How to Build Intelligent Startup Ops that Will Scale with Your Business

Welcome to the Builder stage if you are Just joining us as always the same Housekeeping notes we have mics for Q a And of course we are running otter for Transcripts but with no further Ado Let's talk about what's coming up next Which I am very excited about we have Talked a lot on the stage over the last Day and a half about money and raising Money making money doing things with Money but there's a lot more that goes Into building a company than just your Top and bottom lines for example trust And safety pretty important and if you Want to build a company that will scale And not topple over you might want to Have those things nailed early on so We're going to talk about it please Welcome to the stage Anaheim from TechCrunch NABA from Airbnb and Yobe From remote Thank you Hello so as many of you know one of the Harder things as a Founder is probably To choose what to prioritize you know There were things you'll need eventually But the problem is when and which ones So that's why it's great you're here for From companies that are further along in Their Journey because they know what Paid off they know what they wish they Had done sooner and that's the Conversation I want to have today with Namba and Europe

So Nava you actually had an announcement This morning from Airbnb that is going To have verified listing in five markets Summing it up but the question I have For you is do you wish you had done this Sooner That's a great question it's it's Important to remember that Brian and Joe Started Airbnb with an air mattress in Their living room in Rao Street And at that time you know and and again Quick show of hands how many of you here In this room in this room are startup Founders Wow that's a lot and so when you ask Yourselves like which is your trust and Safety team probably many of you are Your trust and safety team And so when when they started similar to How maybe many of you have started you Are busy thinking about your product You're thinking about your Market your Product Market fit Revenue cost it's Hard to think at that time about what Could go wrong But we are in the business of belonging And connection and belonging and Connection as as a purpose of the Company cannot exist without trust and Verifying a listing making sure that When you are booking that dream vacation With Airbnb the place that you book it Is a real home And it is in an accurate location and

The host who is advertising that place Actually has access to it are the three Most critical things so we will be Verifying that you know we we always had Anti-fraud technology that we would Monitor from the back end but now we are Announcing that in a big way in our top Five countries and you will start seeing Verified listings uh batch is starting To appear in February and then in 30 More countries you know starting fall of Next year and just following up on that Maybe that program was harder if you had Tried it a few years ago I mean does Technology change the way it looks from The inside that's a great question and And here is the best part about the this World of trust and safety is it never Stays constant technology is evolving Fraudsters are evolving Again safety incidents on the platform Are very very rare you will find that 99.9 of people in this world are Actually really good when they use your Product they use it for all the right Reasons But then once in a while when something Bad happens it also feels like one too Many So back in the day I think we we have we Have always had like fraud software We've always been testing for patterns Checking for fake reviews you know Testing to make sure that you know the

Pictures are real Um our we have we recently also talked About identity verification globally for Our guests and hosts but I think what we Are realizing is that it's not enough to Have technology in the shadows we Actually need to make sure that in order To truly build trust between the users Of your product as well as you know in a Marketplace your your sellers and your Buyers your hosts and your guests have Something very visible very tangible That they can touch and feel in order to Build that trust and so verified Listings is that opportunity more than The technology behind the scenes it's The visceral feeling that you you know That you're actually going to take a Live picture you know through your app To make sure that the GPS location is Verified of the listing that yeah that's GPS based right yeah And yup do you use technology in other Ways to also make it more efficient Because I mean as a Founder what's a bit Daunting is that there are things you Need to do in the beginning that you Don't know how they're going to scale I mean For us if you think about these kind of Subjects Um we started out not using any Technology uh very much like now I was Saying in the very beginning of when we

Started our business everything was done By hand and we were our own verification And operations team and but the way we Built our company was specifically so That and the whole thesis upon which we Founded the company was that if we do a Really good job and we can control all Factors or at least we have all factors In-house that allow us to deliver our Service Then over time we will be able to Automate things and how do we automate Things we use tools like machine Learning and sometimes very simple Things Um and and to us that ultimately make The business very very scalable but for Us it was mostly just focusing on what Causes the most pain to our internal Operations teams or what causes the Greatest headaches or the most amount of Time and let's try to fix that above Everything else ruthlessly prioritize And then go from there I guess maybe it was a naive but I guess When we started I wasn't expecting that Remote jobs would become such a scam for Instance and also for fast candidates I Mean it's on both sides so that's a bit Scary right is there any AI involved in This type of fruits Um the fact that that there's people Having multiple jobs no no no not that That's another topic no the fact that

