Artificially Intelligent with Sam Maule and Maia Bittner

The age old question - Will the US ever have a superapp?

• Sam Maule, Maia Bittner, Rachel Morrissey

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Curious about why superapps are struggling to make a splash in the U.S. market? Join us as we uncover the unique barriers and skeptical outlook surrounding their success. Discover how the high costs of customer acquisition in fintech are pushing companies towards the super app model as a solution to maximize revenue from their existing user base. Tune in as we share insights from the latest Finnovate conference and debate if a major retailer like Walmart has what it takes to defy the odds and thrive in this complex landscape.

What makes the U.S. so different from regions where super apps have flourished? We examine the disparity between the enthusiasm of CEOs and the practical hurdles of implementing such apps stateside. From the lack of government support that has bolstered similar ventures in China and Dubai to the way the pandemic has altered consumer behavior with technologies like Apple Pay, we analyze whether these shifting market dynamics could pave the way for super apps in America. We also highlight the unique environments that have enabled super apps to excel abroad and why replicating that formula in the U.S. is not a straightforward task.

Could Walmart be the game-changer in the fintech arena? With a vast and loyal customer base, a significant physical footprint, and strong strategic partnerships, we explore Walmart's potential to offer superior financial solutions. We delve into the importance of their grocery business, substantial e-commerce growth, and the challenges posed by cultural and talent gaps in tech and financial services. Drawing on insights from Jason Del Rey's book "Winter Sales: Amazon, Walmart and the Battle for Our Wallets," we discuss whether Walmart can overcome these obstacles to emerge as a leader in the super app space. Join us for this engaging exploration of the future of super apps in the U.S. and Walmart's potential role in shaping it.

Hosts: Sam Maule & Maia Bittner


Maia Bittner:

What's up guys? Welcome to another episode of Artificially Intelligent brought to you by Money 2020. I here with my three-month-old baby in the background, so you might hear some tiny baby hiccups. I'm Maia Bittner, your perpetual fintech intern, and we jumped on and Sam (Maule) was like "Maia, I got a topic I wanna talk to you about, let's jam. So here we are, sam. What are you excited about today?

Sam Maule:

And I can hear the baby and I'm so happy Because one all my grandkids were with me in Ponte Vida Beach yesterday and my six month old granddaughter literally thought the bald spot on my head was a chew toy and chewed on it for like 30 minutes, which all my kids thought was hilarious. So you know, goals, Maia, goals. But the second is last week I was at Finnovate out in San Francisco and I was asked to give one of those 15-minute keynotes. You got to love those 15 minutes, right, tell us everything about embedded finance and where it's headed and all this other nonsense. But part of it was in what was my take on super apps, and so it's one of those. I know you've experienced this. You're on stage, you 100% know you're killing it, you're loving yourself, it's just going awesome. You get off stage and someone goes yeah, you were completely wrong, which I love. There's nothing better than getting on stage and sitting with somebody who's questioning what you said.

Sam Maule:

And the question came about super apps in the US because I said I still just don't see it happening. I said, maybe, walmart, maybe, but again, I don't know. Maybe I'm old and crusty or I'm just jaded, I don't know. But I'm still waiting toy, or I'm just jaded, I don't know. But I'm still waiting to see a super app take off, and I had almost an hour and a half discussion outside in the foyer around Walmart, and so I would love, love, love to get your opinion on where you see super apps as far as their popularity in the US. Will it ever happen? Is it going to be a retailer that does that?

Maia Bittner:

Yeah, Dude, I was going to come in here and talk about how skeptical I am about super apps. I think there's really. You know, when I think about super apps, I think there's. So everybody loves to talk about it. Ceos, every fintech company is building a super app. I think there's two big reasons. Loves to talk about it. Ceos, every fintech company is building a super app. I think there's two big reasons, or there's like only two reasons why people wanna build a super app. One I think it sounds cool and that might sound goofy but, like dude, all kinds of like product and business decisions are made because the CEO thinks it sounds cool, Like it's actually a huge driving force. I actually also don't think it's that bad of a thing, but yeah, super App sounds cool and two fintech CACs are killing everybody.

