Ross McCarthy is the founder of Fruga, a Manchester insurtech that turns everyday spending data into retention tools and customer intelligence for insurers, with customers earning credit at retailers to reduce their premiums.

In December 2025 the company partnered with rental management app August, so that landlords using the app can earn cashback on everyday spending that is put towards their insurance costs. Fruga is part of Exchange, the free accelerator for tech founders at Campfield in St John’s, which in March 2026 was named the North of England’s only programme in the Financial Times list of Europe’s Leading Start-Up Hubs. He tells Business Matters why insurance has trained its customers to leave, and why founders should ask for less permission.

What do you currently do at Fruga?

As the founder of Fruga, my role covers a lot of ground. As part of the Exchange accelerator programme, I am based at Campfield in Manchester. From there, I am selling to insurers, setting product direction and making sure we move faster than many might think a regulated business can.

Fruga is essentially an open banking layer for insurance. We turn everyday spending data into retention and customer intelligence for insurers. In the same way that telematics changed motor insurance, we think open banking can change everything else.

But the core vision is to take customers out of the aggregator cycle. At the moment, insurers might only have three meaningful contacts with a customer each year, but we want to turn that into a continuous, valuable relationship.

Through Fruga, customers can earn credit on everyday spending that helps pay down their insurance costs. That means real money off one of their biggest household bills, funded by retailers they already shop with.

What was the inspiration behind your business?

The fact that in many ways, insurance has effectively trained its own customers to leave. Every renewal period becomes a reason to shop around, and insurers can end up spending huge amounts of money acquiring customers, only to lose them again 12 months later.

I witnessed that first-hand in my previous life in insurance broking. We would lose significant numbers of customers to aggregators at renewal, and often, the insurer simply could not afford to offer another discount to keep them. That is when I knew that the price was the price, and the problem really clicked for me.

That frustration became even clearer when you looked at what was happening in banking. Consumers were introduced to options such as Monzo, Revolut, Wise and Starling, which completely changed expectations around product experience and how people interact with financial services. Insurance, by contrast, simply got price comparison sites.

That made me look more closely at what insurance already had to work with. Much of the data required to build a better relationship with customers already existed, sitting in people’s bank accounts through their everyday spending behaviour. Nobody was really connecting that information to insurance in a way that created ongoing value for the customer, and that became the starting point for Fruga.

How are you working with partners such as August?

Insurance is a big, often painful line item for landlords. With August, we are connecting directly with the people who feel that pressure most.

Together, we can help landlords keep the right protection in place, while using their everyday spending to quietly chip away at those costs in the background. It is a powerful combination of financial wellbeing and smarter property management.

Who do you admire?

From within the world of customer loyalty, I really admire Clive Humby and Edwina Dunn, who built Dunnhumby and helped create Tesco Clubcard.

They demonstrated that customer loyalty can be incredibly powerful when you use data to understand people better and then give them something genuinely valuable in return. There is a lot in that model that influences how I think about Fruga today.

I also admire founders who have gone into large, typically slow-moving and heavily regulated industries and proved that innovation, speed and product appeal can still win. Again, businesses like Wise, Revolut, Starling and Monzo all took on banking and helped change what customers expected from the entire sector.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

I think I would have asked for less permission in many instances. Early on, I spent too much time waiting for the industry to tell me that the idea was ready, or that we had reached the point where we were allowed to approach certain organisations.

That also meant I waited too long to go after the biggest names. Once we started doing that, things moved quickly. One insurer went from a first introduction to implementation in around a month, and even cleared other projects from its roadmap to make room for us.

That experience taught me not to make assumptions on behalf of the customer. You can convince yourself that a large organisation will be too difficult to approach, or that you need another six months of development before you are ready, when sometimes the only way to find out is to put the product in front of the person who can make the decision.

What defines your way of doing business?

Speed is definitely a major asset for us. Insurance is an industry where 18-month projects can be considered typical, while we aim to work in weeks and deliberately challenge that pace.

A big part of that is building before pitching. I would much rather show somebody a working product than a deck explaining what it might eventually do. People respond differently when they can see and use something.

