Welcome to the Innovation Conversation, a podcast
about innovators, both in business and real life.
Hosted by myself, Ricardo Rescual and Harry McCona.
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Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Innovation
Conversation. Today, we are joined by Wojtek
Buczanski. Wojtek, welcome to the podcast. Hi,
Ricardo. Thank you for having me. Hi, everyone.
The pleasure. Wojtek, would you like to introduce
yourself to the audience, please? Okay, so...
My name is Richard Introduce. I'm a co -founder
of Fast Audit AI, which we'll probably touch
on in a moment. What can I say? Polish born.
I spent most of my adult life in London. I did
all my education here and most of my career was
in fintech and financial services with two years
in consulting. So I've always been part of financial
services industry. My education is in that. area.
So I did my master's at London Business School
and I'm currently doing a PhD in AI in ethics
applications and use cases of AI financial services
at the University of Cambridge. And up until
now, I've always been a corporate person. So
all my previous employers were large or very
large corporates. So this is very much a debut
for me on the entrepreneurship scene. What got
you started? What made you take the plunge from,
you know, having a nice stable corporate job
to actually deciding to launch a startup. Well,
I mean, the nice, you know, the thing about nice
stable corporate job is that you know, never
know when it ends and you don't, you know, I
mean, you get your three month warning, but that's,
that's about it. But it was really a combination
of factors and I wouldn't even know where to
begin. So I always had some sort of, let's say
exotic respects for people who started their
own businesses. And I always felt that I'm the
last person who will ever be able to do it. And
I sort of made peace with the fact that it will,
you know, once I'm on my deathbed, it will be
like, well, I wish I had done it. So I guess
that was eating at me to some extent. It was,
what got me started was a combination of factors.
So the first was a recession and a change of
luck in my corporate career, but it wasn't, I
would say the defining factor. It was almost,
it kind of felt like it was the right time. And
also I... It sort of seems like the, I don't
even believe in these things, but it seems like
the universe was very strongly nudging me in
that direction because I wasn't really feeling
keen or willing to go back to corporate after
I finished with corporate. It felt like I think
I'm done at least for the, for now. I want to
try something a little bit different. So that
was, that was the first thing. And the other
was that I, I connected with my friends from
London Business School who, who was considering
an idea for a business that we were discussing
for quite some time when I was still in my high
paying corporate job. And it just felt like such
a wonderful idea, which I appreciate is something
all founders think. It's a bias or delusion.
Nobody thinks my idea is crap. Everybody thinks
my idea is wonderful. But you know, same here.
I thought this idea is so good that I just have
to give it a try. So it was a combination of
decisions and factors beyond my control. And,
um, I don't know, curiosity, at least, you know,
at least I won't have that regret, uh, the moment
I'm dying. It's like whether it works or not.
And of course I hope it does. I'll be like, well,
at least I tried. And what, what is it that's
tell you honest about it? Pardon? What does you
start up to exactly? All right. Okay. So, um,
for those, uh, for those who haven't, uh, hear
me pitch at, at one of your, um, your event,
Ricardo, it's, um, What Fastly does, it detects
accounting anomalies in financial statements
instantly using a combination of rules -based
and machine learning at a fraction of the fraction
of cost of current alternatives such as Big Four.
Okay. That's quite impressive. So how does it
work? Can you integrate with any existing financial
software? Is this a standalone solution? No,
this is totally standalone and probably intentionally
because we don't, you know, having worked in
enterprise, the procurement process sometimes
lasts longer than many startups exist. So we
don't necessarily want to take this road. No,
the underpinning of it is fresh take on the concept
of financial statement audit analysis and due
diligence coupled with some really clever accounting
science. So what we do is we take audited financial
statements as filed with some sort of national
body. So in the UK, that's company's house. And
most countries have their equivalents. So these
statements are publicly available. And what we
do is we put the companies in like for like clusters
of companies that follow similar business activities.