People are advertising jobs that don't Exist or companies that don't exist yeah I mean We we luckily don't face this a lot Right and the reason that we don't face A lot is because we verify the existence And like actual Financial ability of Companies to be able to hire somebody in A given location and so yeah we usually Don't actually interact much with those Kind of companies Um of course it still happens we still Get quite a few companies exactly like Nabo are saying right it's a majority of People majority of companies are real But you have to figure out which ones Are not and our case luckily we don't Have to worry about physical Infrastructure and things happening in The real world and it's mostly it's a Business actually register so it's Pretty easy for us to figure it out and So you know if you get employed through Remote it's going to be with a real Company there's no there's no fake Company there we we have seen fake People that has happened but again like We verify somebody's identity and it is Pretty quickly solved yeah right I guess One of the issues even the the size of Airbnb you said there's little throat so You don't have that much data to train ML on and as a startup of course you Don't have that size of data sets and I

Think uh one of the way you do it is Look at good data is that when you say Good behavior I was curious how you Would recommend for a startup to train Their ml system oh thank you that's a Really good question see for a startup I Would actually recommend and even if You're not a startup like AI for the Sake of using AI is never a good idea I Think if you start off with your why Like why are you here why are you doing What you're doing in the first place A great example and for those of you who Have read CNBC you'll probably see my Name in the headlines airbnb's official Party pooper but the story there is Really interesting like when the Pandemic first started we actually found That People started to throw unauthorized Parties using Airbnb because bars and Hotels had shut down And we didn't really know how to solve The problem right away but we started Looking at the data that was available And it was not that many because these Parties were far and few in between but When they did happen it broke trust with Our hosts who had opened their homes up To strangers So when we looked at all of these party Incidents we started finding some common Patterns it was usually a really young User booking an entire home for one

Night you know during a party weekend You know they've had probably just Created their account had no history on The platform it was a last minute Booking And you would say that again as a mother Of teenagers you know these are usually Signals that you get really smart about You don't need to be a data scientist to Figure that out But then you have to do this at scale You know we are a platform that has now Welcomed more than 1.5 billion guests You know who have stayed on airbnbs we Have 4 million plus hosts we have 7 Million plus listings at this scale when You have to monitor for these signals it Gets really hard but we didn't start With machine learning we just looked at You know over a period of a year all of The incidents that had happened and what Were the common factors and once we Found those factors we actually built a Simple heuristic a rule to say that Anytime we see you know someone under 25 Booking a listing really close by for One night during a holiday weekend Let's redirect that listing to a hotel Or a private room but over time people Got smarter they started by passing they Would get an older friend to book the Instead of booking for one night they Would book for three nights and that's That's the that's the name of the game

And that's when we started replacing With machine learning but then to Anna's Point machine learning is as good as the Data and often sometimes with these Kinds of cases for trust and safety Cases you have very little data but we Flipped we flipped this problem on its Head We actually have a lot of data about our Good users now we if 99.99 of people are Good we know what good behavior looks Like we know that you check in on time You check out on time you leave reviews You leave your listing really clean your Book in advance you probably have a lot Of history on the platform so we have Started working on understanding what Great Behavior looks like and combining That with our risk models and that Actually makes us a lot smarter but I Would say first identify the problem And then first like build a simple rule And learn and once you have learned then Iterate by using machine learning and Then get sophisticated over time What are your thoughts on that Yeah I think our case is very different Right we have a much lower volume of People I think one of the things that we Are seeing is Um for us it's not about a behavior in The sense of how are you using our Platform the one thing that we had to Learn to deal really well with is

