My journey so far…
You might think: “What a nostalgic subject line!” But bear with me, it will be worth it.
So, let’s pretend we are at a bar or café. You’re sitting in front of me with your chosen drink for the evening, and through the humdrum of people bustling about their busy lives, I tell you:
“People ask me many times; what’s in it for you?”
“What do you tell them?” You ask.
“I try to give them a succinct explanation.”
“And do you succeed in giving them a succinct explanation?” You raise your eyebrows expectantly.
“Not really, but to those who are looking for the TLDR; at the end of the page, I just tell them that every step of the way I’ve been encouraged by worthy peers who valued what I did and asked for more. And all I’ve done is try to meet those requests.”
How it all started
“What about those who are looking for the actual story? For your story, your journey so far?”
“Well, for those rare souls that like to read my newsletters from top to bottom, I share with them my past, present, and future. I tell them I invest my own time every morning to source news from the fintech space. I have been doing this my whole professional career.”
“Every morning?” You reply uncertainly.
“Yes, every morning. As you might recall my journey in fintech started in payments. So my news research every morning used to be mostly payment-related. I’d wake up every morning, sit by my laptop with a cup of coffee, and Googled and checked news feeds to see what innovative new startups were out there and I kept tabs on what my competition was up to.”
My advice to all founders
“Sounds disciplined.” You reply as you sip your drink.
“It was. As tedious as it sounds, it allowed me to keep a dynamic approach to the industry. Every day my perspective would be molded according to what I read. I learned early on to be patient and observant because things change; and what you might have held on to as the absolute truth one day, might be completely irrelevant the next.”
You pause and look at me searchingly, before replying, “I’ve noticed that when you do give your opinion, you really mean it.”
“I do. But, we’ve gone off course. About five years ago, my daily research shifted to open banking and digital banking. I found the first wave of neobanks intriguing. I wanted to know everything about them and their effect on the industry so that if an opportunity came by I would know what to do.
‘“Almost three years ago I started sharing the most relevant articles I came across in my early morning research ritual on LinkedIn and things, well, things took off.
“When people asked me to summarise the updates in a newsletter, I launched my first newsletter. It made sense people were not on LinkedIn all day, waiting for me to post an update. So a summary sent to their inboxes seemed like a natural evolution of what I was already doing. This was followed by a Telegram channel to get instant notifications when I post a news update and my upcoming FinTech News Podcast.
“However, I couldn’t have foreseen that that’s where things were starting to get serious. In many ways, I was lucky. I am lucky.”
What I chose to do differently
“What do you mean, lucky?”
“When I started it wasn’t that hard to post some updates because it was only a small addition to my daily research routine. But when you get attention, you get more messages, and to date, I make sure I reply to all of them.”
“All of them? I don’t even do that. And I probably get fewer messages than you. What about the 100 John Does who just want to sell you something? Really, all of them?”
“Yes. All of them. Also, building a newsletter was new to me. I had no idea how to use all of these tools. So, setting up my first newsletter clearly took way more time than I expected. And between you and I, it looked terrible. I had to ask for help from my CEO to make sure it looked professional.”
“A little bit of embellishment never hurt somebody. - Beauty is the promise of happiness - Burke.” We both toast to that.
A fork in the road
“As you can see. I was spread thin. This was the moment that I had to make a decision. Either I continued on this journey or I left it behind me and focused on what was going to be my next move. I could see one path clearly, the other I could only see the next step, everything after that would just be riddled with decisions. Well, never say never but I don’t think I’ll start my own startup again.”
“How come?”
“Well, I love working with startups, especially brainstorming about new ideas and innovations. But I found out over time that investing in these startups as an angel investor suits me better than working on my own startup and focusing on solely one project for years.
“Aside from the fact that the more startup founders I meet the more I recognize that there are incredible leaders out there who are much better founders than I would ever be. I’m not kidding…”
“It’s good that you can recognize talent in others. But, we were talking about your morning routine.”
