Nathan Gunawan is the co-founder and CEO of Pallav Technologies, a B2B startup building the 'Credit Operating System' for lenders in Asia, augmenting profitability in a much more competitive landscape where capturing value is getting harder than ever, and should not be taken for granted.

In under a year of operations, Pallav Technologies is currently supporting 10+ high-volume lenders across the region and growing rapidly, including unicorns like Akulaku and Traveloka, and traditional lenders like AEON.

Pallav currently operates a next-generation debt recoveries agency, and has a robust roadmap in place for further expansion on the ambitious journey of building the end-to-end stack to evolve lenders on the journey of growth.

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👋🏼 How would you explain your job to someone outside tech?

I build infrastructure and services to support lenders like banks and multi-finance companies continue to sustain their competitive edge especially in overlooked, difficult to build in, but highly important areas.

The second-order effect of enabling lenders to be more successful is that more people are able to get fairer access to credit: a gap that is still tremendous in Asia.

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🧐 What's something about you or your job that would surprise us?

Beyond financial services, I am incredibly passionate about the education space, which was the genesis of my entrepreneurial journey.

My first startup venture was a nonprofit, Cornerstone Education, that had two arms: (1) building a pipeline for highly-motivated, ambitious local Indonesian students from local schools to be mentored for free to get full scholarships for undergraduate studies abroad (kids we taught got into MIT, Duke, Michigan on full rides), and (2) running weekend "bootcamps" to help late-stage college students prepare for the job hunt process through in-depth coverage of networking, resume building, and interviews.

Contrary to what most might think, running a non-profit was incredibly difficult and taught me a ton about being intensely mission-driven and how that carries forward people's belief in you. Imagine having to convince 100+ mentors to help you out over their nights and weekends for free.

This mission-first approach I carry with me in my work at Pallav, where it's driven the ambition of this company to not just take the easy path, but rather to tackle the harder, more impactful problems. ‍

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🏆 What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far?

Building Pallav Technologies, my current startup, for sure. Unlike corporate roles where delegation of responsibility grows as tenure increases, an entrepreneur is accountable for everything and hence is pushed to grow beyond limits that traditional professional roles would artificially set.

Building Pallav continues to 10x my growth trajectory, as I've leveled up significantly across diverse areas I would have rarely been exposed to: strategic planning, complex business development, fundraising, capital markets, navigating regulatory motions, the list goes on.

The ability for me to learn continuously and test my learnings in the fiercest, highest feedback battleground is truly a massive privilege that I'm grateful for everyday.

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🔍 What's a startup trend or space you're watching this year?‍

Something I did not expect to have to geek out over prior to becoming a fintech entrepreneur is actually intensely following regulatory trends locally in Indonesia and in other markets, especially pertaining to lending.

Locally in Indonesia, I'm closely watching how the financial regulator is expanding policies in relation to P2Ps / fintechs, and especially how increased scrutiny in the space could potentially result in market disruption.

I'm also actively watching adjacent markets like India & Latin America where fintech is much more mature to strategically plan how to steer our organization to be resilient in spite of regulatory shifts: whether it's the FLDG co-lending policy in India, usury laws, structured finance / capital markets, bank partnership guidelines, and more. ‍

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💼  What advice would you give someone starting out in your industry?

Be patient with outcomes, and impatient with actions. Timelines will often take much longer to achieve, and one should be resilient and determined in spite of this as good things take time. However, paradoxically, one should be ruthless to keep generating momentum.

A related advice from a B2B commercial perspective: start selling from Day One, even with an imperfect product. Working with clients even when you're embarrassed to get further learnings that steers you in the right direction, validating or invalidating pre-existing beliefs.

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🗣 What's one thing you can keep talking about for hours?

Fintech! I guess it's pretty clear why I decided to build a company in this space.

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🎥  What's your favorite movie/TV show?

The Big Short

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🍨 What's your go-to ice cream flavor?‍

Coconut

FYI. We've edited this interview for clarity.