Looking at financial data For example in our platform you know we Make it possible to pay people a salary To give them a bonus for example and one Of the things we learned very early on Is that if you are a normal employee or A normal employer you're likely to give Somebody a bonus at some point and that Bonus will be anywhere between let's say Five percent to maybe a hundred percent Of your annual salary in in extreme Cases and what we found was that when There were fraudsters of which we have To face many Um those would be much more extreme and So we've had cases where you know we saw Bonuses of hundreds of thousands of Dollars coming by that then we had to Approve uh and I think in our case the Interesting thing here was that in some Cases those were real there are people Getting really big bonuses and being Really happy and so we we had to like Find ways to like identify in one hand What are transactions that are valid uh And like let's not obstruct those Because we want to process them really Really quickly right we want the rewards Good users to with a great service and Which ones are clearly fraudulent and Then there's a bunch of them that fall In the middle and for us that end up Meaning that yeah sometimes we have to Call somebody say that you actually mean

To send somebody a bonus of this size or Did you actually mean to give somebody a Promotion or this kind of salary Um and and that is something that we Continue to to learn uh and and to Figure out how to do effectively and did You who wait for these problems to Happen to realize that it would be an Issue or do you anticipate some of these I mean it would be great if I had Anticipated it but the honest reality is Now we haven't anticipated how quickly It was I think one of the things that we Learned really quickly was Um anytime we would make a change in our System that would either cut out Fraudulent users or make it easier for New customers to come in that would Immediately be try to be exploited by Somebody so exploitation was always one Of the first things that we would catch On after any kind of change that we Would make and so it's a bit of a well You can't anticipate certain things but On the other hand you also you know want To make it easy for existing customers Or new customers to onboard and to do Stuff so some of it is very reactionary And you have no choice but just to make It maybe more actionable for for the Founders then does that mean that if you Know that every time you make a change Problems happen then you don't push on a Friday or what's the equivalent for that

I mean I think if you're transacting a Lot of money you know system if any kind Of fintech like business we're Transacting customer money you yeah Don't Deploy on a Friday and also be Really yeah be really careful like you Have to really make sure you know Exactly what is going in what is going Out where's the float and how whether You actually control the money or the Money is controlled by a third party or Somebody can pull their money there's a Lot of things to think about and uh yeah There's this joke which is like you Think that building a fintech is all This really cool stuff but you end up Spending most of your time working on Kyc and KYB problems and that sort of is The reality yeah Said Hindsight is always 20 20 right like and I know that even long before my time When Airbnb built its first trust and Safety team was probably after the first You know big issue that the company Noticed but something that I have you Know really started to think about and Something for you all to think about as Well is three time scales Which is what's happening right now What could be happening in the one year And then what is it that you need to Prepare for for multiple years down the Line and and you might say that it's

Easy for a company of the scale of Airbnb to say that you know we are so Large but remember when the pandemic Happened we lost almost 80 percent of Our business and we had to really focus And one of the things that we doubled Down on was actually trust and safety But I think if you think about it from These three time scales first is you Know what could go wrong so if you're Building a product any product whether It's in the fintech space in recruiting Space job space or travel space follow The customer Journey look at every step Of the customer journey and think about How would good users use this product But then in the wrong hands how could Somebody wrongfully use this product But in spite of that you will never be Able to anticipate everything that can Possibly go wrong but the thing that you Can work on is not let it become an Extreme event so one of the strategy Pillars for my team is prevent extreme Events and the way we do that is by at Least putting some monitoring and Alerting in place So that as soon as you start seeing the First signs of something that just Doesn't seem normal you may not know What exactly it is it may have already Started but if it doesn't seem normal You're going to have a protocol for Someone to look into it and try to stop

It before it becomes too big because While you can anticipate a lot of things And build safeguards you won't Anticipate everything so at least have Measures in place so that you can stop It but then worst case if something bad Happens don't let any crisis go to waste Every crisis is an opportunity to learn And get smarter and prevent that from Happening the next time but if you let The same thing happen multiple times Then that's not good but one of the Things is that well in feed Tech Sometimes you don't have a choice you Have obligations you said kyc and so on What I find interesting in the case of Airbnb is that in a sense you didn't Have to engage with Regulators so uh How you approached it was in in part Flexible and I'm curious to know why you Made the choices doing engage with Cities whether or not when Etc At what I find fascinating in Airbnb is That you know we want to make sure that We legitimately exist in every city and Country that we operate in in harmony With the residents there we want to make Sure that you know if the city ever Feels like they want to talk to us you Know we are there for them and and I Think kyc is also something that Airbnb Does because we have one of the largest Payments processing engines but uh you Know we operate in you know 220 plus you

