Episode Summary
In this episode of Emerging Founders with Manav, host Manav sits down with Atif Siddiqui, the founder and CEO of Branch App—a rapidly scaling workplace platform revolutionizing how workers and businesses manage pay. Atif shares his journey from joining Idealab’s accelerator to building Branch, now a company with 240+ employees and over $600M in raised funds. The conversation dives into the evolution of Branch App: from an early focus on helping hourly workers claim unfilled shifts, to providing instant earned wage access, to supporting tip disbursements and gig worker payments for major platforms like Uber. Atif reveals lessons learned from product pivots, building culture, leveraging AI for internal operations, and his reflections on fintech, crypto, and the importance of founder psychology. Listeners will gain insight into the strategic thinking that drives Branch’s growth and Atif’s practical advice for anyone building impactful technology.
Transcript
Manav [00:00:00]:
Welcome to today's episode of Emerging Founders with Manav. Today's guest is Atif Siddiqui. He's the founder and CEO of Branch App, a workplace platform that's changing the way workers and businesses manage pay. His journey to launching Branch began with his time at EIR Idea Lab, which is an accelerator based in Pasadena. He firsthand saw the challenges faced by workers using outdated payment systems. This insight led him to create the platform to solve this problem. And since then, Branch has grown to an insane level, and they've raised more than 600 million funds. They have an insane, really big team. And I'm really excited to have you on the show, Atif. This is my first time talking to someone who scaled the company to this level.
Atif Siddiqui [00:00:39]:
Thank you for having me.
Manav [00:00:40]:
Awesome. How's your, like, how have you been? Like, it's been like a long journey, like, eight, nine years. Like, I usually think a lot of nowadays there's this, like, ADHD with entrepreneurs. They keep jumping around, switching ideas. And what was the thing that stuck with Branch?
Atif Siddiqui [00:00:55]:
Yeah, it has been a long journey. I think one of the things I've learned, it's definitely a marathon, not a sprint. And, you know, part of that is really just, you know, really taking pride in the journey and the learnings along the way. You know, I think for us, what continues to motivate us is just the impact we're having on everyday working American lives. You know, it's like almost 70% of the American economy that works in a hourly job, a tip job as an independent contractor. And just so seeing that impact and the challenges that we're solving for these individuals financially is, I think, what really motivates us and continues us to keep going.
Manav [00:01:33]:
So your idea, initially, the inception of the idea was solving a problem for the gig economy, like the freelancers. What was the inception of the idea?
Atif Siddiqui [00:01:42]:
Yeah, the inception of the idea was really focused on hourly workers when we first started. So, you know, kind of the mission behind Branch has always been the same, which is like, how do you help these workers grow financially? And, you know, early on, the idea, a lot different product than where we're at today. But we started with initially helping them earn more income at their current place of employment. You know, you work at a large retailer like Target, there's always shifts that go unfilled. People cancel, call out, and ultimately they were handling it in a very analog, manual way, pieces of paper in a back room. So initially we solved that problem and we plugged into, you know, different HR systems to get the data and make sure, you know, the scheduling and those shifts flowed into the systems of record. I think one of the things we kept doing though, was peeling back the layers on, like, why were they looking for more income in the first place, more shifts? And that's when we discussed the financial challenges that this demographic faces with income volatility, with, you know, you know, their schedules fluctuate, so their, their income fluctuates. But ultimately, you know, we were sitting on a lot of the data from the systems of record of like, how much they worked, when they showed up to work, how much they earned. And we felt like, you know, if we could accelerate those that payment to individuals, that's a way of helping them financially because they're less financially stressed, they maybe won't resort to other pred measures that put them in debt, payday loans, credit card debt. And, you know, ultimately tested that idea out and it, it just took off. The response was great. We knew that we really tapped into, you know, something really special here.
Manav [00:03:22]:
What was the first moment when. Because I know Branch has like so many different features right now, so many different solutions, but what was like the first, if you could remember the moment where you were like, oh, we have product market fit.
