Venture Everywhere Podcast: Amr Darwish with Juan Camilo (JC) González Trujillo
Amr Darwish, co-founder and CEO of Oola, chats with Juan Camilo (JC) González Trujillo, co-founder and CEO of Figuro on episode 43: Oola-la Insurance.
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Episode 43 of Venture Everywhere is hosted by Juan Camilo (JC) González Trujillo, the co-founder and CEO of Figuro, a SaaS platform transforming insurance distribution in Latin America, empowering agents and intermediaries to sell more policies with cutting-edge technology. He chats with Amr Darwish, co-founder and CEO of Oola, a startup building digital tools that bring transparency and scalability to the insurance industry in Egypt and the MENA region. JC and Amr talk about insurance in their geographies and explore the need for collaboration among Insurtech companies to drive growth and innovation.
In this episode, you will hear:
The importance of digitization in Insurtech especially in emerging markets.
Oola's strategy to enhance communication between brokers and carriers.
The lack of region-specific reinsurance options in MENA and LATAM.
How Figuro and Oola are leveraging data and technology to modernize insurance distribution.
Increasing gap between consumer expectations and outdated insurance systems.
Potential for improving reinsurance solutions with better local data and understanding.
The long-term vision for Oola and Figuro in transforming the insurance landscape.
If you liked this episode, please give us a rating wherever you found us. To learn more about our work, visit Everywhere.vc and subscribe to our Founders Everywhere Substack. You can also follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter for regular updates and news.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 Jenny Fielding: Hi and welcome to the Everywhere podcast. We're a global community of founders and operators who've come together to support the next generation of builders. So the premise of the podcast is just that, founders interviewing other founders about the trials and tribulations of building a company. I hope you enjoy the episode.
00:00:20 JC: So hello, everyone. Welcome to the Venture Everywhere podcast. I'm JC González, CEO and co-founder of Figuro. And what we're building in Figuro is we're helping insurance carriers, agents, and brokers to digitize and optimize their insurance distribution processes without relying on outdated systems and time-consuming manual tasks.
00:00:47 JC: And we do this through a SaaS platform that integrates cutting edge CRM tools, AI, and workflow automations to let them serve better and sell more policies. And I'm thrilled to be here today with Amr. So Amr, it's great to have you here. It's great to be in this episode with you. I understand we do similar things. So I'm super excited to hear also about yourself and of course about Oola and what you're building.
00:01:20 Amr: Amazing. Thank you, JC. Quick intro, I'm Amr Darwish. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Oola. So we're a Cairo-based startup. So also working on enabling, digitizing insurance providers and brokers out of Egypt and across the Middle East and North Africa. So very similar missions about different geographies.
00:01:42 Amr: And I'm very excited to learn about, also the similarities and the differences between the challenges and opportunities and even how we got started and how we got working on similar missions.
00:01:53 JC: That's great because I don't know if you feel the same but I feel that there are multiple problems in the insurance industry that are really similar, if not the same problem between geographies. So it's funny to see someone in Egypt and someone in Colombia solving probably the same problem or a very similar problem. I don't know if you have that same feeling happening everywhere around the world.
00:02:18 Amr: I think the problems are similar across geographies, but I think the solutions would be different because given that what are the starting points, what is maybe the biggest problem, as a whole, insurance is not a digitized industry yet, so as a whole, this could be a similar problem across geographies.
00:02:38 Amr: But which area is missing in each geography and what are the needs of the carriers and the agents and the brokers from one geography to the other? I think that would be a very interesting discussion to find out more.
00:02:50 JC: Definitely. So let's start with the problem. Let's focus on the problem. What's the key problem Oola is solving right now and how did you find out that problem?
00:03:01 Amr: Okay, great. So let me start with the problem. I think there's the core of the problem of the insurance market as a whole in Egypt and the region, Middle East and Africa. It's the least penetrated region in terms of insurance. So insurance penetration is 2.3% across, Middle East and Africa.
00:03:18 JC: Oh, wow. I thought Latin America was bad. It's 3% here in LATAM. I didn't know it was less than 3% there.
