Client:fundMyLife

Country: Singapore

Date: 26th May 2015

Company Launch Date: Currently in pre-launch

Founder Members:Co-founder – Jackie Tan Yen
Tech co-founder – Wesley Goi

  1. Please share the story behind creating fundMyLife?

Wesley and I were classmates during our undergraduate days in the National University of Singapore (2009-2012). After we graduated we went on our separate paths, and eventually reconnected last year in August 2015 during the UN Women Hackathon where we worked on a financial literacy app.

We met up much later to develop the financial literacy app, but realized that there was more value in providing a platform where users can search for financial advisors (FA) that they can trust. We recognize that there is a culture of distrust of financial advisors in Singapore and it is not easy to find someone if your immediate social network does not know any FA. We thus pivoted, and that was how fundMyLife was born!

  1. What is your business model and business case?

Our business model is based on subscription, ie FAs pay to be on our platform, while regular users of the site use for free. We reason that having a subscription is a more sustainable business model instead of commission based model, as the cash cycle is shorter and commissions are highly dependent on the FAs’ deals which we aren’t keen to subject ourselves totheir mercy.

  1. At what stage is the start up, when are you planning to launch the full version?

We are currently in MVP stage, and are onboarding FAs onto our site. We intend to launch in late July.

  1. How much funding have you currently based? How much do you need to raise? What is the timeline for raising the same?

Wesley and I are currently bootstrapping, and will foresee ourselves doing so for a while until we are satisfied with the validation of our idea. We intend to raise funding within a year if there is traction – we definitely want to expand our idea to other countries.

  1. Take us through your expansion plans?

We envision fundMyLife to be the one-stop location for finding good advisors, and will expand our presence in the SEA region in the future. Our next immediate expansion plan is to enter the Malaysian market, more specifically Penang and Kuala Lumpur within the next year. We have already received inquiries from agencies in Penang, which is heartening!

  1. What makes you different and what are your threats?

We are scientists by training, and we see a parallel between our experiments and fundMyLife. This allows us to approach it in a methodical and scientific manner, which essentially aligns to the iterative processes required by startups to examine themselves and succeed. We regularly test our assumptions like how a scientist would throughout our journey in fundMyLife, which has helped tremendously in shaping our ideas and executing them.

Our threats are - as any marketplace startups would face – low traction on either side (FAs or regular users).

  1. Can you get this on the ground with a small team?

With only two people in this –I think the team can’t get any smaller. We have been fortunate to have found each other, as Wesley is a brilliant full-stack coder while I provide the company direction and selling of the idea to FAs.

  1. What are the projecting revenues? Take us through the numbers and plan?

There are currently 15,000 active FAs in Singapore alone, and we will charge SGD89 per month for the basic plan (Early Adopter price). We’re confident we can hit 1% of the market at the very least which brings us to close SGD100k in our first year.

  1. In the market like Singapore many big companies are present, which certifies every insurance person, how are you different from them?

It’s true that there are many big companies, but there is no single unifying platform for regular laypeople to access FAs from these companies.

Fortunately for us, we are not involved in the certification of these people and as such anyone who is allowed to sell would be able to come onboard with us.

  1. How many transaction or users you have?

So far, we have 30+ FAs in our waiting list and we are meeting them individually to screen them. We would hate to have poor profiles in our platform, or FAs who don’t inspire trust.

  1. Please share participation to any major events and links for previously featured articles.

We just started not too long ago, and as such have not participated in any major events…yet.