Rex Highlights: fintech startup, “Boston Mike”, reflection by Pete

Trust you’ve had a refreshing summer with family thus far. Rex as a whole is healthy and thriving. Having fun, kicking butt, and relentlessly pursuing our mission to empower people and elevate humanity. Enjoy the highlights.

COMPANY

PayUp has emerged as one of the most promising initiatives in our cohort of 10 initiatives. PayUp is a fintech product solving the complex needs of real estate professionals at the intersection of finance and accounting. We are excited about the opportunity to empower small businesses and entrepreneurs who need reliable payment solutions while also empowering accountants and finance professionals.?

After extensive work, we’ve substantially improved our end-to-end user adoption flow. We have seen a 150% growth in new vendor onboarding over the last quarter. The new flow enables our staff, via a beautiful self-service experience, to spend zero time onboarding new users, who are primarily real estate contractors and small business owners.?

PayUp has also seen impressive top-line growth, in-line with user adoption, growing 150% this quarter. We attribute this growth to the compelling value proposition users are experiencing, meeting not just a desire but an actual need for working people.?

TEAMMATE

Mike Walsh celebrates 3 years with Rex. Although a relatively short tenure,?Mike?has done an incredible job building our talent sourcing, managing, and onboarding operation. He is a no-glitz, all-substance type of guy and reflects our ethos at Rex quite well where we like cash over flash and steak over sizzle.?

Mike?grew up in the?Boston?area and has kept his fighting Irish roots and local accent alive, earning him the nickname “Boston?Mike” (unfortunately, he’s a Red Sox fan). His mother was a nurse and his father a plumber. He earned a BA in Psychology at?Boston?University. He has had a wide-ranging career from startups to established companies, specializing in talent acquisition and management.

Prior to joining Rex,?Mike?operated at Expedia Group for many years where he rose through the ranks to a corporate role with a 20-person technical recruiting team. In addition to recruiting, he worked on centralizing and standardizing processes, best practices, and documentation.?

Mike?and his loving wife enjoy Austin with Zaya, their German Shepherd.?Mike’s also an avid practitioner of martial arts with a 3rd degree black belt in Shaolin Kungfu and a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (look out Mark Zuckerberg!).?

Mike?loves the mission and values of Rex. He was sold on joining after viewing the?Hillsdale College speech by Peter Rex on the problems with the tech industry.?Mike?is all about Rex’s ambition to create new tech leadership that empowers people, particularly the working class he grew up around in the?Boston?area.

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REFLECTION BY PETE

“One is not permitted to step back when things are going wrong, but only when things are at peace”,?“you are not permitted to leave because you’re under pressure”, and “one is not allowed to go away if one is running away.”?

Words by Pope Benedict in the book Last Testament. Worth reflection. Applies well to entrepreneurship and employment, as well as stewardship of resources, capital, and people. Applies to all areas of life, in fact.

My quick thoughts: in business, you never really know who has character until you see how they handle really tough times. They either jump ship, or attack. My teammates and investors at Rex and Rex affiliates have proven to be the sort that have strong character, and the fire we’ve come through over the last few years has proven it.

Creating real value for others in business is very hard, and requires people with a strong sense of duty. Duty to shareholders, to investors, to fellow team members, and society at large. Tough times make and reveal character. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by so many rough riders who have continued to fight alongside me in stewarding assets and creating new tech leadership that focuses on empowering people and elevating humanity. Frankly, given my own shortcomings as a leader, I am humbled.

We hear very little about duty nowadays. Duty is perhaps one of the most important things a truly solid human must keep in mind. We have obligations to people, and we need to come through. If they place resources with us, we are committed to following through. We cannot choose easier paths, or bowing out. Mistakes can be made, but they must be owned and measures taken to redress. We can move on to other jobs or missions only when the mission taken up has reached a peaceful path with traction, success, and relative stability. In other words, when transitioning is truly possible. And still, we can only do so when we hand over the reins in an organized, prudent way to a competent person to continue the leadership (if the mission is ongoing).

Discuss with Pete on?LinkedIn?or?X/Twitter.

WAYS YOU CAN HELP

There are always three ways to help:

(1)?Talent.?We seek excellent, missionary tech talent.?

(2)?Investors.?We seek aligned investment partners.?

(3)?Strategic opportunities.?We are always open to partnerships, new customers to serve, and exit opportunities to serious buyers.

SEEKING TALENT

Some of the talent we are prioritizing to hire:

• ML (Machine Learning) engineers?
• PropTech business development leaders with deep multifamily property management connections?
• InsurTech business development leaders with deep insurance industry knowledge and connections
• InsurTech executive leaders with deep industry knowledge, strong tech capabilities, and entrepreneurial experience

TECH COMPANIES

As a reminder, a few Rex tech companies seeking customer growth, partnerships, and talent:?

• JobCall:?natural language processing (NLP) solution for intake and routing of work orders / service requests.
• GetDone:?operating system for maintenance, with efficiency gains enabled by enhanced work order transparency and tracking.?
• IDcore:?easy-to-use, fast vendor credentialing and screening tool with a clever machine learning feature that provides customers with a reliable and transparent way to find contractors for hire.
• PayUp:?best-in-class fintech company with a highly fruitful and scalable payment processing solution used by contractors, property managers, and owners.?
• OwnProp:?company tokenizes real estate on the blockchain with an integrated app experience, enabling ease of purchase for real estate investors.
• InsurePro:?insurtech company, licensed in 48 states, uses machine learning capabilities to quickly provide owners of small and medium-sized businesses low-cost insurance.