That same mindset means aiming high on purpose. We sell to some of the largest insurers in the UK rather than automatically choosing the easiest organisations to approach. They are usually harder opportunities to win, but much bigger ones if you can solve a meaningful problem for them.

Alongside that, we try to be relentlessly useful to partners. If something does not help an insurer make money, retain business or create a better customer relationship, there is very little point in us building it.

That clarity is extremely important for an early-stage business, because there are always dozens of things you could be doing. The challenge is knowing which ones actually matter and having the discipline to focus on those.

What advice would you give to someone starting out?

Pick a big, boring, broken or fragmented industry. That is often where the best opportunities are, because there are real problems waiting to be solved with better technology, products or thinking.

Once you have found that opportunity, do not wait until you feel ready. Nobody gives you permission to start a business. At some point, you have to be audacious enough to decide that you are going to do it yourself.

Then, get in the room with decision-makers as early as possible. One conversation with the right person can move a business further forward than a hundred cold emails, and I say that as somebody who has sent plenty of cold emails in the past.

This article was written by

Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of SITM either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha’s Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Experienced operators who built careers in technology are moving into financial services, consumer businesses, logistics, investment groups and other established industries. They bring experience from organisations that were forced to scale quickly, operate across markets and continually rethink how work gets done. For traditional businesses, that represents an opportunity but only if they understand what they are actually hiring.

Madelynn Loo has experienced that transition herself. Before becoming Chief Executive Officer of Singapore-headquartered La Royale Group in February 2025, she spent much of her career at Uber and TikTok, working across strategy, operations and customer experience in Europe and Asia-Pacific.

She believes the most valuable thing technology executives can bring into other industries is not knowledge of particular platforms or tools. It is a different way of approaching how businesses operate.

“Technology changes incredibly quickly, so you become accustomed to questioning how things are done,” Madelynn says. “You look at a process and ask: Why does this exist? Can it be simplified? Can technology do part of it? What happens if the business becomes ten times bigger?”

Those questions are increasingly relevant far beyond the technology sector.

What actually transfers from tech

The technology industry has developed its own vocabulary: agile working, experimentation, automation, data-driven decision-making and, more recently, AI-native organisations. Madelynn argues that importing the terminology matters far less than importing the thinking behind it.

“People sometimes focus on the tools and vocabulary because those are easy to identify on a CV,” she says. “What transfers much better is how someone breaks down a problem, how comfortable they are challenging assumptions and whether they can build something that continues to work as the organisation grows.”

Working inside a rapidly scaling technology company can create a particular kind of operating discipline. Processes cannot remain static because the organisation around them keeps changing. Teams are often expected to make decisions without perfect information, while problems that appear insignificant at one scale can become material very quickly at another.

That experience can be particularly useful to established companies now confronting their own periods of technological change, and artificial intelligence is accelerating that convergence.

Businesses across sectors are asking questions technology companies have wrestled with for years: what should be automated, how small teams can achieve more, where data should replace intuition and how organisational structures should change when technology removes layers of manual work.

“The opportunity isn’t to turn every company into a technology company,” Madelynn says. “It is to take some of the operating principles that technology companies learned through very rapid change and apply them intelligently in a different environment.”

But not everything should move at technology speed

Moving from high-growth technology into a more established or regulated organisation also requires understanding what should not be imported.

“The instinct you sometimes have to unlearn is that speed is always the answer,” Madelynn says. “There are situations where moving quickly creates an advantage, and others where governance, regulation or the consequences of the decision mean you should deliberately move more carefully.”

That distinction has become increasingly apparent to Madelynn since moving into an investment holding environment.

A consumer technology company can test a product feature, measure the response and change it again. Capital allocation, governance and regulated activities can involve decisions whose consequences take considerably longer to emerge and are harder to reverse.

Technology operators entering other industries therefore need adaptability in both directions: the confidence to challenge unnecessary complexity and the judgement to recognise complexity that exists for a reason.

“The best operators don’t arrive and assume everything is broken because it is slower than their previous company,” Madelynn says. “They understand the business first, and then decide what should change.”