Atif Siddiqui [00:03:33]:
Yeah, I think it was really just looking at the growth rates and demand. You know, if you go back to the Schedul software, it was a mobile, mobile sort of B2B layer on top of an existing workforce management system. And when we launched this idea, the FinTech application for Branch, around what's now called Earn Wage access. Right. Providing a portion of income for W2 employees ahead of the pay cycle that they've already earned. I think within like two months, we surpassed all the growth we saw in two years selling a B2B SaaS product. And that's when we knew like, okay, this is something the growth rates are really incredible here. People keep requesting. Now we just have to find out how we're gonna scale this and make this a business.
Manav [00:04:18]:
So basically what you're saying is that you get the money in advance that you're about to get a page. So usually paychecks, the way it works in the regular organizations is like bi weekly, right? There's you get a paycheck every two weeks. But in the gig economy, how did that work?
Atif Siddiqui [00:04:33]:
Yeah, so the, you know, the product has really evolved a lot. And maybe I can take a step back to where we started and how we got to gig worker payments. So the first product we launched was around Earn Wage Access, which is the ability for, you know, a W2 employee to tap into a portion of income they've already earned, typically 50% of what they've earned ahead of the pay cycle. So you work on Monday, you worked eight hours. We have that data, we make it available to the employee. They click a button, they can get that right away. Come payroll time, we recoup the funds from their employer. Employer processes a deduction, you know, on their pay stub. I think one of the things we did very early on that differentiated us us in the space though, is that we put a digital wallet at the core of the product. There's a couple reasons we did this. The first, which I think was really important is like we wanted to build a business where at the end of the day, if we're pushing out funds, it was equitable for the worker. Typically these are low, moderate income workers, right. And we saw other models that were charging them on a transactional basis. We're like, feels like you're optimizing for the wrong things at that point. You want them to take more advances because you make more money. With a digital wallet, we could allow funds that we can push to individuals for free. Day, night, weekend. We weren't really beholden to the bank rails, right? It was an internal way to move money and more importantly, it allowed us to monetize off of interchange. So if that worker found the product useful as like a banking product, it had an associated debit card with it. They go swipe. We make money from the merchant, right? And so that was a great way for us to keep the product free. I think the second thing the wallet did for us is it really allowed us to open up the aperture on like, hey, what are some other worker payout use cases that would be very valuable for these individuals. And so I go back to, you know, it was the pandemic. We're working with a lot of pizza franchisees, Domino's Pizza Hut, and they're like, hey, this wallet's a great way for us to process tip payouts. Right now there's no cash coming in to the store. Our managers are running to ATMs or you know, some cases they had trucks coming in cash, right? If they're a larger restaurant group. And the alternative was like they were going to push it to a two week paycheck, right? Their tips. And oftentimes times these workers work here because it's a, you know, they can get paid same day. So we started doing, processing tip payments through there and then quickly, you know, kind of just kept expanding and we found that Independent contractors. Like you're an Uber driver, you want to get paid after your job is completed, after you finish every ride, you just simply get your money pushed, almost streaming your pay to your wallet. And that was another great use case. And that's so that's really the product evolution over time.
Manav [00:07:09]:
So currently like how does the integration with Uber works? So like if I'm an Uber driver and I'm using the Branch app, do I get the payment right away like the day of, of driving?
Atif Siddiqui [00:07:21]:
Yeah. So you onboard as a new Uber driver and you have the option to say hey, you know, I want to get paid right after my ride is complete. I'm going to opt in to the Uber Pro card which is a white label version of Branch that we power for Uber. And once you do that, you know, as soon as your ride is completed, you get those funds instantly deposited into your Uber Pro card that you can go out and use. I think there's unique rewards we've bake kicked in for drivers like up to 5% cash back on gas, which is very meaningful for you know, these drivers. It's a frequent expense for them. So yeah, it's become a great way for them to not only get money faster but also, you know, get rewards. They can continue to increase their balances and take more rides.