And it's not entirely based on the SIG code or
any other sector code. It's actually based on
the activity. This is where our IP and machine
learning come into play. And then we look at
a couple of key metrics on the financial statements
and compared the particular company, you know,
company X against its peer group. And we show
statistical outliers, the ones that are likely
to be so much of an outlier that it's attention
worthy. It's not that somebody is, you know,
one or 2 % deviating from its cluster mean. It's
like somebody who is one or one and a half standard
deviations away. And of course, that can be indicative
of different things. So many times it can be
a very good indication of potential accounting
irregularities. And this was part of our pre
-launch research. In the UK, we have this body
called Financial Reporting Council, which is
a regulator of sorts toward the audit profession.
And whenever there is an accounting or audit
issue or scandal, they investigate it and then
they decide whether it was really a failure in
the audit process or not. And in the past several
years, they took on I think about 60 or 70 cases,
some of which ended up with the ruling that it
was genuine failure of audit process and some
of them not. And every company that got in some
sort of trouble for Aurelian, Patisserie Valérie,
or many others, you know, our system just flags
it up. It goes, no, it's not just one red flag,
it's several. So there is, you know, there is
very strong back -tested rigor to it. And the
other thing that it picks up is also companies
where there is no irregularity per se, but it's
just good companies that run into genuine trouble.
So the good example here could be made .com,
which some of you may remember from the lockdown
times, they were very, very popular for about
a year or two. They were making bespoke home
furnitures, particularly sofas. And there was
a time when their sofas were really, really popular
and no, they were cool. They were funky. It was
like IKEA, but cool. But as lockdowns ended,
people resumed much more buying on the high street,
which made .com wasn't entirely prepared for,
and the company ran into very serious trouble.
And I think it's been liquidated now and whatever
was left was acquired by Next. So we would pick
up on this as well, which is why we use the term
anomaly. So it's not like everything we pick
up is a fraud. What we pick up is something that
should be paid attention to by a professional
auditor or by due diligence people. Thanks. So
there's actually quite a lot of potential for
it because obviously there's the people who should
be looking at these things, but there's also
investors and the likes, right? If they can have
that data, then they can make a better informed
decision of if they're going to invest or not,
if it's a stable company or not, right? Yes.
Thank you. So indeed we're on. quite hopeful
it has potential. So there are two primary target
groups that we're aiming for. So the first one
is audit and audit -adjacent people, where the
system, it's not about replacing anyone, by the
way, it's not one of these cases, you know, people
versus AI. I don't even believe in that. And
the research doesn't really corroborate that
very well either in the academia. It's more about
helping spot those irregularities to save auditors
a lot of time. So it's still. They still need
to filter them through their knowledge and experience
and investigate them. It's just, we show you,
this is where you should probably pay your attention
to. And the other side of the market, which is
the one that seems to be very proactively approaching
as people who get, who get usually sold on the
system very, very, or in the concept, almost
on the spot is people on the investment side
and particularly in the private investment space.
So private equity, private credit, those people
that need to analyzed a lot of companies, including
private ones. Because if you're thinking about
acquiring a company or extending credit to them
or engaging in any business to them, you should
be able to ascertain their financial stability
as best as you can. And the truth is that unless
you're a putsy 100 or, you know, one of the really,
really big companies, there's not even that much
research coverage on listed companies and there's
nothing at all on private ones. So it's filling
that void. That makes a lot of sense. And you
know, going back to your, your change in careers
and lifestyles, how was it? It must have been
quite a challenge, you know, going from, you
know, very nice corporate job to then launching
your own startup. What type of changes have you
had in your mindset and your way of doing things
from one job to the other? Okay. So first of
all, in the, you know, in the name of being completely
honest, it was a very nicely paying job, whether
it was. particularly my last one there, it was
very nice per se. Um, we will save that for,
for another conversation, probably with a therapist
in the room. So, you know, Ricardo, I don't know
whether it's just me and I don't want to sound
pompous, but it's really like a very different
life experience. I mean, I, I appreciate that
it sounds like very sort of new age or whatnot,
but it really is. So, you know, the first thing
you notice very, very quickly is, you know, where's
my income? You know, that one you pick on very,
very quickly and. My advice to all the founders
and I appreciate it. It's the kind of advice
that's easier to give than take is you must have
some savings. You must have something to live
off when you launch your startup. And I'm not
even talking about investing this money in startup.
