George Pu: Be Authentic

I think it's important to believe people are good. And that's a belief I had. And that has screwed me over many times. It has made me lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. But I think that's okay. I think it's about your belief. And I think if you're a good person, if you're an authentic person, you meet good people. I'm George. I'm George Fu. I'm the co-founder and CEO of SimpleDirect. And what is SimpleDirect? SimpleDirect is basically a financial technology company that's here to help businesses and consumers succeed. So what we do in the past is we help home improvement businesses, both in the United States and Canada, to basically help their customers get the home improvement loans that they need. The idea actually sparked in my head in about 2019, when my roommate at the time, Joey, her dad is a home improvement contractor here actually in Canada, and recently just immigrated from China. And he told me he has a big problem about his business. He's a new immigrant. He doesn't know how to speak English really well, but he has a few clients. But he never got those clients because every time he tells those clients, fixing your roof costs about $25,000, the client spoke. We don't have $25,000 right now to pay. And we have a few businesses here at the top in the GTA that can actually help us find financing options. So we only pay $300 a month or $400 a month in the course of three to five years. So there's no reason for us to work with you. So once he told me that problem, I became very curious as to why small businesses are facing this problem, but large enterprise businesses are not. So I think that's prompted me to dig deeper as a second year University of Waterloo CS student at the time. I didn't have much resources, but I quickly found out the reason is because all those big, giant businesses, they are backed by banks. They're backed by the largest financial lenders in the country, and also the same happens in the US. So only the top 0.5% of all the home improvement businesses in Canada and the US are equipped to provide financing options to their customers. So only 0.5% of businesses can help their customers get the financing they need. What happens to the other millions of small businesses that are in the US and Canada? They can't, right? And they're losing about 70, 80% of their sales to their competitors, the biggest one in the block. So I think that's unfair. And that's what started my journey at Simple Direct. I think it's the drive that really takes you further and a belief that you can actually make things work. I think when you are in your 18, when you're in your 20, it's very different than the way that you think when you're in your 30s and 40s. When you're in your 30s and 40s, maybe you'll think about your mortgage payments. Maybe you'll think about the security of your family, the financial stability, how much you're having to savings. When I first started my startup, Simple Direct, we didn't have any money. We have about $2,000 that we took to spend, invest in the company. We started an incorporated business, $2,000 is gone. So now we have to start making money to basically to pay off contractors that we employ, to pay developers, everything else. We assembled a team that does not want any salary, but want to build something special. Our former CTO, Arash Deep, he's my classmate. His father is an electrical contractor in the GTA. So he faced the same problem that we're trying to solve. So we're mission-driven. We are not here to make big bucks. We're not here to be making $100,000 a year at a time. You can easily make that with e-commerce business or open a shop. Those are all easy ways to make money, but for us, it's not about making money. It's about making a difference. It's about mission. It's about helping hundreds of thousands of businesses in Canada, millions in the States. It's about helping those customers succeed. I think there are many companies that I know actually are sticking true to themselves, to what they are. For example, for Simple Direct, we are essentially a loan facilitator. We facilitate millions of loans on a monthly basis. A hundred million requested over the past couple of years. And when you're at this volume, you ask yourself, what sort of information do we present to the customers? Is it just a legally required bare minimum, or are there more things they would like people to know about the loans themselves? For example, we have competitors that just share the bare minimum, that make the loan process extremely gamified. It's like getting a loan is like playing a game, you know? And people stick into $10,000, $20,000 of debt all the time. You know, for Simple Direct, we have a different approach. We are a value-based company. So what we did is we make sure the customers know exactly what are the costs of those loans are. And you know, for people who don't know about financial services, fintech, or loans, they think everything is just on the interest rates. It's not, right? It's also the origination fee. We take out the loan. It's also the repayment terms of, you know, for yourself. For example, if you take a loan, can you pay it off early? Or do you have to pay the same amount plus interest for the next 10 years without any chance of, you know, repaying or debating? So many people's lives got destroyed by bad loans, by companies. But we only work with the ethical partners, you know, in the US and also in Canada, that actually care about the customers, that actually have reputable business standards, reputable name. You know, we don't work with companies that charge people 69% APR, 100% APR, although we make 10% per each loan they offer. If we sell a $10,000 loan, you make $3,000. We refuse. Being an entrepreneur, you go on a very difficult path, right? You're not going the path everyone does. But what does really separate you from them? I think it's what you believe in, your virtues. And it's not just showing that. It's not just for your investors, your customers. It's also how you deal with your team. How do you work with people on your team? How do you work with your investors, right, for example? How do you work with people who you make money from? What are people you don't make money from? What's your principles dealing with all of them? I think that's the big question. So I've known a lot of young entrepreneurs when I was interviewing for the TO Fellowship, which is basically a scholarship by Peter Thiel for young entrepreneurs under the age of 23. And I've got to know a lot of really, really smart-minded people who have achieved a lot in their lives. And they're extremely young. And they're much more capable than, you know, objectively than people I've known who are in their 40s and 50s. So I asked them, so I get to know them, why did you guys do it? Is it just a fortunate investor put millions of dollars in your pocket? You took off every night? No. You know, for example, John is someone I know who's been running a wonderful business here in America. And he started his business when he was 16 years old. He started his first business when he was 16 years old. And when he was 19, he left the company, and the company is still doing really well today, raised over $50 million, revenue positive, still ongoing. Now he's doing his second startup. So even though he's 23, he has had, you know, over seven, eight years of working experience, compared to someone who just graduated from college, let's say at the age of 24, who has probably zero working experience. So seven, zero. It's very clear who wins. So I don't really believe in overnight success, because whatever quick money there is, it's not going to last. And if you believe in quick money, it's a fatal mistake, because we live in this world for, you know, 80, 70, 100 years. Something that works well for a month is not going to work well for 100 years. It's about what you really believe in. And that value is going to carry you. The mindset that you have of not believing in overnight success, about believing in long-term success, believing in yourself, your team, that's going to carry forward for the next 20 to 50 years, because that's what you believe in, right? You know, for me, I realized about two years ago that it's time to just be authentic and try not to hide things. You know, when we had 100,000 users, it was tempting for me to say we have 200,000 users, right? But, you know, come to a point where you really realize what other people trust is you, is the authentic yourself, right? No one is perfect. I'm not perfect. You're not perfect. No one is perfect. But what's more important is about how you present yourself and how authentic you are. You know, admit things that you did wrong, like starting your first company at 18 is challenging because you don't really know how the society works, especially in a different country. So we have been tricked a lot. We have been deceived a lot in our process. We have, you know, been, we have been screwed over, as I may, multiple times in business deals, and, you know, also in personal life. And those are hard, but, you know, and, you know, I think a strong inclination for most people is just to believe that other people are bad, I'm good. So I'm going to do bad in order to gain. But however, I think it's important to believe people are good. And that's a belief I had. And that has screwed me over many times. It has made me lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, I'm sharing here, but I think that's okay. I think it's about your belief. And I think if you're a good person, if you're an authentic person, you meet good people. And you have a mechanism of sorting out the bad people and just not work with them. But it doesn't change who you are. I think if you change the way you operate because of your bad apples, then you're failing yourself. And I think in a couple of years, you wouldn't recognize yourself. And that's the thing I don't want to happen to myself. I want to still believe in the things I do. I want to believe people are good. And I want to believe I tend to do good, and I want to be authentic. So that's my principles.