EP 84: Female CEO Taynaah Reis Started her first company at 16 then started a Block Chain Bank

 Mimi MacLean:
Welcome to The Badass CEO Podcast. This is Mimi MacLean. I'm a mom of five, entrepreneur, Columbia Business School grad, CPA and angel investor, and I'm here to share with you my passion for entrepreneurship. Throughout my career, I have met many incredible people who have started businesses, disrupted industries, persevered and turned opportunity into success. Each episode, we will discuss what it takes to become and continue to be a badass CEO, directly from the entrepreneurs who have made it happen. If you're new in your career, dreaming about starting your own business or already an entrepreneur, The Badass CEO Podcast is for you. I want to give you the drive and tools needed to succeed in following your dreams.

Mimi MacLean:
Before we get started today, I wanted to tell you about a great company I found that takes the stress out of all the legal stuff we hate to do. CorpNet helps me out with all my incorporation documents, trademark searches and filings and keeps me compliant for state and federal filings. CorpNet makes it super easy and is reasonably priced. I even have my own CorpNet representative to call on when I have questions. I wish I'd found this company sooner. I would've saved money and slept better, knowing that I filed all the right forms for my company. To learn more, go to the badassceo.com/corpnet.

Mimi MacLean:
Hi, welcome back to The Badass CEO. This is your host, Mimi MacLean, and today I have on Taynaah Reis and she's no newcomer to the fintech world. She started her programming journey at age 12, and founded her first company at age 16. Taynaah is CEO and founder of Moeda, which is Portuguese for coin. Moeda works to create a more inclusive and egalitarian world through blockchain, offering payment solutions that make finance more accessible and contribute to driving social impact.

Mimi MacLean:
Moeda was born from her participation in the 2017 United Nations Hackathon. And thanks to Taynaah's tireless efforts, she's grown to conduct over $100 million in financial transactions across 50,000 global users. From the very beginning, social impact has played a core role in Taynaah's work, evidenced in her 2018 Forbes recognition as one of the 12 young most innovative leaders to watch and learn from and she's raised over $10 million in funding and has provided to seed projects in Brazil.

Mimi MacLean:
To get your Top 10 Tips Every Entrepreneur Should Know, go to thebadassceo.com/tips.

Mimi MacLean:
Taynaah, thank you so much for coming on today. I was reading about your company and your story and you amaze me. I mean, you've accomplished so much and you're so young, but I would love for you to talk about... I mean, there's so much to talk about with your company, like explaining to us about blockchain and all that. But I would love to just go back and talk about your childhood and how you started programming at 12 years old and started your first company at 16 and all that. Can you talk a little bit about your childhood and what led you to start a company so young?

Taynaah Reis:
Absolutely. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Yes, I started very young. At one year old, my dad gave me my first computer. So I was all curious about it, we always have this opportunity as a child. I'm homeschooled, so my mom was teaching me math and about history, and really this eager to learn. I grew up with a library in my home, like 5,000 books and my dad and mom, they were reading to me.

Taynaah Reis:
And I got fascinated with technology. And I saw early on how technology would be able to do everything my dad have done in his life with microcredit and helping and supporting people. I could, with technology, amplify that. So I saw at 12 years old, I was helping to automate his email and doing design and doing the first website. And at 16, I built up a social network so I could connect the farmers to the bids into the government. So I could see and amplify everything with transparency and building this fair economy.

Taynaah Reis:
I had a so rich childhood and I feel so blessed, because he took me every time to the cooperatives, the farmers, the indigenous communities so I could get a sense of different realities and how he was helping people. But he was working within the government, so it was very difficult for him to do the change within the government.

Mimi MacLean:
Oh, right.

Taynaah Reis:
I would see a lot of bureaucracy and I told my dad, "When I grow up, I will give the credit first to the women." And I was like, all the challenges that he had, and I was experiencing this in my childhood. I said, "I will solve this with technology," and here I am. The mission and my mission in life, I feel that everything contributed. He was teaching me English and other languages, and also that opened up many possibilities in my career to study abroad.

Taynaah Reis:
And I feel like everything that my family support me today. Today, my dad is an advisor of the company and my mom is his... She's amazing too. I just feel like every child would have the opportunity to learn different things and study and be incentivized early on and to do good and to bring value to the world. I think we will be in a different place, so I feel blessed.

