Australian FinTech company profile #21 – SelfWealth
1. Company Name: SelfWealth
2. Website: www.SelfWealth.com.au
3. Key Staff & Titles:
Andrew Ward, CEO and Founder
Andrew Dick, CTO
Brendan Mutton, General Manager – Sales
Jarrod Purchase, General Manager – Marketing
Tania DeVincentis, Head of Client Services
4. Location(s): Surrey Hills, Melbourne
5. In one sentence, what does your fintech do?: Empower investors to build their own wealth via a large Australian investor community and low-fee brokerage.
6. How / why did you start your fintech company?: To empower self directed investors with the power of the crowd — data and insights driven by large data pools of successful investors.
7. What the best thing your company has achieved or learnt along the way (this can include awards, capital raising etc)?:
Changing the way Australians view investing. Removing all the inherent fees through all the layers of the wealth management industry. Australians want to control the way they invest without paying exorbitant fees, but are searching for a solution to help them do this, as they need assistance
8. What’s some advice you’d give to an aspiring start-up?:
Never give up. Persistence is the tonic that will make a start-up successful in the long run. Never stop believing in your dream. Keep healthy and also ensure you have good people around you. Know that for every good day, there will be 5 bad ones. Theta next good day is just around the corner
9. What’s next for your company? And are you looking to expand overseas or stay focussed on Australia?:
Executing on the current plan and becoming the “go to” online broker in Australia. New big ideas can be parked for a little while until we achieve significant profitability and market share to scare the big players.
10. What other fintechs or companies do you admire?:
The aspirational and ground breaking ones. The ones that do it first. Spriggy, Afterpay and Banquer.
11. What’s the most interesting or funniest moment that’s happened in your company’s lifetime?:
An “interesting” moment that we could laugh at afterwards? Being sent a cease and desist letter for allegedly using another firm’s IP…the legal battle, which finally settled, took over 18 months and almost all of our resources to survive by defending it. That’s something we didn’t expect to have to overcome in our challenges as a new and disruptive entrant to the market. We’re still here though, stronger than ever, and learnt a lot in the process.