What businesses should actually hire for

Rather than asking whether someone comes from a prestigious technology company, employers should understand what the candidate actually learned there. Madelynn suggests looking beyond brand names and job titles.

“A well-known company on someone’s CV tells you where they worked. It doesn’t necessarily tell you what they built, what decisions they owned or how they performed when things became difficult.”

One useful approach is to ask candidates about something that did not work. High-growth environments can make it difficult to separate individual performance from favourable market conditions. Failures reveal more about how someone diagnoses problems, responds to evidence and changes course.

Another is to test whether candidates can translate their experience. Technology companies often develop highly specific internal terminology, systems and processes. Someone capable of explaining the underlying business problem without relying on that language is more likely to have understood the principle rather than simply learned the system.

But Madelynn believes businesses also need to be honest about whether they genuinely want change.

“A company can say it wants a technology mindset, but that means being prepared for people to question existing assumptions,” she says. “You cannot hire someone because you want a different way of thinking and then become uncomfortable when they think differently.”

Combining two kinds of experience

None of this means technology experience is inherently superior to traditional industry expertise. In fact, Madelynn believes the more interesting opportunity comes from combining the two.

Established businesses often possess deep sector knowledge, long-standing customer relationships, institutional memory and an understanding of regulation and risk that technology companies may take years to develop. Technology operators can complement that with experience in automation, scaling, experimentation, data and organisational design.

“The strongest combination is not tech replacing traditional experience,” Madelynn says. “It is putting people with different operating experiences around the same table.”

That combination is likely to become increasingly valuable as artificial intelligence changes industries that historically adopted technology at a more measured pace.

The next generation of business transformation may therefore look quite different from the last one. Rather than technology companies disrupting established industries from the outside, more of the change may come from inside existing businesses, as leaders and operators who developed their careers in technology bring those practices into new sectors.

For Madelynn, that is ultimately the opportunity.

“Technology gave a generation of people a very particular education in operating through change,” she says. “The interesting question now is what happens when that experience is applied to businesses and industries that are entering their own period of transformation.”

Shares of newly listed SS Retail extended their gains to trade over 6% higher at Rs 677 after making a strong debut in the stock market. The shares listed at a premium of nearly 51% over the IPO issue price of Rs 424 apiece.

On Wednesday, SS Retail shares debuted at Rs 639.10 on the BSE, marking a 50.73% premium to the issue price. On the NSE, the stock listed at Rs 624, translating into a 47.17% premium over the IPO price.

The listing surpassed unlisted market expectations, which had suggested a debut gain of up to 35%. The stock was seen commanding a grey market premium (GMP) of around 35% ahead of the listing.

What should investors do?

Shivani Nyati, Head of Research at Swastika Investmart, said SS Retail made a strong debut, supported by strong ROE/ROCE and its asset-light COFO model. However, at around 46.5x FY26 P/E, valuations appear demanding, while its higher exposure to lower-margin mobile hardware limits direct comparison with peers. “Given the strong listing and limited margin of safety at current valuations, our post-listing view is Neutral. Investors can wait for some consolidation before taking fresh positions, while existing investors may consider holding with a stop-loss of Rs 575–585,” she added.
The IPO opened for subscription on September 16 and closed on September 18, receiving an overwhelming overall subscription of 103.30 times. The qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) portion was subscribed 203.61 times, while the non-institutional investors (NIIs) portion saw 143.32 times subscription. The retail portion was subscribed 36.36 times.

SS Retail Ltd. recorded a 47% increase in total income, rising from Rs 1,600 crore in FY25 to Rs 2,353 crore in FY26, reflecting strong year-on-year growth.
The company’s profit after tax (PAT) increased by 49%, from Rs 40 crore in FY25 to Rs 59 crore in FY26, indicating improved profitability during the year.The Company proposes to utilise the Net Proceeds of the Issue towards funding capital expenditure for fit-outs of new stores planned for FY2027 and FY2028, with an estimated allocation of Rs 12.45 crore.

The Company also intends to use Rs 241.35 crore towards part-funding its incremental working capital requirements, with the balance proceeds allocated towards General Corporate Purposes. The total estimated utilisation of the Net Proceeds is Rs 253.80 crore.