Maia Bittner:

The customer acquisition cost is so high to do anything that people are drowning. Their CAC to LTV ratio is suffering, like they're just not making enough money given how much they're paying for customers. And so I think people are desperate for like, okay, how are we going to make more money? Well, can we cross sell them on other things, like if we can get the same customer we already paid kind of too much for to do more with us and to give us more revenue, then maybe this equation will start looking worth it. So I was going to be pretty skeptical, but, sam, you got me intrigued with Walmart. I actually think Walmart is a very sophisticated player. I think they have a huge customer base that has a big need for financial services and they've tried a lot of stuff. Now Walmart's had a lot of, I would say, kind of missteps on their path to being a fintech player. Do you agree their path to being a?

Sam Maule:

fintech player. Do you agree? And I do think that's part of the apprehension everybody has, because, for Lord, 15 years now, everyone is talking about big tech and banking, FANG and banking, FANG and financial services, and you know there's a group of us that have made a killing on stage talking about this now for 15 plus years and yet here we still are. So, Maia, I was in San Francisco last week at Finnovate Spring and I was lucky enough to get one of those 15 minute keynote slots everybody's favorite and it was on the topic of embedded finance. But they also wanted me to comment on super apps in the US and whether or not I believe these would take off.

Sam Maule:

And I can tell you that, historically, whenever I was asked this question, I said no, that I just could not see in the US environment, with the way that we look at banking and payments and the regulatory side and all 50 states and take your pick that a super app wouldn't take off here. And that's what I said on stage. And as soon as I got off stage, I was cornered by about two or three people that questioned me on that statement and I had an hour and a half discussion outside of where I gave the keynote on this and I got to tell you I'm maybe a little bit persuaded that we could have a super app in the US and that if we do have a super app in the US, it's going to be Walmart. It's going to be a retailer that pulls this off, and I so wanted to get your opinion. If you think I'm absolutely bonkers, or could we actually see a super app take off in the US?

Maia Bittner:

Wow, you know, sam, we're pretty aligned in that. I'm also skeptical of super apps taking off in the US. I think people look, right, obviously, china WePay. People are so excited about the numbers that they're seeing out of China they forget that that is a government-sponsored company, right, very different than the environment and the support and the infrastructure we have in the United States. And, to be honest, I think there's two reasons why CEOs are excited about super apps. One, I think it sounds cool, like woo, super app, like don't you want to be, yeah, the CEO of a super app? And I'm being silly, but I do think, like, look, a lot of business and marketing decisions are based off of what CEOs think sound cool. It's also not the worst thing, but yeah, I think that, like that is a big driving force over necessarily it being a great business decision or something that's going to have a lot of uptake.

Maia Bittner:

I also think we are just being crushed on all sides by customer acquisition costs in fintech. It is brutal. No matter what type of company fintech are paying, there's so much money to acquire customers and they're fintech, fintech, fintech, fintech I'm trying to say fintech, cac their customer acquisition costs are too high given the lifetime value of their customer base. And so they're looking. They're like okay, I can't figure out how to pay less money and still acquire customers. So in order to make that ratio work, I've got to start making more money from them. Can I cross, sell them on more profitable things? Can I drive more revenue streams? So people are excited, but not from a customer demand perspective. They're excited about the business that would exist if the customers were excited. So if this, does that make sense? Like that's why I worry. Nobody's like oh, customers hate that they have to open up both their Chase app and their Venmo app. I've never heard someone say that Is that?

Sam Maule:

a problem? I have never heard anybody Again. This gets back to what's very popular here, especially in the US, when it comes to big tech is a solution looking for a problem? Yes, I mean, it's again that classic no one buys a solution, people buy problems. People. Oh my God, I love that you said that, cause I say this all the time If you want to be successful, solve pain.

Maia Bittner:

Yes, Solve for pain when who was it?

Sam Maule:

Oh, remember, it was with Apple Pay when it was first coming out and they they had that God awful video of the person in their purse fumbling to find their credit card to make the payment at the launch. I still laugh at that. I think it was Tim Cook talking about it. I'm like bad acting and it's not a pain point. I just I refuse to believe, especially in the US, the idea of using your card to swipe and yet tap to pay is taken off here, which is a good thing, and you know the continuous migration of activities into a digital format. Like I said, I was in San Francisco, I was at the airport standing in line and you see the whole thing about taking your driver's license and put it in your phone. I'm like yeah.