I'm talking about the money to pay your rent
or mortgage and your groceries. You know, that
myth about a broke founder. It's a myth. Everybody
needs to do their food shopping. So. You know,
that's, that's something I feel very strongly
about. So that you notice immediately. It's like,
oh, you know, the money is still outgoing, but
it's not incoming. That's a very unpleasant feeling.
But you know, Ricardo, it really is kind of like,
you know, going to bed, a human and waking up
something like a dolphin, you know, you're still
a mammal, but it's a completely different environment,
completely different experience. Everything is
different. It's really quite difficult to put
in words, at least for me. Are you happy? Are
you happier now that you're a dolphin using the
same? You know, I'll be, I'll be happier when
I'm a funded dolphin or, you know, comfortably
funded dolphin, but, you know, it's my decision.
I own it. And I'm, I'm certainly not, not ready
to throw in the towel yet. It's, um, you know,
it takes a pair of really big ovaries to start
up, to, to set out on your own. And I have such
enormous respect for everyone who does because
it is an act of monumental courage and audacity.
And to some extent it requires a delusional level
of self -belief because statistically the odds
are, the odds are against us. So it's, it's a
cliche and a patronizing one, but It isn't for
everyone and there's nothing wrong with that.
You need to have something in you to do it because
it's not about intellect. I knew it even beforehand,
but I know it even more profoundly, Ricardo.
It's not about your brain. It's about your stomach.
You know, how many unreplied emails from VCs
can you handle? How many, how many calls with
VCs that end up in 15 minutes that you just know
were unsuccessful? You know, all these kinds
of things, how many events can you go to and,
you know, sort of bear your soul in, in front
of complete strangers as people do at the startup
events? You know, it's, um, it's, it's not, it's
not just about the intellect. Trust me. I know
that. Yeah. I 100 % agree with you. It's about
the gut you have and that your resilience and
your ability to keep on pushing forward when
everything keeps on failing. And you think, no,
no, I still think this is going to work. Of course,
you take on the feedback because you always must
take on the feedback, right? There's no way around
that. But you take on the feedback and think,
okay, we can still push forward. So that's that
whole different type of craziness mindset, if
you want to call it. But ultimately that's how
progress is done, right? If you think about,
you know, great human inventions. Let's take
the light bulb, for example. There's a whole
story. Thomas Edison was writing down, okay,
I've found 10 ,000 ways of not making a light
bulb. And it's kind of like that when you're
starting a business, isn't it? So it's a big,
big challenge. Well, you know, I mean, um, I
think that there is a school of thought that
Edison actually shamelessly stole the idea from
Nikola Tesla, but not for the light bulb. I don't
think for the, I think for a lot, the currents
and stuff like that, there's obviously Tesla
worked for him. Cause at the time there was a
controversy between AC or DC, which one to use.
And in fact, if you still go to New York to this
day, They still use, if I'm not mistaken, DC,
where they should be using AC. So DC works quite
well for small distances, but doesn't work well
for long distances. Or it could be the other
way around, but that's kind of it. And Edison
believed that it should work the one for the
small distances. So when you go to New York,
you still have the Edison power plants that only
work and they work well, but they only work for
small distances, not for long distances. So Tesla
ultimately was right. Edison was wrong, but time
proved it. But I was about to ask one thing,
which is how do you deal with all these tough
challenges that, that you face as a founder?
Well, that's okay. That's an honest answer. I
mean, you know, Ricardo, I've in my past life
I've been on, you know, side of the desk, a mental
health advocate. And that has, that is always
something that I felt very strongly about. So
I don't want to give like a one -liner cliche
reply. First of all, I strongly advise anyone
against doing things solo because that is nigh
on impossible. And it's not because somebody
doesn't have sufficient intellectual aptitude.
I just don't think there's very many people can
manage the amount of resilience, can master that
amount of resilience that it takes. You know,
some days you carry your partner, some days your
partners carry you. I think that. When you only
have yourself to carry, this challenge might
be just too much for anyone's soul and stomach
to succeed. So my advice for anyone is it's better
to consider it a team sport. And of course, try
to, try to choose your team wisely. And I think
that the other thing is I think it's one thing
to love your idea. And it's quite different to
be in love with your idea. And we see this at
events sometimes, you know, Ricardo, you have
sometimes 20 to 30 pitches at the startup event.
