Dann's startup story

This is Dann, Escape School Alum and Founder of Fountain Money. Here, he shares his startup story…

1. What business have you started and why?

Fountain Money, a platform empowering people to invest towards their goals. By digitizing the advice process, and bringing it online, we’re making personalised advice more accessible than ever. Imagine your very own wealth manager, sitting in your pocket. Our goal-based investment platform will launch in the United Kingdom in 2018. Why did we launch Fountain? Well, investing is tricky and unnecessarily complex in the UK. If we could simplify this experience, we could give more people an opportunity to grow their hard earned money and achieve their financial goals.

2. What were you doing before?

For nearly 4 years, I specialised in equity derivatives at Citigroup, advising some of the world’s largest financial institutions. Eventually, I finally “escaped” into the startup world by joining a logistics startup as a business development manager before launching Fountain with a former colleague.

3. How did you begin your entrepreneurial journey?

I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur and led a variety of initiatives growing up and in university. That being said, I really think Escape The City’s Startup Tribe in Winter 2016 was the real spark that led to more concrete action, and the journey I’m on today.

4. What have been some key milestones since then?

Made a full career switch out of investment banking and launched my own company. Next step – working hard until our full UK launch!

5. What was the best advice you received/most helpful thing you did?

Focus on micro goals. It may not seem like you’re moving the moon or doing anything spectacular. But if you compound all of those micro-successes, you’ll look back after a few months and see a very clear picture of how far you’ve come.

6. What was the hardest part and how to did you overcome it?

That step between idea/MVP into building a business. It sounds trivial, but that step often requires getting funding, hiring the right people, validating your business plan. Doing all of those things simultaneously, in a short amount of time. It’s challenging but it’s also the most rewarding part of your journey. It’s part of the game.

7. How do you feel you’ve changed during the process of launching and running your own business?

I learned not to fret the small stuff.

8. What are you focusing on now?

Our focus will always remain on the end customer. We’re obsessed with our customers. We love learning more about their pain points and experiences, and how Fountain can be helping them. These insights play a central role in our growth and technology, and will always be a focus for Fountain. I can’t emphasize that enough.

We’re growing our presence in the UK right now. We’re constantly interacting with all the enthusiastic people on our waitlist just itching to get their hands on Fountain. If you’d like to join the club – We’d love to have you in our community.

9. How’s it all feeling?

It’s amazing how much progress we’ve made in the past couple of years. It's shaping up to be an exciting year. Buckle up.

10. What key advice would you want to share with someone wanting to start their own business?

Please take the time to speak to people that would benefit from your product. Fall in love with the problem because the solution will iterate and evolve with time. Don’t fixate on the solution. Apologies if that’s vague – we could chat about this for hours!

Dann completed Escape’s Startup course in December 2016. If you’re interested in launching your own business and being part of an inspiring and unique entrepreneurial community, learn more here.