech startup transforming how small businesses do finance in Europe.
📖 Full blog post (Do Follow):
http://startuprad.io/post/ai-accounting-software-the-swiss-startup-automating-bookkeeping-with-sequence-erp
🚀 Work with us: partnerships@startuprad.io
📬 Subscribe: https://linktr.ee/startupradio
📣 Feedback: https://forms.gle/Qp53eVuc9P1RMqWj8
🔗 Follow Joe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/comm/mynetwork/discovery-see-all?usecase=PEOPLE_FOLLOWS&followMember=joernmenninger
The music used in our intro is "MF-297 : First Hero" licensed from Musicfox.com: https://www.musicfox.com/detailsuche/?searchtext=297&submit=search
⚠️DISCLAIMER: We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred from you acting or not acting as a result of watching any of our publications. You acknowledge that you use the information we provide at your own risk. Do your research.
Copyright Notice: This video and our YouTube channel contain dialogue, and images that are the property of Startuprad.io. You are authorized to share the video link and channel and embed this video in your website or others as long as a link back to our YouTube channel is provided.
© Startuprad.io - All rights reserved
Chapters:
00:00:00 The Future of Accounting - How AI Driven ERP is Transforming Swiss SMEs
00:00:03 Introduction to a Powerful Episode
00:01:01 Blas's Entrepreneurial Journey
00:04:00 From Parties to Accounting Tools
00:06:36 Favorite Cocktails and Bar Stories
00:08:35 Aha Moments in Scaling
00:10:13 Lessons from Failures
00:11:56 Relocation to Switzerland
00:14:11 Issues with Current ERP Software
00:15:55 Competing with Established Software
00:17:18 Exclusive Announcement
00:21:19 Insights on Fundraising
00:24:53 Future of AI in Accounting
00:27:36 Building a High-Performing Team
00:31:26 Maintaining Team Performance
00:33:22 Vision for the Future
00:35:35 Redefining SaaS with AI
00:37:17 Hardest Decisions as a Founder
00:39:30 Where to Follow Blas and Sequence
00:40:36 Closing Remarks and Audience Engagement
AI accounting software is changing the game for startups — especially in conservative markets like Switzerland. In this episode, Blas Pegenaute (CEO of Sequence ERP) shares how he’s building a full-stack fintech platform combining banking, bookkeeping, and automation for SMEs.
Discover how Sequence ERP evolved from an internal accounting tool into a licensed fintech challenger that could redefine SME operations in Europe.
🔑 What you’ll learn in this episode:
Why Swiss startups face unique fintech challenges
How Sequence ERP automates accounting with AI agents
What KPIs matter most when raising VC in SaaS
Blas’ founder journey from nightlife to fintech
Why embedded banking + AI is the next SaaS frontier
🧑💼 About the Guest:
Blas Pegenaute is a serial entrepreneur and the CEO of Sequence ERP. With a background in hospitality and B2B distribution, he’s now building a fintech startup transforming how small businesses do finance in Europe.
📖 Full blog post (Do Follow):
http://startuprad.io/post/ai-accounting-software-the-swiss-startup-automating-bookkeeping-with-sequence-erp
🚀 Work with us: partnerships@startuprad.io
📬 Subscribe: https://linktr.ee/startupradio
📣 Feedback: https://forms.gle/Qp53eVuc9P1RMqWj8
🔗 Follow Joe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/comm/mynetwork/discovery-see-all?usecase=PEOPLE_FOLLOWS&followMember=joernmenninger
The music used in our intro is "MF-297 : First Hero" licensed from Musicfox.com: https://www.musicfox.com/detailsuche/?searchtext=297&submit=search
⚠️DISCLAIMER: We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred from you acting or not acting as a result of watching any of our publications. You acknowledge that you use the information we provide at your own risk. Do your research.
Copyright Notice: This video and our YouTube channel contain dialogue, and images that are the property of Startuprad.io. You are authorized to share the video link and channel and embed this video in your website or others as long as a link back to our YouTube channel is provided.
