The AFT Podcast
The AFT podcast (At the Forefront of Transactions) - previously known as Fundraising Radio, is a continuation of our efforts to bring in-depth knowledge of the payments space.
Do you know how credit cards work? How banks communicate transactions between each other? How the tap to pay works? How funds get disbursed by government agencies?
You'll learn about topics in the payment space that you didn't even know existed. If you are in the fintech/payments space or just a curious mind - hop on!
New to The AFT Podcast?
Aug. 7, 2025
Declined transactions explained + Disputes covered. By Rehman Baig with FlexFactor
Rehman Baig, CPO at FlexFactor in this episode talks about combating transaction declines and disputes. How the process of underwriting looks like, how are funds reclaimed, what the end-user sees and how it all operates under the hood. Follow us on Substack here for more in-depth coverage of interesting topics like OCT, Pre-Debiting, ACH disputes and much more: https://aftfinance.substack.com/ Rehman's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rehmanb/
317
Nov. 13, 2021
DocSend - how increasing prices increased conversions. By Russ Heddleston.
Russ Heddleston, Co-Founder and CEO talks about the story of DocSend and how the decision to increase their prices led to an increased conversion rate for their customers and how exactly this magic worked. We've also discussed how DocSend became so essential for the startup founders and how was the product taking shape. In this episode Russ touched onto the acquisition of DocSend by Dropbox and explained how exactly they got to a $150 million acquisition with just $15 million raised.
265
March 26, 2021
Silicon Valley Show in real life? Sure! Epic story of Distil Networks by Rami Essaid
Rami Essaid, CEO at Finmark, venture partner at Pioneer Fund and partner at IDEA fund partners and previously the founder of Distil Networks that was acquired for over $100million tells the story of Distil Networks. Absolutely insane similarities between the story of Distil Networks and Silicon Valley show, great advice from Rami to early stage founders and much more in this episode.
131
July 23, 2020
Staying focused on one field and getting acquired - Brock Weatherup sharing his experience of creating companies in pet industry.
Brock Weatherup, the CEO and Co-Founder of Metamorphosis Partners, the CEO and Founder of Pet360 acquired by PetSmart and the CEO and Co-Founder of Petcoach acquired by Petco explains how staying super focused on one field helped him in his career and also talks about his experience raising money for his companies and then selling them.
251
Feb. 22, 2021
Building the team - how, where and when do you start? By Nick Miceli.
Nick Miceli, Senior Tech Lead/Engineering Manager at Google talks about assembling the right team, choosing to go remote or hiring within your city, going through a dev-shop or contractors and other choices that the startup founder has to make while building the product. We also spoke about the major problems team managers face and how to deal with them.
300
July 23, 2021
300th episode of Fundraising Radio - special edition.
We got to the 300th episode and decided to celebrate with a bit of extra fun for our listeners. This episode is about the mistakes that were made during the creation of this podcast - it includes the stories of the team and some random bloopers that were removed from the original episodes and saved "for later use" and the day for that "later use" came! We hope you enjoy:)
225
Dec. 15, 2020
How to conduct customer interview if you don't have much money? By Sandy Huang Head of Product Growth at Amazon Alexa Mobile
Sandy Huang, Head of Product Growth at Alexa Mobile, talks about understanding your customers early on, running individual customer interviews, releasing surveys and doing the customer development in a lean way. We also spoke about how larger companies do that and when a founder needs to hire a professional to do the job.
Jan. 15, 2021
371 ideas and $1.7 million raised at pre-seed. Story of Heru by Stiven Rodríguez
Stiven Rodríguez, Co-founder and COO at Heru talks about how they managed to raise such a large pre-seed round, why they decided to start a company in Mexico instead of the US and how his work at Uber helped him. We also talked about how they pivoted after going to YC and how they have gone through 371 ideas choosing the best one. Covered the offline promotion of Heru and how does it work. Stiven's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiven-rodr%C3%ADguez-s%C3%A1nchez-b65958101/ Heru: https
March 8, 2022
Raise through an SPV-syndicated round. What does that mean? Jeremy Neilson from Assure will explain
Jeremy Neilson, CEO and Co-Founder of Assure in this episode explains how SPVs work and what they are, how founders can use them to make their rounds easier and what are the expected costs of creating an SPV and syndicating your own round.
168
Sept. 2, 2020
Acquired for $985 million by Ebay - legendary serial entrepreneur, Greg Shepard talks about building startups.
Greg Shepard, Founder at BOSS Capital Partners, Founder and CEO of the 12 startups that have successfully exited, one of which was AffiliateTraction acquired by Ebay for $985 million. Greg in this episode explains how he managed to create so many successful companies and shortly explains the BOSS system. He also talks about the major mistakes he saw other early stage founders making and talks about the mistakes he has done himself in the past.
104
June 25, 2020
Angel investing during pandemic - where should founders go first during COVID-19 to get funding? By Grant Van Cleve
In this episode of Fundraising Radio, Grant Van Cleve an ex-President at Tech Coast Angels at Orange County and a current member of Board of Governors of Tech Coast Angels as well as an angel investor and a Managing Partner at Hangar 75 explains the current landscape of investment field from the investor's perspective. He also explains where should founders head to get funded.
June 11, 2020
CEO, Republic Crowdfunding Platform tells about equity crowdfunding - how does it work, who should consider it, what does the process look like and how much it costs - by Chuck Pettid.
