No Limitations: the three key skills every entrepreneur should master
I sat down with Gregory Robinson from Blenheim Partners for his No Limitations podcast about my journey through Finder’s growth, the new Finder App and the three key things that every entrepreneur should master.
Here are some highlights from our chat.
Growing up
I wasn’t the best student in school. Even in university, I wasn’t sure what I was doing there and didn’t make the most out of the experience. Instead, I spent my time studying the internet. I was building websites and selling them. Whilst everyone was partying, I was in my dorm room building a business.
I didn’t attend most lectures. There was one key principle that I instilled in myself at that time: it was okay to make mistakes.
Master your craft
When you’re starting out, you need to focus on mastering your craft. My craft was the internet. How do you get traffic to a website? How do you build a website? How do you convert traffic? These were some of the questions going through my head at the time and I became obsessed.
There are three key skills which any business leader, entrepreneur and marketer should know: understand coding, design and copywriting. Master those skills and translate that mastery into a product. That is how we built Finder.
Good marketing is built on courage and having an understanding of different channels and trends. Mix this with good copy and design, and you will be able to capture vast audiences.
From early days to now
Our partners saw us as a marketing channel and for a long time we were a media company which published a large amount of content. That was the past.
Now, we have launched an app which is transitioning us into a technology company. We’re making a conscious decision to shift to being a fintech which has been an interesting journey.
My big, hairy audacious goal
We want to be the ‘Amazon of Comparison.’ In the UK and US, comparison is much more normalised than it is in Australia. About 60 percent of car insurance policies in the UK are bought through comparison websites whilst in Australia this number equates to approximately 20 percent. My vision is for Australians to compare and become more financially savvy consumers.
The Finder App and the future of money
Money as we know today is becoming digital and the reality is that your physical wallet will slowly die off. Instead, we will start to see the commoditisation of banking, where lots and lots of different companies will have bank accounts or digital wallets inside them.
There is customer demand for more convenience. You don’t want to be giving your details again and again to get access to your information. You want efficiency, speed and safety. Currently, consumers want new options.
Comparison can be annoying and time consuming. I want to change that.
Here at Finder, we have the insights and we’ve done the work to find out about the products. I want to provide these insights to customers and make comparing natural. The Finder App will do that.
Consumers can connect their bank accounts and we’ll let them know when there is a better deal. We want to empower consumers to make those tough choices with an added convenience. And, this is only the start. I want to see a world where your finances are automated, your investments are automated, as the markets move your finances are secured.
Yin and Yang in partnership
Frank and I are yin and yang. We used to live together back in 2002 and were famous for hosting massive Australia Day parties. We needed extra cash so we also ran our place like AirBnB before there was AirBnB.
I always say that without Frank there is no Fred. We both complete each other. We look at the world differently in many ways. Every month we will have a non-negotiable ritual lunch where we discuss how we’re going. This has helped us be better in our business. Depending on the task, one of us will take the lead and the other will follow.
Fear of being forgotten
One of my biggest fears is being forgotten. It crushes me. So, I think about ways to ensure Finder stays relevant and is remembered beyond me. That’s my role in Finder. To promote it, to ensure it wears the test of time and is remembered.
The Future of Australia
I have this vision of Australia in 10 years. Australia has one of the most undervalued resources in the world and that is our abundant, untouched environment. And at this moment, there’s not many places in the world that could say that. This is rare.
In the future as we scale forward, and if Australia maintains their resources, we can utilise this to grow our economy and travel industries.
Australian government has great politicians but not entrepreneurs
In Australia, the government, consumer and business relationship is very different to that in America. For example, private enterprise in America is viewed by the government in a different way. They look towards private enterprises to solve problems whilst in Australia we view complex issues through a different lens. In Australia, we need to see a shift in paradigm whereby we have regulations that are more inclusive of private enterprises, especially disruptive startups tackling problems that need to be solved.
Check out the full episode to hear more.
