- 7 weeks ago
Tikue Anazodo, the CEO of Kudos Technologies, joins Forbes senior writer Jabari Young on The Enterprise Zone at the Nasdaq MarketSite. During the interview, Anazodo discussed how he built the shopping assistant startup, raising $20 million, growing up in Nigeria, and the future of AI.
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0:00 - Introduction: The Smart Wallet That Maximizes Your Rewards
1:44 - How Kudos Works: Online, In-Store, and on the App
2:48 - What Data Does Kudos Collect?
3:37 - The Intersection of FinTech and Commerce
4:47 - Addressing the "Psychological Traps" of Credit Card Rewards
7:06 - What Our Data Shows About Your Shopping Habits
8:54 - My Biggest Surprise: Our Core Customers Are in Middle America
11:20 - My Biggest Negative Surprise: The Dangers of America's Debt Culture
13:30 - My Journey: From Nigeria to Columbia University
14:48 - The Biggest Misconception Americans Have About Africa
18:28 - My Path Through Microsoft & Google
21:18 - Navigating Silicon Valley as a Black Entrepreneur
23:25 - Why We're Not Hiring Right Now (The Answer is AI)
26:22 - The 2 Keys to Raising Money in This Market
28:50 - The #1 Trait Every Entrepreneur Needs to Succeed
31:40 - What is Agentic AI? The Future is All About Context
33:14 - The 3 Books That Taught Me About Persistence
35:28 - The Difference Between a Good and a GREAT Rewards Program
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
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Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
0:00 - Introduction: The Smart Wallet That Maximizes Your Rewards
1:44 - How Kudos Works: Online, In-Store, and on the App
2:48 - What Data Does Kudos Collect?
3:37 - The Intersection of FinTech and Commerce
4:47 - Addressing the "Psychological Traps" of Credit Card Rewards
7:06 - What Our Data Shows About Your Shopping Habits
8:54 - My Biggest Surprise: Our Core Customers Are in Middle America
11:20 - My Biggest Negative Surprise: The Dangers of America's Debt Culture
13:30 - My Journey: From Nigeria to Columbia University
14:48 - The Biggest Misconception Americans Have About Africa
18:28 - My Path Through Microsoft & Google
21:18 - Navigating Silicon Valley as a Black Entrepreneur
23:25 - Why We're Not Hiring Right Now (The Answer is AI)
26:22 - The 2 Keys to Raising Money in This Market
28:50 - The #1 Trait Every Entrepreneur Needs to Succeed
31:40 - What is Agentic AI? The Future is All About Context
33:14 - The 3 Books That Taught Me About Persistence
35:28 - The Difference Between a Good and a GREAT Rewards Program
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00We've all been there before, shopping in the store or online, and you get to the checkout process and wonder, which credit card do I use?
00:07Well, one entrepreneur says he has a unique solution to solving that problem, how to unlock self-driving money.
00:14We'll explain. You're in the Enterprise Zone at the NASDAQ.
00:23Hello, everyone. It's Jabari Young, senior writer at Forbes, and you're in the Enterprise Zone at the NASDAQ Market Site.
00:29And I am joined by a unique guest who has a unique solution to solving a very unique problem, T-Koi Anizoto.
00:36He is the CEO of Kudos Technologies, a software company that created an AI-powered wallet, and he's also a 2024 Forbes FinTech 50 lister.
00:47T-Koi, thank you so much for making this show, my brother. And please tell me I pronounced your name right.
00:52You almost got it. You're almost there. Thank you for having me. It's T-Koi Anizoto.
00:57That's a T-Koi Anizoto. That's a T-Koi Anizoto. I know I was always going to mess up.
01:01But, man, thank you so much for joining the show, man. Again, a FinTech 50 lister.
01:05I was talking to my colleague, Jeff Kaufman, and he says, you've got to have this guy. You've got to talk to him.
01:10Very impressed with your Kudos technology, man. So I appreciate you making the trip.
01:14Of course. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.
01:16Yeah. First time at the NASDAQ?
01:17It's the first time, yes.
01:18Yeah. How do you like it?
01:19It's awesome. It's super cool out here.
01:21Yeah. It is, man. I'm telling you. The cameras and all the lights and stuff like that.
01:24It is awesome. Yeah.
01:25You sweating like you're not nervous or nothing all year.
01:27I mean, it's different. It's different.
01:28Different. Yeah. I love it.
01:30Well, listen, we're here, man. So you've got to give me a stock, right?
01:32What's worked well for T-Koi Anizoto, right?
01:35Yes.
01:35I said it right that time.
01:36You said it right. You said it right.
01:36I said it. There you go. I knew I was going to get it. Give me a stock.
01:39With stocks, I'm kind of a picks and shovels kind of person.
01:41So there's a lot of money going into AI right now. A lot of that money goes to NVIDIA and the cloud providers, Amazon, Google.
01:51So I think that's really where I put my money.
01:54Yeah. Yeah. Can't go wrong with those tech stocks.
01:56Can't go wrong. Yeah.
01:57Yeah. I love that, man. What's your soundtrack, man, to 2025?
02:01Like what's been keeping T-Koi motivated and positive, especially because, you know, again, you're running this startup company and kudos, right?
02:07I mean, so you have to have something that's keeping you upbeat when you get the bad reaction to the news and all that good stuff.
02:13What's been keeping you motivated?
02:14Yeah. I mean, like music.
02:16Yeah.
02:16I listen to a lot of Sade.
02:17Mm. I love that.
02:19I listen to a lot of Sade. It kind of just gives me a lot of calm because I feel like I live in chaos and Sade just calms me down.
02:26Yeah, man. Sade. I'm loving you said that. You're 32 years old, right?
02:29I'm 32. Yeah. But I like the old school.
02:31Yeah, man. Sade. Ain't nothing like that, man.
02:34Really? Let's say you walk into a fifth grade class and you have to introduce yourself, right?
02:39What do you tell them? And you have to say, well, what do you do, T-Koi?
