Toptal Finance Expert
Fintech and Banks: How Can the Banking Industry Respond to the Threat of Disruption?
Fintech attention tends to focus on startups and their efforts to unbundle the financial service industry’s suite of services. But how are banks responding to this disruptive threat? Despite their wealth, talent, and rich history of innovation, they have been sluggish to respond to the upstart movement.
This article suggests four ways banks can change their approach and better respond to the impending fintech threat to banks.
Toptal Talent Network Experts
Commercial Drones Are Revolutionizing Business Operations
When most hear “drone,” they think expensive military aircrafts or small consumer toys. However, the future of drones will actually be shaped by practical commercial applications, due to their ability to drive efficiency and data analytics.
This article defines drones and their total addressable market and highlights how their capabilities can be leveraged in commercial business operations. It also includes investment trends and predictions for the future of the industry.

Francesco Castellano
Francesco has over a decade of experience in finance, consulting, and management, at prestigious companies such as Bain and Uber.
Bridgewater's Ray Dalio: Quiet Pioneer of Big Data, Machine Learning, and Fintech
Ray Dalio is an investing legend whose success is most often attributed to investment acumen. This article argues that it was equally due to his foresight as an early but quiet adopter of computational systems, big data techniques, and artificial intelligence that resulted in his outstanding success. Bridgewater was one of the world’s earliest fintech companies.

Orinola Gbadebo-Smith
Ori an investor cum entrepreneur with experience across M&A, PE, VC and startup operations. He most recently founded a VC-backed startup.
Great Recent Examples of Competitive Strategy Successes
Competitive strategy frameworks are widely known and mainstays of university curricula, despite being almost 40 years old. We often hear the stories of Walmart and Southwest Airlines, but what modern competitive strategy examples are there? In this article we use Michael Porter’s activity positioning framework to show successful applications of competitive strategy from modern digital companies.
Toptal Talent Network Experts
Why More Entrepreneurs are Choosing To Build Search Funds over Startups
Search funds, though once an esoteric asset class and model for entrepreneurship, have seen a substantial rise in popularity in recent years. They can often represent a superior alternative to the venture-backed startup route especially for a select cohort of formally trained entrepreneurs, most of all those who deeply understand their motives, risk appetites, and contextual/financial encumbrances.

Orinola Gbadebo-Smith
Ori an investor cum entrepreneur with experience across M&A, PE, VC and startup operations. He most recently founded a VC-backed startup.
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Cybersecurity: What Every CEO and CFO Should Know
$7.35 million. That’s the average cost of a data breach is. Sure, cybersecurity isn’t sexy. However, in today’s digital age, it is undeniably critical for large corporations and small startups alike. This is compounded by the fact that hacks are becoming commonplace.
Read on to arm yourself with awareness to these invisible threats, and tangible steps you can take to protect yourself and your company.

Melissa Lin
Melissa has worked in ECM, tech startups, and management consulting, advising Fortune 500 companies across multiple sectors.
TAM Methodology: An Explanation and Example of Total Addressable Market Analysis
Total Addressable Market (TAM) sizing exercises have become very popular for assessing the potential of a business. TAM is, however, often miscalculated and misinterpreted. In this article, we will look at how to calculate it and its derivative subset waypoints of SAM and SOM. A working example will also be demonstrated for WeWork.
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