5 Rules Of Successful Fintech Entrepreneurship George Goognin, PhD in Economics, is a serial entrepreneur and fintech expert with over 15 years of experience. He is the founder of Evita, a startup that handles $750 million in annualized transaction volume and generates $3 million in fee revenue.

George Goognin, PhD in Economics, is a serial entrepreneur and fintech expert with over 15 years of experience. He is the founder of Evita, a startup that handles $750 million in annualized transaction volume and generates $3 million in fee revenue. Additionally, Yuri is the founder of Karma, a blockchain investment platform focused on lending to small and medium-sized businesses, which has facilitated over $250 million in structured transactions and achieved over 300% year-on-year growth, securing investment inflows for over 500 businesses in Russia.

His expertise extends to advising governments in five countries across Europe, Asia, and South America on cryptocurrency legalization, automating major banks and e-commerce platforms for global brands like Apple, Samsung, LEGO, Nike, and Disney. He also created one of the first European business schools specializing in digital management and manufacturing.

For aspiring fintech entrepreneurs, Yuri has shared five key recommendations to guide their journey.

PRODUCT-MARKET FIT

For first-time founders and those starting with limited capital, the most crucial advice is to focus on achieving product-market fit (PMF). Achieving PMF means you've identified a real problem that people are willing to pay to solve, even if your product is still in the early stages.

"Founders subconsciously realize that achieving PMF at the startup should be their primary focus. However, admitting that their product might not be what people truly want can be daunting. To avoid confronting this reality, they may delay the inevitable by raising funds, pitchdecking, attending startup events, hiring programmers, or launching paid marketing. None of these efforts are worthwhile until you have a queue of customers lined up at your door, eager to pay for your product," Yuri says.

One of the entrepreneur's first successful projects emerged from addressing a clear audience demand with the blockchain investment platform Karma. This platform, designed for lending to small and medium-sized businesses around the world, operates on a crowdfunding (P2P lending) model. It allows both private and professional investors to lend to businesses online and earn an average annual interest rate of 19%. More importantly, Karma effectively solved a key issue by connecting individuals, legal entities, banks, funds, and mutual funds seeking investment opportunities with businesses in need of funding, thereby contributing to economic development.

"Our clients were predominantly SMEs who often faced a grueling process to secure funding from banks or investors. From my experience, the banking system is often structured to minimize risk, favoring established businesses with existing profits rather than startups in need of initial capital. This approach excludes entrepreneurs from economic activity. For instance, a company awarded a $100,000 contract to lay asphalt for a city might struggle to obtain upfront funds for petrol, equipment, and labor, despite having a secured contract," explains the expert.

In the five years since its launch, the project has successfully provided funding to over five hundred small and medium-sized enterprises. The total amount of funds disbursed has exceeded $12 million, with additional contracts signed with institutional investors for another $250 million.

NARROW BUT FREE NICHE

When choosing a niche for a new business, Yuri recommends paying attention to the rapidly developing areas that have yet to face strong regulatory pressure.

The rapid shifts in the global economy are creating new challenges that businesses have yet to address. Offering solutions to these problems can ensure audience loyalty and make your product highly sought after. In addition, by entering these markets, you can avoid competition from established players and large corporations, giving you a unique competitive advantage.

For Yuri, cryptocurrency emerged as a promising direction in 2017. "Having once again personally faced difficulties with transferring money for business internationally, I realized that cryptocurrency could be the universal solution to the challenges of international banking." This insight led to the creation of Evita, a platform that offers small and medium-sized businesses fast international transfers at favorable exchange rates, along with factoring services and acting as an agent-of-a-payee.

Evita targets businesses in the U.S. that import goods from abroad, as well as international customers looking to purchase real estate, cars, and equipment in the U.S. and other countries. Unlike large U.S. banks that charge 2-5% for currency conversion, Evita is much more affordable (0.4-1.5%). In addition, Evita provides near-instant settlement, compared to the 1-5 working days commonly required by large banks.