00:03:27 Amr: Yeah, we beat you on that. And Egypt is one of, actually the lowest. Egypt only has 0.6% penetration.
00:03:33 JC: Oh, wow.
00:03:33 Amr: So I think this is the core problem and this is ultimately when we want to measure our impact into the market. This is our metric and this is why I think it's a long-term goal because we know this is a long-term structural problem, but we want to make a big dent towards it. So this is high-level, the core problem.
00:03:52 Amr: But I think uniquely about emerging markets and Middle East and Africa as well, is there’s a growing mismatch between consumer expectations and what the insurance companies and carriers are working with. So this region has, for example, over 1 billion mobile users and 60% of 800 insurance companies in the region are using software that originates from the 70s and 80s.
00:04:21 Amr: So I think the high-level problem would be that low penetration, but where we see the immediate problem or where we're going at it, is from solving this mismatch between consumer expectations and the legacy platforms of the insurance companies and brokers.
00:04:35 JC: That's super interesting because I mean, there are multiple ways you can address these problems. It's wonderful to talk to someone that lives the same problems in terms of penetration, insurance penetration, for example, as we do here in LATAM. But then there are multiple ways you can address these problems.
00:04:53 JC: You can create new policies or you can do some of these things. But what I… hearing from you is, well, we can work on the distribution side before building all these new products. Is that what Oola is solving?
00:05:07 Amr: For sure. So this is what we're solving. So I think at 0.6% penetration in Egypt, we don't need to be creative about products right now to be making moves. Our main goal right now, I think, take step backwards, and you would notice because working in insurance, so insurance backwards. It's a risk management business and then an asset management business.
00:05:28 Amr: If looking at the risk management business at the core of it, there's a network business where your distribution network, your brokers, your service providers, your marketing channels, your reinsurance providers. And so there's a networking element to it. And increasingly data sources, a big example now is healthcare data, health data, for example, car data.
00:05:52 Amr: So it's, one thing that we're working on is building that network. So we're having that connectivity between the broker, the insurance company, the service providers, the data sources. And from the data sources comes the other large big element of the risk management side of the insurance business is analyzing and digesting all of this data and then ultimately being able to provide.
00:06:15 Amr: It's not only about new products. It's about the right products. It could be in the end, it falls under health insurance or falls under car insurance. But instead of that one-size-fits all product, it's all about customizing and personalizing.
00:06:30 Amr: And I think this comes after building that network, building that connectivity, making that connections between the brokers, the carriers, the service providers, as simple as simplified and, easy as possible. And then from there, digesting this data to be able to provide the right product.
00:06:48 JC: I love that concept of the right problems, which is something one doesn't think about usually. And talking about the right problems, I heard that you mentioned the connectivity as a key thing. So could you explain how your platform connects various insurance stakeholders and what are the benefits of these integrations?
00:07:11 Amr: For sure. So we started with just making the communication between two of the biggest participants in the market, so the brokers and the carriers, as efficient as possible working in a traditional insurance company. They’re used to a lot of paperwork, a lot of time, a lot of meetings, just to change one benefit, large corporate policy.
00:07:32 Amr: So we started from there. So let's make that communication as easy as possible. And I think talking about challenges, one of the biggest challenges, going back to the very first thing we talked about, is that, the very low penetration. So efficiencies and connectivity and all of that, we want business, man, we're at 0.6%.
00:07:53 Amr: So from there came, oh, it's all about the entire flow. So from there, we introduced solutions to make reaching to consumer much easier. So we introduced a platform that connects them actually to the user, how they can embed their products, how they can price it more easily, how, where they can put it correctly.
00:08:12 Amr: So we started from, element when we know there's a problem, but they provided us with, at 0.6%. The most important thing for us is we want to reach more people. And from there, we realized also, building that network one at a time. And it's a flywheel of when the consumers are there, the brokers are there, the carriers are there.
00:08:29 Amr: And that's why it's not only about what the software does and what works and how, does it make it as easy and efficient as possible? This is for us, given the market's still very early stages. It's about having the ability to reach the broker as fast as possible, the ability to reach consumers that are hard to reach, that don’t understand insurance, or never heard about it before, have never bought it.