Manav [00:08:01]:
It reminds me a lot of the insurance business with the float, you know, because you kind of have to, I'm pretty sure you had to do some kind of modeling to figure out like oh, these people are taking advance money, we're going to have to pay them in the, on the back end. How was that? Was that tricky?
Atif Siddiqui [00:08:16]:
It is tricky, you know. Yeah, you're right. Certain companies can float it themselves. Right. You know, they have big treasury groups and they're like, you know, we'll, we'll be able to fund this. Others that aren't maybe as large need a certain amount of cash flow. And so you have to kind of figure out that float facility and what that looks like. And always making sure that the unit economics right are positive on what you're pushing out and what you're claiming.
Manav [00:08:39]:
And how big is Branch now? Like are you guys international? What's the next stage for Branch app like to blow this up?
Atif Siddiqui [00:08:45]:
Yeah, we're not international, we're in domestic right now. Just in the US we're about 240 employees. Thousands of businesses on the platform, active on the platform now. You know where we have, we've taken a really focused approach to our go to market where we verticalized the business a couple years ago. And so focusing on, you know, those businesses allowed us to go really deep, get a good understanding of our ideal customer profile, you know, so, you know, for example, the verticals that we're in are hospitality, you know, largely restaurants, restaurants, healthcare, largely like healthcare, staffing, business services. So you have more general purpose staffing, call centers. And so taking that vertical approach has been, you know, allowed us to be very methodical and like how we continue to grow. And so now we validated new verticals coming into this year, like construction. Another big problem, you know, when it comes to, you know, antiquated payout methods.
Speaker C [00:09:38]:
Right.
Atif Siddiqui [00:09:39]:
And so we're now working with doing a vertical expansion into new verticals.
Manav [00:09:43]:
I think you guys should explore manufacturing.
Atif Siddiqui [00:09:45]:
Because manufacturing is a great one too. Yeah.
Manav [00:09:47]:
Trump is putting a lot of tariffs on international manufacturing. There's going to be this insane boom in the local manufacturing sector. Yeah, yeah, that. Wow, that's incredible. Like, I kind of want to go back to the beginning of. So I worked at an accelerator myself as well, and it was so fun. It was so much fun being around people and just hearing new ideas every day. And I saw like Idealab's website, like the number one portfolio company is branch app. So that's pretty cool. But yeah, how was the experience as Idealab and what was it must have been exciting to be around like other people like yourself.
Atif Siddiqui [00:10:25]:
It was very exciting. You know, I think the other aspect of this, I was a solo founder, right. And so you have other founders going through similar challenges. Very early stage, you know, fortunate to also have the opportunity to work with the IdeaLab founder, Bill Gross.
Speaker C [00:10:41]:
Right.
Atif Siddiqui [00:10:41]:
And understand, you know, how he looked at really early company formation before you even have a product out in the market. Right. And so, you know, what I took away from that and key insights was that is really just breaking down product problems into very small, simple solutions where you can test and validate quickly. And so before we even built anything, right. Like, I walked up and down Pasadena's, what is it, Colorado Avenue, talking to small businesses, whether they're restaurants or retail owners about some of those challenges and talking to the end users too, firsthand of like, what solutions and tools do you use in the workplace? And so I think that was very fundamental to just get a deep understanding and making sure that you're really validating, you know, what you're building. And we still do that today. You know, before we even put any engineering or product resources into what we build, we really make sure we validate that we're Building the right things at the right time for our customers.
Manav [00:11:33]:
Yeah, I'm really down and I think now it's good to talk about the future because AI obviously has been around for two years and I've gone down this rabbit hole of deep seek and OpenAI and AI agents and OpenAI has this new feature called tasks and I'm like really like deep in this. So how do you see the future of SaaS businesses? How do you make them more sticky like in terms of value accretion? And how is branch thinking about AI? And are you guys coming out with some of your own AI tools as well?