And most of the people there are perfectly down
to earth and flexible, but there is a subgroup
of founders who are so obsessively in love with
their idea that they're not interested in any
feedback from anyone because they reinvented
perfection. And they don't want to hear a single
word about it. So I, I kinda advise against that
because even if you have a really great idea,
somebody can just make it a little bit better.
It's really not, you know, not going to diminish
anybody's abilities or anybody's credit if you
take a little bit of feedback. So, so there's
definitely that. Not taking things personally
helps, but it's not something I'm particularly
good at. I take weather personally, I take everything
personally, but My co -founder, I'm exceptionally
lucky in that respect. He is a seasoned entrepreneur
and he's been doing this for several years. And
he told me actually just yesterday is after you
face the abyss a couple of times, you get used
to it. I'm like, well, you know, I'm facing the
abyss for the first time. So thank you for the
thumbs up. So my advice, which I think is a little
bit idealistic is just try to build. The dream
team around you and I don't mean it has to be
very many people two or three is four is probably
ideal size for a startup and I have this personal
belief that If you have people around you who
just work and click with you, then if one idea
falls You can just pick yourself up and start
with another one if your team collapses You're
left with nothing. No startup. No idea and probably,
you know adverse, adversely affected mental health.
So, and you know, it's such a, such an easy advice
to give, you know, find yourself a good team,
but, uh, that's, that's, that's what I think
maximizes your chances of, um, of making it through
and having, you know, having team resilience
that is greater than any individual's resilience.
And what do you do personally when you're having
a really bad day? When nothing seems to go your
way? By the way, bad day can be bad weeks. Oh,
okay. So what do you do to get you back on track
and get you back on that, you know, founder mentality
and making sure that you keep on pushing forward?
So first of all, you know, a bad day can be a
bad week, can be a bad month or an overall terrible
2024. I mean, I don't know a single person who
would say, yeah, 2024 was the year to live. I
mean, you know, being, you know, surviving through
2024 for anyone seems like an extreme sport.
It's really not the best year on record. I don't
have any great advice. What I do, I just, I'm
not lying to anyone, least of all myself. It's
fine. It's awesome. No, I'm actually, no, it's
not fine at all. It's, it's, it's terrible. So
at least I, I'm not bottling things inside and
you know, you can still do things when you're
not feeling great. It's, uh, I, I'm not trying
to be like, oh, you know, I'm going to, it's
been an absolutely terrible, I don't know, year,
but I'm going to bring myself up, you know, play
Gloria Gaynors, I will survive and, and, you
know, look my best. No, you just have to... Good
choice. Thank you. If you can't run, it's, you
know, it's like what Celine Dion said in her
documentary recently. If at some point you can't
run, just crawl. And, you know, I don't want
to sort of exaggerate with comparisons with somebody
who's suffering from a very serious medical condition.
It's, it's about the principle, right? At least
I'm not... I'm trying to be honest with myself
and people around me. It's like, are things great?
No. But I will still, you know, I still have
my to -do list. Yes. I will do as much as I can.
