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Key Ingredients to Create a Successful Fintech
1. Identify your Niche
The need to create or build something always begins with:-
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The need to solve a certain problem for end user/ customer
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Trying to address consumers’ needs
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Trying to provide customer service based on your domain expertise better than competitors
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What is the unique selling value proposition
Once a niche is identified... it’s about trying to find what’s different about your start-up, who are the competitors, what do they lack, what are the issues their customers have with them. These are your points to advance and become a superior option for the target audience.
Now your Fintech product or solutions have everything that your competitors provide and then some more, which will be the reason why users will make the switch from them to you. Another approach is to find where exactly your competition is not working and start growing your business from there.
2. Know Economics of things , Governing Regulations & Compliance
It’s not just about having ‘Fin’ (domain expertise) and ‘Tech’ (technical skillset), but it’s also about having fair knowledge about how economy works, how markets work, research the about what customer wants & needs and what they are willing to pay for.
Financial domain is a highly regulated domain. So more important aspect to create a business a model is learning about the regulatory guidelines, its authorities, laws, legal requirements, and limitations in providing services in the country.
3. Creating Strong Team
Fintech isn’t exactly an area where there are turnkey tools and free scripts one can use to come up with an app or service. This isn’t like some other tech ventures where barriers to entry are relatively low. Financial, technological and business expertise are all required to develop fintech. Building a strong team means attracting talent in various areas of competence, as it truly is a multidisciplinary effort.
For an early-stage fintech an Investor/ Incubator/ Accelerators looking for a dream team of ‘Hacker’, ‘Hustler’ and ‘Designer.’ The ‘Hacker,’ the tech brain, is tasked with building the product/ platform and find tech hacks to increase adoption. The ‘Designer,’ though charged with designing for ideal customer experience, in reality focuses on online/ mobile user experience. And then, the ‘Hustler’ or Growth Hacker, is a catch-all for everything else including Business Model and Development, marketing etc. etc.— in most cases — the Financial Services domain expertise.
4. Choice of Right Technology
Considering the future of your fintech product, use of right technology is crucial.
Since one advantages that a start-up has over traditional financial institutions is its ability to quickly change, provide additional services, adapt to the customer’s needs and offer better solutions.
So use of right technology is a must so that its implementation and go to market is faster, ability to scale in a few months to find market fit and be able to compete with traditional financial institutions. Plus, fintech is full of additional services, so system has to be flexible.
The technology choice depends on multiple factors, one of them being the business goal you want to achieve with your product. Another one: they know the restrictions associated with using a particular technology. One outcome of the right choice is a minimized risks that your entire project will be shut down if a new regulation comes out and you need to change something in the system to comply with new regulations or customer needs.
5. Focus on Innovation
Any kind of start-up demands domain expertise, creativity and a lot of grit to launch.
But fintech start up requires a lot more than that, as it has to operate in a volatile and competitive industry. Fintech has to position itself between two realms, that of slow-paced traditional banking and the fast-changing world of technology.
Also, fintech industry is starting to get crowded. A key entrepreneurial question to ask is if your venture will be able to offer something unique and high value
This can only be dealt with by a way of innovation, by finding a niche and not being another “me too”.
6. The Right Attitude
Besides, domain expertise and technical skills an entrepreneur in a financial domain needs to have certain qualitative skills such self- motivation, quick problem solving ability, stickiness to pursue a line of thought and navigating through tough compliance and regulatory waters. In financial industry, customers trust is paramount and it is becoming a rare commodity these days. Hence taking up an initiative in fintech requires utmost amount of integrity. There’s a quote that can be a key mantra for fintech entrepreneurs
“If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters”