Know countries and territories across The world we we want to make sure that Especially when crisis comes for example During the pandemic where a city is Hurting Airbnb is there and we just Found that it's easier for us to operate It's better for our communities it's Better for our hosts and guests if we Create open communication channels it's Just you know good business practice if A city wants to talk to you go talk to Them so we actually invested in a city Portal and I remember before my job in Trust and safety I was actually leading The city's team in Airbnb and we came up With this idea of let's build a portal If a city wants to reach out to us and Talk to us let's actually have a person Who's who's reading the city portal Right away they have a way to reach out To us for larger cities we have Dedicated people waiting to work with The cities and that helps us make sure That if a city has a certain Registration for example that hosts have To register in order to legitimately Host in that city the city is able to See you know how how hosts are doing in In that platform if they have any issue They can talk to us it just makes you Know operating your business that much Easier I'm still curious I mean because usually As a Founder you have VCS and how do

They feel when you tell them that you're Going to build the equivalent of a city Portal so in your case maybe that's I Don't know the API Maybe Um I mean our feces want us to grow as Fast as possible I think I think their Main motivation is that we do well as a Business and and and we grow really fast Uh I think that's the honest answer Right and and so they are definitely not The ones pushing very hard on making Sure we do well I think I think the Thing that scares them is is again for Us it's it's very much like the massive Risk of losing losing money all right uh Processing I don't know billions of Dollars in payroll for example through Through our API Um and then being at risk for losing That money or being in our case being Liable for the salaries of thousands of People Um and maybe not having the funds in Place to to have them and you know in Our case again like it comes down to Being extremely diligent with who we are Working with and not much more than that Right like and it's one of the things That we started to do over the past two Years is we started to set really Specific controls for not only what kind Of companies do we want to work with so We are we actually reject a large part Of our customers but also depending on

The risk profile of the customer we Might set certain limits by default on Those on those accounts and that helps Protect us as a business ultimately also Helps protect them as a business and Provide sort of a safety net for the Business as a whole Um but that's really it our other VCS They just care about the company growing Now that's really interesting actually You mentioned also your your customers Then I was thinking the fact that they Come to us to you means that they They're not taking shortcuts with their Operations because they want to do it Right and legally but you'll probably Also see lots of other companies that A higher all over the world without the Proper structure right so one of the Things that we've been seeing a lot is That companies decide to massively hire Contractors where they really should be Employing employees directly right this Is called misclassification and this is A thing that we actively help prevent Because the risk is very big the risk is Very big for the employer because they Might face certain fines but to me the Thing I always care about is the risk For the individual who might have you Know adverse consequences to the fact That they were being misclassified in All sorts of ways very dependent on a Place where they are and so what we do

And like we sort of have this internal Policy which is we're always compliant And we make sure all our clients are Compliant as well and we never take Shortcuts and it means that sometimes we Grow a little bit slower it sometimes Means that we have to do really hard Painful work but ultimately it means That our customers are better off and Especially the individuals that get paid Through us because you know as a Business that does payroll we can't Really screw up like if we make a Mistake you know if we put somebody in Difficult position might mean that they Can't pay for rent they can't pay for I Don't know the food for their kids it's Pretty important no pressure yeah I mean as a public company Airbnb doesn't have the same trade-offs But is there still a balance to find in Terms of when you do the right thing When you wait Are you doing the right thing is Probably not a choice like we have to do The right hopefully but yeah but uh You know the thing that comes to mind For me is that If if we truly think about let's not Have any incident you know in my product My product needs to be absolutely safe Then you have to shut down your product It doesn't work that way I think you you Always have some amount of risk

