Australian FinTech company profile #167 - FinTip

1. Company Name: FinTip

2. Website: www.fintip.com.au

3. Key Staff & Titles: Luke Riboldi – CEO & Founder. Calvin Ren – CTO & Co-Founder.

4. Location(s): Sydney & Brisbane.

5. In one sentence, what does your fintech do?: FinTip offers an immersive finance and investment education mobile app with our virtual share market game and curated content.

6. How / why did you start your fintech company?: We want to educate investors at all levels in a new and engaging way. The best way is through immersive experiences and practice. We want people to stop gambling and investing without knowing what they’re doing by offering a sandbox or simulated environment to avoid losing too much money doing the real thing.

7. What is the best thing your company has achieved or learnt along the way (this can include awards, capital raising etc)?: We’re most proud that FinTip was 100% bootstrapped by the founders with no capital raise, loans or external funds. The learning has been that a lot can be done with very little. A combination of lean start up, agility, resourcefulness and hard work has meant that we can now offer something that consumers will value and enjoy.

8. What’s some advice you’d give to an aspiring start-up?: To those that haven’t started, but have an idea, get over the hurdle of procrastination and find a way (“burn the boats” mentality). Once you’ve started, don’t give up and move past “the dip”. Persistence and finding ways around a problem is part of the formula to success.

9. What’s next for your company? And are you looking to expand overseas or stay focussed on Australia?: We are just starting and launched last week. The key from here is marketing and distribution. Narrowing in our target marketing and finding those 100 passionate customers that will then become loyal users. If we hit critical mass and generate revenue and profitability, then we have plans to offer more features and other markets for people to learn more (e.g. overseas stocks, crypto, property).

10. What other fintechs or companies do you admire?: We love Coinbase and Brian Armstrong for the way they are advocating crypto in a considered and legal way. Airbnb, led by Chesky for their design and CX approach. Founder led companies tend to offer greater alpha and are true believers in their missions.

11. What’s the most interesting or funniest moment that’s happened in your company’s lifetime?: We built the app in under 6 months and as co-founders we’ve never actually met. We’ve managed to get by with video conferencing after connecting on LinkedIn. A lot of trust goes into operating this way and forms a cornerstone of our business. We want this trust to extend to the community and earn their trust.