© Startuprad.io - All rights reserved
Chapters:
00:00:00 The Future of Accounting - How AI Driven ERP is Transforming Swiss SMEs
00:00:03 Introduction to a Powerful Episode
00:01:01 Blas's Entrepreneurial Journey
00:04:00 From Parties to Accounting Tools
00:06:36 Favorite Cocktails and Bar Stories
00:08:35 Aha Moments in Scaling
00:10:13 Lessons from Failures
00:11:56 Relocation to Switzerland
00:14:11 Issues with Current ERP Software
00:15:55 Competing with Established Software
00:17:18 Exclusive Announcement
00:21:19 Insights on Fundraising
00:24:53 Future of AI in Accounting
00:27:36 Building a High-Performing Team
00:31:26 Maintaining Team Performance
00:33:22 Vision for the Future
00:35:35 Redefining SaaS with AI
00:37:17 Hardest Decisions as a Founder
00:39:30 Where to Follow Blas and Sequence
00:40:36 Closing Remarks and Audience Engagement
Kategorie
🤖
TechnikTranskript
00:00I would have bought Bitcoin at one cent or at one euro.
00:04The rest of the things, all the mistakes that I've done as a founder,
00:07I would redo them the same.
00:09They are what I am right now,
00:11and I am grateful for all those mistakes and for all those failures,
00:15no matter how hard they have been.
00:17Every one of them has been a teaching moment.
00:25Welcome to StartupRed.io,
00:28your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German startup scene
00:33with news, interviews, and live events.
00:39Hello and welcome, everybody.
00:42This is Joe from StartupRed.io,
00:43the authority on German, Swiss, and Austrian startups.
00:47And today, we've got a powerhouse episode for founders,
00:50SaaS builders, and tech investors alike.
00:53What if the next breakout SaaS company for accounting firms
00:57came from the back office of a bookkeeping firm in Switzerland?
01:02We're sitting down with Blas.
01:03By the way, he spared me pronouncing his family name.
01:06A serial entrepreneur who bootstrapped his first company at just 18,
01:11made a few successful exits, learned from failure,
01:13and is now scaling Sequence, a B2B SaaS platform turning hats across Europe.
01:21Sequence started as internal accounting software,
01:26evolved into robust AI-enabled ERP system for small companies,
01:32and recently caught the attention of several major investors in Switzerland.
01:36In this episode, you'll hear how Blas turned a back office tool
01:41into venture-backed scale-up, what it takes to build SaaS products
01:46with product market fit in a conservative industry,
01:49his most painful lessons on entrepreneurship, failure and bouncing back,
01:53and the playbook for scaling from Spain to Switzerland to global relevance.
01:59If you're a founder of VC, accounting tech innovator,
02:02or just love stories about building software that actually solves boring
02:05but critical problems, this one is for you.
02:09Guys, don't forget to subscribe and Blas, welcome.
02:13Hi, Joe. Very happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
02:16Totally my pleasure.
02:17For our audience, can you first once pronounce your family name?
02:21Yes, yes. Go ahead.
02:22It's Pechenauti. It's a Spanish name.
02:25Not easy to say Pechenauti.
02:26Okay. Muchas gracias.
02:29You saved me from pronouncing that.
02:31Gracias, Joe.
02:32Yeah, I know.
02:33You know, it's a hard one.
02:34In French, they say Pechenauti.
02:36So, you know, I cannot have both versions.
02:38They're going for me.
02:40Yes, especially since you have three languages in Switzerland.
02:45I think that the French-speaking area would prefer that one.
02:48Talking about you, founder journey, and origin story,
02:52you started your first company at 18.
02:55What sparked your interest in entrepreneurship?
02:59Listen, Joe, I've always been that way.
03:02I started really working when I was very young.
03:06I started in the night industry.
03:09I started creating parties when I was 16 years old.
03:13I couldn't go to the nightclub, and I was already organizing stuff.
03:16So that was a pretty fun moment for me.
03:17And I've always wanted to do things in a very particular and peculiar way,
03:23which was my own way.
03:25And at 18, I found that artists, namely electronic music artists,
03:32were very good at creating music, but very bad at telling themselves.
03:37And I was very good at sales and very bad at creating music.
03:41So I created my first company called Fresh & Blunt,
03:46and it started like an artist management agency.
03:49We were taking local artists and giving them national or international exposure.
03:56And then we started organizing festivals and helping running a couple of clubs.
04:01Let me understand this step from doing parties, electronic music,
04:07to an internal accounting tool.
04:10How did that happen?
04:12It's been a fun ride, to be honest.
04:17So I started managing, as I said, artists and electronic music parties.
04:23Then I moved out of Spain into the UK.
04:27I kept in working on the night industry, and at some point I hit a wall.
04:33I couldn't do really what I wanted to do into the industry.
04:36And I went into plain hospitality.
04:39I started managing a cocktail bar and a restaurant.
04:43And then from there, I got scouted by a Chinese company
04:47to introduce in Spain and Portugal electronic cigarettes.
04:53I'm talking, you know, early 2010s, where there were no ACGs anywhere.