00:08:51 Amr: They actually think that it's a complicated product, they might send me too much of it. So making that as easy as possible, we saw that, this is where also we saw adoption unlocking for us and more carriers joining and more brokers joining.
00:09:05 JC: That's wonderful. When did Oola launch and how has been the reception from the market and the stakeholders in the industry?
00:09:14 Amr: So we launched in March 2022, so a little bit more than two years ago at a different name. So we recently rebranded. This is a story that we might get into.
00:09:24 JC: Oh, perfect. Yeah.
00:09:26 Amr: And it's because of that market feedback and how it works. So even before launch in March 2022, we had almost like a prehistory or we were testing the idea, testing our MVP. And like I said, we were just working with, okay, how can we enable the communication or the conversation between the broker and the carrier when it comes to big corporate deeds and that changing of benefits and adding and removing and reducing the price and that haggling.
00:09:54 Amr: And of course, in emerging markets, haggling is a big component. How we can make that communication as easy as possible. And we wanted to make it as intuitive. So if this request is being made from a lot of brokers, okay, embed it into your policy right away, you don't have to go and do all of that every time. But like I said, for them, the biggest unlock was we wanted to reach more consumers.
00:10:17 Amr: We love these tools. How can you make these tools help us get more consumers? And from there, we embedded into that a lead generation tool. And from that lead generation tool was our old name, Estafsar, which means inquire in Arabic.
00:10:33 Amr: So, Estafsar, inquire about insurance, learn about it, and then we connect you to a broker that will help you throughout the process and get you the right policy. And this was the initial feedback that unlocked the first wave of adoption for us. And as the number of carriers grew, as the number of brokers grew, we started introducing more tools, more data, more product insights.
00:10:56 Amr: And this is where we rebranded into a bigger umbrella, which is Oola, which it's also an Arabic means first, because we're the first to do that platforming in Egypt. And from there, we still have our regeneration tool under Oola Members and Oola Enterprise is our solution for carriers and Oola Connect is the solution for brokers.
00:11:17 JC: Oh, wow. That sounds great. I would like to jump now to, more personal side because while you were talking about what Oola does and all these learnings you've had from your customers and the market, et cetera. I was thinking, well, this is where the founding team is super important.
00:11:39 JC: Because what I've seen, for example, here in LATAM is that, well, maybe in our case, for example, in Figuro, we are not the first, but all the previous ones were teams that maybe didn't have the analysis or the insights that our background let us had about the market and the industry and how to take a problem that's been there for decades and look at it in a different way and build something from a new perspective.
00:12:12 JC: So I would love to know more about your background and your team and who's behind Oola and what makes you so special.
00:12:21 Amr: So let me first talk about my co-founder, Boodyi, is the CTO. And I think we, us working together, he brings in a perspective from, industry that has gone through a similar transition, but a bit earlier. So his previous startup was in the hospitality industry. And he brings that perspective from a different industry that has gone through a similar digitization wave in the very early stages.
00:12:50 Amr: When you go to an insurance carrier and then they say, okay, but I don't want to showcase my prices, for example, it’s my secret. And afterwards, man, I can't believe they want to share their pricing. It's not even that big of a secret. I can't. So if I call the call center and tell them they'll give me all their pricing, it's not a problem. I've gone through it.
00:13:11 Amr: The option will come. They realize that I've seen hotels not wanting to put their rooms on Booking or Expedia and all of that. And I've seen that transition happening because the market demands it. So I think it's a very unique perspective that he brings as well. For me, on my insurance background, I think I can't take all the credit. So part of it goes to my family, especially my father and siblings. All of them work in the insurance industry.
00:13:38 Amr: So I'm learning about the problem, the issues, the challenges, the opportunities, their arguments together about the business and then working for them, very early in my career and that had made me understand the challenges even more and see the opportunity, understand that I think there's something that also a lot of people, I would love to get your perspective from LATAM as well, because in developed markets, insurance is an old business, but I think in emerging markets, insurance is still an emerging industry.
00:14:11 JC: Exactly.
00:14:12 Amr: Do you have any perspective on that as well?
