Fintech Impact

Summary:

In this 10th episode of the Fintech Impact podcast, Jason Pereira interviews Aly Dhalla, the CEO and Founder of Finaeo, a platform to help independent advisors make their job easier with digital toolkits connected to a back office to work through their front office needs—from prospect to policy in one workflow. Aly shares what Finaeo’s goals are, who their core audience is, and their technological prospective to financial planning.

●     02:01 – Aly Dhalla introduces what Finaeo is.

●     02:31 – Aly shares information about his professional background as a financial advisor.

●     04:20 – Finaeo began delivering quotes via chat bot to provide them on demand.

●     06:00 – Three targets for Finaeo include:

                    1.) Early advisors who are 0-2 years in the industry looking for infrastructure.

                    2.) Growth stage advisors with 3-5 years in the industry making $75,000-$125,000 annually in income.

                    3.) Advisors towards the end of their career that are looking to exit in 3-5 years.

●     06:59 – Finaeo software process involves an initial needs analysis form for an advisor’s client, who can then log into the software and use the opportunity builder stage. The system sets up auto reminders.

●     11:45 – Finaeo currently does logic-driven data analysis, mining it for patterns.

●     15:52 – Finaeo is willing to partner with their competition.

●     17:29 – Connectivity with carriers is the number one issue that Finaeo is facing

●     19:17 – They will remain very focused on insurance distribution.

●     23:52 – Bionic advisor manta stands for the culmination of human and machine, with machine taking over computation, administration, and workflow. The human component handles building relationships and giving advice.

●     26:33 – Finaeo is free for advisors to work with the CRM software.

●     29:38 – Clients tend to find Finaeo through referrals, blogs, eBooks, podcasts, and webinars.

●     31:33 – As far as capital they have raised, the first $250,000 came from financial advisors, another $500,000 from the tech community and industry influencers. Their partner that lead their seed round of $2.25 million became Impression Ventures.

●     35:54 – Their first product was built by a single engineer in three months

●     38:26 – Faneo’a team is currently 14 full-time people (11 in Toronto, 3 in Vancouver) and are looking to grow to 20 by the end of 2018, with most of them in engineering.

3 Key Points:

1.  Three targets for Finaeo include:

                    1.) Early advisors (0-2 years in the industry)

                    2.) Growth stage advisors (3-5 years in the industry)

                    3.) Elder advisors (looking to exit in 3-5 years.)

2.  Bionic advisor manta stands for the culmination of human and machine,

     with machine taking over computation, administration, and workflow. The

     human component handles building relationships and giving advice.

3.  Finaeo’s first capital was $250,000 from angel financial advisors, another $500,000 from the tech community, and their partner that lead their seed round of $2.25 million became Impression Ventures.

Tweetable Quotes:

-    “Our end-state goal is to be digitally bolted onto every insurance company and provide an open Amazon-style marketplace, where advisors can pick and choose from a suite of products.” – Aly Dhalla.

-    “We think that machine learning is going to drive the next generation of advisor, and help them scale.” – Aly Dhalla. 

-    “Technology is the future of distribution, is the future of compliance, is the future of communication with clients.” – Aly Dhalla. 

Resources Mentioned:

● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn

● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook

● Woodgate Financial – Website for Woodgate Financial

● Finaeo – Website for Finaeo

● LinkedIn – Aly Dhalla’s LinkedIn page