Sam Maule:

I get it. It is nice. The phone's in my hand, it's here, but then again on the mobile, on this brick that we hold in our hands all the time. This thing is 15 years old. This is a form factor that's going to get replaced. I don't know what it's going to be. We talked about this in an episode before about the Facebook, the meta glasses with the AI built into them and how much you? Love it right.

Maia Bittner:

Yeah right, how do I pay or validate my identity with the meta glasses? Can they scan my red? Like that's interesting? Yeah, and I think, like apple pay, so apple pay, hugely successful, tap to pay, nfc. Um, part of that, I do think, was spurred by covid, because it took paying with your card from like and not that big of a deal to a real pain point.

Maia Bittner:

People didn't want to touch things. They didn't want their things to touch things. It seems like maybe that wasn't actually a valid way to prevent COVID. Now that we have more information about airborne disease et cetera, like touching stuff is kind of okay, but for a long time people were really freaked out and that was enough of a hurdle for people to start using tap to pay who never had it set up on their phone before, who never bothered. It made the pain bigger. I think we need to look at the same thing when trying to make the argument for a super app. Is is there? You know this hasn't really existed before. But are there market changes or technology changes where this is suddenly going to make a lot more sense?

Sam Maule:

Yeah, and again, you talked about CEOs and boards getting all excited about buzzwords. So, super App, I can see why it gets them excited. So, especially if they look at Asia, because we hear about China constantly, right With Alipay and WeChat, and the success, the billions of users that they have, or hundreds of millions of users. But then you look at, you know, we've seen super apps succeed outside of China, um, with you know stuff like um Carium or Karma, however the hell you say it out of Dubai, um, zappy in Latin America, um, you know the Philippines has, you know, their own version, as does Vietnam, um, but whenever I heard those arguments I would always come back to yeah, if you're trying to replicate what happens in China, good luck, right, I mean, this is more or less. The government went in and said you're a winner, you're a winner chicken dinner. And you know, I don't see that happening in the US.

Maia Bittner:

And the same with India and right, upi and their identity system, like we don't even have a national identity, anything. Do you know what I mean? It's just this like smorgasbord of different providers and this oligopoly of the credit bureaus, who are semi-independent but state-sanctioned third parties that arbitrate. I mean it's such a mess, it's so different.

Sam Maule:

Yeah, I worked for 11FS, you know, based out of the UK, for a long time and when I would ever describe the US, I said you do all remember we fought a war of independence against you. So if you tell an American what to do, if you want to get an American to do something, tell them the opposite of what you want them to do, because we hate to be told what to do or to only be given one choice. Right, I mean, it's just. You know, we love the variety here. Good Lord, that makes me laugh. But I say all that and I keep coming back to. Could Walmart pull this off?

Maia Bittner:

And, yeah, walmart and Walmart has a really unique customer base. They're very good at executing, though I would say that they've had some missteps in fintech before and, frankly, their customer base is pretty underserved by the existing players in the world of fintech and banking. Right Like Chase is not serving these customers particularly well, wells Fargo is not serving them well, bank of America isn't serving them well. They're mostly using Western Union, green Dot, a bunch of kind of alternative financial providers, and it would not surprise me if Walmart, who partners with a lot of these companies, is looking at what makes sense and working behind the scenes to stitch something together and would be able to provide it with better margins than the existing players.

Sam Maule:

That was the argument that I was given as soon as I left the stage at Pinnabate Spring and walked out. The person that challenged me and I love this because it was perspective that I don't have Everybody. I live outside of Jacksonville and I love this because it was perspective that I don't have Everybody. I live outside of Jacksonville, florida, which is a good size city, and you know I've only lived in large cities in the US, so I don't have the perspective of more smaller town, rural communities experiences. And this was the person that challenged me because she lives in Montana, like in the middle of nowhere in Montana, and she goes all of my retail, everything I do is through Walmart. That is my experience. And I was like, yeah, you know what? This is a point of view that I don't have.

Sam Maule:

And I did a little bit of research on this and I started laughing. You know, when you look at some of this, because the market presence that Walmart has, you know they'll tell you that 90% of the US populations live within 10 miles of a Walmart store. That is amazing to me, right? Wow, so over 5,000 stores. I know 5,000 stores in the US. That's like a JP Morgan stat, isn't?

