>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas. It's theCUBE. Covering InterConnect 2017. Brought to you by IBM. >> You're a startup, growing. >> Jamie Alexander: Absolutely. >> You're working with big banks. This is not easy. >> Jamie Alexander: It is not easy. >> Normally they don't work with startups at all. >> Jamie Alexander: It's not easy at all. >> And Thintek is exploding as a very big growth area. Cloud enables this. Take us through some of the key points in your journey. As CTO, you've nailed some big wins with some big, established financial institutions, how'd you pull it off, what's the formula? >> Yeah, actually you could come and see my talk on Wednesday. I actually do that in detail. But I could give you a quick summary. So there's really, all along the way from the initial pre-sales to the pitch sessions with the customers, to the pilots, there are kind of learnings all along the way of the process and I think the number one thing is white glove service. So, typically, from a scalability perspective, startups are being trained to make it self-service, API, there's a developer portal, people can go in-- >> John: Move fast and break stuff. >> But actually, especially for the first set of customers, the white glove service is absolutely essential and really establishing the relationships at the ground level, so not just on the business side, that's a given, but also with the technical folks, the people at the banks that are doing the integrations, they can kill your projects. And so, really, giving them a bit of a taste of our culture I think, actually, really excites them. >> The white glove service, though, if I hear this correctly, it's not just being kind and holding their hand, there's some technical table stakes. >> Absolutely. >> What are those table stakes? 'Cause that seems to be the enterprise readiness matrix. >> Yeah, that's a great question. So I think the key is making tools that are very simple for developers to use, have developers love using your product, because, ultimately, it's a technical integration, and so one of the things that we did is we created an SDK both for iOS and Android and it's not just service connectivity, but it's also the full user experience around receipt capture. And what that did is it precluded the need for the banks to go and build all the screens and all the workflows. We could come in and say right away, here, we have it for you, you can customize it, configure it to make it look like your banking application to add your brand elements to it. But, ultimately, it allowed them, in a very short period of time, to bring on that new feature. The end user has no idea about Sensibill, there might be a little logo at the bottom of the receipt that says it's powered by Sensibill but other than that, it very much fits in with the existing banking application. And that's really important because receipts aren't their space, we want them to, right out of the gate, have a receipt capture application that's intuitive for end users. And this allows us to put it in their hand and just make it work for them. So that's really a big part of the success for them. >> And you've overcome that startup fear. >> Jamie: Absolutely. How have you done that? >> So I think the advantage for me is did spend my early career with IBM. So I spent about the first 13 years, >> Dave: So you were trained by IBM. So you kind of know. (laughs) >> And so I was both in software groups or working on e-commerce implementations but sort of the middle part after that, was in global services where I got to work with people in enterprise but across various sectors. And so that gave me they confidence and really allows me to think in the same way that enterprise folks think. Because we're not a startup that's selling, that has a platform where people are sharing pictures of sneakers, I mean this is serious business, and not to belittle other-- >> And their brand. Your customer's brand is on the line here. >> Absolutely, and so it really impacts everything we do. Who we hire, the culture we try to build, how we present ourselves to our customers. I mean it's across the board. Many considerations. But I think also, like me personally, I've always had that entrepreneurial spirit. So I've always been hacking things together on the side, and, actually, around 2010 when I left IBM, I had a previous startup, so this is number two for me. In fact, at IBM, I tried to, actually, do something intrapreneurial. But for me, actually, B to B, especially Business to Enterprise is for me really the sweet spot in terms of my skills and it's hard, so I like that. I like a hard problem and I would prefer that there's more barriers and it shows in the interest from our investors as well. You want a business with moats around it, and certainly financial institutions like banks, can take two years to close a deal. It's a really long sales cycle. >> John: So you're up for the challenge. >> Absolutely. >> So other than your past with IBM, what's the other IBM connection? You're running this on Bluemix, and IBM Cloud? >> Yeah, so we're running the solution on Bluemix. So we chose IBM for a number of reasons. One was their global footprints, in terms of their data centers. Our customers have certain SLAs they expect us to uphold. They require that we have disaster recovery in place. And so SoftLayer was very