00:14:14 JC: Yeah, definitely. I mean, you said it, when you said, well, we have some of the lowest penetration rates in the world. That means that, and I actually talked about this on a previous episode on the podcast, which was financial inclusion in Latin America. I don't know if that's the case in Egypt, but financial inclusion in Latin America was thought from the savings account perspective and from the credit cards perspective.
00:14:46 JC: So in the last, I don't know, 15 years, there was a huge push for giving people credit cards and savings account. So almost, almost everyone, I mean, there are huge, also exclusion issues here in the region, but now it's super easy to have a savings account and now it's super easy to have a credit card.
00:15:10 JC: But then I thought, well, no one has thought in this region that the financial inclusion can be done and maybe it's more responsible to do it from the insurance perspective and start protecting people from the risks they're facing. And that's why I love how you put it that way. That's why I also think, and that happens also in Latin America, that, well, insurance, it's an old industry in the way they do things.
00:15:37 Amr: Yeah, exactly.
00:15:39 JC: But it's something that's blooming. It's something that's growing and it's going to continue growing in the next, years, right?
00:15:47 Amr: Yeah.
00:15:47 JC: Okay. So I love the perspective. So you're just two co-founders?
00:15:52 Amr: Yeah.
00:15:53 JC: And you started two years ago. Well, you come from a family that has been involved in insurance for a long time. And I wonder sometimes when you meet people that have been in the industry for years. They have some preconceived ideas, some super fixed ideas. And I would love to know what's one of these ideas that maybe experts, maybe family, maybe someone you know that has been in the industry for years, say that you disagree with?
00:16:26 Amr: I think I was thinking about this and let me take this. I think it's not just a preconceived idea that… about the insurance. It's something that insurance taught me about another conversation that's happening right now.
00:16:41 JC: Interesting. Yeah.
00:16:42 Amr: I think you will know this very much so in InsurTech specifically, people looked at the very early stages, two school of thoughts. So I'm trying, completely digital. So I want to remove the human, take them out of the conversation. There's no need for humans in insurance or people that said, no, I want to enable the human, enable the player. I think we shared that perspective.
00:17:06 Amr: I think this has been solved in InsurTech where completely removing the human. I don't like to say lost, but it has lost. And I think… I was thinking about this and talking about it to a friend recently. I think this brings a new perspective into the AI conversation where a lot of people are like, okay, it's going to take over. Jobs will be lost. And I think guys, people from InsurTech specifically, have seen it.
00:17:30 Amr: You'd be surprised at what areas people need the human element. And no matter how much you bring optimization and digitalization and tech products, the human element plays a big factor. So I think InsurTech has something, it brings a perspective on that area more than, I think that's something I was just talking to a friend about it.
00:17:50 JC: Yeah, I totally agree. Well, again, some of these learnings you've found in your way and one of these I understand ended up in a rebranding. So you just told us, what was the first name of your company. I think I can't pronounce it.
00:18:08 Amr: Yeah, I think that was part also. Yeah, that was part of it.
00:18:13 JC: Can you tell us more about that rebranding?
00:18:17 Amr: Yeah, so Estafsar, it means inquire in Arabic. So our first concrete feedback that we got from talking to insurance companies and carriers, we need a solution that enables us to reach consumers in a more efficient way and reach a new type of consumer. So going back to when we were talking a bit in the beginning, that shifting consumer demand.
00:18:39 Amr: So we have 1 billion people using mobile platforms and mobile phones in Middle East and Africa, and the companies are working with software made in the 60s and the 70s. So the first concrete thing that was, like we want to be able to reach the consumers. And this, where Estafsar came about and this was, okay, was it aggregated at first for the insurance companies to put their policies on and then bring in the broker so the brokers can be, human element where they can walk through the consumer, through the process.
00:19:11 Amr: And then from there, as we're introducing more solutions for the broker and the insurance company to be able to generate their own digital distribution channels from, how they can, at first, very basic stuff, how they can create their own websites, how they can create their own insurance calculator, how they can manage campaigns, how they can launch WhatsApp campaigns in emerging markets. WhatsApp is huge, how they can do that?
