Introducing Sean Merat, Co-founder and CEO of Owl
Sara Lindquist:
I'm Sara Lindquist from Fuse. We're an early-stage venture firm based right here in the Pacific Northwest, and just like the founders in our portfolio, we are just getting started. We believe that founders deserve more: more urgency, more community, more expertise, more reliability - more of everything. And we aim to deliver. Join me as I introduce each of our portfolio companies in the Fuse family to date.
Today, you'll hear from Sean Merat, repeat entrepreneur and current Co-founder and CEO of Owl. Owl was Fuse's very first portfolio company and has been growing quickly. Join us as we fire through a few topics about the business, how it's been going and growing, and how Owl is changing the game in insurance fraud detection.
Let's get started!
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Sara:
Thanks for being here, Sean!
Sean:
Thank you for having me.
Sara:
Well, appreciate you taking the time and I'm excited for you to share a bit about your story and the Owl journey. To kick things off, it would be awesome if you could just share the quick overview of what Owl is and how it serves customers today.
Sean:
Owl is a claims monitoring platform for insurers, and what we do is we aggregate a ton of data on insurance claimants and perform many different ways of analysis using machine learning in order to find inconsistencies between the claim that was submitted and the reality. And in many cases, help insurers to filter out all the fraudulent, exaggerated and malingering claims.
Sara:
And so, Sean, clearly, this is not your first rodeo in the startup world. Walk us back in time a little bit. When was the key light bulb moment where you said, "Oh my gosh, I got to go build this"?
Sean:
Yeah, nobody wakes up thinking they're going to solve insurance fraud detection.
Sara:
Ha, what are you talking about? Everyone wakes up thinking that!
Sean:
Yeah, so this would be my fourth company. My first one was a design firm, second one was an ad tech company, third one was a KYC AML company, which I took public before exiting to start Owl, and Owl was originally supposed to be a KYC tool for financial institutions. We had built an incredible platform that would aggregate rich profiles on individuals and on customers of banks, and then offer that data to financial institutions in order to make better decisions. And when I was pitching this to a very big bank, the Chief Operating Officer basically told me this is an incredible KYC tool, but it could be better served solving one of his biggest points on his P&L, which is the insurance claims reserves for disability, workers' comp, and PNC.
Sean:
The problem that they all have is every time an insurance claim is submitted, the insurer has to put on average of $100,000 to $200,000 into a reserve and they cannot touch that reserve unless the person either goes back to work or fraud is found. And while 10% of all claims are fraudulent, insurers have no good way of detecting these frauds, so they detect less than 1%. So as you can imagine, each insurer has billions and billions of dollars just sitting in reserves, which they cannot touch.
Sara:
Man, were you blown away by that when you found that out?
Sean:
Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, so we couldn't believe it because it's an $80 billion a year problem.
Sara:
Wow.
Sean:
That very few people even know about.
Sara:
Totally. So that was the light bulb moment then, right? Understanding this problem is massive.
Sean:
Exactly.
Sara:
Wow, that's incredible. So you discovered this huge problem and you're like, "Okay, I'm going to go solve this." And then your next step, of course, is rallying the team together. You're at, what? Fifty employees now? Seventy?
Sean:
We're at seventy.
Sara:
Seventy, that's awesome.
Sean:
Yeah.
Sara:
So Sean, how would you articulate in your words, why your team is the team to do this?
Sean:
We've been hyper focused on hiring incredibly senior and capable team members to build the foundation of the team. For example, we're three co-founders, so myself and my brother have been working together for the past 16 years, Sohrab is the Chief Product Officer, and we've had multiple tech companies and have had multiple exits. The third Co-founder is Vahid and he's the Chief Operating Officer, he comes from a consulting background at BCG and he led the digital transformation of many financial institutions. Our CFO is the former CFO of Icertis, our Chief Compliance Officer is a former entrepreneur who created a company called Zeit, which was acquired by CNN, and our CTO is coming from Facebook. I'm probably forgetting all the other ones, but everyone comes in with extensive experience and sets the foundation to building an incredible team around us, so that's been the majority of our focus. We started this year with twenty people and now we're at seventy.
Sara:
Yeah, I was going to have you talk a bit about the growth because obviously, the company's growth on the market side has been massive too, but your team too - you've been hiring like crazy!
Sean:
Absolutely. Yes. Yes. That's our number one focus and we still have so many positions to fill.
Sara:
Always, always. Get more hands on the problem. So next question for you, it can be more than one word, but if there was a word to describe your team culture, as you've been growing the team, what would that be? Being the leader at the helm, what's your perspective there?
Sean:
We're incredibly performance driven. We believe in a culture where product and tech should always catch up to sales, and not the other way around. We have incredibly ambitious, but realistic KPIs and goals that define the growth of the company and we religiously follow them.
Sara:
Yeah. No, that's great. And it certainly shows, right? In Owl's growth so far, so congrats on that.
Sean:
Thank you.
Sara:
So the next question I have for you is about the start up journey at large. Again, like you said, this is your fourth go around and being a founder and leader of a company is certainly hard work and comes with all sorts of challenges - which you know firsthand. So what keeps you going, especially in moments where others would be likely to throw in the towel?
Sean:
What keeps us going is when we look at the effect that we can have on our customers and on their customers essentially. So when we talk about detecting fraud to insurers, this is not about helping them decline claims, it's the contrary. See, what happens right now is there is so much undetected fraud in the insurance system and the way insurers battle fraud is they increase their premiums. So at the end of the year, it's you and I that end up paying for it. It's millions of innocent Americans and Canadians that end up paying for all the fraud that exists. So what keeps us going is the mission that we have, which is that no one should be paying for fraud and we have some of the largest insurers that become our clients and stand aside basically their customers in order to reduce fraud as much as possible so that they can serve them best.
Sara:
That's so true, because if you think about it, it compounds the broader mission of what you're solving, it really does end up helping all consumers. Well, congrats. So in closing here, one final question for you, what right now do you need more of? How can listeners tuning in from the worldwide web, how can they help or get involved?
Sean:
So it always comes down to talent. God knows we're always working with the team at FUSE and they've been incredible at helping us fill some very critical positions in the company, but it's a never ending challenge, I think right now for all startups. So if you go on our website, Owl.co, click on 'Careers', we have dozens of positions open. And so if anyone sees a position they'd like to apply to, or if they know someone that would be a good fit, we'd love to talk to them.
Sara:
Awesome. So is the best way to get in touch through the website?
Sean:
Yes.
Sara:
Perfect. Okay! Well yeah, listeners, be sure to go check it out and hop aboard a rocket ship!
Sean:
Yeah, let's go!
Sara:
Let's go. Awesome! Well, thank you, Sean. As you know, we at FUSE are just so honored and excited to be a part of the journey. Onward, my friend! Keep doing what you're doing.
Sean:
Thank you. We really appreciate it.
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Sara:
For all those who are ready to hop onboard a rocket ship, be sure to check out openings on Owl's website, Owl.co. Or feel free to check out the job postings right here on the Fuse website.
Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time.