Jump Capital

The Jump Off Point podcast takes a behind-the-scenes look at the evolving technology and venture capital ecosystem. Join Jump Capital’s Jason Felger as he leads candid conversations with investors, founders, and luminaries on the trends shaping technology and the unique investment opportunities they present.

Welcome to the Jump Off Point

Rarely, if ever, are we rational when it comes to money. Too often, financial solutions rely on users doing the right, rational thing versus optimizing for human behavior. Enter Kristen Berman, a Behavioral Scientist so well-versed in the irrational aspects that drive human behavior that she named her consultancy Irrational Labs. In this episode, we discuss how behavioral finance can be applied to personal finance, collaboration/family finance, and general financial philosophy to create more effective financial solutions that align with human behavior and decision-making - to make us do what we want to do but might not do so willingly. Key Takeaways:<ul><li>[00:03&nbsp;-&nbsp;00:54] Introduction, meet Kristen Berman</li><li>[00:54&nbsp;-&nbsp;03:08] The intersection of behavioral science and FinTech consumer engagement</li><li>[03:08&nbsp;-&nbsp;05:05] The user experience, incentives, and how behavioral science can enable financial health and wellbeing</li><li>[05:05&nbsp;-&nbsp;07:13] The spectrum of incentivizing behavior, helping people for the right reason vs the wrong reason(s)</li><li>[07:13&nbsp;-&nbsp;10:24] The role of consumer inputs in determining incentives for their goals</li><li>[10:26&nbsp;-&nbsp;12:17] A north star as your financial moral compass, orienting toward responsibility and the right reasons</li><li>[12:17&nbsp;-&nbsp;16:02] A Noom-type approach to empower a financial user experience, the power of habits</li><li>[16:04&nbsp;-&nbsp;18:15] A goal gradient, making goals achievable and encouraging success</li><li>[18:14&nbsp;-&nbsp;20:27] How social networks and reinforcement impact people's financial habits</li><li>[20:27&nbsp;-&nbsp;21:57] An increasing openness to financial transparency and building community</li><li>[21:57&nbsp;-&nbsp;25:28] 50% of millennial couples don't share bank accounts, rethinking that context</li><li>[22:42&nbsp;-&nbsp;23:49] Joint accounts and relationship quality, discussing values</li><li>[25:28&nbsp;-&nbsp;28:17] The opportunity for a family financial account and app, the idea of millennials as the "sandwich" generation"</li><li>[28:17&nbsp;-&nbsp;32:02] Timing and a first line of defense</li><li>[32:02&nbsp;-&nbsp;34:18] How to change mindsets and habits, becoming financially aware</li><li>[34:18&nbsp;-&nbsp;36:15] ESG and behavioral contagion, climate-friendly investment</li><li>[36:15&nbsp;-&nbsp;38:32] Kristen's career and path to FinTech</li></ul>

Kristen Berman studies how people actually act in the marketplace, as opposed to how they should or would perform if they were completely rational.

Kristen co-founded Irrational Labs, a behavioral product design company, with Dan Ariely in 2013. Irrational Labs helps companies and nonprofits understand and leverage behavioral economics to increase the health, wealth and happiness of their users. 

She also co-founded Common Cents Lab, a Duke University initiative dedicated to improving the financial well-being for low to middle Americans. Under her leadership, Common Cents launched over 50 experiments with companies, touching hundreds of thousands of people. 

She was on the founding team for the behavioral economics group at Google, a group that touches over 26 teams across Google, and hosts ones of the top behavioral change conferences globally, StartupOnomics. She co-authored a series of workbooks called Hacking Human Nature for Good: A practical guide to changing behavior, with Dan Ariely. These workbooks are being used at companies like Google, Intuit, Neflix, Fidelity, Lending Club for business strategy and design work.

Kristen is an advisor for Loop Commerce, Code For America Accelerator and the Genr8tor Incubator and has spoken at Google, Facebook, Fidelity, Equifax, Stanford, Bay Area Computer Human Interaction seminar and more.


