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Drawing upon our extensive expertise of the fintech landscape, we are sharing a how-to guide for fintechs to help set them on the path to success. For our fourth installment of the series, we’re sharing our top tips for building a high-performance fintech team. With a proven track record in pioneering innovative financial solutions and strategic investments in industry leaders, including more recently Aria, Krita and TaxScouts, the credit fund WinYield and its parent company Altio bring a wealth of knowledge on the fintech sector.
As the adage goes, ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’, and successful fintechs recognise that the secret of success lies with finding the right balance between credit expertise, sales skills, and tech reliability. In this article, we'll dive into the key elements of assembling a high-performance fintech team that combines these essential attributes. Whether you're a fintech founder or part of a leadership team, understanding these dynamics can be the difference between thriving or merely surviving in this competitive industry.
In the fintech arena, having a deep understanding of credit is paramount. Having one of your Founders be knowledgeable about credit is crucial. Generally, from our research and experience, we’ve found that if founders come from the sales or tech side, learning credit becomes costly as many mistakes are required to be done before finding the right credit strategy. You can consider bringing in a credit specialist, or setting up a credit committee, at an early stage but historically across the hundreds of companies we’ve assessed at WinYield, 95% of them had a credit expert (or close to one) as a founder. Insights from credit experts can help shape your lending model, establish risk management protocols, and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. Early investment in credit DNA can prevent costly errors and increase confidence among investors and partners.
In the fast-paced and crowded fintech landscape, the ability to drive sales growth is essential. A robust sales strategy is the key to acquiring customers and gaining market share. This sales expertise needs to be focused on your particular niche like marine financing, health care receivables, etc. This expertise will be a key competitive advantage relative to other fintechs. Sales professionals who can articulate the value of your fintech offerings to potential clients are invaluable assets.
Technology is the backbone of fintechs, setting it apart from its traditional finance predecessors. A team with a strong tech DNA is needed to develop cutting-edge solutions, optimize operations, and stay ahead of the competition. Your tech expertise needs to be one that doesn't ‘go fast and break things’, but seeks the high reliability solution as your financing partner will require 99.9% reliability. We can see this in the coding languages used in fintech – many prefer to stick with languages like .net as it is used by the banking industry and is known for its reliability. As a result, your tech experts may be older, experienced people with a good knowledge on how finance systems have been developed.
While each of these three elements are important in their own right, combining credit, sales and tech together in your team can help set your fintech on the path to success. Remember that team building is about more than just hiring individuals with impressive resumes. Strike a balance across these three complementary areas – recognising the critical role of credit expertise, embracing sales growth and attracting reliable tech-savvy team members. As you build your team, encourage open communication and knowledge sharing to create an effective working environment to avoid working in silos. Collaborative and cross-functional teams can bridge gaps and drive innovation by combining diverse strengths. Achieving an equilibrium and fostering collaboration across credit, sales and tech is your recipe for building a high-performance fintech team that can navigate challenges and seize opportunities in this dynamic industry.
Altio is your hub for digital credit, dedicated to providing invaluable insights and solutions to fintech companies. Altio offers expert advisory services and tech solutions to fintechs, and WinYield is our credit fund structuring its own asset backed financings, sourcing assets from technology platforms. Together, they empower fintechs to thrive in today's dynamic financial environment.
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