I’m Sho Sugihara, founder and CEO of Pave. I was born and raised in Japan, where I had my first job working with The Big Issue in Osaka city. I spent the summer delivering magazines to homeless vendors to help them earn a better living. The experience got me interested in social finance. 

At 18, without knowing how to speak Portuguese (!), I travelled to Brazil to work for an entrepreneur who had set up an NGO in São Paulo providing financial and educational support to thousands of people. The impact that one person could have was deeply inspiring. At that moment I knew I wanted to build my own business with a focus on solving inequality.

After university, I worked as a consultant at McKinsey for three years to save up enough cash to start my own venture. In 2017, I co-founded Pave out of Entrepreneur First with Chris Butcher.

What inspired you to launch your business and what is the end goal?

Financial inclusion has always been something I care deeply about. Back in 2017, Chris and I had a hypothesis about self-employed and temp-workers being underserved by the financial system because of their unique earning patterns and employment status. Through hundreds of interviews, we understood how hard it was for them to access fair financial products, especially credit. We also found out that many of them were looking for better ways to improve their credit scores.

Our product has evolved over the years to satisfy our customers’ changing needs, but our end goal stays the same: we want to bring millions more people into a fair financial system and eliminate unjust financial exclusion.

How do you set yourself apart from other businesses in your industry?

What makes us special is our social mission. In the UK, one in three adults struggle to access credit, and one in five Brits say they feel locked out of the financial system - that’s over 10 million people.

Far too few financial products are designed to help people build their financial health. Pave exists to change this. Over the years we've built an in-depth understanding of how to improve financial health using cutting edge technology and modern datasets. We're using our expertise to power the next generation of financial wellbeing products, and put a stop to the financial inequality that is spreading in our society.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?

I’ve learnt the importance of listening to your customers and having the courage to make bold decisions when it’s the right thing to do.

For example, during the pandemic in 2020 we did over one hundred in-depth customer interviews to understand how Covid impacted their finances. We learned that for the first time, a lot of our customers had managed to save up cash because of lockdown and furlough payments. They started thinking about long-term financial aspirations like a mortgage, and thus the demand for credit building services surged. We rapidly shifted our attention towards providing credit-building products. This was a bold decision at the time, but it worked out really well for us. 

What keeps you motivated as an entrepreneur when you hit bumps in the road?

We have a finite time on Earth, and how we spend that time matters. I’m proud of our social mission and the positive impact we’re making on people’s lives, and that keeps me going even when times get hard. 

Positive feedback from our customers is another source of strength. Nothing is more encouraging than knowing you’ve changed someone’s life for the better with what you do. Success stories and words of appreciation from our members go a long way in keeping me motivated. 

Finally, I'm lucky to have an amazing team of people who show care for not only our customers and each other, but for me as a leader as well. That really keeps me going. 

What does your business offer its target audience?

We offer our B2C customers a safer way to build their credit scores. We do this by offering tailor made tools, education and credit expert support to them. 

First, there’s bills monitoring which helps our customers track and make their bill payments on time to protect and build their score. Second, subject to an affordability assessment, customers can access an interest free credit line to help pay their bills. Finally, we give them personalised actions to take to help improve their score efficiently, with seven days a week credit expert support.

We’re aware that more and more people in the UK are taking out credit to cope with an escalating cost of living crisis. We will continue to help our members upkeep their credit health with regular enhancements to the Pave App.

Any new product launches we should know about?

We’ve just launched Fuse, our new B2B credit analytics services platform. A number of fintechs approached us over the past year hoping to get support on credit analytics and lending. Our benchmarking and research indicated our analytics capabilities were top-notch compared to what was out there.

Fuse offers businesses an all-in-one platform for assessing customer cash flow, affordability and credit worthiness to help them get better lending products to market more efficiently. We think this is a key step to take at a critical time to widen the impact we can have and achieve our mission to drive financial inclusion for millions of people.

How important is company culture and what is your top tip to get it right?

At Pave we’re proud of having developed an open culture. We encourage sharing both the good and the bad at all levels. We are also strongly bound together by a common belief in our social mission. 

The first step to getting the company culture right is to hire for values fit. For us, on top of bringing existing team members into the interviews during the hiring process, we also dedicate the final interview to assessing values fit. 

After hiring, it’s important for the entire team to revisit the company’s vision and mission from time to time to make sure everyone is aligned with our purpose. 

Are you a non-tech founder? If yes, how did you overcome the obstacles whilst building your business?

It's a common misconception that as a non technical co-founder you can't add value in the early stages. I don't think that's true. 

I did learn basic coding and built an early version of our website, but beyond that my focus was on customer interviews, product strategy and fundraising. These are all crucial to getting a startup off the ground. As long as you and your co-founder have the complete mix of skill sets you need to get things started, you can make it work. 

What routines have you got in place to ensure that you don’t ignore your mental health?

I keep fixed exercise routines. I'm a big fan of HIIT, as it doesn’t take much time and helps clear the mind, but I also mix it up with climbing and weight training. For me, being active helps me stay mentally healthy so these things are important. 

Recently I've started reading before bed to improve sleep quality, and I track my sleep patterns through a smartwatch to know how best to improve my sleep. 

I also have a coach who helps me build mental resilience through the use of frameworks and physiological understanding of how the brain works. 

What are your top tips for entrepreneurs wanting to get their business out there?

I’d encourage entrepreneurs to start building their businesses earlier. The risk of starting a company has declined significantly over the years. These days it’s a much more acceptable career path than in the past. Just start as soon as you have an idea, and learn as you go. There’s nothing like learning on the job!

After you’ve launched your business, as cliché as it sounds, I’d say the key to success is to listen to your customers and take care of their evolving needs, even if it means scrapping ideas you've spent hours working on. The world keeps changing, and your business needs to evolve to stay relevant.