Atif Siddiqui [00:12:07]:
Yeah, I think first is right, you can build now products really, really quickly, you know, as a result of AI and you can do it with like a lot less people and a lot less capital. So I think that's exciting for customers and consumers in general. They have more choice and better products will rise to the top. Ultimately, I think at the end of the day it still comes down to solving customer problems. At the end of the day the customer doesn't care what model you use. They just know that I have a problem and this software layer helps me solve this. When it comes to that, I really do think the advantage you have is really being able to bundle some of these solutions or take what's off the shelf, customize it to solve customer problems. At the end of the day, you know, those problems could be workflow problems, right. They could be labor problems where, you know, before maybe a company was throwing a lot of people at the problem, now they can throw, you know, AI agents at it. And so ultimately it's a net benefit for customers, for society. Right. We'll get better products and customers will get their problem solved at Branch. You know, I think some of the applications that we've looked in are more internal.
Speaker C [00:13:17]:
Right.
Atif Siddiqui [00:13:17]:
We look at it as like, how can we supercharge our teams, how can we make them more efficient? And so running a fintech, there's a lot of different operations, right that are involved, you know, unlike maybe a SaaS, right? You have compliance teams, you have fraud teams, you have support teams, you have all the banking operations. People dispute charges, they, you know, and so there's a huge operational component that, you know, we're leveraging AI to help some of that. And really 10x our teams, there's. So we can handle more volume, we can process more on the operation side.
Manav [00:13:50]:
Yeah, I think one thing is the no brainer is the customer service, which of course a lot of every company is doing that. I Want to talk about like, you've scaled the company to 240, 250 employees. What was your, do you have any like framework for hiring and like an approach to finding a players?
Atif Siddiqui [00:14:10]:
Yeah, so I'm still involved in the hiring process. You know, I think first thing is that we look for, you know, obviously from a cultural perspective. Right. You know, some of the things that really resonate, I think with people working at Branch is the mission. Right. So a lot of it comes back to that. I ask them, you know, why branch out of everything you've looked at and they're like, really, you know, the mission really resonated, whether it's because they've worked, you know, on an hourly job in their career at some point when they're starting out maybe, or you know, through college, supporting themselves or someone they know dear, Right. Has worked. And so they understand the challenges firsthand that we're solving. And then those thing they point to, it's like, you know, it's a large problem. I mentioned, you know, almost 70% of the American economy. And so they know it's a big problem that needs to be solved. You know, some of the other things that really important to Branch that, you know, traits that really stick out are just like curiosity is one and it's not just curiosity in your own role, it's markets. It's, you know, other where the world is heading and asking the questions of like, why are things challenging the status quo in a way. And the other one is just persistence. You know, some of the things I always screen for is like, you know, even outside of work, what are some of the biggest adversities you faced in your life and how did you overcome them just to kind of see how they think and approach, you know, challenges. Because as I mentioned, right. Like running a startup, there's no shortage of challenges a startup faces. And so that's a huge, huge trait we look at, I think. And what makes people successful here?
Manav [00:15:39]:
Yeah. I always tell people like the psychology of a founder is like one day you're on top of the world and the next day you're, you're, you're questioning your life. It's, it's not for everyone.
Atif Siddiqui [00:15:50]:
Yep. Managing your own psychology as a founder is very important.
Speaker C [00:15:53]:
Right.
Atif Siddiqui [00:15:53]:
Like, I think as you go through.
Manav [00:15:55]:
The journey, one thing I do have to ask you and you can give me your strong opinion on that because you are a Fintech founder. So what do you feel about crypto and personally, like, what do you feel about crypto? And like I use crypto myself personally for a lot of remittance, like paying people internationally and I've noticed like it's faster, cheaper. Yeah. How do you feel about crypto in general?
Atif Siddiqui [00:16:17]:
Yeah, you know, I think this idea conceptually of like a digital first native.
Speaker C [00:16:23]:
Right.
Atif Siddiqui [00:16:24]:
Currency is inevitable.
Speaker C [00:16:26]:
Right.