05:00So actually, if you vaped in Spain in between 2010 and 2012,
05:06there's a big percentage of chances that I did that import and that distribution.
05:13And then from there, I got recruited by a Swiss entrepreneur
05:17who wanted to build a startup on electronic cigarettes.
05:21And that's who brought me here to Switzerland.
05:25All around these years, I've always faced the same issues.
05:29Admin and accounting, it's a pain for every single entrepreneur out there,
05:35myself the first.
05:37So when I came into Switzerland, I faced the hard truth of the Swiss market.
05:42It's a fantastic market, but everything is very open-minded and in accounting as well.
05:47So there's no real structure.
05:49Everyone can do it in a different way.
05:52You obviously need to be compliant, but to get to compliant,
05:55you can do it in different ways.
05:56So I was struggling a lot.
05:59And that company got acquired, and that was great.
06:03But at some point in 2021, a very good friend of mine,
06:08he showed me this accounting software that he was building.
06:11And I was like, hold on a minute.
06:13This is exactly what I've been looking for my whole career as an entrepreneur.
06:20Let's take this stuff from an accounting software
06:23and building on an automated and AI accounting software for SMEs.
06:28So that's the whole trajectory up until accounting.
06:33Before we go into the next questions, you ran a bar.
06:39What was your favorite cocktail?
06:42Oh, wow.
06:45I used to love Ponce de Martini.
06:48If I don't mind that the bartender looks weird at me,
06:52a good old-fashioned.
06:54It takes a little bit of time to make.
06:55So when you go to a cocktail bar and you ask for an old-fashioned,
06:59the guy's not going to like you very much
07:01because they need to stir it for a long time.
07:03And I'm a whiskey lover.
07:05But yeah, I even go on certification to make cocktails.
07:09I know.
07:09I knew.
07:10I don't know them anymore,
07:11but I knew how to make 120-something cocktails.
07:14It was pretty fun.
07:15It was pretty fun, Joe.
07:17What is your favorite cocktail, Joe?
07:22I like Planter's Punch.
07:25Nice.
07:27Nice.
07:27When was the last time that you drank a good Planter's Punch and where?
07:34Last weekend here in the balcony with my wife.
07:38Oh, fantastic.
07:40Fantastic.
07:41What was the name of the place?
07:42Let's give them a shout-out.
07:45No, here.
07:46Just on our balcony.
07:47You made it?
07:49Yes.
07:50You are a master.
07:51That's great.
07:52So you know your way around cocktails?
07:55Maybe.
07:55Ah, fantastic.
07:57I hope we can meet one day and I can taste your Planter's Punch.
08:02I will make you an Amaretto Sour that you may like, that you may like as well.
08:07I also like Negroni.
08:09Oh, yeah.
08:10Negroni.
08:11Very nice.
08:12Next time you go and ask for a Negroni, check a Negroni Svaliato.
08:17So it's a regular Negroni, but it has a top of soda, a little bit of sparking wine, like
08:29Prosecco, you know.
08:31So it's a Negroni with a little bit of Prosecco.
08:33Try it out.
08:34Very nice.
08:34Negroni Svaliato.
08:35I also do have my personal recipe on this, but that would lead a little bit too much
08:41astray.
08:43I was originally trying to ask you, you've been working with the back office accounting
08:50software.
08:50What was like the aha moment that convinced you you could really scale this?
08:57Listen, the first one was very much internal.
09:00It's when Jonathan, the real founder of Sequence, showed me what he was building.
09:06When he showed it to me, I was the first aha.
09:09Like, I've been looking for this my whole life.
09:12You know, I've been looking for a software that can allow me to automate my accounting.
09:17So that was the first aha moment.
09:19And then when we reworked that internal tool into an external SaaS, and we went into the
09:26market, the market's aha moment was when a client of ours, one of the first clients,
09:32his payment on the card didn't go through.
09:35And the guy was calling me on a Sunday saying, please, please, please reactivate the software.
09:41I cannot believe without Sequence.
09:43I need to do the invoices.
09:45I need to get back the subscription.
09:47And that was when we said, hey, maybe we got into something that really is helping SMEs
09:54and freelancers out there to do their invoicing and accounting much easier.
10:01I see.
10:03I was wondering for our audience, what's one thing you wish you had known when starting
10:09your business?
10:09Share your wisdom in the comments.
10:11We might feature you in a future episode.
10:14Talk about transition and resilience here.
10:16You've had exits and setbacks.
10:19Tell us about the failure that changed your approach.
10:23Any failure?
10:24Any point in my career?
10:28One that had special importance for you?
10:33Yeah.