Especially in a Marketplace product Where you have buyers sellers you have Hosts guests you you are always exposing Yourself to some amount of risk and the Question is how do you minimize the risk Because you cannot eliminate the risk so I would always say that when you're Starting off I think it is it is okay to Focus on making the product the most Beautiful product that your customers Will love and then trying to anticipate As much risk as you can and then Constantly looking at the trade-offs Which is how much friction is too much Friction which will start impacting good Users as well and the way we actually do It is we are measuring you know even Before we build a product we think about How are we going to measure success how Are we going to measure you know risk How are we going to measure good user Impact when we try to you know prevent That risk from happening and that way You can look at a balanced scorecard and And you can try to make smarter Decisions going forward But in your case remote you have a Competitor so how do you feel about some Of the choices you are making did you Feel like you were losing ground Compared to some of the decisions they Weren't taking like here in terms of I Don't know being present country by Country or things like that

Um I mean in some ways I mean I think Early on when we were starting we said You know we're only going to run our own Infrastructure we're not going to depend On third parties and it meant we Expanded much slower and we you know we Gave up some quite a few customers Because of that but we know that the Alternative was not a very good Alternative which is that you provide a A weaker service a weaker product Um and ultimately I think if you build a Company and if you start to think about That building a product should you care About whether you make a lot of Revenue As quickly as possible if should you Care about building a great product and I think we always chose for building a Really great product that really served Our customers and I think if you have a Really firm belief in your strategy and Your vision and you're willing to do Things long term then it's okay to give Up on the short term and this is Something we continue to do today I Still think that for us it still feels Really early on it still feels like day One we're making a lot of long-term Investments and those will pay off Eventually even though I sometimes I Should hold my breath for longer than I I wanted to but Um yeah for sure we gave some up early On but again I don't regret any of it

And when when did you start feeling that It was paying off uh did you have to Wait long time for that sensation yeah I Mean for some things it took like until Now or or still waiting for it but but In in quite I think you know In over the last two years or so you Know we've been only doing business for Three years so uh so but it took at Least a year for for some of these bets To start paying off and and some of them Only pay off now so it took several Years saying if we built a company four And a half years ago the first sale Three years ago so yeah yeah it took Quite a while Um and and really painful really really Painful but by by now it does feel like Oh we made the right decision because The business runs exactly as we hoped it Would be which is we have everything in Control there's no fires and our Customers are exceptionally happy uh I Think that's the best place you can be As a business Another I think you have an interesting Perspective because you joined the Airbnb as an outsider so um however how Did you find things where you were after Were you glad that some decisions were Made before you joined were there some Urgent decisions to make yeah so Actually I would love an audience both To actually answer your question a

Little bit how many of you have used Airbnb In lots of hands lots of hands how many Of you used Airbnb 10 years ago That's what I'm talking about this is This is the journey this is the scale so I joined Airbnb four years ago and if I Was sitting in the audience and Answering this question my hand wouldn't Have gone up either you know 10 years Ago by even four years ago but you know Now this is basically trust this is over Time the long-term Investments that were Probably made 10 years ago 12 years ago Are paying off now because of which we Have so many more users using the Platform now Even after I joined and we rolled out 100 identity verification I think all of you would feel better Knowing that the person that I'm going To interact with in Airbnb the host that That is going to check me in is a real Person has been verified by Airbnb or The listing that I'm going to stay on is A verified listing but it does add Friction like if I ask you to upload a Government ID take a selfie if I ask you To if I use AI to detect pictures of the Listing ask you to take a live capture Of that listing you know you might be in New York and your listing is in San Francisco we have come up with ways for You to still do it it is a lot of

Friction But imagine the guests and the host Using the platform once they know that This due diligence has been done it Increases that much more trust and you Know we may be one of the very few Travel platforms that's doing this Amount of due diligence and so I I think That you know in my mind It is not a choice it is it is the cost Of actually sustainably succeeding in This industry and it may lead to some Short-term pain but it leads to Long-term trust building since you Touched an idea verification there we Talked about trust and safety but I Think privacy is also a huge concern for Users so I would give you address that In the beginning when you're just Beginning and maybe we don't have uh Yeah the right team for that I think Something that I have really learned in My time at Airbnb is you know we we have Our Chief privacy officer a dedicated Privacy team we have also invested in Even in during the Early times of Airbnb In in our dedicated anti-discrimination Team again these don't have to be large Teams you know but there are probably Some common sense principles to be Followed which is you know there's a lot Of AI being used and even before llms And generative AI became such a cool Thing and everyone's talking about it