Atif Siddiqui [00:16:26]:
You know, I think is application wise you, you hit on one where I think is really solid which is you know, dealing with cross border payments, you know, stable coins I think has now become pretty popular these days. And you hear a lot about stable coins and like there's a clear application there, right. Where you look at some markets where inflation is double even triple digits and to put you know, your money, hard earned money money into a store of value that doesn't depreciate, you know, with inflation. It's, it's a valid, you know, application there as well as the you know, speed and cost that you can transact. And so that's one area. Yeah, you know, I think it's like any technology, right. It goes through different cycles and. But that's a clear lease application I could see is the cross border payment and stablecoins.
Manav [00:17:15]:
Interesting. Yeah, I think the crypto industry is wild and the stablecoin businesses also, if you see how they make money, they also have the float. That's how they make money as well. It's like they use the float to accrue interest and I think, I don't know, 5, 10%, but they've become like really good and big businesses. Yeah. So what's the next thing for branch? What are you guys going to keep raising like rounds and like what's the next big step?
Atif Siddiqui [00:17:47]:
Yeah, I think for us, you know, we really feel like we're at the tip of the iceberg. We're still very early stages. You know, when I mentioned kind of the demographic we serve, it's hourly workers, tipped workers, gig workers, independent contractors. You have like $9 trillion flowing into those markets in terms of wages and earnings and so huge, huge potential here to tap. I mentioned, you know, some of the things like expanding into new vertical, know having a good framework to test a vertical and move into them. So we're excited about that. I think the other thing too is that you know, we're expanding our offerings. Right. So if you look at 70, look at our customer base, 75% of our customers use two or more of our offerings. So we really become this sort of multi product platform. And then the other one I would say is that, you know, we talk a lot about acceleration of payments but what's often Overlooked is some people just need to receive their paycheck digitally.
Speaker C [00:18:43]:
Right.
Atif Siddiqui [00:18:43]:
And so when we work in certain verticals it's you're dealing with either unbanked or underbanked users.
Speaker C [00:18:49]:
Right.
Atif Siddiqui [00:18:50]:
They can't, they're not in the financial system. Maybe they're a minor that's starting their first job.
Speaker C [00:18:55]:
Right.
Atif Siddiqui [00:18:56]:
They're an immigrant that there's not a lot of data to pass some of the banking verification. And so using branch as a pay card solution creates a better experience for these individuals where they now can receive their paycheck digitally and they're not having to receive a paper check running to a Walmart or Kroger spending $10 just to get access, you know, to their earnings.
Manav [00:19:17]:
Like paper checks should be banned. Like who, who's using checks anymore? I think the I, I've noticed personally in my life I've used stop visiting the bank like less and less over the years and that's just the reality now. People use like even with friends event Moselle like paying people like that kind of thing. So I want to like do a quick little rapid fire round with you and ask you like quick questions. So what is a book you've given most as a gift to others and what is one to three books that have greatly influenced your life and thinking and you completely came out as a different person after finishing that book?
Atif Siddiqui [00:20:00]:
Yeah, I'm a big fan of the Poor Charlie's Almanac, which is the book on, you know, speeches from Charlie Munger. I think just, you know, not only just business but life. There's a lot of great learnings there. So that's one that really sticks out.
Manav [00:20:16]:
Cool. One thing I quickly want to ask you is like not part of the rapid fire round, but were your parents always like so encouraging with the being an entrepreneur? My parents are completely encouraging. They're always like manav start something like they're always very supportive. I want to just like ask you because with South Asian parents it's, it's always like tricky. They're either supportive or they're not.
Atif Siddiqui [00:20:41]:
Yeah, no, I was very, very fortunate to have very supportive parents in anything I did right. Be it starting a business. I remember when I was 11 years old, I wanted to be an exchange student in Japan. 11 or 12. And you know, it's a big undertaking. I spent a summer in Japan. But like, you know, I, I convinced them and I think like, you know, some of those experiences and their support really made me who I am today. So. Yeah, yeah, no, very fortunate that you know, no Matter what I did, whether it was starting branch or going back to school to get my mba, they were always really supportive of my endeavors.
