One could argue there’s never been an easier time to start a company. But there’s also never been a harder time to start a great company. We at Haymaker know the importance of staying intellectually nimble. As Mike Tyson famously said: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
We believe that, done right, fintech not only offers more, faster, and cheaper choices, but also provides better choices. It allows individuals to start businesses, manage risk, participate in the global economy, and create opportunity where legacy financial services have failed. The potential for disruption is enormous, especially considering that many customers don’t have a lot of good financial choices to begin with.
Coming out of the financial crisis, our team saw opportunity in a nascent industry built on new technology to tackle these problems. As COVID-19 drove more of the economy online, the result has been unprecedented investment and adoption in the space. Rather than adding marginal value to existing infrastructure, the next generation of fintech winners could command huge markets built on embedded fintech products and platforms that extend more broadly than traditional applications of financial services.
These fintech winners will be defined by durability —commitment to being different in a way that lets them thrive across cycles and survive multiple economic regimes where others failed or gave up. Durable businesses require aggressive pivots, efficient operations, and nimble exploitation of new tactical opportunities. They require entrepreneurs that plan in decades and dream of changing the world: relentless and committed, cunning and wily, and just plain tough.