Kristen Berman

Behavioral Scientist, CEO and Co-founder of Irrational Labs

Yelena is a Partner with Jump Capital, focused on new investments and current portfolio companies in media and enterprise software. Prior to joining Jump, Yelena was an investor with MK Capital, where she sourced new opportunities and actively supported MK’s portfolio companies. As an investor with MK Yelena made investments in enterprise software, cloud computing and marketing technology. Previously she was an associate with McNally Capital, where she focused in energy and closed an investment in the clean energy space.

Before business school, Yelena was the finance manager for DreamWorks Studios, where she was actively involved in negotiating the studio’s raise of new capital and the adoption of a new global licensing strategy. Yelena began her career as an investment banker with UBS, where she advised companies in technology and media and raised over $1 billion in capital for clients. 

Yelena Shkolnik

Partner, Jump Capital 

Kristen Berman, CEO and Founder of Irrational Labs, stops by The Jump Off Point to discuss Fintech, empowering healthy financial habits, and the role of incentives in meeting consumers' own financial goals. Kristen has a background as a behavioral scientist and talks about lessons learned and real-world examples exploring how people approach changing mindsets around finances.


Changing money mindsets: Applying behavioral science to Fintech with Kristen Berman

FinTech user experiences and empowering financial health with Kristen Berman

Kristen Berman, CEO and Founder of Irrational Labs, stops by The Jump Off Point podcast to discuss FinTech, empowering healthy financial habits, and the role of incentives in meeting consumer's own financial goals. Kristen has a background as a behavioral scientist, and talks about lessons learned and real world examples exploring how people approach changing mindsets around finances.


Dive into the ins and outs of fintech compliance from a product angle. We discuss: how more effective fraud prevention starts with a better understanding of the user journey, the new attack vectors fintechs will face in the next 10 years, and much more with Adi Goel, Co-Founder of Sardine. Key Takeaways: <ul><li>[00:02&nbsp;-&nbsp;00:55] Introduction</li><li>[00:55&nbsp;-&nbsp;05:22] Adi's product leadership journey within the FinTech industry</li><li>[05:27&nbsp;-&nbsp;08:12] How has compliance tooling changed the regulatory environment throughout the past decade?</li><li>[08:12&nbsp;-&nbsp;16:00 How Adi thinks about winners and losers of the modern technology era</li><li>[15:59&nbsp;-&nbsp;20:01] Visibility and the divide in managing compliance</li><li>[19:59&nbsp;-&nbsp;24:02] Onboarding and monitoring continuous transactions for fraud: no one approach or vendor</li><li>[24:02&nbsp;-&nbsp;27:10] Will merging infrastructures and data unlock new products, and how will affect the regulatory environment?</li><li>[27:10&nbsp;-&nbsp;30:08] As use cases grow, compliance and onboarding evolve</li><li>[30:07&nbsp;-&nbsp;35:15] The money movement from peer-to-peer and the issues of trust</li><li>[35:20&nbsp;-&nbsp;39:02] Gathering disparate data sources cleanly into a system and deriving value</li></ul>

Adi describes himself as a consummate builder, with a penchant (and love) for building products, companies, and markets. 

Adi Goel

Co-Founder, Sardine

Banker turned investor with a heavy interest on the fintech space, specifically compliance / risk / fraud, B2B payments, embedded finance, and tools to improve consumer access to credit / enable debt repayment.

Tarun Gupta 

Dive into the ins and outs of fintech compliance from a (deep) product angle. We discuss how more effective fraud prevention starts with a better understanding of the user journey, the new attack vectors fintechs will face in the next 10 years, and much more with Adi Goel, Co-Founder of Sardine.