Maia Bittner:

it Within how many miles? Within 10 miles 90% of the US population.

Maia Bittner:

Interesting Within 10 miles 90% of the US population. Interesting People who live in San Francisco would be excluded from that. There's no Walmart within 10 miles of downtown San Francisco. Now, not that many people live in San Francisco. It's actually a tiny city, about 800,000. But it is such a culturally dominant force, particularly in the tech industry. It's funny that it's 90% of Americans but not a lot of the people who are designing tech apps and thinking about what makes sense for American consumers. It's really interesting to me.

Sam Maule:

Yeah, and you see that in the products that Walmart's tested with. So you think about their partnerships they have with Green Dot. So again you're looking at prepaid. They did with Amex and Bluebird, right.

Maia Bittner:

Yes.

Sam Maule:

Which made all the sense in the world, because the thing that I like about Walmart is they have both an online and a physical presence and the logistics to make this all work right, whereas Amazon is online, you know, and they've had incredible success. Walmart is well positioned, from both in real life and online, to dominate in this space, which they already do, don't get me wrong.

Maia Bittner:

I think they're incredibly well positioned for that. What do you think is important about the physical presence?

Sam Maule:

Here's what I think is interesting. Right so, their average consumer. A couple years ago I did some research on this their annual revenues are $48,000, right so, again, it's a market, like you said, outside of San Francisco completely different demographic, and they're a loyal based. They're very loyal in the shopping that they do. It's repetitive. I like repetition, huge fan of repetition. I personally don't shop at Walmart, I barely shop period. But when I do, I'm at Target and I'm pulling out the red card because my wife has beaten to me you will use the red card at Target.

Maia Bittner:

You must use the red card.

Sam Maule:

Oh, yeah, yes, yeah, I've been slapped in the back of the head several times for not pulling out.

Maia Bittner:

Cannot use a different credit card.

Sam Maule:

Exactly. I have been trained so I don't you know I can't tell you the last time I was personally in a Walmart, but still there's a massive user base that does. And also, you know, does their purchases online? Do you know? I just heard this on a podcast today from Scott Galloway 60% of Walmart's revenue comes from groceries. I was surprised by that. I got to be honest. So that's repetitive shopping. Maia, you know where you go to get your groceries you know where you go to get your groceries.

Sam Maule:

you know I live in Florida so it's Publix, but Walmart they're a grocer, you know for in-store. So I think controlling that foot traffic, but also controlling you know what you're seeing at the POS, that was a big deal when they were partnered with Green Dot and then they did the partnership with Bluebird, was what were you going to see? You know, as you were standing in line, what was the offer going to be? That foot traffic that they got, because that was more or less free advertising for them to push something. So I and I will also tell you and I said this when we were talking outside Finnovate if you want to get some of the best ethnic food in the US right now, go to Bentonville, arkansas. Because of the engineering team that they have put there, the sheer talent that Walmart has hired, don't go anywhere else in Arkansas, but damn, go to Bentonville. Some really good restaurants there, by the way.

Maia Bittner:

E-commerce as well as doing online ordering and pickup. Huge force, Walmartcom. Huge, walmart Plus huge. They're really investing in coming after Amazon aggressively from this angle and I think they have their customers' loyalty more than Amazon does.

Sam Maule:

I agree with you. And here's another thing. This is why I got so excited about this topic, Maia. For those of you that don't know, and I think Maia will take this as a compliment, Maia and I are geeks. We really are In our free time. We read about payments. I go on YouTube and watch videos on targeting payments so I can learn more on weekends. My wife is like you are just the saddest person in the world because she looks at my YouTube feed. This weekend I watched ones on Sears Roebuck, Maia, because Sears is fascinating to me.

Maia Bittner:

Here's a company that dominated. Yes, I love Sears.

Sam Maule:

Yeah, but they dominated the market for well over almost a century, and their collapse was something that didn't need to happen, and here's what I mean by that.