Mimi MacLean:
That's great. And so you have co-founders now, so how did you come up with the idea and find your co-founders and talk a little bit about your journey, about starting your company?

Taynaah Reis:
In 2017, I was doing consultancy work for the United Nations in New York. I lived in New York for three years and I started investing in Bitcoin early on, in 2015. So I saw and I started studying the technology. I was amazed by... I read The White Paper. I was like, "Oh, this is it. This is the new economy, the new era of abundance. And we can create a fair economy through this." And was around the time that the Sustainable Development Goals people were having the discussions, how we can fund the work. We can eradicate poverty and hunger.

Taynaah Reis:
And I saw the trends in technology that could help to solve the SDGs. So I put together... I hosted a hackathon at the UN at the time, so I coordinated. And the challenge of the hackathon was how we can use blockchain technologies for the Sustainable Development Goals, and especially to target the women in Brazil or in developing countries that need capital and access to finances quick. And I put the challenge. It was amazing people that went to the UN at the time, and we gave the award and the winners were my co-founders. So I was very lucky again, in my life to have found Brad and Isa.

Taynaah Reis:
They already had a big background into blockchain, self sovereign identity. Brad was doing a lot of work into ID and in blockchain in a longer time that I was. And Isa, she's a mathematician, brings the logic. And she's Chinese, so I started to study and learn about this beautiful culture. And I felt that the possibilities in China, they were envisioning in a long term, this technology to be implemented very soon. So today, most of our investors are from Asia. And yes, having her, I started to see how we can do things in a longer term, in 50 years, in a hundred years and with like... She's very strategic and logic. So I learned with them a lot.

Taynaah Reis:
And Brad came from the financial background. Also, he developed things and work at the Deutsche Bank. So I was getting the sense of the financial and traditional industry through them. So, we compliment each other perfectly. And I'm hands-on into developing the technology, architecting the systems, integrating. Today, we have six different blockchain protocols. And the design and implementing in Brazil, where is my home based country first. So we started here because you have the connections, the governmental connections, everything that was needed to implement something big as Moeda is today. So I feel that was just the perfect start with the perfect team to do it.

Mimi MacLean:
That's great. Now, can you explain to some of us who are not as savvy exactly what blockchain is and how maybe they could be applying it to their business? If there's other CEOs on here that are selling things or in other capacities, is there a way that they can transition and use blockchain for their business?

Taynaah Reis:
Absolutely. It's a technology that today that is the underlying technology of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and that can unlock many things. But especially, is the technology for this new area where we need to build trust and the features that this technology has, can bring trust between transactions and between people and consensus. So the big way that people sell, the biggest use case is Bitcoin. So people see, you can transfer monetary value without intermediaries. So I can transfer... If I transfer to you a $100, and if it's arrives in your banking account, we would need a third party validating that, a bank and the government needs to validate the ID.

Taynaah Reis:
But with Bitcoin, no, I can transfer to you just with a address that will allow me to know and recognize that transaction. And this is validated through a network of computers and people that do the Bitcoin mining, that validates that network and that transaction exists, and that cannot be deleted, that cannot be duplicated. So if I send a $100 worth of Bitcoin, that will not be in my account, so will not be a duplication of that value.

Taynaah Reis:
But when Ethereum comes along with smart contracts and other applications of the blockchain technology, you can start to tap into other validations. So for example, selling a home. Today, people are paying things in the gaming industry, but also big homes, they are paying with Bitcoin. So I can transfer the money off Bitcoin. But if it's someone that needs a commission or we need to send to... We can design that logic with [inaudible 00:10:57] the smart contract. Oh, that money needs to arrive here, but you can just give the person the home if they sign the contract.

Taynaah Reis:
So we can start to do the link within the technology with other things in real life that need to be executed. So we open up for logistics, for validating certificates, for validating donations. And we open a lot of applications of the technology into healthcare, to validate vaccination certificate, many, many applications of the technology. So today's like no way to go back or escape. People from many different sectors will heard about it. And today we see a lot of the big companies and big banks, today, they have a director of blockchain or someone that's taking care of blockchain with that transition. Because it's important to have something that we can rely on, that is transparent, that we have the information, but we have means to store value over time and transact them between people.