The Present & Future of FinTech Compliance with Adi Goel

An old-school industry gets a new-school look. Financial planning as we know it is broken; we spoke with Shruti Joshi, COO of Facet Wealth, about the massive evolution taking place right now. If every decision is a financial decision, then are financial planners therapists with calculators? And how can we plan our lives and save for retirement when contentment and retirement look different to each person?&nbsp;Join us as we explore what the future of financial planning is shaping up to look like. Key Takeaways:<ul><li>[00:27&nbsp;-&nbsp;01:16] Intro to the episode</li><li>[01:50&nbsp;-&nbsp;03:51] The shifts in how different generations retire</li><li>[04:37&nbsp;-&nbsp;06:55] The need to redefine financial planning terminology</li><li>[07:41&nbsp;-&nbsp;09:35] The marriage between human and technology is the true answer to reach financial goals</li><li>[13:08&nbsp;-&nbsp;15:54] Connecting the dots between who really needs the service and who has access to the service</li><li>[16:28&nbsp;-&nbsp;19:00] Has the mass increase of literacy options in the financial planning world been helpful or hurtful?</li><li>[19:45&nbsp;-&nbsp;22:45] The amplification of shame in the financial world</li><li>[23:17&nbsp;-&nbsp;26:24] Envisioning a world where finance is fundamentally collaborative - Is that what people want?</li><li>[27:41&nbsp;-&nbsp;30:04] Conversation to better understand financial values and goals are necessary for budgeting apps to be beneficial</li><li>[32:36&nbsp;-&nbsp;34:20] The current state of the economy in the U.S., it's impact on working people and whether financial planning can mitigate it </li><li>[34:53&nbsp;-&nbsp;36:37] What technology are we still lacking? Where should it be headed?</li></ul>

Shruti is widely recognized for driving efficient, rapid growth at B2C and B2B companies across every stage, from startups to enterprise businesses. A former consumer tech founder and Fortune 15 executive, she has invested and advised many businesses across multiple industries on business strategies to drive client acquisition and retention and develop innovative, end-to-end client experiences. She was an early investor in Facet Wealth and has been an advisor over the last several years. She was formerly an equity partner at Altman Vilandrie & Company (AV&Co.), now Altman Solon, where she built and ran the firm’s Marketing ROI Practice. Prior to that, she was an executive at Verizon Communications, where she led new acquisition growth for consumer FiOS and core network products.

Education: University of Southern California (BS); Columbia Business School (MBA)

Shruti Joshi

Chief Operating Officer at Facet Wealth

Yelena is currently a Partner with Jump Capital. She began her career in investment banking, supporting clients across clean energy and software. Eager for closer engagement with companies, she found her way to DreamWorks Studios, where she was actively involved in negotiating the studio’s raise of new capital and the adoption of a new global licensing strategy. It was a period of rapid transformation for media, and Yelena was excited to get involved as an investor with a few venture funds before landing with the amazing team at Jump Capital. 

Partner at Jump Capital

An old-school industry gets a new-school look. Financial planning, as we know it, is broken, so we spoke with Shruti Joshi, COO of Facet, about the massive evolution taking place right now. If every decision is a financial decision, then are financial planners therapists with calculators? And how can we plan our lives and save for retirement when contentment and retirement look different to each person? 

Please note that all opinions coming from the host and our guests do not reflect the opinions of Jump Capital or its affiliates and are for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only. Under no circumstances should the opinions expressed here be considered financial advice, investment advice, or any other type of advice. You should not make any decisions based on any of the information presented here without undertaking your own due diligence and consulting with an adviser.


New School Financial Planning: Are financial planners the therapists of money?

An old-school industry gets a new-school look. Financial planning as we know it is broken, so we spoke with Shruti Joshi, COO of Facet Wealth, about the massive evolution taking place right now. If every decision is a financial decision, then are financial planners therapists with calculators? And how can we plan our lives and save for retirement when contentment and retirement look different to each person?


In the latest episode of The Jump Off Point, successful investor, entrepreneur, and creator, Sahil Bloom, sits down with Jump Capital's Saaya Nath to explore the processes that can kickstart a creators’ career, including relentlessly and consistently producing high-quality content and building an engaged, active, loyal community across various channels.

I am Managing Partner of SRB Ventures, an investment firm committed to investing in and accelerating the most compelling startups in the world. Fund I is a $10 million stage and sector-agnostic vehicle writing $50-250K checks into high-growth technology companies globally. Prior to launching the firm in January 2022, I was an early stage investor in 40+ startups across the technology landscape, including multiple unicorns.