And also there's the thing, which is a cliche
of cliches. It's my body. Okay. Oh my God. That
sounds so pretentious, but, um, if I feel exhausted,
I will just go to sleep and I don't care whether
it's, uh, 5 p .m. Or 5 a .m. Because I'm actually
a night person. I will just get a couple of hours
of sleep. That really makes such a monumental
difference. It puts a little bit of distance
between the last thing that upset me. It's like
a little bit of a tiny fresh start. You know,
and also be sort of be realistic and compassionate
with one another. If like some days, fortunately
it doesn't happen very often, but I feel, you
know, there's so many adversities like I can't
do this today, then I don't. I just catch up
on sleep and I, you know, I'm overwhelmed today,
but I will be a little more stronger tomorrow
and I just pick up the following day. Maybe that's
the first lesson an entrepreneur needs to find
out by themselves, which is when you move from
a corporate job, you have deadlines and there's
someone who's always managing you regardless
of what position you're in unless you're the
CEO. But then even a CEO needs to be accountable
for the investors and stockholders out of the
board. And then you know you need to do stuff
to keep on doing things. Whereas as an entrepreneur,
you focus on doing the stuff you need to do,
but at the best time possible. And if that means
you need to go for a little nap or sleep or exercise
or have a drink and talk with some friends, that's
okay. Because the next time you pick up that
task, you're going to be full on, you're going
to be able to deliver. So I think that's... It's
a hard lesson to learn, but at the same time,
when people stop feeling guilty about it, the
better it is, right? Cause we just, we're human,
everyone needs to do that. I generally think
that starting as a founder, particularly as a
first time is, is a very introspective and self
-learning experience because it is so profoundly
different to salaried employment. It's, you know,
it's really like, you know, go to bed a human,
wake up a dolphin. There's, there's a lot of,
there's a lot, there's a lot to learn. So I suspect
from observation and sort of from, from culture
that some founders, particularly men, make this
mistake of being their own slave driver. You
know, if you don't work 16 hours per day, you're
not, you're not trying hard enough. And it takes
a certain age and a certain, you know, set of
five experience to realize that it's completely
and utterly false. You know, Less is actually
more with work as well, because I know that when
I'm rested, I can work like a machine, like a
terminator. And I don't need to put in 16 hours
because I wouldn't be able on that level. I put
in six and I'm, and you know, I'm, um, Any productive
on the six hours. I think there's actually, there's
something called flow. I think it's a book or
a study, I don't recall that correctly, actually
by Polish -American, fun fact. And they measure
two workers, one at a factory that would work
eight hours a day straight on, the other that
would work on floor states. So they would work
standing up, then they would sit down, rest,
then they'll get up again, then they sit down
and rest, so forth, so on. And what they found
out was actually quite impressive. Even though
the standing worker had supposedly the same number
of things to do. He did less than the one who
was taking small breaks in between. And then
they found that when you work on your flow state
and you work at your optimal capacity, you actually
end up doing a lot more stuff, even though it
seems like, why are they resting now? They should
be working. Actually, no. If you work super hard
when you're supposed to be working super hard
and then rest afterwards, you get a lot more
stuff done. But it's hard getting to that stage,
right? It's quite a challenge. I do agree. And
funny that you should mention this. Like I've
literally just today finished this book. What's
the book? title scarcity and it's, um, it takes
some of the concepts you've mentioned a little
further. It really expands on the concept of
bandwidth, which all of us understand intuitively.
Um, and also slack as in having intentional free
space to absorb shocks that will invariably comes.
You know, it's one of the trillion things that
any entrepreneur or, or even, you know, a self
-employed person needs to learn because For me
to work like my preferred hours are night hours,
which you know was was perfectly fine in corporate
You know, it was net benefit of the company if
I worked at 3 a .m But I was still expected to
show up at 9 a .m Which didn't work out terribly
well for me. So now I can work until 5 6 or 7
a .m But after that I go to sleep. So I operate
probably on like Hawaii time or Sydney But you
know, I work the hours that that work for me
You just mentioned a book. I'm curious on this.
What's your latest book that you just mentioned?
What book do you recommend for people to read?
Actually, I don't get any commission and it's
next to me because I just finished it. It's this
one. It's quite a profound book because it teaches...
What's the name? It is a podcast. So some people
will not be looking at the video. So we need
to tell them. So the book is titled Scarcity
and the authors are Mulantan and Shafir. And
it's about something that I was experiencing
or very aware of since my twenties is that in
the periods of stress, my mind would feel like
I'm in a sort of mental headlock. My focus was
so narrow and short. My memory was so much worse.
I wasn't able to plan ahead. It was very much,
you know, how do I make my rent this month? How
do I fight some fire? I think the first time
that researchers have looked at what having insufficient
amount of resources and it can be time or money
or focus, how debilitating it is and how we tend
to neglect it because the only luck that we really
pay attention to in life is money. But it's much
more complex than that and it shows us that the
lack of time, money, or in some instances, if
somebody's on a diet, food, the effect it can
have on a person's intellect are so profound.
And you know, it's something I can relate to
so acutely because even now, I mean, you know,
I'm operating under the state of acute stress,
whether I like it or not, my ability to focus
or plan long -term is so much more limited. And
when I was making good money working for corporate,
I obviously hope it won't last forever, but it's
quite amazing to realize that it's not just me.
