Yuval Shuminer Podcast Transcript
Yuval Shuminer joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Yuval Shuminer. As founder and CEO of Piere, Yuval oversees business operations and guides the company’s product development and go to market strategy. Prior to founding Piere, she was a consultant at BCG, where she was responsible for driving meaningful change at Fortune 500 companies.
By helping them with their go to market negotiation and acquisition strategies. Yuval holds a BS in finance management and operations from the Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania.
Well, good afternoon, Yuval, welcome to the show!
Yuval Shuminer: Thank you so much for having me, Brian. It’s really my pleasure to be here.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. Thank you. And I’m so excited to start this podcast today again. Getting to meet somebody new, sharing their story with our audience is just something that really gives me a lot of joy. So, thank you. And jumping into your 1st question, you’ve all, could you share with us what drew you to a career in consulting at Boston Consulting Group and how your experiences there shape your approach to business operations and strategy?
Yuval Shuminer: Yes, absolutely. So, if you’ve ever done a consulting case study as part of recruiting prep for consulting, how it works is basically you’re presented with this scenario, which is a business problem that the company that the consulting company has worked on in the past. And so, you know, you’re, you’re presented with a case, a company needs to increase productivity or a new product line that they want to open needs to be explored, or, you know, they need to improve their operations or their processes in a, in a certain way.
And so, you know, most people go into these cases as part of the recruiting process. They see them as intimidating. They see them as one of the most difficult part of the process, but, you know, I knew I was drawn to a career in consulting very early on, because even as part of the recruiting process, I really enjoyed every single case.
I did to me these cases. They feel like, like, they’re, they’re, they’re this puzzle. They’re this dance, right? You. You know that the case study has a solution because first of all, everything has a solution, but that’s also part of their point. These, these projects, these cases, they have a solution. And so now it’s on me to unlock that, that that solution to unlock that answer.
And I have to explore, I have to ask questions. I have to challenge assumptions. I have to think critically. I have to dive into detail. I have to look at charts and understand data. Exploration is this dance that I’m doing with the interviewer. And when I was recruiting for consulting, I loved it. I love the process.
I told myself that if that’s what the job was like, then it is 100 percent the right job for me. And I wasn’t disappointed. You know, I started my career in consulting. I didn’t really have as much exposure to it until I came to college and through that really learned exposure through the different cases, through the upperclassmen that had gone into consulting and through the recruiting process.
And I found it to be extremely representative of the role. When you’re in consulting, when you’re at a consulting company, you’re basically working on these projects. They’re two months long, three months long, four months long. You’re given a problem, which could be any problem that, you know, a fortune 500 company can face.
And you go into it knowing that the problem you’re facing has a solution. And so, you just have to put on your sleuth hat, and you have to put on your critical thinking hat and you have to, you know, try to unlock some insights, some structures, some framework, that’s going to help you to find clarity in all the chaos that you’re facing.
Okay. And couple that with the fact that consulting is notoriously known for, you know, a lot of travel, a lot of meeting new people, a lot of new experiences a whole host of different industries that you get to work with. And so, you know, I was very easily sold into a career in consulting. BCG felt like the right cultural fit for me.
And, and I don’t mean this as free advertising for BCD, but it was, it was really an incredible, incredible place to start my career. And so, to answer the second part of your question, right, how have my experiences there shaped my approach to business operations and to strategy? I think consulting has significantly influenced how I approach business and how I approach our company, Pierre, because, you know, Pierre is a company as a whole.
And then every product feature, every new distribution channel, every, you know, HR resourcing question has been scaled. It’s like an independent consulting case, right? You go into it. You understand the context. You gather information. You ask a ton of questions. You explore all the possible options. You consider tradeoffs and priorities, and then you make a decision and align on the best possible path forward.
And so, you know, very much. I think similar experiences, similar ways of approaching problems that I did at BCG that I do now meeting Peter.
Brian Thomas: Thank you appreciate the back story. Really love the story. And I can tell you’re very passionate about helping others because you want to learn all the nuances within the business, right?
All the stuff you talked about your creativity, learning to innovate and finding a solution to the problem. I really do appreciate that. And I can see where this has led you to the path that you’ve gone here with your business. And we’re going to jump into that right now. So, you’ve all transitioning from a consultant to a founder and CEO is a significant change.
What inspired you to start Pierre and what gap did you aim to fill in the market with your company?
Yuval Shuminer: Yeah, Pierre was very much founded out of out of my own experiences. When I graduated college, I moved to New York City as this. Bright eyed bushy tail, 21, 22-year-old. I worked really hard to get a job that I was really proud of.
Right? And I moved to the big city for the 1st time. I grew up in a suburb in Florida. And so, I was enjoying life. Right? I was, I was, you know, going out to eat and meeting up with friends and I was paying for the food. Way too much copious amounts of money for this four-bedroom one bath in Times Square.
And, and for those of you who aren’t from New York, Times Square is an incredible, incredible place to visit. It is not where you want to live if you live in the city. And so, you know, really was constantly facing these, these questions about what can I afford? What do I want to do? You know, is the rent that I’m paying for my New York City apartment.
Thank you Does that make sense? Should I move somewhere else? Is that money better saved? Is that money better invested in my contributing my resources in a way that’s creating value in my life, right? How are people like me saving every month? I buy, you know, an 8 coffee on the way to work every morning.
Is that outrageous or, or is that worth it? If that coffee makes me happy in the morning, is it okay for me to spend money on it? Right. And so, I really entered this, this new experience as a new college grad with all of these different questions about how can I evaluate my priorities? How can I understand what’s creating value for me?
