$20 million company in 2 years? Here’s how iMoney’s Bruno Araujo did it When iMoney launched in 2012, its founders had ambitious targets: become Malaysia’s number one personal financial comparison website in a year and expand into other Southeast Asian markets over a five-year horizon. Two years and three rounds of funding later, iMoney couldn’t be happier to announce it not only achieved those targets ahead of time, it did more: it grew to a US$20 million company. One of iMoney’s founders, Bruno Araujo, came to a meetup hosted by Tech in Asia and Kickstart Ventures in Manila this week to talk about the company’s growth. According to him, the group generates approximately 1.5 million unique visits on its websites per month, up 500 percent from the levels at the start of the year. It is now a leading player in the region, having maintained a relationship with more than 50 financial institutions across six markets (Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong), and grown its team from three to 75. iMoney’s story is undoubtedly exceptional, and one many entrepreneurs can only dream of. After all, who grows that big that fast? But its journey – the challenges it faced and lessons it learned – is something most entrepreneurs for sure can relate to. Knowing what consumers need iMoney began like how most startups do: with an idea. After working 10 years at consumer banks in the UK, then transferring to head CIMB’s product management in Malaysia in 2011, Araujo says he felt “frustrated” that acquisitions of financial products like loans and credit cards were mostly happening via bank branches and through mobile sales people. “Not a lot were happening online,” he shares. It was ironic though because he says most people tend to go online to research these financial products even before deciding to go into a branch. From a banker’s perspective, he thought – what other way can you market your products to these customers without having to spend millions to put up, say, a network of 300 branches? Together with Khailee Ng, who’s now with global investment firm 500 Startups, Araujo decided to “do something.” “It was a good idea and we said we should put money in and get someone to run it.” That’s how iMoney was born. iMoney’s online platform allows consumers to compare and apply for loans, credit cards, and other products and services from partner banks. It is also a way for banks to reach out to potential clients at a lower cost. A friend of Ng from school, Lee Ching Wei, left Australia where he was working in financial services for eight years to be the one to run the business. Ching ran it alone for a year, then Araujo joined in in 2013 after leaving his career at CIMB. See: Malaysia’s iMoney Raises Seed Funding, Preps Personal Finance Platform Launch in Singapore Launching new verticals Like any financial comparison site, iMoney first made use of lead generation – consumers come to the site and they are passed on to partner banks who will buy these leads. However, Araujo says they were discouraged with the way the leads were turning out. “You try to sell the leads but they (banks) care a lot less than you do… we were getting frustrated, nothing was happening with the customers.” The smaller banks were keen on the leads, he explains, but the big ones were not because they were getting the business someplace else. The key was to innovate. They contacted the banks and took over the task of processing the customer applications, rather than just sending them the leads. “We said, ‘we have to do it ourselves.’ We built our own sales team, got all the licensing. So we moved there middle of 2013,” recalls Araujo. iMoney now has two other verticals under it: brokerage – where it guides consumers in applying for loans and other products, and advertising – where it offers banks premium display ads, advertorials, and similar services. Attendees of the Tech in Asia Manila meetup listen attentively to Araujo as he shares iMoney’s story. Expanding into other markets The business grew “strongly and quickly” in Malaysia, says Araujo. The challenge then was how to bring it to other markets and gain the same traction. Vital to reaching this goal were two things he says they had a pretty tough time doing: getting funding, and finding the right people. On hiring, he realized one misconception was that they needed to find people with MBAs. “That’s nonsense,” he says. What they needed were people “who shared the same level of commitment and enthusiasm.” “We are looking for people who are pitching to us, rather than us to them. It’s also a red flag when we meet people who are just looking for the next paycheck.” This is not to say that the jobs didn’t require skills. Since their business is digital in nature, he says they needed guys who had “good grounding” in the field. What’s a big business in digital that has done well? He cites three examples: iProperty, Ensogo, and Groupon, noting these “really big classifieds” are some of the firsts they looked at. “We tried to recruit people from businesses that have scaled in digital before.” He says this was particularly difficult to do in Indonesia, where a lot of digital businesses were in their infancy. “It’s a very small pool to pick people from.” For the key management positions in countries they operate in, he says the founders had to pick the people themselves, and they relied mostly on reputation and referrals. Recruitment sites such as Jobstreet or even LinkedIn were the last options. He says their recent move to hire an HR person was a big help since they no longer have to spread themselves thin and be away from the business just looking for people to hire. Meanwhile, funding was also difficult, notes Araujo, but they were never embarrassed – however small they were – to ask for money. iMoney has gone through three rounds of funding. Their seed funding of US$500,000 came from Asia Venture Group Sdn Bhd and allowed them to jumpstart expansion to other Southeast Asian markets middle of last year. They went into their other core markets – the Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia – almost at the same time, then later on captured Thailand and Hong Kong, which Araujo says they’ve put in the “back burner” as “these are not markets we want to spend a lot of time in because of complexities like language.” By October 2013, they raised another $2 million in the Series A round led by Singapore-based venture firm Jungle Ventures. Other investors included ECONA AG, Rebright Partners, IMJ Fenox, Fenox Venture Capital, 500 Startups, Vogel Ventures and angel investor Lim Der Shing. Their biggest was in the third round in September 2014 – approximately $4 million – from iSelect Limited, Australia’s leading online financial comparison service. This funding took longer than they would have liked, says Araujo. “They had to take it to their institutional investors, they got to be careful because they’re a listed company. They wanted to take their time understanding the region and not make rash investments.” See: iMoney is taking over Asia one country at a time Sustaining growth With new investors on board, Araujo says their goal is to accelerate the company’s growth, if not sustain it. It’s harder when there are now other investors, whose expectations you need to manage, he adds. “Stakeholder management is also tough. You assume all your investors have the same objectives, that’s nonsense. Some want to go three countries, some 10. Keeping those guys on your side is very, very important. There’s nothing worse than a disruptive board, it saps the energy out of you.” He says they intend to focus on their core markets and look for new avenues of growth such as additional products and company acquisitions. “You can be a dominant player in your category without doing 20, 10 markets or even five. As long as you fix your core markets, you can’t afford to lose.” “Setting up the regional businesses is always hard. Something can work in Malaysia, but there’s no guarantee it will work in other markets.” In Malaysia, he says they currently have 1.1 million unique visits; in the Philippines, about half a million; and in Indonesia, about 750,000. He says Singapore is a “smaller market, but with higher value in terms of customers.” Their target is to get five million more unique users in about six months – a high one. Aside from launching new offerings – such as telco product comparisons – Araujo says they are looking at “potential acquisition opportunities.” “We’d like to do acquisitions in some of our markets. We’ve been active in the last two to three weeks talking to targets and in the next six months, you’ll hear from us. We’ll pick about two to three contestants.” From bootstrapping to potential acquisitions? iMoney has really gone a long way. And it surprises them still, says Araujo. The journey is never easy and he says he doesn’t mind. “If things feel easy, then something is going wrong somewhere.” To people who want to turn their idea into a venture, but are afraid of failing, Araujo has this advice, “If you are serious, quit your job and make it happen.” That’s what he did.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 12:07:48 +0000
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