In this episode of Fundraising Radio our guest speaker is Chuck Pettid, the CEO, Republic Crowdfunding Platform - one of the largest equity crowdfunding platforms in the US. And he explains how equity crowdfunding works, who should consider it, how is it different from regular crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. We also talked about the most fundable types of project that should go for equity crowdfunding and at the end of the episode Chuck went over the application process of
May 10, 2020
San Diego Tech Coast Angels - President of TCA SD chapter, Caitlin Wege comparing different TCA chapters and explaining how SD chapter works.
This episode draws the line under the previous two episodes about Tech Coast Angels - how it operates, how do chapters of TCA work together, how to choose the right chapter and much more. We also touched onto the topic of foundations and family offices and about ways that founders can get in touch with them. All that explained by President of Tech Coast Angels, the Sand Diego chapter - Caitlin Wege.
June 17, 2025
Buy Now Pay Later - how does it work and what happens behind the scenes? By Jiakai Guo, VP at Sound Point Capital Management
Jiakai Guo - Vice President at Sound Point Capital Management in this episode goes in-depth on how Buy Now Pay Later system operates. How does the capital flow look like, how is this form of debt being treated, what are the delinquency rates and of course, can this serve as an indicator of the country's economic health. P.S. Apologies for the quality of sound on my side, the system defaulted to the wrong microphone and I've missed it. Find us on Substack: https://aftfinance.substack.com
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Sept. 29, 2020
Traditional banking explained - how can startups work with banks? By Reza Sabahi.
Reza Sabahi, Managing Director at Wells Fargo Capital Finance explains how traditional banking works. What do you need to have in order to get a loan from a bank for your startup? How do bankers evaluate startups and what are the decisive factors? All in this episode.
March 10, 2025
How does Card processing work? With Marshall Greenwald, Founder of Ionia
Marshall Greenwald, the Founder of Ionia in this episode digs deep into the souls (backend) of card processing. Marshall's LinkedIn for those who don't know how to use hyperlinks: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marshall-greenwald-9480351/ Ionia's website: https://www.ioniapay.com/ AFT's Substack: https://aftfinance.substack.com/ AFT's website: https://www.aft.finance/ Here are the questions we've covered during the interview: - tell us the rough outline of how the current credit/debit card
Recent
July 31, 2026
Prepaid card issuing
In this episode I have interviewed not one, but TWO experts on card issuance. Mark Alexander - Head of Issuing at Moov Financial. Steve Kaufman - Lead Technical Analyst at Moov Financial. Here is my article that goes deep into card processing (not issuing) that you can find on Finextra: https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/30774/vip-base-ii-sms-dms-interchange-fee-assignment-interchange-downgrades-assessment-fees-and-m A great quote from Mark Alexander from the episode: “Amazon can deliver a
May 6, 2026
Infrastructure so reliable, our customers forget it exists - Joel Tosi on building payments tech.
Joel Tosi, the CTO at Moov Financial in this episode talks about the importance of building sustainable payments infrastructure, the future of PSPs, implications of being a tech-first PSP and more! Documentation MCP server (for AI to ingest): https://docs.moov.io/guides/developer-tools/mcp-ai/docs-mcp/ Follow our Substack: https://aftfinance.substack.com/
April 3, 2026
$1 Trillion in transactions: Notabene, a Swift for crypto solution with Pelle Braendgaard
Pelle Braendgaard CEO of Notabene in this episode talks about their solution and how do communication protocols really look like. Notabene allows crypto transactions to carry the information required by the regulators across the globe, making crypto more accessible for business use-cases. Follow my substack with in-depth articles on payments infrastructure! https://aftfinance.substack.com/
March 17, 2026
Direct TCH and Fed connection: connecting to the metal with Adam Shannon
In this episode, Adam Shannon, a Founding Engineer at Moov Financial talks about direct integrations with The Clearing House and the Fed. What are the implications of such connections, how do they benefit the end user, improve the flow of funds and who should concern themselves with such connections. Clarification regarding our comments about settlement delays: we talk about payment infrastructure at a high level in this episode, and some examples of settlement timing are simplified. Payments a
March 5, 2026
RDR, VROL, VCR and VRAD: card dispute life cycle
This article will be primarily focused on the unhappy path of card processing: disputes. I’ll cover the basics and more in-depth structure of dispute processing and resolution. The ultimate goal of this article is for you to better understand the mo…
Feb. 17, 2026
PSP VS a Processor VS Core: covering the basics
In this episode, I spoke with Johnny Moreland who covers the core topics that serve as the introduction to the 9-episode long in-depth dive into the payments ecosystem. We will heavily focus on Moov Financial as the case-study since it has accomplished a lot in this sector (like direct connections to Fed and TCH) and because I now work at Moov:) Clarification: during this interview it was mentioned that Stripe doesn't connect directly to the card networks. This information is outdated and St
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Recent Blog Posts
March 5, 2026
RDR, VROL, VCR and VRAD: card dispute life cycle
This article will be primarily focused on the unhappy path of card processing: disputes. I’ll cover the basics and more in-depth structure of dispute processing and resolution. The ultimate goal of this article is for you to better understand the mo…
Oct. 13, 2025
AFT: instant debit pulls through Account Funding Transactions.
What is AFT? According to Visa’s official documentation, Account Funding Transactions (AFTs) is a transaction type used to withdraw funds from a Visa or Mastercard account for the purpose of funding another account. In simple words - it is an inver…
July 22, 2025
A Practical Guide to Improving Fund Settlement Through ACH
What is an ACH transfer? It is an electronic payment that moves money between bank accounts through a centralized network (Automated Clearing House). ACH network processes these transactions in batches and this post is specifically about this - …