About SS Retail

Incorporated in June 2016, SS Retail Ltd. is a multi-brand retail chain offering mobile phones, accessories and consumer electronics across Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Goa and Gujarat. The Company primarily targets Tier II, Tier III and smaller cities.

As of March 31, 2026, it operated 503 stores across 215 cities, covering approximately 2,41,365 sq. ft., under its brands SS Mobile, Mobile Exchange Wala and The Mobile Space. The network expanded to 536 stores covering 2,60,597 sq. ft. as of July 31, 2026.

Disclaimer: This article has been written by Veer Sharma, who is not a SEBI-registered Research Analyst or an Investment Adviser. Veer Sharma and his/her ‘relative(s)’ (as defined under Section 2(77) of the Companies Act, 2013) do not hold any financial interest in the companies mentioned in this article as of the date of publication. The views/recommendations mentioned in this article, wherever applicable, are those of the respective SEBI-registered Research Analyst/brokerage and have been reproduced/reported with due attribution. They should not be construed as the views or recommendations of The Economic Times Digital or the journalist. Readers are advised to consider the original research report and make their investment decisions based on their own assessment. Brokerage disclaimers here.

Leaders are constantly making decisions under pressure, managing risk, reading competitors, and adapting strategies, just like in a game of poker online.

By examining how top poker players approach the game, business professionals can uncover valuable lessons that are directly applicable to real-world challenges.

Making decisions with incomplete information

Both business and poker require decision-making based on limited or imperfect information. In poker, you never see your opponents’ cards and must act according to probability, psychology, and the information provided through gameplay. Similarly, business leaders often operate without knowing exactly how the market or competitors will respond. Strategic decisions, ranging from pricing to launching new products, must be made with a degree of uncertainty. By learning to trust their analysis and weigh risks versus potential rewards, leaders can make better decisions even when they don’t have all the answers.

Just as in poker, business decisions can benefit from scenario planning and considering multiple outcomes. It’s vital to reassess decisions as new information becomes available. Recognizing the value of folding in poker, stepping back from a poor hand, offers a parallel to cutting losses in business. Rather than pushing forward with a failing idea, successful leaders know when to pivot or withdraw resources. This mindset fosters resilience and agility, qualities essential to long-term business growth.

Emotional control and discipline

One of the most distinguishing features of great poker players is their emotional control. Tilt, the loss of rationality due to swings in fortune, can devastate even the most skilled player. In business, emotional impulses, whether overconfidence during a boom or fear during downturns, can lead to costly mistakes. Developing the discipline to remain calm, calculating, and measured in the face of adversity or success is a skill that pays dividends over time.

Business leaders can learn from poker’s emphasis on process over immediate results. A good poker player knows that variance means individual outcomes don’t always reflect the quality of decisions. Similarly, executives should focus on maintaining discipline and executing well-developed strategies, even when short-term results seem unfavorable. Over time, consistent application of sound principles leads to better outcomes and helps leaders avoid rash, emotional decisions that may undermine progress.

Reading people and adapting strategies

Success in both poker online and business often hinges on reading subtle cues from others and adapting accordingly. In the card game, interpreting an opponent’s body language, betting patterns, and timing offers clues about their potential holdings. In business, understanding stakeholders, be they employees, customers, or competitors, can provide a crucial competitive advantage. Leaders who pay attention to subtle feedback and quickly adjust their approach are more likely to succeed in negotiations and partnerships.

Flexibility is another quality that business leaders can take from poker. The best players constantly refine their tactics, shifting gears based on what’s happening at the table. Similarly, no single business strategy is guaranteed to work indefinitely. Market trends, consumer preferences, and technological advances mean leaders must remain alert and responsive. By building strategies that leave room for adaptation, businesses can weather changes and uncover fresh opportunities: just as poker players do when the dynamics of the game shift.

SEOUL — South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI index traded above 7,100 for a third consecutive session Wednesday, standing at 7,100.45 by mid-morning, up 82.54 points, or 1.18%, as gains on Wall Street’s technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite and easing tensions in the Middle East continued to lift sentiment across Asian markets.