00:19:35 Amr: As our tooling part grew, Estafsar was a very consumer-facing brand that means acquired for the aggregator as that tooling side and enabling the insurance companies and brokers to do their own digital distribution and getting their own analytics and feedback. This is, we want to start a bigger brand that encompasses the solution and also be easier to pronounce.
00:20:00 JC: Definitely. But it's funny because I didn't think Oola was an Arabic word. I mean, it's super easy to pronounce even in English. I speak Spanish, so it was like, yeah, Oola. Nice. Let's talk about the future. And I would love to ask you, what are the opportunities you see for the growth and the expansion of these platforms or solutions or even digital insurance in Egypt and then if you want in the Middle East and North Africa region?
00:20:36 Amr: Yes, for sure. So I think in Egypt, we want to expand with the number of carriers that we have right now. We work with six carriers. So there's 41 carriers in… just in Egypt. So we want to expand our network into more carriers. And I think going back to the network element of it as well, we want to connect that network to outside of Egypt as well.
00:21:03 Amr: And I think of something that we did not talk about, and I would love to get your perspective on it as well. I think because of the shared perspective between emerging markets. I think one thing that is lacking in our region is reinsurance that's from the region or that understand the region, at least in a much more efficient way. So I think going back into the networking element into it.
00:21:24 Amr: So if you bring into perspective, into how the region works, what does it work? What does not work? And be able to connect that to the reinsurance market so that actually that it's not just dealing with the region at an arms length low, it has data to understand the region, from the region that is real time.
00:21:43 Amr: And I think for us, this is, we want to see the future and we were talking about the right product. I think the big element that would work into bringing in the right product as well.
00:21:54 JC: Yeah, that's interesting because I also feel that sometimes reinsurance, it's a completely different world and it's something that not everyone that works in the industry actually understands. So it's something that in the case of Latin America, is in Europe, or the US, or maybe in some islands in the Caribbean. And that's it.
00:22:20 JC: Now, it's interesting that I've seen in the last, I would say years, that as some companies start to grow, it's super interesting that even, not only insurance companies, but brokers that starts to grow and have some success in the industry, some of them are starting to creating also reinsurance companies and reinsurance solutions.
00:22:47 JC: And that's super interesting in the way that you put it because, yeah, these are companies that were born inside the region and understands the necessities. I would say, I don't know if you agree, but I would say that one of the key challenges is the capital. You need to do this kind of business, right?
00:23:04 Amr: Yeah, for sure. And I think something that we've learned and also this is one of our big thesis is that we're an InsurTech, but we don't have to be an insurance provider to make an impact in the insurance business. So making the actual players more efficient, more data driven, more analytical, that makes a big difference. I think because also one of our big thesis is that no matter how good you are, especially at these low penetration levels, not one company would make an impact.
00:23:37 JC: Exactly.
00:23:39 Amr: But enable all the players or a big chunk of the players to be efficient, to be digitized, to be understanding of the consumer needs in a much better way. I think you can bring that thinking into reinsurance as well. So you don't have to build the capacity yourself, but I think you can bring that way of thinking, that way of building products into the reinsurance space as well.
00:24:02 JC: I love that intake. It's like, there's room for everyone and we actually need more players, more top players coming and playing and collaborating. It's going to be super critic. This mentality. I don't know if that happens in Egypt, but sometimes I feel that in LATAM, there's no such mentality. For years, it's been like, it's my business. It's my thing. You said it. I don't want to share my secrets with anyone else.
00:24:29 JC: So there are no incentives to collaborate. But if you take a look at the size of the market, well, maybe you're focusing on the actual market, not all the potential that if we collaborate and if we work together, we could develop.
00:24:43 Amr: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, for sure.
00:24:46 JC: So I would like to move to the speed round to go to the last part of our episode. But before that, I would love to ask one more question in the personal side.
00:25:00 Amr: Yeah.
00:25:00 JC: You as a founder, what keeps you up at night? Thinking about all these challenges and opportunities and even the things you're facing right now as a founder, what keeps you up at night?
00:25:11 Amr: I think because of this problem has been there for years and then seeing a lot of people have tried to make it work. And then we have not seen that progress being made, that penetration moving forward. And ultimately, like I said, it works into, this is the correct financial inclusion. So providing people ultimately with financial security.
