When I started Bambu in 2016 in Singapore I thought I would mainly win clients in Singapore. But it’s turned out differently. We have won clients in 16 countries including Standard Chartered in Kenya and Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank in the USA as examples.
How did we win them, and all the others, and get them done? To be honest, I am not entirely sure.
Serendipity? Sales. Hard work. Great team. Great product. Luck? It’s hard to exactly tell.
But it’s a combination of all of those.
I do like the phrase:
“The harder we work the luckier we get”
Maybe it was that.
But it happened. Today we have built for clients in 16 countries. Depending on how you count your continents (Wikipedia says it can be 5, 6, or 7), we have built on every continent except Antarctica.
Here are the countries we have delivered for clients in:
- Brazil
- USA
- Canada
- UK
- Germany
- Kenya
- Uganda
- Saudi Arabia
- UAE
- Indonesia
- Singapore
- Malaysia
- Philippines
- Hong Kong
- Vietnam
- Thailand
Here are 8 things we have learned about WealthTech on a global scale:
1. It’s all pretty much the same in every country.
People want more wealth, and to achieve their goals, they want to do it digitally.
2. It’s really hard to build a robo-advisor no matter where you are.
We are pretty good at it but we have been doing it for 7 years. If you are a financial business, don’t build it yourself. It will most likely suck. Why? Well, because you have never done it before and it’s really hard and you don’t know how to do it. But apart from that…
3. End clients want less jargon and more simplicity.
Stop with the extra features and financial language no one wants. This is the same in every language.
4. No one wants to buy your funds.
They want a better financial life and your funds are the way to get them there. Sell people the outcome, not the engine that gets them there. Here is a great analogy – Airline magazines don’t sell you the plane. They sell you the destination. Bali. New York. London. Tokyo. The plane just happens to get you there.
5. Clients believe you can beat the market. But almost always, you can’t. Sell them reality in the long term. Not smoke and mirrors.
6. Integration is hard in every language and every country. It takes time and is rarely smooth. But if you get it right the rewards are great. A seamless experience is worth its weight in gold.
7. Every client asks ‘Why are you different?’ As I have said before, this isn’t the right question. Just launching a simple robo-advisor would be a great first step. It’s about getting it live, not making it different.
8. Every single country, every single business, and every single client wants more digital wealth…
….not less. It is only going to grow.
The world of WealthTech is 90% the same and 10% different. Let’s get everyone a great digital wealth experience.
Where are you?
What’s your digital wealth challenge?
Best,
Ned Phillips
Founder & CEO