02:42Yeah.
02:42What do you tell them you do?
02:44I'd say I work in a company called Kudos.
02:46It helps you earn and save more every single time you spend money on your credit cards.
02:50And if you zoom out to why that matters, if you look over the last 20 years,
02:55there's this concept of the middle class squeeze where middle class incomes have grown a lot more slowly than prices have grown.
03:02And so every consumer really cares a lot more about how to make their money go further.
03:07And if you zoom into the American context specifically, about 70 percent or more of middle class spend happens on the credit cards.
03:14Credit cards are extremely complicated instruments made intentionally complicated by the credit card issuers.
03:20And so Kudos helps simplify credit cards, makes it easy for you to understand how to maximize your rewards, benefits, credits and all your spend in a very simple way.
03:31Yeah. That fifth grade class are probably looking at the phone was like, what the heck did he just say?
03:35I don't know what credit card that happened.
03:37You're talking to a fifth grade class, man.
03:39That's fair.
03:40You got to walk in and you got to sell yourself.
03:41I guess a fifth grade class, every time you spend money, if you can make money back, that's what Kudos does.
03:48Make sure that you make more money back every single time you spend money.
03:51Yeah. Now you got the attention.
03:53Yeah.
03:53Now they're looking at you like money.
03:54What? You said money.
03:55I love that, man.
03:56Well, listen, jump into some news that is adults will understand this part of it, right?
04:01Kudos technology.
04:03But based in Los Angeles, am I mistaken?
04:04Yes.
04:05You know, launched in 2021.
04:06Yes.
04:07Started with a raise.
04:08Seed raise of $7 million in 2022.
04:10That grew to $10.2 million by 2024.
04:14And at that point, you had about 150 registered users, I'm seeing.
04:17Yeah.
04:18And then you secured $20.3 million in April.
04:20So to total to date, $44 million you've raised so far.
04:24So total is actually 20.
04:25$20 million you've raised so far?
04:27Okay.
04:27So not $44 million.
04:28Not $44 million.
04:28Okay.
04:29So because we raised the $10 million, then we raised an additional charge to that $10 million.
04:33So is the $40 million maybe the valuation of the company?
04:36So the valuation is $50.
04:37$50 million.
04:37Okay.
04:38So maybe that's what it was.
04:39Yes.
04:39$50 million valuation.
04:40But again, $20.3 million that you've secured in April, man.
04:44So take me inside of that raise, man.
04:46And what are you going to do with these new funds to help continue to expand Kudos?
04:49So the core is really, so team, we've assembled a really strong team.
04:56About a third of our company actually used to work at PayPal.
04:58And the other part is really just continuing to build a really strong product that doubles
05:05down on our mission to make sure that people always earn more money whenever they spend money.
05:09And then there is a portion of that that goes towards growth.
05:12So you mentioned at the time we raised, we were about 150,000 users.
05:16Now we have 400,000 members.
05:18By the end of the year, we'd want to get to probably about half a million total.
05:21And our goal is to go well into the seven figures because to really make a dent in our mission,
05:28which is to unlock more financial prosperity every time people spend money on their credit cards for the middle class.
05:35We're talking single to double digit millions is where you actually start to make that dent.
05:39But we're really early in our journey and the investments we've made, the money we've raised so far really helps us start that journey.
05:47But our goal is to grow into the single digit and eventually double digit millions.
05:52So how does it all work?
05:53Like, take me inside.
05:54I'm, you know, because some of your partners, Walmart, Priceline, Lowe's, you're still working with those, as well as Sephora.
06:01And so you still work those brands.
06:02So let's just say I'm at Walmart.
06:05Don't kill me.
06:06But I'm at Walmart, right?
06:07And, you know, I'm walking through the line.
06:08When I get to the checkout point and I'm ready to use my card, this is where Kudos plays a pivotal point, right?
06:14Point of sale is really, really interesting, right?
06:16You want to ensure that customers complete that transaction.
06:19Exactly.
06:19Where do you fit in and how is, how am I interacting with Kudos?
06:22I got to pull out my phone?
06:23Yeah.
06:23When I'm talking to my card?
06:24So we have an ecosystem of, I would say, like partners.
06:28So we have the consumer who shops the way they normally shop.
06:33You go to Walmart.
06:34You add the Kudos extension in your browser and your mobile device.
06:37And whenever you get to checkout, Kudos pops up.
06:40If you are not in a partner store, it basically says, hey, you have these cards in your wallet.
06:45Like you're shopping at Walmart, you have a card that gives you 3%, and that card also gives you purchase protection, and you have a $10 credit on that card that you can use at Walmart.
06:53Kudos tells you all that and helps you auto-fill the card details and make that purchase, which for the consumer gets you more value whenever you're making a purchase.
07:00For the store owner, like Walmart, it gets you a conversion.
07:05And so we now have about 15,000 stores in our Kudos network where when you shop with Kudos, in addition to your credit card rewards, you get additional rewards from the partner.
07:15The partners give us those commissions because they help drive more conversions.
07:19And so with an example, eBay is one of our top partners.
07:22And whenever you shop at eBay, if I was shopping at eBay and I went with the Kudos browser extension, I have a card that gives me 2% at eBay.
07:29It would tell me, hey, TQA, you have the Citi Double Cash card that gives you 2%.
07:33It's the best card in your wallet for this.
07:35It also gives you purchase protection for this purchase.
07:38And you get 5% more from Kudos in the form of Kudos Boost, which is sponsored by our partners like eBay.
07:45And yeah, so you end up earning about 7% back for a $100 purchase.
07:49That's like $7.
07:50Yeah.
07:51That's online, right?
07:52That's online.
07:53But if I'm walking actually physically in a store, is Kudos still able to help me?
07:56So if you're physically in a store, the primary way we help you is with a feature called Cheat Sheet today, where if you open the Kudos app, it will tell you based on the store or category you're at where you earn the most money.
08:09We are working on features right now that use location-based technology to make a recommendation where, like, if you walk into a Walmart store, it pops up and tells you, hey, we know you're at Walmart.
