Happy 7th Birthday Daily Fintech
7th Birthday is a big deal for a startup, because the data says it takes 7-10 years for startups to build real value. That data is from VC funded startups and as Daily Fintech is bootstrapped/self funded, it may take a bit longer; fortunately being bootstrapped means I own 100% of Daily Fintech so I can be patient, without outside shareholders forcing a timeline.
From the first post in 2014, one thing that has been consistent is how we deliver content that is both High Quality AND Low Cost, which is what we articulate on About Us:
“Daily Fintech is written by an invite only group of experts who have “walked a mile in your shoes”, bringing their perspective as entrepreneurs, bankers, senior executives, technologists, investors, regulators and consultants. Our view is that it is easier to help an expert in a market learn some journalism techniques than to expect journalists to be experts in complex fast-changing markets. Daily Fintech experts go through a rigorous onboarding process and have to comply with strict editorial and disclosure policies.”
I can celebrate that Daily Fintech has come a long way from a single blog post in 2014; but I also know that we have a long way to go. On our 5th birthday we chose to de-emphasise the advisory business (which we had used for bootstrapping) so that we could focus on building a scalable media business. To that end we created a paywall, which forced us to up our game in every way, including content expansion and subscriber experience.
We are investing in technology to meet these needs. Content is where we started and content will always be our core, but we need to become a tech-enabled media business in order to scale and monetise our content while maintaining the high quality and respect for our readers that we are known for.
We have two big external trends on our side:
– Growth in Fintech. According to research by UBS, Fintech industry revenues will more than triple from USD 150bn in 2018 to USD 500bn in 2030, implying an average annual growth rate about three times faster than the broader financial sector’s. We need to grow our content to match that reality.
– Work from anywhere trend accelerated by the pandemic. Daily Fintech has been a decentralized operation since we started; location is never a factor in our hunt for talent. This means that “talent is equally distributed, opportunity is not” (Leila Janah) is a trend that we welcome.
Content about Fintech (ie B2B Media) should be seen as very valuable, but the reality is that while Fintech is hot, B2B Media is not; so we are also building Fintech data spinoffs such as Fintech 50 Index and Robot Equity Analyst.
For the record, here is our first birthday celebration post.