Sam Maule:

Nope, they failed to keep up. But think about this they had the opportunity to dominate Amazon and what I meant by that was their catalog that they had and the sheer volume of employees they had 30,000 to 50,000, if I remember right that supported that catalog, that physical catalog. If they had pivoted to online, they had the logistics in place, they had the brand name in place. If they had pivoted that catalog to online and literally it was right around the time that Amazon was taken off that they shut down their catalog company, they were positioned to, you know, they were there. Same with Blockbuster, with Netflix. Blockbuster was well positioned, you know, especially as far as an online distribution model, to own the market and didn't see the curve coming. Sears. Example of this Blockbuster. Example of this Walmart. They're not playing that game. They've invested, they've bought companies, they bought what, even Financial, they're their now and buy now, pay later, if I'm not mistaken, right Pushing their own product.

Maia Bittner:

They bought Jet, they bought one.

Sam Maule:

They bought one. Yeah, I mean, here's a company that has the capital to invest to bring talent on, that has a user base that can do what you know. When I was at Google it was, you know, that idea of experiment like crazy. But don't you know, don't be afraid to shut down ideas. Walmart is well positioned to do that and to experiment both online and at the physical store. That's a fantastic combination.

Maia Bittner:

This is kind of an aside, but I love shopping by catalog. I don't know if you shop by catalog. Catalog I don't know if you shop by catalog. I love that. My wife does dude.

Maia Bittner:

You get no entering your pop-up here or like what, no pop? You get no pop-ups that are like enter your email here to get 10 off. There's none of that like stupid spin, discount shit. There's no like thing that cops up in the corner and is like talk to an ai customer, customer. None of that. There's none of that. There's no. I mean Amazon. I can't even handle Amazon. There's so many like weird Chinese brands and you have to subscribe and save. And then there's the discounts, reviews and the all. It's too much for me. I love opening a catalog. I get to see pictures of beautiful women wearing clothes and it's like like you would look as beautiful as this woman if you wore this clothing. I'm like, yeah, that sounds nice. It's just a nice experience. Flip through, pick out some things. It's relaxing. It's nothing like shopping online today. That's uh, it's just an aside for me.

Sam Maule:

I don't know how unique I am. I know I'm with you, um, I I'm an avid reader. I cannot read online, I don't read off a tablet. I I read books. They have to be in my hand. That's just how I am and that's the experience that I personally enjoy. So I love the asides Maia, I always love the asides. Back to Walmart, so they're innovating, they're buying.

Maia Bittner:

They're throwing everything in the bucket of keeping up. Their stock has been cranking recently. They Do. We think they can pull it off. I mean, what's an example of somebody who has really pivoted their company from pre-tech to kind of this post-internet age and has managed to pull that off successfully and stayed dominant.

Sam Maule:

Yeah, I mean especially from a retail standpoint. Right Again, I'm huge on churn. I'm huge, like you said, customer acquisition costs when you don't have it. So I found a stat you'd find interesting A typical Walmart shopper is likely to go to Walmart 63 times a year and buy 13 different products once a week.

Sam Maule:

So, that's through the gates, it's through the till. I remember I was telling somebody, you know, my favorite solutions are one that you just it's constant. Like I like mass transportation. I know, you know, I lived in the UK for a long time and I remember when Barclays was able to get the tube, write the card to go ahead and tap and go, and that's seven million people a day jumping on the tube every day. Same in New York, same with BART San Francisco. I love that, that idea of repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. And that is an advantage that Walmart and, let's be honest, amazon. I'm a folks, I shop on Amazon. I'll be honest. I am not a catalog person, I am a let me search. Whoever says this is the best.

Maia Bittner:

Sam do you shop on? Is it pronounced Temu? Do you shop on Temu?

Sam Maule:

I do not but my kids, every one of my kids does. Every single one of my kids and that is one of the top 10 downloaded apps of 2023 in the US is a Chinese shopping app.

Maia Bittner:

So I kind of I mean I don't like shopping on Amazon in general because I feel like it's all Chinese garbage. That said, I recognize that sometimes we need some Chinese garbage, like there's sort of a place for it.

