Calculated Risk...

Calculated Risk Means Knowing When to Lose the Battle to Win the War.

This past April The Clearing House, together with the Carolina Fintech Hub, held a competition/hackathon. Where banks and fintechs (financial tech companies) competed on who can develop the best solution, using the new Real-Time-Payment aka #RTP rails to process, clear, and settle these transactions.

There were four winners one of each of the following categories:

• The best B2B Payment Solution
• The best Consumer Payment Solution
• The best Back Office Solution
• The Next Digital Native Solution

When I heard about it, I got excited, because we at SHTAR will have the opportunity to test and showcase the platform we’ve been building for the past five months.

In December 2018, we started developing a Payment Processing platform that interfaces accounting software applications with bank ACH platforms, to automate processes and eliminate manual reconciliation.

I planned to change some of the ACH processing mechanics to route the transactions over the RTP network, to show off our solution. I was not sure whether to go for the B2B solution or the Back Office solution. We probably had a great chance for either one.

Three days before the hackathon started, when I got a calendar invite email, and I sew the list of all participants, at that moment, I realized how serious this competition is. We’re competing with some of the top developers from the biggest banks in the country.

I have to admit. I freaked out. I pulled an all-nighter, trying to figure out whether to continue or not. I decided we sure cannot win by not risking to lose. We have to keep going.

While trying to figure out a winning strategy, experimenting with some crazy ideas and iterations, that may or may not work. I set down to clarify the objectives and goals in order to take a calculated risk. I wrote the following three things that we want to take out of this competition: 1) Test our system and infrastructure, to see it working in real live transactions. 2) Getting our name out there in the fintech/banking community. 3) Getting recognized for what we have done.

Suddenly the light bulb came on.

How about we change the definition of winning?.
How about we compete on all four challenges, and if we don’t win the competition, we win on courage. We will at least have done something that no one else has.

For that, we had to push the limit of our infrastructure. We will have to add functionality to handle Consumer payments (like P2P, eCommerce, and POS systems) and modify components to have the functionality to be the Next Digital Native Platform.

I knew for this plan to work; we need to have everyone fully committed. So, the first thing in the morning I discussed it with the developers to make sure they’re all in, we went over logistics and schedule. We had to make sure it is possible to build it all in the span of 17 days (less three days of Shabatt) while working on the general SHTAR development. Then I discussed it with the entire team to make sure everyone agrees to the plan, and the risk it involves.

The 17 days of madness began, we worked day and night, developing all four solutions, as planned. When things were well on there way, we realized that we need to start working on the demo, as well.

What should I tell you? When the SHTAR system finally worked for B2B, POS, eCommerce, and P2P transactions over the RTP network, it felt like pure magic. Seeing how transactions settle, sync, and reconcile in real-time for all types of transactions was such an achievement that the hackathon win became secondary.

Although the SHTAR team was runnerup on all of the four challenges, we got recognized for being the only participant with the courage to develop four great solutions.

My personal reflection, a hackathon win would’ve been a nice boost to our egos. I am so proud to say that we won on all 3 of our priorities.
We pushed our infrastructure to new heights and limits much more than thought possible and tested all functions with live transactions on the RTP network.

We have put ourselves out there, and we have built productive relationships with many community influencers. We got the recognition that we deserved, and last, but not least, I’m so proud of our team for stepping up and making it happen.

A special thanks to Peter Davey (#TCH), Patrick Rivenbark (#CFH), Aubrey Hawes (Oracle), and all the esteemed judges and the entire Carolina Fintech Hub team, for the opportunity, recognition, and the invaluable feedback.

I want to personally congratulate all the hackathon winners, especially Bhavana Prathipati of Fifth Third Bank, and Garrett Astler of AvidXchange for winning the overall title and the best B2B solution. Also, Kunal Das of South State Bank, and Gregory Lloyd of Levvel for their success.

To conclude, the following is a famous speech by Theodore Roosevelt.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

When everything seems lost, keep going, as long as you’re in the game, you are a winner.