08:18Here's how much you can actually earn with this card at Walmart.
08:21And also, you might be able to earn offline cash back.
08:23So we are working towards beefing up that offline story.
08:26Right now, it's largely through our Cheat Sheet feature.
08:28Okay.
08:29Is there an app available?
08:30Yeah, we have an app.
08:31Okay.
08:31So it's on the software.
08:32Yes.
08:33So Kudos has two products.
08:35We have a browser extension, a mobile and desktop, which shows up while you're shopping.
08:38And we have an app and portal where it helps you with offline purchases, but it also gives you these AI-powered insights that analyze your historical spend and shows you what ways that you could have earned and saved more money, even just outside of your credit card rewards whenever you spend.
08:55What data are you collecting from these users?
08:57Again, over 400,000 people that signed up.
08:59So that's a lot of data that's coming through.
09:01Which data are you collecting?
09:02So when you onboard to Kudos, you connect your financial profile, which includes your credit score, credit history, which includes all the lines of credit that you have, like your loans, credit cards.
09:13And you connect your credit card accounts through Plaid, which is our secure partner.
09:17And that gives us a holistic view of your financial life, including your credit score, credit profile, and every purchase that you make.
09:25Nice.
09:25I love that.
09:25But you're sitting, and in 2024 you said this on a podcast, but it says Kudos just sits in a really interesting intersection of fintech and commerce.
09:34Elaborate on that a little bit.
09:35That intersection is, because when you're shopping with Kudos, right, we are assisting you with your shopping journey, your commerce journey.
09:41But the reality is we don't just help you with your shopping journey.
09:45If you think about a company like PayPal, PayPal helps you shop.
09:48Kudos has a lot more depth of an understanding of you as a consumer.
09:52We understand your historical purchases.
09:54We understand your credit profile, credit history.
09:57And so our mission really zooms a little bit broader than your actual purchases, like that you're making in real time.
10:04We think that being there for you while you're doing the thing that you're doing, making purchases, helps us add value to you in real time.
10:11But then we also analyze your entire financial life to find more opportunities for you to earn and save money.
10:16Just out of curiosity, so I asked ChatGPT, right?
10:19I mean, we got to start using this stuff, right?
10:21I mean, and so I asked ChatGP, problems with credit card reward programs.
10:26That's what I put in there.
10:27And I asked him to, it says, give me a list of things.
10:30I wanted to read them out to you and ask you, why should someone use Kudos when they look at these problems, right?
10:34Complexity and restrictions encourages overspending, devaluation of points, psychological traps.
10:41I found that to be very interesting, you know, psychological traps for spending and using money.
10:44So, A, do you agree with that?
10:48And then, B, why would someone, you know, use Kudos?
10:50Because, again, they would be getting themselves into this credit card rewards, which sometimes may be not as beneficial as, you know, the companies may make them seem.
10:57Yeah, I think this is, this is like going back to that, the thing you pointed out with $1.2 trillion in credit card debt.
11:03But the reality is that we, one thing that we see as core to Kudos is that we generally don't want you to spend money that you are not going to spend.
11:13And so, in the context of how you're currently spending money, we're not encouraging to spend more money.
11:17But in the context of how you're spending money, we're making sure that you're getting the most out of that money.
11:21And when you are spending with a credit card, we want to make sure that if you're spending with a credit card, you're getting the most out of it.
11:28But then you're also not accruing costs and fees that you should not be accruing when you're spending with a credit card.
11:36The biggest reason to not use a credit card is if you're going to revolve balances.
11:41That's how the banks make most of their money.
11:43I mean, there's interchange, which is about 2%, but they give a lot of that interchange back to the consumer in front of the credit card rewards and credits.
11:49But where there is a little bit of a trap is when you think about the near-prime consumer who is excited about credit cards specifically in the context of getting access to credit.
11:58That is not the best instrument to get access to credit that you're applying to revolve.
12:03And Kudos tries to also help you be smarter with the credit that you have access to.
12:08Well, what is it, you know, again, shopping behavior, right?
12:10You're seeing a lot of this data.
12:11What is the data telling you about what shoppers are, what their behavior or what their habits are like as we enter September 2025?
12:18I mean, what is the data saying about, you know, consumer shopping habits now?
12:22Yeah, so we, I mean, it's been, it's generally cyclical, like, through the year in that going into the holiday season, there is, like, right now we're going into the back-to-school shopping season.
12:31So there's a lot of back-to-school shopping.
12:33And usually within the season, we also promote a lot of our partners to give you additional cash back.
12:38Then we go into the holiday shopping season, which is another big spike in spend.
12:42People start spending a lot more going into Black Friday, Christmas shopping.
12:45And then there's a little bit of a law starting, beginning of the year, because people spent a lot of their money buying gifts during Christmas.
12:52And then it picks back up again going into April, May, when people get their tax refunds and are trying to pay for their holidays and vacations.
13:00So, again, it kind of moves in these ebbs and flows.
13:03And we generally try to make sure that as those ebbs and flows are happening, we're ensuring that you get the most back.
13:10So you're expecting a very busy season coming up.
13:12Yes, no, this is the craziest season for us.
13:14It's back-to-school, NFL, right?
13:16Yes, exactly.
13:17You'll be buying gifts.
13:18People buy a lot.
13:19Like, the next three, four months are the craziest.
13:21Yeah.
13:21And Halloween, so I got the orange on.
13:23Exactly.
13:24Yeah, yeah, okay, okay.
13:25So, I mean, first of all, is the company profitable?
13:27And if not, when do you expect to be?
13:29So we are not currently profitable.
13:31We're working towards that.
13:32We have single-digit millions in AR right now.
13:35We have a big partnership with one of the three biggest wallets that you've probably heard about that's going to launch in the next two, three months.
13:41And so a lot of these things are going to expand our gross margin and drive us to its profitability.
13:46But we're not yet profitable.
13:472030, you expect to be there?