early, in terms of, bringing their data centers into Canada. So they recognize the opportunity there. And so we were both in Toronto and Montreal data centers. On top of that, as well, we've been part of the IBM Global Entrepreneurship Program. That's given us some mentoring around how to scale our business. Gave us some financial incentives as well. On top of that, there are other relationships that we've explored with the services business at IBM. so could, theoretically, IBM be a preferred vendor for, or integrator for our technology, and so there's a number of fronts that we're working with IBM and I think also, partly, because my former relationship, I was an employee at IBM. >> Dave: In Canada or in the U.S.? >> In Canada. So even our CEO for example, she was also at IBM. So bringing the best talents that I can find. People that want a change in their career and move from a large enterprise to a small company, we look for those people. >> And you were in the software labs up there, and then in the services group you got the financial services domain expertise and brought the software and FS together, wallah. >> Yeah and I, certainly, would not have predicted all the excitement around Thintek when I started. I'm really pleased that I, magically, threw horse shoes in luck and ended up in the right place at the right time. Even from three years ago-- >> When you tackle hard problems, usually, you end up in a good spot. >> Absolutely, yeah. >> So the hard question I want to ask you, this is a tough question, so be ready. Canadians or The Maple Leafs? >> (laughs) I'd have to say the Maple Leafs, to be honest, I'm from Toronto so. (laughing) >> Unless the Maple Leafs lose and then the Canadians over the Bruins, obviously. >> Hey, if there's a Canadian team, I'll be rooting for them. >> I love the hockey in Canada, being from the Boston area. Alright now, I want to ask you something more sentimental about the culture. You mentioned culture which you were talking about, your company culture. What's the cultural shift that you're seeing in the market place? Because we're talking about you're a start up that has cracked the code on a very hard problem with banks getting a customer. So kudos and props for that. But also, there's a whole dev ops movement that's going, now, to data. Where we heard some of the IBM execs pointing out the counter culture that's developing. The younger generation, they don't want things the old way. They're doing things much different. Can you comment about what your observations are around this cultural shift? >> Yeah, for sure. I think we've spent a bit too long, in general, paying lip service to the word innovation and I think, finally, it's, really, coming to fruition. Like real innovation not innovation just for the sake of marketing but, really, being able to innovate. Because a sub set of the millennials that are coming up, they really have, the culture of innovation has, really, been infused into their entire upbringing. And then they're, really, showing that in the work place. You see, over the last say, five, six years, the rise of hack days and these kind of things. People that are also interested in solving problems that don't just have commercial outcomes to them. What you find is, that if you can align people's passions and interests and have them understand that if you go after this thing, your career will be set. That's some of the things we try to do with our more junior resources. Is let them know that if there's something that they're interested in, a problem they want to tackle. It's aligned with where we're going from corporate objectives. Go after that because you will get what you want at Sensibill. We want those kind of people that don't just pay lip service to innovation but, really, see something and are self starting and can go after things on their own. I think there's, also, a big aspect of social awareness. There's people on our team and rightly so that are concerned about ethical use of data. So we're, at Sensibill, drafting up a policy just so, internally, we know that we can agree, collectively, on how we intend too use our data. It's, certainly, not malicious purposes. We're not selling individual user data. Now the banks do have access, the data collected through their systems is theirs. But, ultimately, in terms of how we plan to monetize the insights which is the next, really, interesting thing and things that I'm working on in 2017, really making sure it's done in an ethical way. >> That's your next moon shot is to, really, crack the code on the governance and the management of the data? >> But I think to get the right people, you also have to have to consider the social implications of using the data. People have to feel good about the work they do. There can be a lot of sensitivity around the type of data that we collect. >> Well Jamie, congratulations on the financing of your start up. Jamie Alexander, who's the co-founder and CTO of Sensibill. Check em out. If you're a big bank, not many of them, it's mostly potential customers. Congratulations on winning the big deal as a start up, that's great news. >> Thanks so much. Thanks for coming on the CUBE and sharing your start up story. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante. Keep watching it here. Stay with us for more coverage from Las Vegas after this short break. (lively music)