Manav [00:21:11]:
Yeah, that's like, I think some of us are just like lucky with that, you know, just being, having that support. Okay, next question. What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months? It could be a gadget, it could be a course, it could be anything. It would, it has to be a hundred dollar or less.
Atif Siddiqui [00:21:31]:
Less. I would probably say some of the premium versions too, these AI models, you know what I mean? Like I, I, I've tried all of them and you know, I just love playing around with new tools but like, you know, they've, they've, when I look at my usage of them, it just increases over time and the models keep getting better over time. So I would say any one of those, like whether it's the Chat GPT license, the Gemini, Deep Research, like all of them are really great.
Manav [00:21:56]:
It's incredible. Like I, I personally, I feel like it's like there was this joke like I only talk to three people in my, I only talk to two people every day and one person is chatgpt. And it's so true. Like you people can just use it as a permanent thing. How has a failure or apparent failure set you up for later success? It probably felt like a failure in the moment, but eventually it turned out to be like a lesson in this kind of guys.
Atif Siddiqui [00:22:25]:
Yeah, it's a good question. I, yeah, I mean, I, not sure if I consider this a failure, but just, even, just like, you know, pivoting the company has been, it was challenging.
Speaker C [00:22:34]:
Right?
Atif Siddiqui [00:22:34]:
Like you have to again, we were still generating good SaaS revenue as a B2B mobile SaaS product and we really had to, you know, it's almost like you're flying the plane all the way to the ground while you're assembling it and you know, hoping that you assemble it correctly and you'll be able to take off again. And so that was, you know, challenging. We had to initially, you know, right size a team for our new direction. Right. And do all those things. And ultimately I think it was the right move and we were able to persevere through that.
Manav [00:23:05]:
Did you, do you remember any like near death moments like where you were like, oh, we need an injection of cash or we're going to die?
Atif Siddiqui [00:23:15]:
Yeah, no, fortunately it wasn't that. But we did have very supportive investors, right. That believed in kind of, of what we're building and you know, I've always tried to be very upfront and about the things we know and what we don't know and just be intellectually honest of, like, what we have to figure out. So I think that's always helped.
Manav [00:23:31]:
Incredible. Cool. Last question. In the last five years, what new belief, behavior or habit has improved your life? It could be like any habit or, you know, something that you've incorporated in your daily routine. Like, makes you more productive, makes you more calm.
Atif Siddiqui [00:23:46]:
Yeah, it's a good one because I talked to a lot of other founders about this. I think early on, on, maybe not even early on, maybe the first five, six, seven years of running Branch, just sleep. It was, you know, operating on four to five hours and, you know, over the last couple years gotten a little bit better at that, my sleep hygiene. I just realized, like, how, you know, the level I was operating, I was nowhere close to where, you know, you can now. And so just prioritizing that, I think all the rest of the day falls into place. You know, once you. Once you take care of that.
Manav [00:24:19]:
You're so right. Yeah, I've been preaching my whoop band to everyone.
Atif Siddiqui [00:24:24]:
I got aura ring here.
Manav [00:24:27]:
Yeah, I like the thing that about Woopa. It tells you what time to go to sleep. It tells you like, oh, you did tonight. You should go to bed at this time. And I'm like, oh, okay, I'll try to follow that and see how I feel. But yeah, and how can people find you? How can people find. I'm pretty sure Branch is always looking to hire more people, so how can people know more about what you're building?
Atif Siddiqui [00:24:51]:
Yeah, you know, you can go to our website, branch app.com, find everything about us. We're also on all socials, including myself. It's Atif Siddiqui on X. And so, yeah, happy to, you know, engage with anybody looking for a new opportunity. We are hiring, so take a look.
Manav [00:25:10]:
All right. All right, guys, thank you for watching. I'll post the links to Atif's LinkedIn, Twitter and the link to Branch app's website in the show notes and the description. Thank you for watching another episode of Emerging Founders with Manav. This was a lot of fun. I'll see you in the next episode.