13:48Before 2030, yes.
13:492030?
13:50That's a great sign.
13:50And investors look at that and say, hey, okay.
13:53Biggest positive surprise about running Kudos?
13:56I think it's, like, when we started Kudos initially, I thought that we were going to largely aggregate our user base on the coast.
14:06That's the major cities, New York, San Francisco, which I have lived in both.
14:12And you find that a lot of people who actually get value from Kudos are in the middle of America.
14:17And for me, that was actually a very rewarding thing.
14:20I moved away from San Francisco about four years ago, and I now live in Chicago.
14:24And part of the reason I live in Chicago is because I think it's great to build a consumer business that is trying to appeal to most of America when you just live where in the middle of America.
14:33But I think that was, for me, one of the biggest and most interesting things, that we're not just adding value to wealthy people on the coast.
14:40We're adding value to people who are really just trying to make their dollars go further and mothers who are fathers who are trying to make their income pay for more things for their children than their family.
14:49How about biggest negative surprise?
14:51Something maybe you didn't expect running Kudos, or maybe your customers let you know about quickly change, but biggest negative surprise?
14:58It's probably that, like, back to that revolving debt, where a lot of people just don't understand credit cards.
15:05Yeah.
15:05And there's a lot of negative sentiment around debt, which I grew up in a country where debt is actually another thing.
15:12I grew up in Nigeria.
15:13I moved to the U.S. in 2009.
15:15And in Nigeria, when you go buy a thing, I remember my parents go to go buy a car, and they went to the bank and got a bag of money and gave it to the car dealer.
15:23But in America, it's a debt-driven system.
15:26And that debt, sometimes, if you understand how to navigate the credit system and debt in America, you will be successful.
15:34But then the thing is, it does create this temptation where you have the ability to spend a lot more than you can actually afford.
15:42And that puts people in, like, large revolving balances.
15:46And we've seen that, where people are trying to earn more credit card rewards with their revolving balances.
15:50And for me, that's a big negative that was not necessarily a core part of what we thought our mission would be trying to solve.
15:57But we've actually invested in trying to solve that because, again, there's no value in earning credit card rewards if you're paying the banks 25% to 30%.
16:04That's a psychological trap.
16:06Exactly.
16:06Yeah.
16:07Well, you kind of tipped a little bit.
16:09Get back to that in a minute.
16:10But, I mean, again, you made the Forbes FinTech 50 in 2024.
16:15And my colleague Jeff Coughlin puts together.
16:18But did that help you at all?
16:20Like, did it give you more credibility?
16:22Like, what does making the FinTech 50 does?
16:24Like, what does that do for you?
16:25I think it does give credibility because I think when we're now almost like a four-year-old company.
16:34And when you're talking to enterprise, I mentioned there's a partnership that we're going to launch in the next two weeks.
16:39A lot of those types of partnerships actually were legitimized by things like the Forbes FinTech 50 because people don't just see you as this random startup.
16:49They see you as a company that is potentially legitimate.
16:52And then when they kind of look under the hood at the core value proposition that Kudos is bringing to our members, it's a value proposition that has a lot of skill and a lot of value to a lot of skilled partners.
17:02So I think there is a lot of credibility that the brand brings to what we're doing and helps accelerate our mission.
17:09Yeah, I love that.
17:10Well, again, taking a step back, you know, you mentioned that you grew up in Nigeria.
17:13What was that like for you growing up in Nigeria before you moved to the U.S. in 2009?
17:17So it was it was great. I think I grew up with my family.
17:22It was like always very supportive of everything I wanted to do.
17:26And I think the journey from Nigeria to New York was like it was a big hop, like mentally.
17:32I came to New York alone. I remember my mom dropped me off at school here at Columbia.
17:37And she was like, this is a crazy city. You sure you want to do this?
17:41Yeah, of course I want to do it.
17:43But I think it did kind of just build a lot of resilience in me.
17:46I went to a boarding school in Nigeria and it was a lot more complicated than like what you would think a boarding school is.
17:52Like we go here, boarding school in America and it sounds like fancy and posh and everything.
17:56But like boarding school in Nigeria was complicated.
17:59I think coming to America, it prepared me for like just being able to think about being independent,
18:05like driving towards goals and always realizing that there are a lot of obstacles.
18:10Nothing is straightforward. There's no straight path.
18:12But if you continue to persist, you can actually will what you want into existence.
18:17Like I mentally knew that I wanted to go to a school in New York and I wanted to specifically go to Columbia.
18:25And I think when you think about it from the perspective of a 12 year old in Nigeria, it's an unrealistic goal.
18:32I mean, statistically.
18:33But I think being able to kind of mentally build things into its existence and like work towards goals is something that I think growing up in Nigeria helped me with.
18:42Is there any misnomers that you see?
18:44Because now you're here living in the U.S.
18:46And there's a lot of maybe images that we present in this country that may not be 100 percent factual in Nigeria, at least from a perception standpoint.
18:53Right. And so is there any misnomers that you have about there's a lot?
18:57What is the number one thing that you hear, like especially that we get wrong about maybe Nigeria, of a country where alone 300, 400 million people and that continent in Africa is obviously exploding every single day.
19:09But what is one of the maybe some of the misnomers you hear about in Nigeria or see that we get wrong here?
19:14Yeah, I think I mean, granted, the perception has actually evolved a lot since I moved into the U.S.
19:19I think when I moved in 2009, a lot of people asked me, how did you get here?
19:24And I said I took a flight. I got here on a plane.
19:28But I think that perception, there was an initial perception, I think, 16 years ago where I wondered whether people thought we lived in huts.
19:34Yeah. But then I think a big misconception is that there is not a lot of economic development going on on the continent.
19:43But there is, I think, if you think about the last like 10 years, there have been a lot of unicorn startups,
19:49like largely in the fintech space that have been building and innovating in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa.
19:55And so there is a lot of innovation happening on the continent.
19:57And the difference between the innovation, I think, that happens in Nigeria and countries in Africa versus in the U.S.