In Yuri's opinion, the precise niche selection and solution were key to Evita's profitability from the very first weeks of its launch. Within just 14 months, Evita reached $750 million in annualized transaction volume and $3 million in commission revenue. "These figures are significant to me because replicating such success is quite rare. About 90% of similar startups fail, and only about 0.5% of fintech startups reach a comparable size, according to Fintech Index 2024 data," Yuri notes.

Regarding legislation, the expert advises starting with the most simple licenses and testing them in a limited scope. In the U.S., for example, starting with MSB registration is practical due to its relatively simple registration procedure. This registration allows you to enter multiple markets, offering products to non-Americans and conducting certain types of transactions within the US.

INNOVATION: WHAT NEW CAN I OFFER TO THE MARKET?

Before launching a new project, every entrepreneur should ask: "What newness can I offer to this market?" Innovation is key for capturing the heart of the customer, even in overcrowded markets like fintech.

The innovation behind the Evita project is its focus on payment speed. "While the SWIFT system is widely used, it often means that an ordinary payment, like a dollar transfer from New York to Beijing, can take up to 18 working hours due to compliance checks across American, European, and Asian systems," says Yuri. His solution involved opening accounts in various countries and currencies, allowing the company to connect to local fast payment systems.

Evita maintains working capital in different currencies and partners with local liquidity providers. As a result, transactions between USD, EUR, GBP, MXN, and a range of other currencies take place within minutes. As a result, companies don't have to resort to working capital reserves and the delays associated with traditional payment systems. According to nationwide statistics, U.S. small businesses pay about 20% annual interest on working capital loans. Thus, Yuri's product helps U.S. exporters save approximately $68.2 billion annually.

Evita also solves the thorny problem of exchange rate fluctuations. The difference is not as significant if a customer makes a transfer of a thousand dollars, but if it is a purchase of a car or several cars, the customer has to constantly update the exchange rates and guess which one will be used to purchase and ship the consignment. Sometimes the fluctuation is half a percent a day, but on a million dollars, half a percent is $5,000. "We know how to fix the exchange rate promptly: the client always knows in advance how much he will be charged, / can more intelligently plan the schedule of his purchases and payments," adds Yuri.

WHO TO COOPERATE WITH

Selecting the right partner bank is also very important. Throughout his career, Yuri has tested nearly 100 financial organizations for a wide variety of products. He has observed that many banks struggle with issues like manual payment processing, errors, delayed transfers, slow compliance, a narrow window for accepting payment orders, and dozens of other factors.

"A bank can be both your biggest advantage and your biggest problem if chosen poorly. At the early stages of the project's existence, it's important to secure the support of a reliable bank, to maintain the trust of your first users. I recommend setting aside a sufficient amount of time to personally test the bank's services—apply both as an individual and as a business, and conduct transactions in different currencies. See which bank performs best in your niche, and remember that the quality of your partner bank is the face of your business," the expert urges.

YOU WILL NEVER WALK ALONE, OR NEVER START FROM SCRATCH

In the initial stages of launching a project, it is important to realistically assess the potential you already have. "It is wiser to start a business in industries and niches where you already have a quality network. Unless you're someone like Elon Musk or a graduate of Y Combinator, it will be difficult to attract customers and stand out amidst the noise of similar proposals," warns Yuri. Moreover, the entrepreneur will need to juggle various tasks, such as customer development and marketing, which can be a heavy burden for a startup at an early stage of development.

According to the expert, it is important to start selling your product and testing PMFs within a niche where you have the largest network of friendly connections, customers, partners, and suppliers. "The best tool to increase confidence in your product is regular networking and participation in exclusive and semi-exclusive professional communities. Communicate with other entrepreneurs, propose small projects and collaborations to new colleagues, and focus on expanding your social circle," the expert recommends.

It is important to note that fintech is a relatively closed industry with lower levels of trust among players compared to many established sectors, partly due to frequent cases of fraud. Building a solid reputation among specialists requires consistent and meaningful offline connections.