In the Spotlight: Raffi Kayat

Hi friends 👋 Logan here.

Welcome to June! Hope everyone had a great weekend. Loved seeing Lexington alive with Railbird and UK baseball fans this weekend.

Before we get to into things, I just wanted to call out that we’re going to start placing more focus on our newsletter and growing our subscriber base. If you know of anyone that would enjoy receiving this newsletter each week, it’d mean a lot to us if you could forward it onto them. We’d also love any feedback on how we can make this more valuable for you, so please email me at [email protected] if you have any suggestions. More to come on all that…

For this week’s episode, we’re joined by Raffi Kayat - co-founder of borderless Payments, based in Louisville, Kentucky. We last had Raffi on for episode 98, over 4 years ago.

The Company: borderless Payments

borderless is a global payments company that makes sending money internationally simple and affordable. They offer solutions for businesses and individuals, allowing payouts to 120+ countries in over 80 currencies. With features like multi-currency accounts, real-time payment tracking, and a robust API, Raffi and his team empower secure, fast, and cost-effective transactions. The platform is designed for various industries, including influencer platforms, freelancer marketplaces, and the gig economy, making global payments as easy as local ones.

When we last interviewed Raffi, he and his co-founder had just relocated to Louisville from NYC to start the company.

What We Discussed: borderless Evolution, Learnings from Raffi’s Journey, Fundraising Misconceptions

Raffi broke down the misconceptions many founders have about raising capital, especially outside major tech hubs, and shared his journey of adapting and evolving his business. We also got an inside look at the latest innovations at borderless and how they're simplifying global payments. It was a candid chat that underscored the importance of grit, adaptability, and staying tuned to customer needs.

What You Can Learn by Listening:

1. Importance of Grit: We all know that entrepreneurship is hard as sh*t. But how exactly is it hard? That answer varies widely based on the founder, and we always love to hear how companies overcome challenges throughout their journey. It paints a more realistic picture for those aspiring to start their own company one day.

2. Building with a Customer-Centric Approach: One of the most important things a founder can do when building a company is to endlessly collect customer feedback and build their business based on that feedback. Raffi dove into what that’s looked like for borderless as the company has evolved.

3. Finding Your Niche: Riches in niches and all that. Finding a niche largely stems from building with a customer centric approach and requires some adaptability as you build the business.

Events

As part of our focus on this newsletter, we also plan to start highlighting upcoming events for the coming month, both for Middle Tech and other organizations that support our community. Here’s what we’ve got on our schedule:

• Celebrating 15 years of Awesome Inc - Tuesday, June 11th

  Hosted at Awesome Inc from 6pm - 8pm

  Evan and I will be doing a live podcast recording with Brian Raney, co-founder and CEO of Awesome Inc. Free event with refreshments provided. Awesome Inc has impacted so many in the Kentucky startup ecosystem (myself included) and their story is… awesome.

  Register here

• 5 Across - Wednesday, June 19th

  Hosted at The Mane on Main from 5pm - 7pm

  5 local startups will pitch for up to $5,500. Entrepreneurship, competition, and community collide. Always a blast and a great way to meet those building in the community. $5 to attend, but you get dinner and refreshments. No brainer.

  Register here

That’s all we’ve got for you this week! Thanks for reading. Don’t forget to forward if you enjoyed this one 😁🫶 

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