This Founder Used A Pivot To Create An Online Financial Services Marketplace

Online banking being done through a smartphone. (Photo: Getty)Getty

At some point, all entrepreneurs who aspires to leave a corporate job for a startup asks themselves: In ten years, what do I want my career path to look like? Do I still want my secure job, or should I pursue my idea?

This is the point Yuen Tuck Siew found himself at in 2012. After spending time as an investment analyst, Siew found himself working for his family’s outdoor media business in Malaysia. It was around this time that he started noticing people buying things online using websites like Groupon, Lazada and Zalora, which sparked his idea for a fintech startup. The only problem? Malaysia’s startup scene was virtually nonexistent in 2012.

“There were so few startups and people you could go to for advice on how to start a technology business,” Siew recalled. “So when I thought about what I wanted for my career over the next decade, did I want to build a career in traditional media, or did I want to have a go at online financial services? I chose the latter.”

Leaving a secure job for the unpredictable startup world is a move fraught with anxiety and uncertainty. For Siew, timing was the catalyst that caused him to leap.

“I talk to different people today who are still sitting in a job and asking, ‘What’s the catalyst to leave?’ I don’t think it’s possible to predict the perfect timing. I would say it’s better to be early than late, as long as you can afford it. When you’re late, it’s expensive to try and catch up. Whereas if you’re early, you can somewhat control your burn.”

Navigating choppy waters as a newbie

The early days of Siew’s company—Jirnexu, a Kuala Lumpur-based online financial services marketplace—were, in his words, “miserable.” Siew envisioned a “money super market” where consumers would come to his website, select the financial or insurance product they wanted, and when they clicked the apply or buy button, they would be directed to the bank or insurance company’s website to complete the transaction. And Jirnexu would earn its revenue through commissions on the products or policies that were sold.

The problem was that the banks and insurance companies did a miserable job following up with the leads Jirnexu sent them. Most of the time, follow-up was outsourced to an understaffed and overwhelmed call center that would send out PDF forms that customers would need to print, fill out, scan, and send back to the company. If the call center didn’t reach you on the first day, you’d most likely be forgotten.

“The consumers were having a terrible experience, whether they actually got contacted or not,” Siew explained. “Imagine going to an e-commerce site and not being able to buy the product you want. Instead, you’re sent to another website where you indicate interest and wait for someone to call you back. That’s where we were in 2013.”

Not only was the experience bad for consumers, it was bad for Jirnexu, which wasn’t getting paid much by the companies it referred customers to because their follow-up was so ineffective. The banks and insurance companies were blaming Jirnexu, while Jirnexu was pointing the finger back for dropping the ball with the consumers who landed on their site. It was not a constructive relationship, Siew said.

A pivot can save a struggling startup

At the end of 2013, YT and the other founders agreed that their purely comparison business wasn’t really scaling. They didn’t see the point in continuing if they were going to stick with their current business model. What they decided to do instead was address the problem of customers actually getting the product they want online. The current iteration of Jirnexu was born after that pivot.

“That’s all we’ve been focusing on since then,” Siew said. “We solved our problem by building out the technology platform and providing the services for the platform which allow the customer to come to our website, select a product, and go through the entire application or transaction process on our site. We maintain control until the process is essentially finished, at which point we had the consumer over to the company.”

That was the big lesson Siew and the other founders took from the miserable start that Jirnexu had: don’t trust someone else to take care of your customers. They took control of their customer’s journey and and addressed problems with technology, not people. Jirnexu is probably best known for its financial comparison websites RinggitPlus in Malaysia and KreditGoGo in Indonesia. The company just finished a Series B funding round and soft-launched the white labeling of their platform, which they hope to launch in full early next year. They said that they were close to turning profit last year, but decided to focus on growing as fast as possible.

Advice to entrepreneurs

Coming from finance into the startup world, Siew emphasizes the importance of culture and vision when trying to recruit the best people to your company.

“I was in finance for six years, and I would say that culture is never quite the most important thing in that industry,” Siew said. “People are paid very well to do their jobs, and they do them. In the startup world, chances are you’re not going to be able to pay potential hires more than the next startup. So why should they join you? That’s very much to do with the culture of the company, the vision. It’s all about making sure that their personal goals are aligned with the business goals.”

The second pillar to build your company on, especially if you’re in fintech, is reputation.

“The startup mantra is to fail fast and fail often,” Siew said. “But when you’re providing services to a bank or insurance company, you never want to fail. Failure is not an option. They really do value a partner who is consistent and who is there and who they can trust. But that does change some of the dynamics of the relationship.”

source: forbes.com