We have been using Ai and ml for a Really long time you know there we have To be really careful about the data set That's being used to train these AI Models But I think where our privacy principles Come in is we make sure that there are Four principles that we are constantly Following and no matter what your size Is these are evergreen principles which Is the principle of transparency be Transparent to users about how you're Using their data you know control which Is users have are giving consent and They have complete control over their Data you know and at any given point of Time they can choose to remove any part Of the data and that this data will Always be used for the user's benefit it Will never be used for you know for sale And then lastly this this data will be Treated with utmost security so that the User doesn't have to worry about that Data getting breached or Compromised in any way So these privacy principles are at the Heart of how we work the other thing That Airbnb also did again it's a very Low-tech thing but we have our Um our our this attestation that people Have to do our our code of conduct our Anti-discrimination policy we have Removed till day 2.5 million users Because they have refused to sign our

Our anti-discrimination policy which Says that everyone commits to using our Platform in a fair way and and not not Treat each other in an unfair way so These are just some basic low-tech Things that you can do whether it comes To privacy whether it comes like Treating each other fairly and then what We have also been investing in is Technology you know not necessarily AI Based to constantly measure bias or Measure the impact of the models and the Systems that we are building you know Through our anti-discrimination team so That you know because we are running Blind if we don't know about the Technology that we build may seem great But is that having any unintended Consequences in really important to Understand so I think whether it's Anti-discrimination and Equity privacy Um as well as you know just treating Each other fairly these are things that Doesn't require a huge team doesn't Require you know a lot of investment it Requires some firm principles and Frameworks that you can Implement from The get-go Yeah I think it's important for people Who are much earlier in their journey to Hear that and now I want to open the Floor for questions we have mics in the Audience so you just need to to go there And ask your questions please

I can see Um here yeah Um I have just kind of one question Around Um marketplaces maybe for both of you Um as someone who works in a Marketplace Business that's looking at you know Significant International expansion Um in the coming kind of years how do You guys think about trust and safety From like a technological system Standpoint versus a human system Standpoint That's that's a great question Um I'll start and you maybe you can you Can add in which is uh you know Airbnb Is a global company you know we we are Operating in you know in all countries Out there And what we have done is at least on the Fraud side what I find is that the work That we do you know if you follow the Entire customer Journey during account Creation we are doing bot detection we Are looking at ETO prevention we are we Are doing verified listings you know we Are going to start with five countries Then we're going to expand to 30 and Then go go worldwide identity Verification we are looking at it Globally so we usually start with you Know what is the problem does this Problem have unique flavors depending on Whether it's in United States or Global

Or can this be universally solved and What we find is that you know certain Parts of trust and safety you can pretty Much build one solution and then scale It But some cases for example the party Problem you actually have a very dip Like Australia U.S Canada these tend to Be you know more of a high party risk Countries rather than you know countries In Asia so we are training models on Very specific country specific data so That we can learn accordingly and then I Think as we expand we are also looking At maybe Europe has more of a human Trafficking problem you know that that We need to be more cognizant about and We need to learn what we've also learned While while Going International is you don't have to Have all the answers you can actually Ask experts so we have also you know Started to work with Partnerships with Our trust and safety advisory Coalition So there are companies like deliver fund International center Polaris That are actually advising us on Airbnb As you keep expanding globally these are The things to watch out for in these Specific countries and I think that has Helped us quite a bit Yeah I mean it's that's what I would Recommend my first thought was well it's A huge pain in the ass