“That’s right. So, when my morning routine is done, I’m mostly on the lookout for promising FinTech startups or I pick a consultancy project once in a while but only if I really like the project. But I’ll probably tell you more about these side projects in the future.”
“I’m looking forward to it!” You exclaim as we toast again.
In fact, by now we’ve ordered some food to go with our drinks because the barista/barman was eyeing us uncomfortably. We take a bite out of our food, sit back comfortably into our chairs and I look outside to a busy street in Amsterdam, my hometown, as I continue with the tale of who I am.
Getting back to the content
“I found out that the attention my LinkedIn posts and newsletters were receiving from the Fintech community was expanding my network exponentially. I remember talking to my once small team about how unusual it was to be recognized by people who’ve you’ve only met online. To be honest I still find it disconcerting.”
“Uhm, about that… Thank you for taking this meeting with me, I know I just emailed you randomly through that newsletter you sent.”
“No worries, this is exactly why I send those newsletters, to meet new people and talk about the industry and what they do. Although, in this case, I guess we are mostly talking about me.”
“That’s ok, I don’t mind.”
“Surprisingly, I don’t either!” We both laugh at that and I continue with my story, as it reaches a conclusion. “In the past, I was convinced that I needed to travel a lot to meet and network with as many people as possible. But then the pandemic came and I realized that my online channels were really making a difference. Unbeknownst to me, I was actually making real connections with people I had never met in person before.
“It also has the added benefit of attracting like-minded people. Because only complete FinTech lunatics could possibly like my content. But hey! That’s great!”
“I don’t appreciate being called a lunatic.”
“Whereas I appreciate you admitting that you like my content.”
“Fair enough.”
What I’m doing now
“Well, all that hard work had to finish somewhere, right? There has to be a big conclusion to this story. Otherwise, I just wasted hours of my existence sharing tidbits on LinkedIn.” I look at you expectantly and you nod in agreement “So, I decided to step it up a notch and treat this a bit like a startup (I never said never right)?”
“Uh-oh, what did you do?”
“It’s all good, trust me. I decided that I did not want any of this “personal branding” to interfere with my daily routine. So, I built everything around my research ritual.
I build a small team to help me post on my company accounts as well as compose the many newsletters I send out each week (about 16 per week and three per day, on average).”
“But do you keep it ‘real’?”
“Of course, I still do my own account postings and messages etc. So rest assured it is me you are chatting with on LinkedIn ;).
“It is important to me is that we can automate a lot of the process so that each team member is independent but together they work cohesively and in harmony. However, there is absolutely no automation in my social activity and newsletters. Everything is done manually by me or by one of my team members and I read and reply to every message and email that comes in.
“I invest several hours a day into this work and so do my team members, some of them even work full-time on this project.”
“Ok, ok, but what do you get out of this?”
TLDR;
“First of all, I like to expand my network in order to get access to the best deal flow for my (angel-)investing business. Secondly, I like to contribute to the fintech community that has given me so much in my professional career. It is my way of giving back. Thirdly, I just like to meet and work with people that are enthusiastic about their ideas and startups.
“And I don’t mind admitting that I’m just a FinTech lunatic. I’m completely invested in the daily happenings of the industry unless Ajax is playing. Then there’s really no contest.”
“Talking of which it’s getting late.” You mutter as you check your watch. “Gotta get home to my family.”
“Would you look at the time!” I exclaim alarmed. “Well, it’s true what they say, time flies when you are having fun and there’s no better way to charm somebody than to get them to talk about themselves.”
“Haha! Well, I’m glad this has been pleasant. Until we meet again? I might have a few questions here and there in a couple of months. Could you make the time?”
“For you my friend? Always.”
I hope this answers one of the most asked questions I get lately. Please let me know if you have any other questions!
Maybe I’ll answer those in the upcoming newsletters! 😉
Cheers,
Marcel.