10:33So, my first company, okay, Fresh and Blunt, I had to shut it down in 48 hours, very abruptly,
10:44because I was very bad at selling an event that I didn't follow up correctly with the owner
10:52of the nightclub that I was selling that to.
10:54And he was so powerful, and he gave me a call, and he said, you did such a bad job that you're not going to be able to work in here anymore.
11:02And I couldn't believe it.
11:03And 48 hours later, all my artists had to leave the agency, otherwise they couldn't be playing music anymore in the north of Spain.
11:12And that taught me a lot about facing conflict and issues, you know.
11:19I was running away from saying to this guy that I couldn't deliver on the talks that we were having.
11:27And because I didn't do that, by the time I did it, he took it so, so badly, and he was right, that that tanked my company.
11:39That absolutely tanked my company.
11:41Yeah.
11:42So, that was a big one.
11:46I see.
11:47Even though many are usually doing over-promising and under-deliver, but for some, it just doesn't work out.
11:56But how did your relocation to Switzerland shape your mindset as a founder?
12:03And by the way, do you already love fondue?
12:07I love fondue.
12:09Sweets are going to kill me, but my favorite fondue is tomato fondue.
12:14I know.
12:15Sweets are absolutely going to kill me right now because they hate it, but I love it.
12:19Because for me, it's like drinking pizza, and pizza is one of my favorite.
12:24Drinking pizza.
12:26It's like drinking pizza, man.
12:28It's fantastic.
12:30So, coming to Switzerland was a very big change for me.
12:35I was coming from pure, high-paced environments and countries.
12:43I was living, you know, at the time, I went from London to living half in Marbella, half in France,
12:50traveling all over the place, and I arrived into France, into Switzerland, sorry.
12:55And it was so calm and peaceful, and everybody was so respectful, you know.
13:02I really, really, really liked it a lot.
13:05I know a lot of people, they don't.
13:07They say it's too slow for them.
13:10For me, it's a great balance because it allows me to be calm when I'm in Switzerland and high-paced when I'm outside.
13:18As a founder, the mentality of the market is much different than anywhere in Europe that I've been doing business before.
13:25So, it's a very conservative market, a very risk-adverse market.
13:30If you want to raise funds in here and you're not in biotech, good luck to you.
13:35That has changed a little bit in the last 12 months thanks to AI and the hubs that they're doing in Zurich
13:42and thanks to crypto in the Crypto Valley in Neuchatel, and I get that.
13:46But historically, it has been a little bit complex to raise funds in here.
13:50So, it made me a founder more based on facts with a little bit of storytelling.
13:58Always storytelling.
13:59It's always important to do storytelling, but you cannot bullshit your way around Switzerland
14:03if there's no facts and that there are no unit economics back in your business, for sure.
14:11Talking about a little bit your product vision and market positioning.
14:16What's broken in current ERP and accounting software?
14:21It's so goddamn hard to use.
14:24That's it.
14:25That's it.
14:25I have to admit, I've been working for quite some consultancies in the past, and I'm dramatized by SAP.
14:34Yeah, that is, wow.
14:37Yes, that's a big one.
14:39That's a big one.
14:40And yes, if you have a gazillion bucks lying around, or you're a big company, you can pay
14:45a consultant to run SAP for you and customize it for you.
14:49It's still going to be hard to use, but you're going to have a full team of people doing it.
14:53But when you're a freelancer, and you need to be looking at your numbers, right now,
14:58there's not many things out there that can work for you in Switzerland.
15:01In Europe, there are good initiatives.
15:04In the States, fantastic software being created.
15:07But here in Switzerland, firsthand, I can tell it's very hard to find one that is easy to use,
15:13and that you prefer to use the software rather than doing your invoices on Word or on Excel.
15:18Yeah, so I think that's an issue.
15:22And then, even if you're using a software and you're doing it yourself, then you need to go into an accounting firm
15:28and pay a small fortune to do your taxes and run your books.
15:32So, that's quite inefficient.
15:35I believe that is quite, we believe that is quite inefficient, yeah.
15:39Also, here in Germany, you have the duty by now to have electronic invoicing also, depending on how and where you invoice,
15:49also electronic invoicing, machine readability, and so on and so forth.
15:53So, you cannot use any software.
15:55Talking about any software, how do you guys sequence your piece sent out from competitors like Sage, Xero, or QuickBooks?
16:04Well, we are going in the direction of becoming a full-stack company.
16:08Okay?
16:09Sage, Xero, and QuickBooks are fantastic pieces of software.
16:13I cannot say it again.