Every country in the world is different And the moment you step out of your home Country it's like you have no idea how These things work even for us it's we we Do simple things we do things like Background checks and such but that There's no International database for Background checks it's like no there's Like 195 databases of background checks And there's no one provided that indexes All of them and so I don't know I always Feel like our secrets to expanding Everywhere was just Blood Sweat and Tears and not much more than that and Yeah you just have to suffer through it Sort of yeah and be curious like yeah Identity verification in around the Globe all these different IDs all these Different regulations it is not easy and And I think I I forgot the name of the Japanese principle where you just like Accept it take a deep breath accept it And then just like keep going Thank you yes Sorry we continue we'll take a question From the mic please Uh Ty David here with Homer quick Question everybody has heard this There's a lot of Founders in the room Move fast and break things But in Marketplace startups that doesn't Really work because the moment you don't Have trust the marketplace doesn't move And you have to always do the right

Thing so how do you look at a seed in Series a startup and say these are the Top three things you should look at when It comes to trust and safety because you Just don't have the capital nor the time To build the AI algorithm to predict When you know your made is not going to Show up So you know how do you manage that at The earliest stages Well you're earlier in your journey so Yeah I mean for us we just said a few Fast and hard rules that we couldn't Break and then beyond that we could move Fast and break things so the hard and Fast rules in our case we're like we Have to make sure we're always locally Compliant whatever that might mean we Have to be able to always pay somebody Because we've screwed that up then we Screw up somebody's life but then Everything else we could just like move Fast and break things and it meant a Whole lot of other stuff like as long as We stuck to those really hard rules that That helped us Um yeah I think that's it that was it For us yeah and I think I would just say You should also be very clear about what Trust and safety means for the product That you are building in your Marketplace Because something that has gotten asked To me because every time somebody would

Say that uh Nava how do you how do you Ensure that you can trust someone on on On this Marketplace and I would say oh I Have a machine learning model that's Looking at all of these signals I was Like no no you as a mother if you have To send your teenager into the home of a Complete stranger what would it take for You to feel safe And no amount of Technology can actually Make me feel safe unless maybe I check For myself that my kid will be okay That means you know maybe it's not a Very high tech approach maybe you Provide visibility like let's say your Product is one where two people on the Marketplace have to interact with each Other How do you make sure that one human Being can trust another human being yes As a platform you probably have to do Some checks in the back end and you will Keep getting better at it as you get More money as you get more investment But in the beginning what can the Marketplace do itself What can the buyer do what can the Seller do what can the entities do Themselves So that they can self-regulate they can Self monitor Is you know there are probably basic Things we can do first before we invest A ton of technology in there and then

You will learn a lot then you will know Okay this we need to watch out for for Sure But going back to the question actually Uh some startups do question that move Fast and break things who should even be Saying do you even believe in the Principle especially anything touching Fintech I I mean I think as a startup Your only advantage over other companies So for bigger companies is speeds yeah And so I don't know what to break yeah You have to move fast and if you're if You're too afraid of breaking things you It's probably very hard to move fast so I don't know I think as a startup like You should always be moving fast and the Moment you feel that you're slowing down You have to reevaluate why that's the Case if it's not intentional it Shouldn't be slowing down and it's like The more people you have in your team The more your company will naturally Start to slow down with overhead Meetings and other random that you Don't really need and so I very much Subscribe to it I think you should move As fast as possible but again like if You said hard and fast rules right this Is the rules we can't break in our case You know we have to pay somebody's Salary on time Um then within that we know you still Have a lot of space to move fast and

Break things Maybe identify what is okay to break and What is not I think that that probably I would say Otherwise you will be overthinking it Because maybe after today's talk you're Like I have to think about privacy and Discrimination and your data retention And all of that maybe some of those Things are really important so like you Said identifying that we cannot break The law no we cannot break fundamental Human trust but these things it's okay I Think our customers will forgive us if We get it wrong the first time but then We quickly iterate and you have a way to Fix fast to break fast and fix fast Maybe yeah yeah that's great points and I guess one of the important things we We mentioned also in these panel is that You're not going to build your entire Operations for day one so what you need To do is amazingly to build the Foundations that you'll need eventually For your for your business yeah and you Will never be done you will keep working On it forever and ever and that's the Fun part speaking of not being done You're going to be on stage I think on a Sales stage at 3 30 if you want more of Yep so please say thank you thank you Very much thank you thank you Thank you