20:04is I think a lot of those companies in Nigeria are solving problems at the bottom of the master's hierarchy of needs.
20:10So things like how do you make sure that people have accommodation?
20:15How do you make sure that people can sustain their lives?
20:17How can people pay in the most basic and simplest forms?
20:20And I think moving from that to, for instance, Silicon Valley, where people dream about the stars,
20:25like people are trying to fly rockets to Mars, different set of problems.
20:28But there is a lot of innovation that is going on in the continent.
20:32It's a different type of innovation.
20:33And it's an innovation that's really targeting largely currently infrastructure and just bottom of muscle hierarchy of needs problems.
20:41But that is the biggest misconception, I think.
20:43That people are not thinking that this country, this continent alone is evolving.
20:48Yes, people are thinking that there is a lot of status.
20:51But the reality is that there's so much evolution and growth.
20:54I mentioned that when I was growing up, I remember my parents going to go get bags of money to go buy a car.
21:00That is not how it works currently in the ecosystem because there have been a lot of fintech companies like Flutterwave
21:06that have really come up and helped streamline the way money moves.
21:10But again, it's like kudos.
21:12We're helping people maximize credit card rewards.
21:14There's no such value proposition that makes sense in Nigeria today.
21:18But the companies, because it's just there's no credit system that is materially available in a way where banks can extend credit to people in an instrument where they can swipe every day.
21:27But the innovation that has happened is that a lot of payments have gone from offline to digital, which is a big leap because it's not just a technology leap.
21:36It's also a psychological leap.
21:37You have to educate like the whole ecosystem is still a lot of the ecosystem still runs in these more less organized.
21:46A lot of most Nigerians are entrepreneurs in some form, but it's a lot less organized in terms of the form of entrepreneurship.
21:53But then that is going digital and technologies help and accelerate that.
21:58Yeah. And then again, you graduate from Columbia University where you got a degree in computer science, right?
22:04Yes.
22:04In 2013. What's T-Core like coming out of college, right?
22:07What is your plan? You graduate from Columbia University.
22:09They give you a degree.
22:10I don't know if you got student loan debt, but they give you the big bill too.
22:13Yeah.
22:13What's your mindset coming out of college, man?
22:15What are you, where are you at?
22:17When I graduated Columbia, I moved to Silicon Valley right after.
22:21And for me, it was, I think I, I always, I've always been very grateful for the opportunity to have access to the type of education I got access to.
22:31And so going into Silicon Valley, my goal was to figure out how to unlock maximum value for like with technology for just people.
22:40And so I started off at Microsoft and then went to Google where I was the product lead for Google Pay somewhere along the, like in parallel, I had actually started a few ventures on the side.
22:52So I, I, I like to tinker and just try to build things, but yeah, my goal was really, there is this whole world that is now available to me.
23:00How do I make sure I lean into this world, take it like an, and unlock maximum value, not just for me, but for people who actually engage with products that I build.
23:10Yeah.
23:11So how do you get into Microsoft?
23:12Do you fill out an online application or you know somebody?
23:14Cause I'm thinking that Microsoft and Google, that's just certain companies you could just roll up into.
23:18Yeah.
23:18Yeah.
23:18You know, you know, just, I mean, so I was for, I actually got with Microsoft, I got an internship in my sophomore year.
23:24I got a random email from a recruiter and the recruiter says, Hey, we're on campus.
23:30Uh, you look like your profile has come up a bunch of times as a person that has potential.
23:35Yeah.
23:35I was like, sure, this is cool.
23:37And so I, I, I went there, evolved into an interview.
23:40I ended up getting an internship with Microsoft.
23:42I did two internships with Microsoft and then I went on full time.
23:46And from there, I think I've always made sure that every time I get access to an opportunity, I put my absolute best foot forward.
23:54And so with Microsoft, I worked really hard and I gradually made my way to like, I launched a few things at Microsoft.
24:03And then I went to Google where I had the opportunity to build and launch Google pay's first online product.
24:10And that was also very interesting because in parallel to, um, building and launching Google pay online, I also had a wristwatch store, a wooden watch store called antique watches.
24:20And I was using that, we were using that as the test site for launching Google pay.
24:25And I learned a lot about just e-commerce and payments, which for me has always just been as feel that I've been very interested and fascinated.
24:34And after Google pay, I went to a firm, uh, the buy now pay later company where I've always had this, I always had this nagging feeling that I was learning about e-commerce.
24:44I was learning about how to make payments work better, but I honestly did not feel like I was building things that were consumer focused.
24:52I felt like I was only helping merchants drive conversions because that was the, the, the goal in my, my previous jobs.
25:00And so with Kudos, those experiences made me really think about Kudos as a consumer focused experience.
25:06That was really consumer first to unlock value first for the consumer.
25:09Everything else is secondary.
25:11Yes.
25:11Because we help our partners drive conversions, but it really doesn't start with that as the story.
25:16It's really, how do we help you get more from all your dollars and then the merchants get conversions as a side effect of that.
25:25As you're going through Silicon Valley, again, working at Microsoft, working at Google, um, building up your own credibility from what you can do.
25:32Are you facing any pushback or any issues because you are a black entrepreneur that's trying to get money, obviously for a startup you have, are you getting any of that pushback?
25:39And if so, how does you navigate it?
25:41I wouldn't say it's, there's, there's been nothing that has been a direct pushback, but then you always feel some little subtle things, right?
25:50You always know that sometimes it's easier for other people than it is for you, but I've never really let that be an obstacle or a thing that I spend a lot of time obsessing about because I believe that I do have more dollars open to me than many black people in America.
26:06And I think my duty is to make sure that I lean into those doors and do the best I can, um, so that in the ideal situation, kudos is like continues to grow and accelerate and maybe becomes a public company.
26:22And that I think just makes it easier for the next tranche of people to enter the ecosystem.
26:27But I think people tend to, part of the reason why discrimination or subtle, like direct or indirect exists in Silicon Valley is because I don't think people have actually seen a lot of examples of success.