16:15I cannot say it enough.
16:16They're very good softwares.
16:17You may want to run QuickBooks.
16:21Now, QuickBooks in Switzerland, you cannot be running it.
16:24Sage, you can, but then the adaptation is going to be hard.
16:28Share is the same.
16:29So, you're going to have a hard time getting those to work in the Swiss market out of the bat.
16:35Now, I said we want to become a full-stack company, and that's where we're really seeing us in two or three years.
16:44Accounting software is hard to use.
16:46Accountants, you know, have a lot of manual work.
16:51Our mission is to blend both into an AI operative system where SMEs can run their books by simply uploading documents and the software.
17:04That's the rest with very minimal human interaction.
17:08I don't think any of these guys are going in this direction.
17:11We certainly are.
17:11And if I may, just a little scoop for the guys that are listening, us are there.
17:19It's not yet public, but three weeks ago, we got a license from Finmath to be a 1B light bank or a fintech company,
17:31which means that by the end of the year, we will be able to open multi-currency accounts and give cards to sequence users.
17:41And that means that as an SME, you're going to have in the same platform your bank, your accountant, and the software,
17:49all included and all built on AI.
17:54That is actually pretty cool.
17:57Exclusive announcement here on Celebrate.io.
18:00Pretty cool.
18:00For our audience, because we've been talking about accounting systems, and they are not, let's say, the most intuitive to use most of the time.
18:09I was wondering, what is the most frustrating software our audience has ever used to work at, or you could never get to work?
18:17How would you redesign it?
18:19Actually, I have a mission to make Blast.
18:21For me, it was kind of printer software, not going to tell the name of the company who produced it.
18:27But it's now two years, about a dozen friends who, some of them studied computer science, math, PhD degrees, and nobody could get it running.
18:40Anyway, let's talk a little bit about your growth strategy and GTM.
18:46How did you acquire your first external customers?
18:50Yeah, going to the street, outbound, pure outbound, reaching out to people.
18:56So the founders of Sequence, they own accounting firms.
19:01So the first clients that we brought in actually are their clients, obviously.
19:06And then we went out there into the market with outbound.
19:09We started emailing people, calling people, asking about their issues, asking about their pain points, understanding what they needed.
19:17And once the answer to what they needed was what we had, then it kind of fell into place.
19:22What is your current go-to-market strategy and how is it evolving?
19:33Our current go-to-market strategy, and I wish I could call Mercedes, our chief product and growth officer here, into the call to get that one.
19:43And it's a blend of inbound and outbound sales, okay?
19:49We do a lot of inbound generation that then led outbound contacts, and we do as well outbound contacts.
19:59So we have cold calling people.
20:01We love cold calling.
20:02We hard call salespeople.
20:05So we pick up the phone and start calling people and asking about their pains and asking about their day-to-day and what works and what doesn't work on their day.
20:14And as I said, if one of their pains is something we can give a solution to, then, hey, that's fantastic.
20:20And if it's not, then we try always to give a solution with other products out there.
20:24And then on the inbound side, we run ads, a lot of ads, content strategy, LinkedIn content, and then, yeah, it's kind of a blend.
20:36It evolves constantly.
20:37We do a lot of iteration.
20:40So we have a marketing team that they iterate every month.
20:43So on a rolling basis, we plan, we execute, we analyze, we improve, we repeat.
20:51But we go on and on and on and on and on.
20:53Things that work, we keep them.
20:55Things that don't work, we change them, or we just remove them.
21:02Sounds like a steady improvement cycle.
21:06We'll be back with some insights about fundraising, investor relations, team and culture, vision and future outlook after the small ad break.
21:19Welcome back to us.
21:21You're a serial entrepreneur, currently leading a SaaS accounting software from Switzerland.
21:29You've done a lot in the past, and we talked about this already.
21:33Let's go a little bit into fundraising and investor relations.
21:38You've raised VC before.
21:40What's your best tip for early stage founders to prepare for SaaS fundraising rounds?
21:46Some investors out there are going to kill me, but don't raise.
21:49You know, bootstrap as much as you can, get your metrics in place, and then raise.
21:59Europe, and especially Switzerland, is very different to the States.
22:02In the States, you can definitely go out and raise with a fantastic plan.
22:06In Europe, you've got to have some metrics locked in.
22:10And in Switzerland, those metrics need to be even better.
22:14Either you have a successful background behind you and you know what to do, or if it is the first time, you really need to get those metrics locked in so you can lead the conversations with, okay, this is our metrics.
22:28This is what we're capable of doing.
22:30Now, this is what we want to get.