In order to determine where I should allocate my resources, and in this case resources, meaning money, how can I allocate my money in order to create the most value for me in the future? And so had all these questions running in my head, and I really felt that, you know, my bank account, my credit card statement, all of these tools that I had access to from a financial perspective showed me historical numbers.
They showed me what I had spent. But they didn’t really help me understand how the choices I was making was influencing my financial future, and they didn’t give me the sense that I was improving my financial future, improving my financial position. And so, at the high level, Pierre was founded with this vision of how we can build a platform where users come not only just to manage their finances.
But to get a gain a partner that offers them personalized guidance that helps them evaluate tradeoffs, help them, helps them understand how they can create value for them moving forward, help them understand what financial opportunities they’re not taking advantage of, where are they leaving money on the table, right? And really helping them bridge the gap in execution of those financial plans.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And I really like you highlighting some of the struggles and, and the things you had to ponder about expenses every month. Obviously living in New York City, Times Square, especially is going to be very expensive, but I really like how you had to stop and really ponder this.
It’s a big life change life changing question that you’d asked obviously has led you Down this path of entrepreneurship. So, thank you. And you’ve all you’ve been involved in acquisition strategies during your consultancy. How does this experience influence your approach to growth and scaling at Pierre?
Yuval Shuminer: Yeah, that’s a good question because I think it really dives into the biggest parallels between the work I did at BCG and the work that I’m doing now at Pierre. When I worked at BCG, I worked on due diligence as I supported private equity companies as they were looking at acquisition targets. And so, when you do a due diligence for an acquisition target, you’re not looking at one particular vertical of a company like you are in a traditional case study, right?
A traditional case study at BCG, or sorry, a traditional project at BCG. You’re saying, okay, let me look at a recruiting process and see how it can improve it. Let me assess a pricing strategy and understand if we can price things better, right? You’re really looking at one vertical, but due diligence is taking a look at the entire company end to end everything under the sun.
Right. You’re doing this x ray about the company you’re looking at the products and the user base and the competition and the upcoming roadmap and the long-term vision and the distribution channels and the monetization and the team and the culture and the business processes. And, you know, everything is within the realm of what you’re evaluating.
And so, I really found this to be an incredible experience or an incredible exercise as a founder, because. That’s how I also evaluate my company today. Every, every day, every week, right? I do this many due diligence on our company. And I asked myself, how do all of these different components of our company, our product base, our product roadmap, our distribution channel, our monetization how we’re compared to the competition, right?
How do they work together in order to help inform our success and the trajectory of our company in the long term? Right. We’re constantly evaluating. We’re optimizing every single one of those different pieces, because the biggest takeaway that you have when you do due diligence is, is that building a company, building a startup, it’s more than just having a product, right?
If you have a product, but you’re not able to build a business around it, you’re not able to distribute it. You’re not able to build a culture where you’re sustaining and retaining individuals and attracting individuals to the company, having a product is not enough, right? It’s not enough to just have one of those.
And so. You know, putting yourself in the mindset of a due diligence, right? How can we make sure that we’re advancing all of those different parts of the business that we have, you know, a product that people want to use a user base that aligns with the product that we have sustainable and scalable distribution and customer acquisition channels that we have a compelling plan for future features that we have.
Business processes, right? That they keep the company running that we have a team culture that people love work at and where we retain our employees, right? All of that has to come together to inform and kind of build you know, all the pieces of the company. All the pieces have to fit together in order to have a successful acquisition.
And in the same way, in order to have a successful company, that’s going to grow and scale. So very much a lot of parallels in the same way that, you know, the way that we would look at companies when we did due diligences is very, very similar to the way that I evaluate our own company right now and understand where we need to lean in and, you know, foster more growth.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And I really love that. You don’t leave any rock, any stone unturned. You really get in there and like, again, you really highlighted the due diligence and a lot of the research that you do and I can see why you’re successful. So, I appreciate that. And you’ve all finally the last question of the day.
What’s next for Pierre? Are there new markets or sectors you are aiming to enter or new products we can look forward to in the near future?
Yuval Shuminer: Yeah, we’ve got a lot of the pipeline more than I can share right now. Unfortunately, we have you know, a lot of things that are in development that we haven’t released publicly yet, but we release features very quick.
We’re a very, very, very lean team. And so, we’re constantly. You know, releasing new features on the consumer on the on the consumer platform. We’re able to move very, very fast. I would say the most notable thing for us right now is that we’re working on some incredible partnerships with some nonprofits and organizations in the country that are not only going to get Pierre in everyone’s hands, but really reinforce the value of Pierre as part of a financial ecosystem.
And I think that’s really important because I think a product like Pierre succeeds. Not when it’s just an independent personal financial product, right? Not when you use it in isolation, but when it’s part of a financial experience that you have day in, day out, part of the other financial transactions, the other financial conversations that you’re having and so, you know, we’re, we’re really big on partnerships.
We’re really excited to continue to distribute and create impact and help people gain control of their finances in the future. Thank
Brian Thomas: you. That’s awesome. And I appreciate that. And I do like to keep tabs on. Entrepreneurs in their journey. And so, I’ll be definitely following you very closely on this.
You’ve all may have to have you on the podcast here in the next six, 12 months, but certainly love what you’ve talked about today with our audience. And I’m certainly going to be excited to get this out to the public. You’ve all, it was such a pleasure having you on today. And I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Yuval Shuminer: It was great to be here. Thank you, Brian.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Yuval Shuminer Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