Sahil Bloom

Investor, Entrepreneur, Creator

Saaya leads Jump's focus on the creator economy and recently lead our our investment in Koji. Prior to joining Jump, Saaya worked as a strategy consultant at Boston Consulting Group, where she spent time in the Private Equity practice and across a variety of strategy and operations projects within FinTech, Industrials, AgTech and Consumer Goods.

Saaya attended University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she earned a BS in Computer Engineering.

Saaya Nath

Investor, Jump Capital

In the latest episode of The Jump Off Point, successful investor, entrepreneur, and creator, Sahil Bloom, sits down with Jump Capital's Saaya Nath to explore the processes that can kickstart a creators’ career, including relentlessly and consistently producing high-quality content and building an engaged, active, loyal community across various channels.


Creator Economy: Kickstarting Your Community with Sahil Bloom

This week on The Jump Off Point: Sahil Bloom, writer, podcaster, and angel investor: discusses the journey of building an audience and keeping them engaged as a content creator. 


This week on the Jump Off Point: Host Jason Felger talks with Jump Capital Co-Founder Sach Chitnis and guest Porter Gale. Porter is an author, business builder, marketer and currently is on the Board of Directors for Reddit. In this episode, Porter helps us navigate the evolution of the FinTech industry, including the upcoming intergenerational wealth transfer, financial influencers and their effect on investing, and the significant change that's still to come to the industry.

A business builder, author and marketer, Porter is a Board Director and C-suite executive who has launched well-known brands (e.g. Virgin America) and been an advisor to over twenty CEOs at companies including RocketFuel (IPO), Accompany (acq. Cisco), WePay (acq. JP Morgan), Vurb (acq. SNAP), Routehappy (acq. APTCO), fitmob (acq. ClassPass), Headnote (acq. ASG LegalTech), UpLift, Michael Mina, Hint Water, Surf Air, Esri and more. She is an Independent Board Director for Reddit (valued at $10B+) and recently led the rebrand of Personal Capital prior to it being acquired by Empower Retirement for $1B. Notably, under Gale's leadership Personal Capital's aided awareness, with mass affluent investors, increased from 7% to 41% post rebrand.

Porter Gale

Experienced investor and operator who loves partnering with great entrepreneurs and companies. Excited about tech and tech-enabled companies; seeking early stage investment opportunities (Seed+ Series A); determined to find like-minded leaders to scale great businesses together.
Always interested in meeting new companies and leaders, especially ones focused on enterprise, data infrastructure, fintech, crypto infrastructure and future of commerce sectors....and definitely ones that know and have proven product-market fit.

Sach Chitnis

Co-Founder & Partner, Jump Capital

In this episode, Porter Gale helps us navigate the evolution of the FinTech industry, including the upcoming intergenerational wealth transfer, financial influencers and their effect on investing, and the significant change that's still to come to the industry.


The Evolution of Finance: Influencers, Crypto, & Investing w/ Porter Gale

Las Vegas has gone digital! In a new episode of #TheJumpOffPoint, Todd Haushalter of Evolution joins Jason and Jump Capital VP Tarun Gupta to explore iGaming and the future of live, online casino services.

Todd Haushalter has been Chief Product Officer at Evolution Gaming since 2015. Todd oversees all aspects of Evolution’s games and product development, including many of the industry’s most celebrated games. Having previously worked as Vice President of Gaming at MGM Resorts and as Vice President of Business Strategy at Shuffle Master, he has a wide and varied knowledge of the casino industry.

Todd Haushalter

Chief Product Officer at Evolution Gaming

Las Vegas has gone digital! In a new episode of #TheJumpOffPoint, Todd Haushalter of Evolution joins Jason and Jump Capital VP Tarun Gupta to explore iGaming and the future of live, online casino services.


Betting on Digital Vegas: Introduction to iGaming ft. Todd Haushalter of Evolution

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Take the leap with us and deep dive head first into the people, data patterns, and signals that drive venture investment decisions – as they’re happening. Powered by Jump Capital, The Jump Off Point talks about the trends (and people) shaping technology and venture capital investing with thoughtful and candid conversations from industry pioneers.

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