22:32And to do that, we not only need cash, which we're raising right now, but we also need a partnership that is going to enable us to get there.
22:42And always look for that smart money.
22:44Don't only look for the cash.
22:46Cash only is not going to get you as far as cash plus partnership plus help.
22:51Look for those investors that really believe in your business and that they're going to help you get and fulfill that vision that you, together with them, have for your business.
23:03You talked about metrics.
23:05I was wondering what traction metrics or storytelling techniques helped you win over investors through sequence.
23:12I would assume, right now, important roles play a number of paying customers, customer acquisition costs, customer lifetime values.
23:23So, basically, the VCs can make a calculation.
23:25If we invest X, we should get Y, something like that.
23:29Exactly.
23:30So, revenue, revenue growth, very important both.
23:33Out of that revenue, what's recurring and what's not recurring?
23:37And on that growth, what kind of historic can you show?
23:41Have you been growing double digits every month?
23:45Is there any spike?
23:47Why not?
23:48Cost of acquisition, obviously, and lifetime value of your clients.
23:52If you know your lifetime value, then you must know your churn.
23:55That's very important to know your churn.
23:58And if you're in SaaS, daily active users and monthly active users may be very interesting.
24:03Now, on top of that, if you are on AI and you are on agents,
24:08if you are on human-in-the-loop agents, that most of them are right now,
24:14then you need to have your first pass-through rate.
24:17You need to understand how many of the proposals that your agents are making are right from the bat,
24:24and they are accepted.
24:25How many are slightly modified?
24:27How many are rejected?
24:27And if you're on autonomous agents, what's the accuracy of those agents?
24:33At the end of the day, a lot of people are kind of selling AI right now,
24:38but then they don't include any AI metrics in their deck, which is kind of crazy.
24:46You know, so I think that's very important right now.
24:50If you are an AI, if not, just skip that stuff.
24:54I was wondering from my experience, I was in capital markets during MEDOF happened,
24:58and the MEDOF feeder funds have been usage entities headquartered in Luxembourg.
25:04And so basically, a lot of those companies said, yeah, it would have never happened to us,
25:09but you have so much straight-to-processing, automated processing at the time in the funds
25:16that basically one user's funds would have been treated like another user's fund.
25:21Do you see any potential for future scammers and how to prevent it
25:24with the application of a lot of AI agents in accounting and bookkeeping?
25:31Definitely there is a risk in that, of course.
25:34In the same way that there was a risk when computers came and invoices started to be done by hand
25:40and everybody started to do them, you know, on a computer.
25:44There is risk, and it is the responsibility.
25:50It's a shared responsibility to avoid, to stop that from happening.
25:58But yeah, of course, there is a risk.
25:59I've seen articles going around LinkedIn of people that they can create tickets,
26:05expense tickets, just asking to charge GPT to do that.
26:08So there's definitely going to be scammers out there, definitely.
26:15Going back to my last question about VC, in your experience,
26:20what are VCs really looking for in the next generation of SaaS platforms?
26:25I think we should ask that to VCs.
26:33No, listen, that's a great question, Joe.
26:37I hope they're looking stuff like Sequence.
26:40To be honest, what I'm reading right now is that they're looking for full stack companies,
26:48companies that can replace verticals on its own.
26:50So there's no longer such thing as the niche SaaS.
26:55Like, you can just do one thing.
26:57Like, what they're looking for right now is the companies that they can replace a whole vertical.
27:03It was Y Combinator saying this a month and a half ago.
27:07You know, they're right now looking into that kind of traction and interaction and automation from AI
27:14that can come in and say, okay, this has been done manually for years.
27:19Now, thanks to AI, can be almost fully automated.
27:23So I think that's really what they're looking for.
27:25These companies that can kind of revolutionize how the status quo is
27:31and how human labor is being done into automation.
27:34Talked about labor here, team and culture.
27:41What values define the Sequence team?
27:44How do they guide hiring and leadership?
27:49In hard work, we believe.
27:53In hard work, we believe.
27:55We have all our jumpers are marked in hard work, we believe.
28:00And when you come to our digital office, it's the first sentence that you're going to find.
28:03And it's not me who said it, but that's really us.
28:06We are a team of people that are very unconventional.
28:09We believe that there is a better way.
28:12And we always ask the best of ourselves.
28:16And that's the kind of person that comes in and works with us.
28:19You have to be extremely curious.
28:22You have to be eager to learn.
28:23You have to be eager to share, to give feedback and to receive it.
28:28And when we hire someone, one of the things we tell them is,
28:33look, when you come into Sequence, you're going to be facing issues and challenges
28:37that you've never faced in your life.
