My Fintech Client Raised $1M Despite Competition With Western Union – How? One word: Focus | by Al Anany | April 2023

Instead of looking at the bigger picture, how about looking at the smaller picture for once?

So you have to wake up in the morning, make a cup of coffee, and then really focus on being a real entrepreneur…

No, it’s not going to be one of those articles. I meant geographical focus. (I’m also in a Matcha phase these days.)

Here’s my first conversation with the client (more or less, I don’t record them, you know.)

Client: “I need a new pitch deck.”

Me: “Cool, tell me more about your business.”

Customer: “Well, I work in the FinTech industry. I compete with the likes of Western Union with a similar business model.”

Then I went into a deep thought process – “Seriously? Competing with Western Union without a breakthrough feature like crypto or something? Where’s the catch?”

You know what I mean! If I tell you, the reader, right now that I’m making a new iPhone to compete with Apple, and it will have very similar features, will you tell me “Good luck” if you are kind.

You wouldn’t think I’d convert this into a business with traction or land any investment whatsoever, would you?

But what if I tell you that I only sell them in Brazil? You’ll still think I’m cuckoo.

Okay, I won’t give you up. Here is a news story I read 30 seconds ago.

“Brazil has banned the sale of iPhones, starting with the iPhone 12,” because they don’t come with chargers. Way to go, Brazil, to say what we all want to say. Cook, why did you take the charger away, you cheap boy?)

You must tell me, “Okay, but still, it’s just a single country.”

“Brazil has an estimated 14 million iPhone users” – according to Statcounter.

You: “Yes, but you won’t convince all 14 million to buy your new iPhone option.”

Me: “I’m only targeting 5% of them.”

You: “It’s not a big deal. It sounds small.”

5% of 14 million is 700,000 customers. If I sell my iPhone option for $700, that’s $490 million in revenue (Not bad, I can finally buy a burger king meal without looking at the price.)

What does this have to do with your client?

He doesn’t sell iPhones in Brazil. But he competes with Western Union with a similar strategy. Let me tell you the story of my client, YallaXash.

Airbnb started when the co-founders were struggling to pay the rent while they had some space in the place.

When I started talking to my client, I realized that he personally had a meeting that led to him starting the company.

His close friend, living in Canada, had to send money home to his mother in Morocco when she was ill. Although the process sounded simple, the Canadian company responsible for the transaction blocked the funds (this happens a lot more than you think in third world countries.)

Unfortunately, the mother died before she could receive the money, which shows that it’s not just a problem, it’s a serious problem. Being affected by this, Emir Lallouche continued to create YallaXash.

In my experience, when there is a strong personal reason involved in creating a startup, it tends to be amplified much more than one that was created just to make money.

I distinctly remember telling him that he needed some sort of unique selling point to win over the competition. I boast of having worked as an entrepreneurship consultant for over ten years.

Still, the truth is he knows this particular market more than I, western union, and most people out there. It is stronger than many unique selling points.

If you create a Western Union option and target the entire world, your chances of success are minimal.

If you create a Western Union option in a country that you know has a pretty big regulatory problem, you might just get a fair share of the pie.

He has raised $1 million in seed funding to create the startup. Looking at where they are, I’m proud to have worked with them.

At this stage they have apps in both stores and a good customer base in Morocco, Senegal and Ivory Coast. They have reached a level where they could say, “It takes less than 30 seconds for cash pickup and a maximum of 24 hours for bank transfer.”

In addition, there are many future plans on the table, such as geographical expansion.

So let’s go back to the title of this article – Emir raised $1 million in seed funding for a fintech startup competing with the likes of Western Union (market cap of $14.4 billion) by having a smart geographical focus.

Here’s the problem with entrepreneurship. We are all taught that the greatest entrepreneurs of our time were in the right place at the right time with the perfect product.

• Zuck created a billion dollar social media company because the idea wasn’t there.
• Bezos created an online library when no one believed in the internet.
• Larry Page and Sergey Brin created Google with a unique selling point of simplicity.

Entrepreneurship 101 — You need a unique selling point. But this article is not part of your MBA studies, so let’s remove all this.

• If there is a huge demand/problem for tires in your town and you’ve made simple tires to sell with absolutely no unique selling point, you’re an entrepreneur, my friend. Not only that, you probably have higher odds of success than that blockchain friend of yours.
• If you just feel that the quality of food around your town is not great, open a restaurant. Easy, right?

We have complicated entrepreneurship over the years, and we forget what business is all about – A problem.

The examples above actually have “unique selling point,” but they are not that unique to impress those investors out there. They’re nothing you’ve never heard before. They are just problem solvers.

I will end this article by reminding you of one of the biggest companies that is quite simple “problem solvers” — Tesla.

• Problem — There is no such thing as a good electric car.
• Solution – Create one.

The car does not fly. The car does not turn into a transformer. It simply works.

So zoom out of the big picture that all entrepreneurs tell you they see and zoom in on the smaller picture. You can only find tremendous success there.

I’ve been writing for quite some time, and found that comments spark discussions that are much more fun than writing an article. So why don’t we?

Tell me, do you work in the FinTech industry? Can you relate to how this startup was created? Do you think a unique selling point is still essential to running a business, or is it just part of the “entrepreneurial dream”?

This is VI – Entrepreneurship’s Wednesday. Once you know, get out there and have an amazing day.

I’m Al, a business consultant in Zurich, Switzerland. I believe in the power of delivering value to you, the reader. Follow me on various social media platforms if you are interested in the value of my content.