There is scientific research to back it up and
it sort of changes the way I think about time
management. What advice would you give to entrepreneurs?
Now that you've been on a journey, you know,
people listening in, which hopefully tons of
them will listen in, what advice would you give
to them? There are so many and you know, so many
of them are unoriginal. So my first small personal
advice is don't fly solo. I mean, I know one
or two people who are doing it and successfully,
but I think they're outliers. I strongly believe
in entrepreneurship being a team sport. I also
want to, yes, another thing, I think it's a myth.
Maybe it's not as prevalent now as it was like
10 or 15 years ago, but I think that most of
us are seeing that startup needs to be in the
state of a total of an ongoing boxing match.
You know, it's like, you know, a shout fest between
a couple of dudes, you know, whose idea will
trump the other person's idea. Whereas I think
that in a startup, it actually really pays to
be flexible and agreeable. Because almost nothing
is so important as to risk breaking the team
over it. It's, but it's also a measure of, of
a good team. If somebody has, is very binary,
it's my way or no way. I'm not sure they're,
they're success material for, for teamwork or
for, for entrepreneurship. If people are flexible
and agreeable and not really precious about their
egos, then I think it, it helps a lot. I don't
even want to start talking about rejection because
I could write a book about it, but again, it's
a cliche, but I don't think that very many people
out there, except, I don't know, ex -military,
are really prepared with their stomachs for not
just the amount of rejection, but mostly the
amount of ghosting and indifference they will
face. To get a rejection email is already quite
successful. It means that somebody actually read
your email. Whereas I think that 80 % of the
case, or if not more, you will be just... promptly
ignored, you know, be, be left in the limbo.
So, you know, learning to take rejection, I think
you can only learn it empirically. It's not something
you can learn from, um, from. Interesting. And,
you know, as we're nearing the end of the podcast,
if people want to reach out to you and find out
more about your company and yourself, how can
you do so? What's the best way? Okay. So, um,
the company's website is hasordered .ai. So that's
the quickest way to, um, to reach us. And my
contact detail is Wojtek .Buczynski at Fasodet
.ai, so you probably need to put this in writing
somewhere, Ricardo, because of the spelling of...
It shows up on the notes, yeah. ...of my name.
But also another way to find me, which actually
some people did, is, you know, one thing that
is really big in London startup ecosystem is
the WhatsApp groups, including yours. There's
a total of... handful of, of WhatsApp groups
that are usually affiliated to some sort of,
uh, event series or a group of people such as,
you know, chief among them being yours. You can
always use LinkedIn as well, right? Yeah, you
can. Obviously it's just that once again, the
spelling of my last name, but I really encourage
people to make full use of those WhatsApp groups,
both as, both when it comes to looking for something,
but also when, if ever you can help someone or
enable them or answer a question, put in a recommendation
or No, so many people are trying, you know, really
pouring their hearts out to, to try get the LinkedIn
algo on their side. And that, that, you know,
that algo is, is not always very kind. So it's
quite routine that people on your group and on
others put in links to their LinkedIn posts and
like, no, please show it some love. I mean, that
is really the cheapest way to earn some good
karma because if you like somebody's post that
helps the algo. If you repost it, that helps
as well. Yep. And there's really a lot of valuable
activity. And the third thing where you can find
me is I go to events, like I'm at your event
almost every time. So, you know, the startup
events, check it out. And others as well. Again,
it's not particularly original, but those events,
some of them really work. I mean, most of them
because... I think that most people in the startup
ecosystem are, you know, very, very supportive
and they almost wear their heart on their sleeve.
It's generally, you know, in corporate, everyone's
your competition. In startup, not so much because
if somebody wants to start, I don't know, a FemTech
startup or an EdTech startup, they're not my
competition at all. If there's something I can
do to help them, I'll be more than happy to.
All right. Sounds like a plan, I 100 % agree
with you. Wojtek, thank you so much for your
time. It's been a pleasure interviewing you.
Thank you, everyone. Take care. All the best.
Thank you for having me. Thank you. from grants
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