Spotcap: “We Want Online Small Business Loans To Become Conventional Practice.”

Describe Spotcap in 50 words or less.

Spotcap is a multinational online lending platform for small businesses. Small businesses globally are disadvantaged when it comes to accessing finance from traditional financial institutions. Spotcap saves business owners time by giving them access to finance quickly online.

Why did you decide to pursue your own dreams rather than someone else’s?

Because life is short, and you should challenge yourself to always build something great. I was a hedge-fund manager, and I also worked for Goldman Sachs. I believe there were real possibilities for me to develop my career with those companies, but the entrepreneurial itch got the better of me. When you work in the financial industry, you’re surrounded by great and talented people, many of whom have a tremendous entrepreneurial spirit. I decided to take the dive and build Spotcap to take on new challenges and build a company from the ground-up.

7 years from now: How did your startup change the world?

Hopefully, Spotcap will change the alternative finance landscape forever. We want online small business loans to become conventional practice for SMEs and we want to be the company to provide them. Hopefully, in seven years’ time, we can say we’ve not only collaborated with banks, but we’ve altered the lending model forever.

Describe your typical working day from coming to the office to leaving it.

There is no typical day for me, or my co-founder, Dr. Jens Woloszczak. I’m the CEO, he’s the COO – two highly demanding positions which mean that unpredictability is the norm, and that you need to be prepared to take charge in unsuspected areas on a regular basis.

There are however core areas of work which remain solid throughout my days: A typical day starts with the management meeting with department heads to discuss current business priorities. I also meet with HR to discuss potential hires, followed by investor meetings to provide updates on growth and growth strategies. This can be followed by an interview with a fintech journal about current industry trends, and as my day winds down, I often participate in a panel discussion on the future of alternative lending. Throughout my day, I also ensure we secure operational advantages by extending our great sales partnerships, or further streamlining our sales efforts.

In what ways do you measure your success and how do you make sure you don’t lose track?

Success and failure are not the most important parts of a process: The most important part is what comes after. What do you do after you succeed or fail? That’s the question you should bear in mind at all times. When it comes to your idea and execution, it’s best to think about success in terms of resilience and reform: When you work in a startup, there are things which are bound to go wrong – your success lies in your ability to identify what the problem was, learn from it, and build from that mistake quickly.

I think it’s also very wise to bear in mind that success can be measured by the atmosphere of your company: So many startups are financially successful, but have a challenging or stressful atmosphere. I consider it an immense success that Spotcap is not only a success financially, but is a cool place to work and that people really seem to enjoy working here.

Already pivoted? Did customers use the fintech lending platform like you imagined it in the beginning?

Clients have not used the platform the way we imagined, but we have managed to overcome numerous challenges in our regions to build reliable and solid client bases.

Our clients are businesses, and Spotcap provides credit lines to them in Spain, where we launched first, and then in the Netherlands and Australia. We’ve had very different learning experiences in each of our three regions. In Spain, fintech has lower adoption rates overall, and so the challenge has been to push for greater awareness of fintech broadly. We’ve done this through raising awareness at both consumer and governmental levels, creating effective branding campaigns, and working with governmental bodies to promote the use of fintech across industries.

In the Netherlands and Australia, the market for alternative lending is more mature. However, with different cultures and needs our teams have approached these challenges in different ways. The Dutch team has focussed extensively on partnerships, and builds awareness of Spotcap through the established networks of traditional financial institutions. In Australia, we’ve build a strong consensus among fintechs with the broad aim of promoting a more hospitable tech ecosystem throughout the country. We’ve done this by working with other fintechs to address our concerns at a governmental level: We want regulation and we’re working with the relevant players to make it happen.

You secured 50mln over 3 funding rounds – what can you tell us about this process?

The investment process is highly challenging, and you need to be a flexible thinker as well as a persuasive speaker. Think like an investor – would you put money into this business if someone approached you? Also, this will enable you think about the right kind of investment for you: Angel investment and VC investment have their strengths and weaknesses, but it will be up to you to find the right blend of investment for your project.

Furthermore, it might sound counterintuitive, but it’s about raising the right amount of funding from investors: Neither too much, nor too little. Too little, and you won’t be able to pay your staff. Raise too much however, and it’s likely you’ll have more intense pressure from investors to reach targets which might exceed any early-stage startups’ capability. I think you should aim for more than you need, but not too much. You also need to stagger that funding into your startup so that it’s sustainable. Finally, I really advise new founders to build a culture of resilience in their startups – you will need to respond to a lot of unforeseen challenges, especially in the early days quickly – be prepared! I also recently wrote about this for BANKNXT.

With ferocious competition and a booming trend to build new companies: How do you make sure you don’t get lost in the shuffle?

We have a phrase in German: Dauer im Wechsel, which roughly means permanence through change. Your identity, the elements which make up your core brand – reliability, speed, providing an excellent customer experience – these are the things that cannot change throughout all the transition. You’ll go through some churn – every company does – and there’ll be times when you’ll need to step up for example your branding game to ensure you don’t end up on the pile, but I’d like to recommend that if you do something well, stick by it, and don’t panic when the first setback hits, you’ll get through it – just keep persevering.

What were the biggest challenges you faced building your startup?

I spoke a little about this in the earlier answer, but I’ll take this opportunity to say building an international startup has challenges of bridging cultural and communication gaps. These things are best overcome by creating an open atmosphere where people feel free to express themselves, and where they feel respected. We try to host company townhalls on a biweekly basis to ensure every one of our employees around the globe has the chance to connect with the company and not feel isolated from one another.

What do you look for in team members?

Easy: Talent, individual brilliance and a natural team player. Above all, the thing you will want is a colleague who is going to be able to teach you something about their job – someone who can show you how that job should be done. I once read somewhere that you should hire people smarter than you and get out of their way – that’s what I believe in.

Why would a talent join your team?

If someone wants to really impact a company from the ground-running, this is the place to be. And not just any company – one that’s really contributing to the fintech revolution globally, disrupting the financial system. This industry is a really exciting one to be involved in, and working in Spotcap will give people the opportunity to really take the reins and make their mark.

What was your most memorable moment so far?

There’ve been so many – launching in Spain, expanding to the Netherlands and Australia, the funding rounds – but I think my favourite moment was hearing the response of one of our clients – and hearing that without Spotcap, his solar panel business in Australia would not be able to grow. That’s the kind of feeling we’re looking to build all across the organisation.

What advice would you give fellow founders for their startup?

The most important advice a founder needs to hear sometimes is to keep going. That advice could pertain to anybody, but it’s especially relevant for founders, as they have other peoples’ expectations (and livelihoods) dependent on them. Perseverance is something everyone needs to succeed, but a founder needs to just be told: Relax, keep going – this will help pull you through those worried moments when you’re unsure if your project is still on course, especially in the early days.

 

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