28:39And that's totally okay.
28:41What is going to be the difference is that you are capable of finding the right tools
28:47and the solution and learning new things that allow you to do the best that you can in your work.
28:55None of us knew how to build a bank, yet here we are building a bank altogether.
29:03None of us knew how to build an accounting software, yet here we are changing how accounting is done
29:10thanks to artificial intelligence.
29:12And most certainly none of us knew anything about AI four years ago.
29:15And here we are using it on our day-to-day basis.
29:19And that's because we have that knowledge hanger, continuous drive to learn more and to get better every single day.
29:29And that's the people that they stick with our company.
29:31The rest of them don't make it past month one.
29:35Talked about not making past month one month.
29:38How do you build high-performing startup teams and maintain them?
29:44That's a great question.
29:45I don't know.
29:46I'm trying to do my best on that point.
29:48Maybe the team is the best person to, is the best one to answer that question, whether if I'm doing a good job or not.
29:55But for me, it's about giving a place where the team can be the best out of them, giving them accountability,
30:05delegate effectively, and giving them a space where they can learn, they can grow, they can shine,
30:13and where their work really impacts the company itself.
30:19At Sequence, we're not only looking at the team as individuals that they come in and do a work and then they leave.
30:28We look at the full lives that they have.
30:31We finance the gym, we finance, we have a corporate psychologist, we have a mental and performance coach.
30:40We just hired a corporate hypnotherapist so they can also go into that.
30:49We help them with private insurance.
30:52You know, we're just trying to give them the best possible scenario so they can do what they love to do.
31:00If one of the people in the team wakes up in the morning and says, fuck, I don't want to work in the morning,
31:08that's a failure from leadership because we didn't give them enough room and enough place to shine and to do what they love.
31:21They need to really do what they love.
31:23Now, if we're going to maintain them, then they're going to get a piece of the cake.
31:32That's always very classical, but it's just an ongoing challenge.
31:37It has to be an ongoing challenge.
31:39We have to keep those minds, myself as well.
31:42We have to keep those minds going and learning and growing and, yeah, impacting the world every day.
31:54What do you think, Joe?
31:56I'm sure you've talked with a lot of entrepreneurs out there.
32:01How do you think that you can keep high-performing teams?
32:05I would love to have your input on that one so the people out there can hear what you think from all your conversations that you had.
32:15Turning the tables here.
32:16Okay.
32:17Well, I think at first it's important to get the best people putting a lot of effort into acquiring talent.
32:25Secondly, I've just talked with Christian Conrad about how to build and maintain a corporate culture.
32:33And one of the best approaches I've seen from him, he talked about giving 100% trust first.
32:41And then if the person doesn't use the trust responsibly, he'll deduct.
32:47And that was actually a really amazing approach that I've seen there.
32:52Plus, it's very, very difficult to get really talented people.
32:58I've been talking to a lot of people about hiring headhunters and so on and so forth.
33:04And I do believe especially like the first dozen people you hire from your startup, they make an essential impact on the growth, on the survival, on the bare survival of the company.
33:18Yeah, crazy.
33:19I agree with you 100%.
33:20Thank you for sharing, Joe.
33:22Totally my pleasure.
33:23Now it's up for you to share again vision and future outlook.
33:28Where do you see Sequence and the industry heading over the next five years?
33:33Yes.
33:33We see Sequence as an AI operative system for small and medium businesses where they can do banking, run the company, and accounting all at the same time.
33:46Right now, if you look at SMEs and freelancers, they all have three main points.
33:55The first one is you need an accountant.
34:02You don't want to do the books yourself.
34:05If you do them yourself, it's hard and it takes time.
34:09And if you get someone to do them for you, it's expensive and it's slow.
34:14So that's like a compulsory pain that you have to have.
34:18Okay, fine.
34:19Then you need to have a bank.
34:20But the bank doesn't care about you.
34:22And the bank, at some point, may decide that the relationship with you is no longer profitable for them.
34:28So you may find yourself not having a bank.
34:32And the third one is that you need to look to your cash flow.
34:35But to look to your cash flow and to look to know how much money you are owed and how much money you owe, you need to have a software.
34:41And using that software, as we said earlier before, is very hard and very time-consuming.
34:47And you didn't launch a company to do that stuff.
34:51We believe that Sequence can come in and replace those three into one only software that automates across the whole of them thanks to the power of AI.
35:04So we see ourselves in five years, in three years even, by the end of next year, by the end of 2026, already automating the work of the accountant, almost completely, by allowing people to open accounts with us.