26:38And that's why I talked about Robert Refkin, right?
26:40Because you see Robert Refkin take Compass from an idea to a public company and he's a smart black entrepreneur.
26:47What we need to do, which is part of what I think my goal is, is to have more of those examples out there.
26:52So that when an investor is sitting at the other side of the table, talking to a black entrepreneur, they know that you can actually build something that is meaningful and big.
27:00Yeah, because T-Coy has done it.
27:01Yes, exactly.
27:03Yeah, I love that.
27:04Challenges ahead.
27:04Like what will disrupt kudos before 2030?
27:09Other than a bad economy and recession and stagflation and all that stuff like that.
27:13But what other than that, what would disrupt you right now?
27:17So I think there are the, I mean, bad economy actually tends to be good for kudos because it just means that more people are thinking about their money.
27:26People actually think, unfortunately, about their money when things are bad more than when things are good.
27:32But I think we also have larger competitors.
27:36I think of our competitors as companies like PayPal that have the ability, like have 400 million users and has the ability to think about how to make comments better.
27:44Well, how do you compete against those guys?
27:45I think the way that we compete against them is one, by being nimble and fast.
27:49And two, by continuing to make the consumer our number one priority.
27:53I think it's really hard for a company like PayPal to pivot the way they think about value because their value will always be to merchants.
28:04Like they do mention 400 million customers, but the reality is that their customer is the merchant for the most part.
28:11And so we stay very laser focused on that mission of unlocking more value for the consumer.
28:16And I think we do have the ability to move a lot faster than these organizations.
28:20So I've worked at big companies. I've worked at Google, Microsoft, and Affirm.
28:26And the thing that I've learned in the four years of building Kudos is that the version of me that was working at those companies was about 4x slower than the version of me that works at Kudos.
28:37Because we think it and we do it. We experiment. We move fast.
28:40If we see a problem that needs to be solved, I don't have to go through 15 different executive reviews and things to figure it out.
28:47We just build it and launch. Yeah. Love that, man.
28:52Are you hiring at all? Because, you know, people out there got some college kids right now.
28:56They say they can't find jobs. People filling out 20, 200,000 applications almost.
29:00And so are you Kudos hiring? And if so, apologies because they're going to be flooding you.
29:04Yeah. So the interesting thing with AI in the last couple of months is that it has actually accelerated the productivity of our team.
29:14That's right. Yeah.
29:15And so we're probably going to go back into a hiring mode when we understand how much, like what our cap is in terms of value unlock.
29:23But a lot of our team right now is beginning to leverage AI in a lot of ways that is accelerating their work and making them a lot more productive.
29:28So we're not actively hiring, but we will likely be hiring in the next couple of months.
29:33That's interesting that you say that. I haven't really heard it from that perspective before that maybe people are holding off on hiring until they find out where this AI productivity is going to come from for their current staff.
29:43And then kind of, you know, go back and revisit after they find because even at Forbes, we're getting AI lessons and, you know, crash course lessons on all this stuff.
29:52And I'm thinking like, man, this is a lot of stuff to kind of take in. Very helpful. Makes your job very, very productive and gives me some of my time back.
30:00But again, we don't know where that, you know, issue is going to be where all these white collar workers who could possibly be displaced.
30:06But is that how you see maybe bigger firms looking at it, too? Maybe not?
30:09Yeah, I think I think the bigger firms are definitely leaning very hard into it.
30:13The two verticals where we are seeing the most productivity and I know a lot of bigger firms are in developer productivity.
30:21So writing code. So a lot of our entire team uses a developer tool called Cursor, which helps them write code faster and more efficiently.
30:28And customer support where we have a lot of tickets that come in every day and being able to automate some of those tickets in a more personalized way at a higher accuracy than humans is also a thing that we're seeing value in.
30:42But those are two areas where in reality, we should be talking about how do we scale up the development team?
30:48How do we scale up CX as we're trying to grow to a million users and as we're trying to unlock a lot more features?
30:54But we are seeing just like a rapid acceleration in our team's productivity by leaning into AI tools.
31:00Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you had to look at it right, if you name, you know, in one word, what it's like to raise money, especially as a still the startup, what word would you use?
31:12Because, again, you know, right now inflation is still sticky. People aren't just handing out money anymore.
31:17They want to make sure that they're going to get a lot of this back. You got to have a great business plan.
31:20What words would you use to describe what it's like to raise money now?
31:24I'd say strategy and persistence. Strategy and persistence. That was two words or three.
31:28But yeah, yeah, fair enough. I like that. Why strategy, persistence?
31:31So the reason I use both of them and because like on the strategy side, I think a lot of entrepreneurs kind of go into them or in this motion where they go and they try to raise money with no strategy.
31:42And I think you have to create a process and you have to define that process.
31:46So when you're going to investors, you don't just perpetually talk to people for one year in the process of raising money.
31:51You have to create a process and have a strategy, understand what narrative you're telling to the market, because you have to tell the market why your company is the next big company in your space.
32:01And you also have to structure a process such that people and the investors you're talking to have enough of a time sensitivity around the fundraise you're putting together, because there is also like the venture space tends to move with time as a strong constricting factor.
32:22And they also want to see how big the opportunity is. But then the persistence side of things is you do have to a lot of times do a lot of pitches to get your initial term sheet.
32:31The only thing that matters is getting your first term sheet. But you have to pitch a lot of people and hear a lot of no's.
32:37And if you're a person who is not persistent enough to power through no's, you probably give up at somewhere like some point in the process prematurely.
32:45Yeah, like strategy and persistence. Got to have that, man. Is that what you also would advise?
32:50You know, entrepreneurs now, they say, if you're looking to start a company, make sure you have this trait.
32:54Now, I actually got to raise money, have a strategy and persistence. But what trait does an entrepreneur need to start companies nowadays?
33:00Again, in 2025, right, looking at where all this AI is going and we haven't even started to talk agentic AI, right?