Taynaah Reis:
And like in Moeda, from months, someone from China, from Japan can invest directly in a cooperative in Brazil. That would be hard to trust a project in a different country with politics and with a lot of uncertainty that we have today in the common days. And the uncertainty is rising and a lot of inflation in countries like mine so people started to pay attention for Bitcoin as a means to store value, to hedge their currency, their own local currency.

Taynaah Reis:
Today, most of the farmers, they started to pay attention and 15% of the farmers and the people was like, "Oh, I want to receive maybe in Bitcoin." They're starting to get understanding that this in the future can drive value and can be a way of investment too. So from the financial side to education, to many other sectors that will be impacted through this technology is always good to... Can be complicated sometimes, but can be simplified by the examples.

Taynaah Reis:
Today, what I see that is helping with the adoption are the NFTs. They're an example of the use of blockchain. So people can start to sell a painting or a music, things that now people can't touch. That is easier to... It's a tangible way to see the technology, how we can implement and sell art in a global digital gallery between people that never seen each other. So we open opportunity for musicians, for artists, or for people that were not included into the economy, the underserved or unbanked people. It's so many possibilities. I'm always happy to [crosstalk 00:13:48].

Mimi MacLean:
Yeah, that's great. Now, this may be a dumb question, but is your currency that you use on Moeda, is it Bitcoin or is it your own currency?

Taynaah Reis:
MDA, we created on the Ethereum protocol. The Ethereum protocol is different from the Bitcoin protocol because has something called a smart contract. And it's an easier way to launch currencies because the language, the programming language, is similar to JavaScript, which is the solidity [inaudible 00:14:14] their language. So we opened the possibilities for a lot of developers in the world, like myself, to get close to it, and to design the token in a way... For example, the utility of Moeda is to invest in projects and to participate on the governance of the projects so we can do and develop other token economics around the currency with that protocol.

Taynaah Reis:
The Bitcoin protocol is more used for transfer value and store value more on the financial side. We wanted to develop something for transparency, especially for the impact investment that we do. So we choose the Ethereum protocol. But Moeda today, we work with other protocols as well. One is the Stellar protocol, because we started to see that the cost of the transaction on Ethereum was getting high and high and high. So we couldn't scale at the time. And then we choose the Stellar, which is good for micropayments.

Taynaah Reis:
So that's what I see when you are building a solution is, you need to study the applications of each blockchain protocol because they can solve some problems. And for other challenges, they are not so good. So building the architecture and the combination of different protocols, you might achieve a complex problem or solution to have. So we found that the simple people, the volatility of the Ethereum was too high. And even our currency, MDA, was up and down and [inaudible 00:15:43] down. And we wanted something that they could understand immediately and would drive the adoption. So we created this stable currency to mirror the local currency. So that was a perfect link so they could exchange very quickly and they just see the local currency.

Taynaah Reis:
And then the other protocol we have used was Hyperledger Fabric, because this one we can track and monitor all the projects, all the information from the project. So you can see, "Oh, I invested on the coffee project from the women producers." You see they planting the coffee and how it's developed, the production and then the sales. And then you get a return on the sales from that. So everything, all the information is stored on the Hyperledger. But we choose other protocol because part of the information must be private, sensitive information like their address, like those things could not be public. The other protocols that I mentioned, they were all public. So that's why we choose a third protocol.

Taynaah Reis:
And then today, to issue NFTs and issue other different kind of digital assets, we choose Polygon because it's more environmental friendly, is less costly on fees and transactions. So we can give NFTs, we can issue NFTs to certify donations, investments and education. So it's a digital way for people to build and store value. And those different technologies that I just, I told about, they're like pieces of the puzzle that connect with the bigger solution, which is build a bank that is more inclusive for people and assets that are customized for their journey, their entrepreneurial journey, being on the city or being a rural area.

Mimi MacLean:
That's great. What have you found to be the hardest part of your journey of starting this company and building it?

Taynaah Reis:
Everything from legislation and regulation. Five years ago was hard to talk about cryptocurrencies. Was a lot of people taking advantage and using to a negative way. So especially in countries like mine, in Brazil, was too negative to associate with a crypto or other things. But as the time went by and Elon Musk and other people, big people, started to talk about blockchain and validate other users of the currencies, El Salvador accepted Bitcoin. All this built up to bring credibility to things that I do, so became easier.