The index opened sharply higher Wednesday, jumping 136.08 points, or 1.94%, to 7,153.99 at the opening bell, before paring some of those gains through the morning session. The rally tracked another record close for the Nasdaq Composite overnight, which rose 0.45% to notch its second consecutive all-time high, driven by continued strength in technology shares. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index also posted a sharp advance, climbing more than 4% in the prior U.S. session, further reinforcing the bullish tone carrying into Wednesday’s trading in Seoul.

Foreign and institutional investors led the buying that pushed the index back above the 7,100 level Wednesday, according to local market reports, continuing a pattern of strong overseas and institutional demand for Korean equities that has characterized much of the past week’s rally. The KOSDAQ, South Korea’s smaller technology-focused exchange, also advanced Wednesday, climbing back above the 840 mark alongside the broader KOSPI’s gains.

Wednesday’s advance extends a rapid climb for the KOSPI over the past three trading sessions. The index first reclaimed the psychologically significant 7,000 level on Monday, closing at 7,007.72, up 1.65%, after seven consecutive sessions below that threshold. That initial breakout was driven primarily by a sharp rise in Samsung Electronics shares, following data from the Korea Customs Service showing South Korea’s total exports reached $71.4 billion between September 1 and 20, up 78.3% from a year earlier. Semiconductor exports specifically more than tripled to $34.12 billion over the same period, a 259.4% increase that marked a new monthly record for the category.

The rally continued Tuesday, when the KOSPI climbed a further 1.71% to close near 7,127, briefly touching above 7,100 during the session. That advance was fueled in part by growing enthusiasm around Meta’s artificial intelligence agent product, known as Muse, whose reported popularity helped drive the Nasdaq to a fresh record high overnight and, in turn, lifted sentiment toward AI-linked technology stocks in Seoul. Easing concerns about the trajectory of tensions in the Middle East also contributed to the improved mood among investors heading into Wednesday’s session.

That easing in Middle East tensions follows a significant diplomatic development this week, with a senior Iranian official telling Reuters that Iran had offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the United States eases military pressure and lifts its blockade on Iranian ports. While the offer remains conditional and unconfirmed by Washington, the report has contributed to a broader improvement in global risk appetite, with oil prices falling and equity markets, including the KOSPI, benefiting from reduced geopolitical risk premiums priced into asset markets over the past week.

South Korea’s chip sector has remained the primary engine behind the broader index’s advance. Samsung Electronics has continued climbing alongside rival SK Hynix as global demand for high-bandwidth memory chips used in artificial intelligence accelerators has shown no signs of slowing. Other notable gainers across recent sessions have included Samsung Electro-Mechanics, LG Electronics, SK Inc, and several of the country’s major financial institutions, including KB Financial Group, Shinhan Financial Group and Hana Financial Group, reflecting broad-based strength extending well beyond the index’s two dominant chipmakers.

The KOSPI’s rapid ascent this week caps an extraordinary year for South Korean equities more broadly. According to Trading Economics, the index was up more than 104% compared with the same period last year as of Tuesday’s close, with gains of more than 6% recorded over just the past month alone. The KOSPI, first introduced in 1983 with a base value of 100 as of January 4, 1980, now represents a market capitalization of roughly 4,135 trillion won, or approximately $2.8 trillion, based on the most recent available figures, cementing its position as one of the world’s most closely watched emerging-market equity benchmarks amid the ongoing global boom in artificial intelligence infrastructure investment.

With Wall Street continuing to post fresh record highs and the diplomatic situation surrounding the Strait of Hormuz still evolving, investors in Seoul are likely to remain focused in the coming sessions on whether the current rally can be sustained above the 7,100 level, or whether some of the sharp gains recorded over the past three trading days will give way to renewed volatility as markets digest both the pace of the AI-driven chip rally and any further developments tied to the fragile diplomatic opening in the Middle East.

This article was written by

Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, but may initiate a beneficial Long position through a purchase of the stock, or the purchase of call options or similar derivatives in AVGO over the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha’s Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.