Suneera Madhani shares her journey of building and selling a payments company for a billion dollars, and how she is now applying those lessons to her new.
Suneera Madhani shares her journey of building and selling a payments company for a billion dollars, and how she is now applying those lessons to her new venture, Worth AI.
for my father in particular like the only way for to build the American dream was through entrepreneurship so they bought their first Convenience Store actually a gas station in Texas even as a young kid like after school we'd go to the stores after school on the weekends I'd be helping my parents stock shelves whatever was needed we grew up in the business and so I look back at that and my brother and I always say like that was our NBA is watching our parents work hard [Music] all righty hello everyone and welcome to the deal maker show so today we have a very uh exciting founder female founder you know we're going to be learning quite a bit obviously being a Girls D myself I'm very excited about this podcast coming up and we're gonna be talking about building scaling financing all of the above I mean in this case she built a billion dooll company so uh let that snc in so again I think
that you're gonna find this podcast very inspiring and without further Ado let's welcome our guest today Shira madani welcome to the show thank you so much Alejandra for having me I'm very very excited to be here so originally born in Chicago uh but raised in Dallas and you moved quite a bit growing up so give us a walk through Memory Lane how is life growing up for you life was wonderful growing up I feel like I I'm I had the most incredible family and parents but they were also a bit crazy like most families are I'm daughter of immigrant parents and so my parents immigrated to the US to Chicago they met in Chicago and I was born in Chicago in the in the late 70s and I was born they met uh in Chicago and I was born uh in the 80s and kind of their their love story and and their uh entrepreneurial Journey began they were both entrepreneurs but out of necessity neither one of them went to
college or even graduated high school they both came to americ America you know around the age of 15 16 to build a better life for their families and so they were both working parents uh by the time that um you know for my for my father in particularly the only way for to build the American dream was through entrepreneurship uh to own your own business and that is exactly what they set out to do and so they bought their first uh convenience store actually a gas station in Texas because his cousins were starting that business in Texas and we moved from Chicago to Dallas and he was you know very successful and you know turning one into two into three and I just grew up around watching all of that right watching you know my parents work really hard we were and I say we I have a I have a brother uh we're two years apart so he was born in Texas I was born in Dallas s was born in Texas and we
grew up with the businesses uh and he had from you know gas stations to franchises and other things and I just remember even as a young kid like after school we'd go to the stores after school on the weekends I'd be helping my parents stock shelves or you know going to go uh to Restaurant Depot or whatever you know whatever was needed we grew up in the business and so I look back at that and you know my brother and I always say like that was our MBA is watching our parents work hard and there's so many values that I feel we now have as a company and as like how how we work together and what we're building is really based on what we saw and I'm so grateful for that so that was a little bit about us growing up but also you know it wasn't all roses right entrepreneurship is not easy and owning small businesses is not easy and we got to see that side of it too I got to watch my parents
really struggle as well we moved around a lot so you know one thing you know my father was really great at starting businesses but then he get he had entrepreneurial ADHD and it was like the next thing and the next thing and so we moved uh quite a bit my brother and I went to 10 different schools in our like full you know by the time you know we're done with University it was you know almost 10 different schools that we went to we lived in Karachi so there was a point that he decided we're going to move to Karachi and we like went to Karachi and we like never we we went on vacation and never came back for three years and then he started some companies in in karashi then he got bored there and we came back and we moved to Florida and when we moved to Florida I was 16 and at that point that was my third high school so I went to three high schools and there was so many things that were
wonderful but that was one thing that you know was a huge part of I didn't want to leave like I didn't want to move again so I ended up going to University of Florida I got a full ride with UF and went to uh went to UF and from there kind of settled back in Orlando and I haven't left so it's been 22 years that I haven't left Orlando and uh kind of like where where where my journey is now but it was a huge part of because I was like okay I'm here and I'm not you know I'm not moving so here my family is here dealing with uncertainty sunira is one thing that that really comes to mind because obviously after as you were saying you know being in 10 different schools by the time you were done with with University is new friends you know new environments new everything is what do you think that taught you about uncertainty you know being able to be exposed to uncertainty so early on in your
life yeah I I mean so much I think there are so many great things that have that came out of that right I feel like we learned very quickly how to adapt we learned how to make friends like those are amazing skills like I feel like I can go into a room and make friends with anyone and if I if I didn't if I wasn't able to you know be Charming or be funny or be kind or to be all those things then I'd be alone at the you know at the lunch table and so you learned how to kind of fit in and to um you know and to adapt to that so yes there was uncertainty but what was really great though I will say is there was uncertainty maybe in as certain aspects one thing that was really stable though was our home life one thing that was really stable was my parents one thing that was really stable was our safety one thing that was really stable was financially I felt I never had to worry like my I we
never had Financial instability even through so much of the the chaos I'm so grateful for that the only thing that I was required to focus on was to get a great education that was very much a huge part of you know every school you know everywhere we went we went to the best schools we had you know my parents wanted us to graduate at the top of our class like educ ation was the most important thing because they didn't have that and so why they're working hard is that my brother and I need to get educated we can you know to go become and to be anything that we want to be that was their American dream was that they didn't we didn't have to figure it out they figured it out so that we can truly have an opportunity to be anything that we want to be and what's crazy about the story is I end up in entrepreneurship and we both end up in entrepreneurship my brother and I actually run uh uh our
companies together but it's funny how that all played out but we both ended up going to I was the first person in my family to graduate college both on my mom and dad's side like we're the I was the first in my family got a degree in finance and and marketing as well s got a degree in finance and Leadership and we went off to go work in corporate paths and after corporate paths after a couple years of working in corporate is how the first business came about which was STX payments I'm sure we're going to talk about that but um you know eventually we ended up back at wanting to go build something for ourselves and and Entrepreneurship ended up finding us so let's talk about entrepreneurship finding you because you know here you go the um I guess you know the the corporate route you know I'm sure that your parents were like oh you know like finally we got we got kids now that you know they
have the stability the 925 you know all of that stuff after going to to college as well you know as you said you know the first person going to to college in the family what was what was that moment like where the idea of uh tax payment you know came knocking to you and and and why did you decide it was you know meaningful enough to take action yeah I mean I was working for a payments company so I was in financial services and this is 2000 this is the 200 early 2010s and just you know part of what I grew up in was watching my parents challenged status quo right Excellence was always commanded from us so I have so many memories of learning how to do things like going you know Perfection was important Excellence stand standard was important and when I got to this company I saw so much opportunity yet everybody was like status quo and I couldn't understand that like why would we not care so
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