Taynaah Reis:
And also impact investment. Like impact investment, five years ago, people didn't know exactly what it was. Why this is pure philanthropy. And I said, "No, you can invest in people, get the impact return and the financial return. You can do good and do well at the same time, doesn't need to be a trade-off. And you can have this technology to see what they're doing and all the impact metrics."

Taynaah Reis:
But today, people talk about ESG, environmental, social, governance, and most of the banks here in Brazil, they have a mandatory thing that they need to classify their portfolio. Talk about risk, climate change mitigation, and other things that people were not aware, or they were just interested on a marketing perspective. "Oh, see, I'm doing the product and I can plant tress." But yeah, where is the tree? And what is this about? And what are the tangible metrics that you have? And now people are getting more awareness into the impact and sustainability of the assets that they're allocating their portfolio, especially the young generation that I see today that is moving towards this.

Taynaah Reis:
So that was a challenge as well as in a challenge, the gender challenge, to be a women and an entrepreneur. For me, was hard all the way like that it would be for a man, to grow the company, to be a CEO, to handle the team and to handle partnerships. And was a lot of things that I had to grow within myself and make myself stronger and stronger over time to overcome those challenges and really, really feel that, "Okay, I know that how difficult it is. I know most of the startups in Brazil, less than 1% are lead by women." So it's a lot of pressure. And I was like, "Oh, like [inaudible 00:20:18]."

Mimi MacLean:
Who do you look for? Do you look for your dad? Or where do you get like... Do you get mentored? How do you... Obviously, you're not doing it completely on your own as far as bouncing ideas and...

Taynaah Reis:
Yes. Mostly my family, my dad and mom, but I have mentors into particular things that I encounter in my life, that they are there to support me. [Jorge Nogueira 00:20:40], [Ditia 00:20:41], I have a couple of people that I... When I feel lonely in my place of decision and I have something to call. It's like, "Oh, can you help me? I have this challenge with the team, with the technology or with the regulatory space and government."

Taynaah Reis:
So I have a couple of mentors that support me in my journey to build a complex thing, which is a bank for the good, to do good and to be inclusive and to drive innovation. I think both genders are never easy to change the status quo, so... But yes, that was-

Mimi MacLean:
And have you found it hard to get financing and to also get your name out there, like for people to know, to invest or to sign up? How have you done that?

Taynaah Reis:
Yes. So I was lucky to do in a different way and lucky to be on the ICO time. Because that was the way that we financed Moeda at the beginning, was issuing a currency and then getting people to understand and trust the project and to invest of... by investing on a currency, investing in the project. I couldn't get VCs like a Series A round or a pre-seed was too hard. People were like, "Oh, you're going to build a bank? Are you really sure? You're going to have a card, you're going to..."

Taynaah Reis:
And people were doubting. And I said, "Yes, I will do this." And then was [inaudible 00:22:08] I think to Bitcoin and the blockchain, we received the first funding in Bitcoins and Ethereum. So for me, it was a new way to get funded, was a democratic way to get funded and also in a way that I could have more freedom to drive the company for the purpose and the way that I envisioned that to be.

Taynaah Reis:
But now, raising traditional capital is always hard. I know I could say like, "Oh, it's easy." I was like, "No, no, it's hard." You need to check all the boxes, you need to... I wish many things that I knew before, and how to drive the company since the beginning to be really in a good way to build a Series A, Series B, Series C. It's a lot that you don't learn in a MBA or YouTube or even in the university. You learn by doing.

Taynaah Reis:
But now I see there is many formulas to the thing and how you bring and generate real value into the world. To see that transported as a revenue, to see the good that you do and perfecting the product and the technology and see people using and loving it and building not a user base growing on clients, but we see a sense of Moeda and people that feel like participating in our ecosystem and they want to drive change as much as we do. So those beautiful things, it's like every day, never stop learning.

Mimi MacLean:
Yeah, never.

Taynaah Reis:
And how to be a better CEO and a better person.

Mimi MacLean:
Name one thing you would wish you knew from the beginning that you've now learned?

Taynaah Reis:
Those are the topics that I'm always improving. One is people, like I-

Mimi MacLean:
That's hard.