Maia Bittner:

Like you know, I was looking at, my daughter loves bubbles and I wanted a bubble maker, like just a machine that sits on the patio and spits out bubbles. That's going to be Chinese garbage, right, but that's all I want. I don't want a high quality Like I, just it only even really needs to last, like this one summer. I it only even really needs to last, like this one summer. I looked on Temu you can, because here's the thing it's the same Chinese garbage as they sell on Amazon, but way cheaper, and I think Wish before that was even cheaper and AliExpress and Ali like it depends on you basically exchange hassle for saving money.

Sam Maule:

You know what it is. As much of that as you want to do is fine. I'm going to give myself a shout out. That was my point when I talked about invented finance on stage, and I actually stole this from Wade Arnold who had founded the company I worked for, Move. He said when you think about payments, you got to quit thinking about monetizing payments and you got to think about monetizing the point of need, that decision point. Isn't that a good line?

Maia Bittner:

Yeah.

Sam Maule:

Really, wade, I'm giving you the shout out. I should have made the t-shirt and trademarked that damn comment. But I love that idea that when we talk about embedded finance, embedded wealth, you take your pick. It's all around pain points. It's all around, I need it right now, and you just described that in your shopping experience, right. Yep, make this easy and make it right now.

Maia Bittner:

The other right yep, make this easy and make it right now. The other thing I, so I can't say this on twitter. It's one of those things that would get me canceled.

Sam Maule:

I don't even know why, but but this is a safe spot.

Maia Bittner:

That's exactly this is my safe place because you know, we only have some little couple devoted listeners who are loyal to us, um, and it's hard to. It's hard to cancel someone for a podcast. You have to make a clip, it's like a whole thing. So it's just. There's this interesting thing where I'm kind of the like tech elite crowd right, that's been. My background is like the obnoxious people who live in San Francisco and are super bullish on tech and don't live like real Americans.

Sam Maule:

You know what a DAF is, and I didn't. There's a great example.

Maia Bittner:

That's my life, but there's been this really interesting transition because having kids has kind of brought me closer to an average American's life in many ways, because I think, like most Americans have kids and there's a kind of a there is some socioeconomic thing. It goes both ways, like having a lot of kids is a status symbol in San Francisco because it's so expensive to provide the life that you want. But also, but below that, below like that which in the class of people I'm at, it's sort of like you're less likely to have kids the more money you have and the less money to have kids. The more money you have and the less money people have, the more likely they're having kids. It's just one of those things. Anyway, point is having kids I have two now sort of living a little bit more of an average American life because of that, and I had this experience recently that I found quite interesting.

Maia Bittner:

So we've been spending more time at Walmart, not because we really shop at Walmart or want to shop at Walmart, but because they have awesome electric car chargers in very good condition. They have 10 of them between our house in Seattle, which is a route we drive a lot In good condition. Our car actually comes with free electric car charging for the first couple of years at these chargers, so it's great. So we're always charging our car there and I go in. Walmart is incredibly comfortable and accessible for my new lifestyle with kids, including.

Maia Bittner:

They have a nursing room at Walmart. They have a private room with a locking door and a comfy chair that I can go in to nurse my baby. I've never seen any other store with a nursing room. And then and they've also got, you know, they've got the like, everything else it's just like very, very approachable and it's comfortable for me to be there. And I think it's like man. If I could be doing more at Walmart not just electric car charging, but some banking and more pieces, it could be really compelling. I'm spending a half an hour there, you know, at least once a month charge my car anyway.

Sam Maule:

So it's interesting. We've hit on all the reasons why this should work for Walmart, right. I mean loyal customers, an incredible online and physical footprint, the logistics side, learning from history, the great tech talent that they have. What stops this or what prevents this from happening?

Maia Bittner:

It's still not their thing. Walmart is better than anyone else in the world at cramming down the price that they pay their suppliers. I'm serious.

Sam Maule:

No, actually ask Target. Target's now discounting prices on 5,000 items to keep up with Walmart, who, Walmart, I believe, had a much better quarter. Their stuff is so cheap.

Maia Bittner:

Yes, walmart had an incredible quarter. Nobody can compete with the prices that Walmart has, and that's because their costs are so low. Negotiating down their suppliers, getting them to change different things because they're a huge fit for it, so they're best in the world at that. That's always going to be the cultural focus of the company. That's where your star performers are going to go. Work is in that part of the company. That's who gets the credit.

