Eric Shoykhet, CEO of Link Financial Technologies

In this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Eric Shoykhet, Founder of Link Financial Technologies and Atom Finance, venture-backed software companies that collectively have raised $100mm. Previously, he was an investor at Governors Lane, an event-driven hedge fund. At Governors Lane, Eric worked on investments across a variety of sectors including industrials, financials, technology, and consumer staples. Prior to this, he worked in the Restructuring and Reorganization group at Blackstone. Eric graduated from the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business at the University of Pennsylvania with degrees from both the Wharton School and the College of Arts and Sciences.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction: Eric Shoykhet, CEO of Link Financial Technologies
• 1:40 The Trajectory snd Funding Cycle for Startups
• 7:08 The Interest Rate and Centralized Monetary Policy
• 12:42 People Getting Pressure to invest on Things Outside of what Thay typically Investing In
• 16:27 Misconceptions about Covid and the Tech Adoption
• 20:55 When The Markets Wake Up, They Wake Up Quickly
• 23:22 The Social Price
• 24:27 Investors on Absolute Returns and Relative Returns
• 25:48 Investment Decision Enhanced through AI
• 34:10 Prior to Link Money and How Link Money Started
• 36:39 The Main Focus of Link Money
• 37:40 Seamless UX for The Customer
• 38:26 "We're a enterprise payments company with a complete merchant driven focus."
• 39:23 Target Merchants
• 40:16 U.S. Being Behind in terms of Payments
• 43:04 Merchants Before Vs. Now in Terms of Payments Options
• 44:13 The Tech Layers in Link Money
• 46:58 The Timing of Moving Money
• 48:19 The Bedrock Thesis
• 50:26 Hiring People
• 51:50 The First Customer
• 53:30 Raising Funds
• 54:57 The Risk for the Merchant and Value Proposition