Taynaah Reis:
Building the team, I think that is the key. And sometimes, will be hard times that you postpone. Like the hard conversations and like firing people, and those things that are super difficult. And sometimes you postpone, but you should have done earlier or the way to do it. People don't tell about those things, like how you handle the difficulty, like the [crosstalk 00:24:25].

Mimi MacLean:
The quote is always like, hire slow, fire fast.

Taynaah Reis:
Yes. But even when you fire, you cannot just do out of the blue. You need to prepare the team, otherwise the team will be scared because they will get [inaudible 00:24:39]. So it's a lot of psychology and a lot of other things that intersect that. So I wish I knew how to handle difficult conversations, that I had this in my university as well.

Taynaah Reis:
And things about finance and budget and handle different cycles of the market. So those are the topics that I study and I keep on improving on myself. It's like people studying finances and the market, because there is a lot of cycles. And I've been through... I'm still young, but I've been through a couple of ones, like when there's a good time. And when it's like now, like recession and inflation, how you handle those things and how you drive the company to support in a pandemic.

Taynaah Reis:
And when the time is difficult, when everybody... The mental topic is important too. How you keep everyone safe and create this safe environment so people can share. Because also in the pandemic, everybody went like home office and when the physical kind of like get a distance, you have just the Zoom meeting, is so hard sometimes. And to really clarify the message and to help the mindset, because then you get all the distractions in the world, the TV, politics, and this and that, like all negative. And I was able to bring the energy to the team here while we were in the meeting. But then they would close the computer and would get distracted by all the million things. How you bring the team together and close, even through the distance.

Taynaah Reis:
So those were a lot of things that I was able to learn and with friends, with female founders too, because it's a little bit different, the way that a man handles. And how to bring the Generation Z as well and they are super different. Their focus is different. They care about the things the other people don't see. They care about, "Oh, we want to have meetings about how to treat better the women in the company. How we do respect the women that are not just putting the women in good positions, but having classes for the men in how to like, 'Oh, what is men's planning like?'" All those topics the many older men, they didn't know and was the Generation Z in the company bringing up like, "Oh, you should learn about this. You should respect more. You should listen. Don't interrupt her on the... Oh, why is she doing the notes? You should do the notes."

Taynaah Reis:
Like those little sort of things that I saw the difference on the new generation, like how I'm working in the company and those beautiful, beautiful things. So I wish I would start learning about those topics and more about people and networking and many, many other of the psychology and how to build a company and how to prepare for Series A, B, C. How to engage early on with investors. That was so important for Moeda that I kept touch in the people, just with updates. So when we were asking for, "Oh, we need another raising." And then was like, "Oh, out of the blue." No, they already knew us before. So I wish I had done this, even like further, like 10 years ago, talking, starting talking to investors even before I didn't need any fundraise.

Taynaah Reis:
Like, a lot of those things that I see was by experience and talking to other friends in the community, that I wish I knew before, and to drive a company. And a lot of about myself too. I see my first years as being a CEO, that I was getting mature and wiser, through the time, also more patience and handling myself as well. I learn a lot about myself and how I handle and how I react to problems and difficulties. So as more calm and patient and be able to... I was able to get even bigger responsibilities and handle that with much easy. And that became less anxiety, let's be stressful in my life.

Taynaah Reis:
I came with this, not exactly work-life balance, but integrated life and work. Because like everything that I love, I'm doing. And this integrated in my soul, in my life and it's more than I'm close to my heart and my purpose. But with this plan and strategy and following to see the vision I came to be fulfilled and grateful to be able to design a product and build a company that is serving so many people.

Mimi MacLean:
That's great. Thank you so much for everything you do. Thank you for your time. I wish you the best of luck. You're doing so much to help so many people and make this world a better place. And you're just... A lot of it was like, woo, over my head. I was trying to follow the whole... I'm a little too old to get to... I got to dive in more to the whole blockchain and NFT thing. I've been trying, but I'm not... You're so, what, six or seven years into it. It's just amazing. And I'm just learning about it now. But thank you so much. I wish you the best of luck.

Taynaah Reis:
Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.

Mimi MacLean:
Thank you for joining us on The Badass CEO. To get your copy of the Top 10 Tips Every Entrepreneur Should Know, go to thebadassceo.com/tips. Also, please leave a review as it helps others find us. If you have any ideas or suggestions, I would love to hear them. So email me at mimi@thebadassceo.com. See you next week and thank you for listening.