33:07That's a whole nother thing. But what trait do you want to see or would you advise, you know, young entrepreneurs to have when they're going to maybe try to start these companies and have these ideas?
33:17It is very easy to have an idea. And a lot of people have ideas. But I'll still kind of go back to the persistence.
33:25Persistence, yeah.
33:27Because you can have an idea, you can even raise money. And you find that raising money is not the end of the story. You raise money and now the bar is higher.
33:37That's right.
33:37You raise money, you're a $50 million company. The goal is to become a $200 million company and then a billion dollar company. And through that journey, there are always walls that you hit.
33:47So Mike Tyson, the Mike Tyson quote of like, everybody has a plan to get punched in the face. And that is every day as an entrepreneur, you're always getting punched in the face.
33:56But you have to persist past being punched in the face. And so that is the one trait I would say if you're an entrepreneur and you're trying to start a company, there are a lot of flashy things that are going on right now.
34:06But being able to just persist, figure out what is your vision, what is your goal and persist through that vision.
34:12There is also a lot of distractions that happen. So if you think about the last four or five years in venture, there have been trends and the trends have come and they've gone.
34:23So like there was a point where crypto was hot and then crypto was not hot. There was a point where B2B SaaS was hot, then it was not hot. Consumer was hot and it was not hot.
34:31Now AI is hot and everything else is back on the table.
34:35But then the reality is you also have to keep in mind that whatever is hot today might not be hot a year from now.
34:42And the companies that end up becoming materially significant companies are companies that persist through the downtimes and the uptimes.
34:52And there are times where you're going through a downtime and the thing that you have to keep in your mind is that there might be, there will be an uptime.
34:59It could be a couple of months from now. It could be a couple of years from now.
35:02And the companies that are best positioned to really unlock the most value in those uptimes that companies that have been grinding through the downtimes for years.
35:09Get you out of here on some fun stuff, man. You know, always started with the million dollar question. Have you ever made a million dollars?
35:14Not liquid. I like just.
35:17That's fair enough. So liquid, not liquid. So you haven't spent the million dollars.
35:21I have not spent a million. OK, let's say when you do. Right.
35:24Once you build up kudos to be this, you know, billion dollar company, possibly one day right of speaking to existence and you go to sell and you got your million dollars.
35:31What would you think you would spend a million dollars on right away?
35:34It's probably family related. Family related. It's probably not anything that crazy.
35:39I mean, I like I like cars and watches, but I think the first.
35:42You can spend a million dollars on cars and watches if you get enough of them.
35:44Yeah. I think I think it's mostly family.
35:47Just I think my family has been has invested a lot of me over the last couple of years.
35:53And I also am going to build a family that I want to continue to invest in in the long term.
35:58So it's really probably just making sure that my family is in the best position possible, both my existing family and my future family.
36:06Yeah. Respectable. Say the word. We just talked about it, but I'm going to say it.
36:10Agentic AI. Say that phrase. What comes to mind when you hear agentic AI?
36:15The ability to allow computers have no human oversight.
36:19They're able to do things the way they see fit. Context is going to be the most important thing going forward.
36:24When I when I say context, I mean, if you're going to let AI do things for you, you want to make sure that AI actually has the right context in you.
36:32If AI is going to make a purchase for you, you want to make sure that AI actually understands your interests, your goals and what you're trying to accomplish.
36:39And and so when I think about the space, I think we're in a point where a lot of the big models have consumed basically the entire Internet and they have the context.
36:47They have context in the Internet, but they don't have context in you, Jabari, and what you care about and what you want.
36:52And I think the next phase of companies, which you asked me about, what does Kudos know about you?
36:57Kudos knows your credit score, credit history, knows things that you've purchased, knows things that you're actively looking to purchase with the browser extension.
37:04Agentic AI for me means being able to accumulate the right context so that you feel comfortable delegating decisions to software.
37:14Yeah. But knowing it's going to make the right decision.
37:16Knowing that it's going to make the right decision.
37:18Based off of my.
37:19Exactly. Because if it does not make the right decision based on your preferences, you're going to not trust it going forward.
37:27Yeah. And so I think it's it's important to be right when you're delegating decisions to agentic software.
37:33Context. So you're not concerned about workers being displaced due to the emerging AI?
37:40Because, again, when I say agentic AI, you have people in call centers and things of that nature that these jobs can be replaced and that they're not going to have any jobs and at least a lot of them.
37:49They don't concern you at all.
37:50I think that there will be and I don't I don't have an absolute perspective on this, but I think if you look historically, a lot of the financial revolutions that have happened, there have been some jobs that have gone away and there have been some jobs that have come into play.
38:05And something that is kind of a little bit of a buzz in the buzz phrase in Silicon Valley is just people managing agents.
38:13I don't know what that act within the context of Kudos.
38:16It is software engineers managing agents that help them write code.
38:20We do need fewer engineers as a result or it's like customer support agents like human people managing agents that can help them with 70 percent of the tickets.
38:31I think there is likely going to be a set of jobs that are created as a result of certain jobs going away.
38:38The thing that I don't know definitively is whether the number of jobs created will completely replace or surpass, supplant the jobs that are going to go away.
38:48So there is some concern that is very valid.
38:50But I think the best that people can do is make sure that you upskill yourself in the context of what's going on.
38:57And for me, I make sure that is a top priority for the team at Kudos that this is happening.
39:02Every company is leaning into this.
39:05We are going to be more efficient as a company.
39:07But the most important thing that you can do as an individual working at Kudos is make sure that you know how to use this software to accelerate your productivity.
39:16Went to Columbia, worked at Microsoft, worked at Google, worked at a firm.
39:19Right. I think you can answer this question like 100 percent accurately.
39:24Right. I'm giving you all the confidence in the world.
39:26Right. Biggest money management advice that you will offer someone right now.
39:30Right. Someone that you love. Biggest money management advice that you've learned over your 32 years walking this earth.
39:35What do you tell the next generation, the next young guy, the next young woman who may want to replicate you, be an entrepreneur?