00:25:35 Amr: And I think we believe we have the right team, the right product that can make that impact. So I think it's what keeps us like we have to get it right. I think ultimately this will affect people's financial security. So we want to take it as serious as possible.
00:25:52 JC: Love it. Okay. So let's jump to these super quick questions. Let's start with a book you're reading or a podcast you're enjoying.
00:26:03 Amr: I think a book should every entrepreneur read is Shoe Dog, Phil Knight's autobiography. I think it's learning the journey and seeing how that business has grown and how the amount of determination needed to be able to see that go through.
00:26:20 Amr: And I think a podcast would be Acquired. They do deep dives into companies. They recently did an episode about Visa. That's very interesting about how Visa came about and the story and the need behind it.
00:26:34 JC: Perfect. You're based in Cairo, right?
00:26:37 Amr: Yep.
00:26:38 JC: Okay. So if you could live anywhere in the world for one year, where would it be?
00:26:43 Amr: I really just came back from New York for the first time. I think New York would be that.
00:26:49 JC: Ah, interesting. What's your favorite productivity hack?
00:26:54 Amr: So I've learned this recently. I've started to apply it, is that also it needs a bit of background. In Egypt, the week starts on Sunday and ends on Thursday. So–
00:27:05 JC: Oh, wow.
00:27:05 Amr: Friday and Saturday are off. So what I've recently started doing is Tuesdays, no meetings, no calls. So time to think, to really calibrate, see if before the week ends and for the last two days, what are the really important stuff that you need to get done? I think that has really helped me, making sure that by the end of the week, the top of the to-do list is done. Cause there's never a to-do list that's completely finished, but you want to get the important stuff done.
00:27:36 JC: Definitely. Yeah. Love the productivity hack. It's taking some time to do some focus work if you want, but also to plan and to zoom out and see things.
00:27:48 Amr: Exactly.
00:27:48 JC: Love it. Where can listeners find you and where can listeners find more about Oola?
00:27:55 Amr: Of course. So they can follow Oola Technologies at social media, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and me, Amr Darwish, also mainly on LinkedIn right now.
00:28:09 JC: Love it. Well, Amr, it was great talking with you. I would say that there are lots of nice things we talked about in this episode, but I would love to emphasize on the need for collaboration in the InsurTech industry.
00:28:26 JC: I mean, the fact that we are talking, a company from Egypt and a founder from Egypt and a founder from Colombia based in Bogotá right now in this call and sharing, learning some thoughts about the industry and also finding how similar is the industry.
00:28:41 JC: For me, it's just mind blowing. So that's something that I would encourage everyone in the insurance industry to do.
00:28:50 Amr: For sure.
00:28:50 JC: It doesn't have to be in the Everywhere podcast, but send a text message to Amr on LinkedIn and send a text message to me on LinkedIn and let's start meeting and having conversations.
00:29:02 Amr: For sure. Definitely.
00:29:04 JC: So you can find me also, for the listeners, you can find me also on LinkedIn maybe as Juan Camilo González. I'm mainly on LinkedIn. And you can find more about Figuro in our website, Figuro.la. By the way, what's your website?
00:29:21 Amr: Yeah, Oola.tech.
00:29:23 JC: Okay, Oola.tech. So, Amr, again, it was great talking with you. Thank you very much to share all these thoughts and learnings with me. I'll keep an eye on Oola as everyone should, and I hope all the best for you and your company.
00:29:37 Amr: Thank you so much. Appreciate it, man.
00:29:40 Scott Hartley: Thanks for joining us and hope you enjoyed today's episode. For those of you listening, you might also be interested to learn more about Everywhere. We're a first-check pre-seed fund that does exactly that, invests everywhere. We're a community of 500 founders and operators, and we've invested in over 250 companies around the globe. Find us at our website, Everywhere.VC, on LinkedIn, and through our regular founder spotlights on Substack. Be sure to subscribe, and we'll catch you on the next episode.
Listen to JC González Trujillo share more about Figuro on the Venture Everywhere Podcast: Insuring the Future. Listen now on Apple & Spotify and check out to all our past episodes here!
