3 Lessons from A Founder of 2 Million-Dollar Companies

Elevating hundreds of thousands for a startup is not any simple feat, as anybody who’s raised enterprise capital will inform you. However Beatriz Acevedo did it twice, and in wildly completely different sectors – digital media and fintech.

She co-founded:

• Mitú: A media community that makes a speciality of content material well-liked amongst younger Latinos. It attracted 2B+ month-to-month video views and raised a complete of $62m, earlier than getting acquired in 2020.
• SUMA Wealth: A fintech app that goals to assist younger Latinos construct wealth in a enjoyable, culture-forward means, which not too long ago raised $2.2m and hit 1m+ customers.

She additionally received 3 Emmys…

Supply: Tenor

As a result of I requested properly, Beatriz spilled the key sauce that led to her entrepreneurial success — other than being a “Sort A Virgo particular person,” that’s.

Listed below are three issues she did proper to carry SUMA Wealth to the place it’s at this time.

1. Give attention to The Proper Viewers

From the get-go, Beatriz needed to construct SUMA for the “200% technology” – younger US Latinos. They’re:

• 100% American: US-born, converse English, college-educated, and deeply ingrained within the American tradition

• 100% Latino: Raised by Latino households, which implies distinctive customs, expectations, and relationships with cash

• Underrepresented in media and underestimated as clients

There’s no scarcity of fintech merchandise that wish to seize the US Latino viewers — in any case, this can be a demographic with $3.2T of GDP, $3.4T of spending energy, and a hole in monetary literacy.

Most of those firms deal with the Spanish-dominant immigrants and their ache factors, such because the mistrust of banks or the battle with English.

However youths are the driving pressure for the group’s monetary development, and 74% of US Latinos beneath 34 years previous (Millennials or youthful) are literally born right here, and proficient in English.

Supply: Pew Analysis Middle

Beatriz sensed an enormous alternative right here. Due to Mitú, she already knew tips on how to attain these Latino youths, and what content material resonated with them.

She additionally understood that they are typically the monetary navigators and influencers of their households.

“They’re managing as much as three monetary accounts for different members of the family, so if we undergo the youths, the ROI shouldn’t be one-to-one, however one-to-many,” Beatriz stated.

2. Let Neighborhood Drive The Product

You may suppose constructing a media community and a fintech startup are fully completely different beasts, however in Beatriz’s case, they’re really fairly related.

Her mantra? Neighborhood earlier than product.

With Mitú’s success, Beatriz realized that Latino youths reply effectively to popular culture, are energetic on social media, and have to really feel belonged. So her crew applied an edu-tainment technique to develop the SUMA group:

🎓 Partnering with Arizona State College to determine bootcamps and certificates in monetary literacy

❤️ Creating social content material and distributing it via media partnerships, together with with Mitú, to increase their model’s attain

📰 Constructing a e-newsletter that now has 200k+ extremely engaged subscribers

“We have been doing lots of social listening, studying and testing, after which we let the viewers group inform our product roadmap,” Beatriz stated.

Conversations locally confirmed that these youths aren’t savvy with investing, saving, or enhancing credit score, and really feel anxious about their monetary position within the household.

So the app pairs finance with cultural background to ease the nervousness, utilizing references from each Latin tradition and American popular culture to interrupt down complicated ideas – like utilizing exhausting and tender shell tortillas to clarify exhausting and tender credit score, or dissecting cash strikes of JLo.

Meals is an enormous theme in SUMA’s monetary training. Supply: SUMA Wealth pitch deck

SUMA additionally helps younger Latinos navigate the disturbing funds of relationship, via a partnership with Latino relationship app Chispa (a part of Match.com).

AI personalization is a core function for the product – what every person sees displays their distinct experiences, from presents which might be particular to their monetary journeys, to personalized meals metaphors for, say, Mexicans and Caribbeans.

“Our viewers would say, ‘somebody lastly will get me,’ or ‘the place have you ever been all my life,’ which exhibits a have to belong. So we constructed the group and product round that emotional connection,” Beatriz stated.

And that connection led to SUMA’s 62% annual person development and practically 5x income improve.

3. Believing and Investing in Your self

Elevating hundreds of thousands of capital to your startup is commonly glorified, nevertheless it’s a tough street for founders, Beatriz stated.

So that you higher imagine you’re the fitting particular person for the job.

“The primary checks that are available are betting on you as a founder, greater than on the income or the expansion,” she stated. “Just remember to actually love what you are doing, that it’s one thing private, greater than you, and larger than cash.”

Discovering the investor-founder match can also be key.

Early SUMA traders didn’t embrace POC or women-led VCs, and it was more durable for Beatriz to clarify sure cultural and group features of the corporate. So within the newest spherical, her crew prioritized Latino new fund managers, ladies and POC-led VCs, and influence funds.

Since she believed within the trigger – to assist younger Latinos construct wealth – and her personal potential to guide the cost, Beatriz was capable of entice like-minded traders.

Supply: LinkedIn

The one situation that remained? Beatriz had no background in finance.

As CEO, she needed to be well-versed within the developments and alternatives within the fintech world, despite the fact that she’s not the one giving monetary recommendation.

So she spent nights and weekends taking as many fintech lessons as attainable, and earned skilled certifications from Wharton, Harvard, and Stanford. Investing in her personal training offers her the arrogance to guide the imaginative and prescient for SUMA.

“I actually began this firm once I turned 50, so that you’re by no means too previous to start out one thing new that you simply’ve completely by no means carried out earlier than,” Beatriz stated. “It’s scary however thrilling which you can be taught and reinvent your self in that means.”

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