39:41What do you tell them about managing their money?
39:43Say stay grounded. Don't chase the flashy stuff because the flashy stuff will come and it will go.
39:47But if you stay grounded and you have just some structured way of thinking about where value accrues.
39:55And that's why when you asked me the question about the stock market, my thought was NVIDIA and the companies that are you're paying taxes to that have the cloud systems.
40:04I think always just thinking a little bit more grounded about where are things going to be long term, where is value going to accrue long term.
40:12And then I think a simpler framework is I generally like to invest in companies that I have products that I use.
40:19And so if I find myself using more of a company's product over time, it just makes sense.
40:24Yeah. Manage your money. Stay grounded. Don't chase the flashy stuff.
40:28Yes. That's good. And finally, man, three books, right, that inspire you to perform or motivate your best or motivate you to be your best.
40:36What three books would you advise tends to be books that help me figure out how to not fall when I get punched in the face.
40:45And so the first is Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, the Nike co-founder.
40:51And it kind of just goes through his journey of starting Nike as a like a Sony Tsuka Tigers, licensing that brand and then basically inventing the concept of influencer marketing as a way to market Nike.
41:05The second book is Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz.
41:08It, again, just talks through like Ben Horowitz of Andresen Horowitz and this company, Upsware.
41:15And it was just a really hard journey. And he had to navigate that.
41:19And the third book is a book called Zero to One by Peter Thiel.
41:23And again, it just goes through the same kind of journey.
41:25But I read pretty much every single book about starting companies, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs.
41:30And for me, it does just help me understand that whenever I have a hard hurdle to climb, that I'm not the first, second or third person that's ever had to climb this hurdle.
41:42But the thing that matters is how I actually navigate and push through.
41:48And that's why, again, back to persistence, I think, is the most important thing.
41:52And those books really just help me visualize in story form what persistence looks like.
41:57Does it help you be a better CEO, too? Because a lot of young guys, your co-founders, you start as such and start us.
42:02And then eventually the board says, hey, we've got to bring somebody in more experience as a CEO to come run a company.
42:08But are you finding that it's helping you become a better CEO? And do you plan on keeping that role for the rest of the world?
42:13Yeah, I mean, I do. I mean, as long as I continue to be the best person for the role, I always prioritize the company, but I plan to.
42:21And I think it's a role where I am young and I've continuously learned.
42:26And I think as long as you just keep your mind open to knowing the fact that there is so much more to be learned,
42:33that mindset of persistence, I think, also comes with learning.
42:37And that whenever you get hit, you try to understand what did you not understand?
42:43And what put you in this position? And how do I learn in a way that makes sure that I'm better equipped when next this thing hits me?
42:51So it is a continuous learning journey. And I think for the type of company that we're starting,
42:57I mean, historically in Silicon Valley, replacing founders, CEOs has also just never has worked sometimes.
43:02But I don't think for the most part it has been the right thing, because I think there is a level of passion that I personally bring to me and my co-founder bring when we work at this company,
43:12that we are not going to quit because something bad happened, because there is something that we are really persisting to bring to life.
43:20And every obstacle is really just a learning experience.
43:24And it's yours. You create something yourself. You're like, yeah, I'm way more protective about it.
43:29Exactly. Absolutely. I agree, man. Get you out of here on good to great, right?
43:33What is the difference between a good rewards program and a great one?
43:37The way I think about credit cards and rewards programs is that you should always be able to earn significantly more value than whatever you pay for the product.
43:45And you should be able to earn that with the least effort possible.
43:50And the reason why that matters is, like, for instance, that their credit cards, like the Chase Sapphire Preferred card,
43:55that is a $95 annual fee card, earns you really good rewards, earns you a lot of credits, you don't have to do a lot of work.
44:02But for the most part, even without thinking, you could probably get $400 out of that card every year.
44:07So you're net profitable. But then there are some cards that get a lot more complicated.
44:11I'm not going to name any of them because we partner with many of the credit card issuers.
44:14But they're cards that have basically become coupon books, where you're paying over $500, $600 per year.
44:21And for a more experienced person with credit cards, you could probably get $2,000 of value out of those cards.
44:27But then for most people, those programs tend to not be good rewards programs because you're in a lot of times in deficit when you're trying to earn the rewards against those cards.
44:39And that's something where I think Kudos adds value in that for a person who really wants the prestige of one of these flashy premium cards,
44:48they might not be a good deal if you don't have the right lens on how to actually get the value out of them.
44:53American Express is good, isn't it?
44:55American Express is good, yes.
44:57That's the one I use. Good, great, great, great. Kudos. And you say American Express is good. So it's Kudos Blessed.
45:04Yes.
45:04Okay, cool. Don't change your mind on me. Email me. Let's just say, man, I was lying. I didn't want to say to me.
45:08It does depend on your spend. Yes. For the most part, it is good.
45:14I don't spend too much. You know, I don't. I can't because I'm afraid about getting in that psychological track.
45:19I've been there before coming out of college. I mean, it's just a revolving debt. I don't want to go back there, man.
45:23So, T. Corey, thank you so much, man. I really appreciate the time, man.
45:27Thank you for having me, Javid.
45:28Going down to Chicago, man, and learning your story, man, it's been really, really quite impressive.
45:33Keep me updated, you know, especially when you go through those next funding rounds.
45:36I'm assuming that you're going to be more, asking for more raising later on down the line.
45:39Yeah, in the next couple of months.
45:40Yeah, absolutely. So congrats on the $20 million that you did raise.
45:43Appreciate it.
45:43And come back and, you know, talk some more business.
45:46Of course. Thank you for having me, Javid.
45:47I appreciate you making a trip from Chicago, man. Again, I know it wasn't easy. So, thank you.
45:52T. Corey Anazoto. I said it right?
45:54Yes, you did.
45:54Yes, I did. Appreciate it. Kudos technology here in the Enterprise Zone. Thank you for watching it. Thank you for listening.
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