Unconventional Ventures’ Theodora Lau: ‘We can do better and we have the technology to do it”
- The financial services industry has fallen short on taking care of the unbanked and underbanked.
- Our guest on the podcast today is working to focus the industry on fixing what's broken.
Today’s guest is Theodora Lau, founder of Unconventional Ventures. When you listen to her, Theo challenges the industry to do better. Instead of producing another colored metallic debit card, she’d like to see real financial innovation that helps the people hurting the most. The unemployed. The poor. The older demographic.
We discuss the financial industry’s relationship with consumer wellbeing and where needs aren’t being met. Theo describes what would need to happen to improve financial outcomes. Lastly, we talk about AI and algorithms and the challenges they impose on us all.
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts I SoundCloud I Spotify I Google Podcasts
The following excerpts were edited for clarity.
Challenging the status quo
Many of the founders we run into that focus on serving the underserved typically have a story, a passion for trying to change the industry.
This content is available exclusively to Tearsheet Outlier members.
Missing out? Subscribe today and you’ll receive unlimited access to all Tearsheet content, original research, exclusive webinars and events, member-only newsletters from Tearsheet editors and reporters and much more. Join Outlier now — $59/mo Already an Outlier member? Sign in to your account
I thought colored credit cards were innovation ;-). You could argue that many of the “Challenger Banks” aren’t just digital versions of banks and not “challengers” in the typical startup sense of trying to break the wheel. Obviously regulations and other factors may prevent massive changes, but we definitely need to do better. Agree with Theodora on Aspiration in terms of trying to do something “different” than the rest.