Maia Bittner:

If you are, if that's your thing, right is doing supplier negotiations like that. You aspire to work at Walmart, right? If you're an incredible engineer, do you aspire to work in a lot of different places? You know, like a bunch of places are doing cool stuff with AI. That's kind of interesting, you know. I don't know that you're going to work at Walmart.

Maia Bittner:

If you are a banker, if you're a finance person, if you are payments, do you think of Walmart? No, like you want to build your career brand elsewhere. So, just, maybe they've got pretty good talent, but they don't have the best talent. They don't have the cultural, the cultural emphasis. It's not their thing. Their thing is always going to be having the lowest prices, driven by those supplier negotiations, and I think it's really hard for a company to either shift that focus to be best in the world at something else, and if they're not doing that, it's hard for them to be good at two things in order to compete in a free market. That's why we see startups pop up. Is there somebody who's going to be focused only on doing financial services, only on a super app that's going to be doing a better job than Walmart can ever give them the attention to do?

Sam Maule:

I tell you, culture and focus is huge If you really want to learn a lot about this. Jason Del Rey I don't know if you know Jason or not. He was with Vox for a long time Great tech writer, great writer in this space but Jason wrote a book called Winter Sales L Amazon, walmart and the Battle for Our Wallets. Go on Amazoncom and buy it, which, you've got to admit, is kind of funny, seeing that it was called the Battle Between Walmart and Amazon. But he focuses a lot in on that tech side and he talks about the acquisition of Jet. If you remember that, of course and it is fascinating to read about head-butting between you know older Walmart and how the tech boys kind of clashed right which, by the way, the founder of JetNow is going to do his next thing. This always happens. So if you're looking for something to read, jason giving you a shout-out, a great one.

Sam Maule:

I'm going to say this now, after talking with you and talking with everybody outside of Finnovate I'm 50-50. I'm 50-50 on this. I'm still, eh, I'm 40-60. I'm 50-50. I'm 50-50 on this. I'm still, eh, I'm 40-60. I'm still not buying it. I'm sorry, I don't think we're going to have a super app in the US and that's going to be Walmart. I think you're going to have super-ish apps and there's nothing wrong with that I think Walmart will succeed very well with their customer base.

Sam Maule:

Maybe grow it a little bit from what they're able to do from a technology standpoint. I still think Amazon's going to be a beast and watching my college kids' behavior, these Chinese apps unless they get banned they're going to do okay here.

Maia Bittner:

They're going to be all right. What I'm excited to see and I think Walmart is uniquely well positioned to do and I haven't seen a great play from somebody else is combining personal banking with remittances.

Maia Bittner:

Yeah yeah, I think there's a big need for that in the US. There's been a couple people trying at some pieces. Wise is obviously a big player. Western Union is still a huge company. I think Walmart could come out with hey, we've got your daily spending and your international remittances in one place. You come to Walmart, you get it done. You got a mobile app and they could address the critical identity parts. They could use their retail footprint in order to have a leg up on fintech in terms of identity and combating fraud. They know that people are not Russian hackers because they're showing up in person at a Walmart store. That, I think, could be a competitive differentiator and really, really interesting. I don't have any information that says that's where they're taking it, though.

Sam Maule:

Yeah, but it makes sense so I'd love to see that so would I. Isn't it fascinating how our life experience just drives episodes like this me coming off on stage and being challenged, and you having a baby?

Maia Bittner:

it is me having a baby, needing to nurse the baby while charging my car that'll do it.

Sam Maule:

Okay, folks, that's it. Having to nurse my baby while charging my car is the most west coast thing I've ever heard. Way to go, Maia, way to go.

Maia Bittner:

Tell me you live in the West coast without telling me. I know, I know Love it Everybody.

Sam Maule:

Thanks for listening today. We'd love to get your feedback on whether we're right or not on super apps taking off in the U? S and if Walmart is going to be the beast, as always. Reach out to Maia on Twitter, me on LinkedIn or Twitter. Take your pick. Thanks for listening and go out and give us a review wherever you listen to podcasts Five stars, please. Thank you. I'll send you a Walmart gift card, Maia, any last thoughts?

Maia Bittner:

No, can't wait to hear from you. Let me know if you're building a super app.

Sam Maule:

Amen, all right, folks, talk to you next time.