35:22And by having a software that is already on the market, that is so damn easy to use, that when you go into other software, you just wish you never left Sequence.
35:33And that's where we see us.
35:35It already kind of takes my next question away.
35:39What trends or AI you believe will redefine SaaS and accounting software by 2030?
35:45My understanding is most of the stuff that right now accountants do will be automated with AI agents.
35:53Yes.
35:53I believe we are seeing a change similar to the Industrial Revolution.
36:03In the Industrial Revolution, machines helped humans to do stuff and humans were focused on more, you know, value generating positions.
36:15And I think thanks to AI, in some positions, we're going to have the same things.
36:20So accountants are going to be focusing on generating value for the clients and not on number crunching on the screen.
36:28Number crunching on the screen is not fun for the accountant and it's not efficient for the client because it's a high cost that is going nowhere.
36:42So I believe that that is definitely going to be automated and accountants are going to be focusing on other value services.
36:48Yeah, definitely.
36:50Do I interpret this right that you say the introduction of AI agents will have for white-collar workers the same effect as the Industrial Revolution had for blue-collar workers?
37:02You tell me why not, Joe.
37:03Interesting thought.
37:05I need to think a little bit about it, but it's definitely an interesting thought.
37:10Never thought about that this way.
37:12We're already a little bit into reflection.
37:17What is the hardest decision you've had to make on this journey?
37:23I think one of the hardest ones was closing one of the startups I was running here in Switzerland before taking over sequence.
37:32It was a very hard startup.
37:34I invested a lot of capital myself, but I proposed the startup to some family members and some friends.
37:46And as much as I tried to make it work, I couldn't.
37:49I tried to pivot all that I could.
37:53And the day I took the decision and having to make that call to that people and saying, I am so deeply sorry, I just couldn't make it work.
38:04That was a very hard moment.
38:07That decision was extremely hard.
38:08And at some point I had to do it because it was dragging everything and everyone down with it.
38:12And the unit economics were not there.
38:15As much as we were increasing sales, the costs were growing.
38:19And, you know, we could never reach profitability.
38:23And the moment we realized that, we tried to do all that we could.
38:26But deciding to close that company was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make.
38:32If you could redo just one thing as a founder, what would it be?
38:39I would have bought Bitcoin at one cent.
38:42I would have bought Bitcoin at one cent or at one euro.
38:46The rest of the things, all the mistakes that I've done as a founder, I would redo them the same.
38:51They are what I am right now.
38:54And I am grateful for all those mistakes and for all those failures, no matter how hard they have been.
38:59Every one of them has been a teaching moment.
39:02I wouldn't have done things different because I wouldn't have learned in the same way.
39:08Yes, they might have led to different outcomes, but I don't know that.
39:13So, honestly, if I could relieve it again, I would go all over again in the same way.
39:19The only thing I would do is buy Bitcoin when it costs one cent.
39:23So, you know, money wouldn't be an issue right now.
39:25In that case, yeah.
39:30I know where you're going with that.
39:34Where can people follow you and learn more about Sequence?
39:38Yeah, so I am not a believer in Instagram, so I'm not an Instagram.
39:42There is an account of my name, but I don't have it on my phone and I never logged in.
39:46So Instagram is not a good place.
39:48Neither is Facebook.
39:50Sorry, that's going to be LinkedIn.
39:51On LinkedIn, people can find me definitely.
39:53It's Blast.
39:54That's very difficult to say, but I'm sure we can pop it down there on the screen.
40:01And then the company, you can definitely follow them on LinkedIn, Sequence, ERP.
40:07Many great things are being announced there.
40:09We have a blog, fantastic blog if you're into business.
40:13I like to share a lot of stuff on my parcours and, you know, everything that I've done.
40:18And the team at Sequence also, they share a lot of stuff on LinkedIn.
40:21They're very active, so I think LinkedIn is our network.
40:26We'll definitely link that.
40:28And for our audience, I was wondering what questions you would have asked Blast.
40:33Drop it in the comments below and we might ask him next time.
40:37Thank you very much, Blast.
40:38It was a pleasure talking to you.
40:40Guys out there, don't forget to like, share, subscribe and review.
40:43This is Joe from Celebrate.io.
40:45See you next time.
40:47Thank you, Joe.
40:47It was a pleasure being here.
40:49Very much.
40:49Thank you for having me.
40:50Pleasure was all mine.
40:53Thanks.
40:58That's all, folks.
40:59Find more news, streams, events and interviews at www.startuprad.io.
41:07Remember, sharing is caring.
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