When do buyers look for a Fintech solution?
Let’s take a Hedge Fund that has been operating successfully for a decade and manages approximately $10 billion. Their front office technology has evolved, but they haven’t felt the need for dramatic changes. Something happens, that becomes a catalyst for change. It could be due to lacklustre performance or a new CIO, or both. They are used to build in-house, recruiting when needed. So that’s their first step, they interview candidates, lots of them. After an extensive search, they realize that they won’t find the right person. They also gradually understand that this was not the right approach. Only then do they consider looking for an external solution.
This is the situation at Axe Capital (Season 3, Episode 3)
I’m talking about the hedge fund in the BILLIONS series from Showtime. In case you missed it, here is the official pitch:
Shrewd, savvy U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) and the brilliant, ambitious hedge fund king Bobby "Axe" Axelrod (Damian Lewis) are on an explosive collision course, with each using all of his considerable smarts, power and influence to outmanoeuvre the other. The stakes are in the billions in this timely, provocative series.
Regrettably for Fintech aficionados, the episode leaves us hanging without revealing the selection process or the final choice of B2B SaaS solution.
Luckily, we’ve completed it with the help of Professor Olivier Bossard, Executive Director of the MSc Finance at HEC Paris (ranked Nº1 by the FT) and Velox Fintech, a startup that is redefining the Future of Front Office Technology.
See it for yourself:
The concept: How it started
BILLIONS is great entertainment, but the episodes are also filled with financial and legal concepts which are well, educational. While binging on it during the first lockdown, I kept thinking that with the technology of 2020, things would happen directly. I thought of disrupting the script by adding some Fintech to it and creating my “own” episodes, introducing Fintech concepts such as machine learning, alternative data, fundraising, etc.
Soon I realized that talking about broad concepts was not enough. I had to use actual companies to make it more lively. What real Fintechs could Axe Capital use?
The content was posted on the FintechOrama YouTube channel. At first, not many people noticed, but after a few episodes, views, positive feedback and subscribers picked up. And so did the clicks and traffic sent to the companies mentioned in the videos.
We then developed a version of the first two episodes in collaboration with Olivier Bossard for his channel, and they quickly gathered around 30,000 views each.
By then, we knew this concept could deliver outsized value to the Fintech community.
Educational marketing in Fintech
Following a conversation about the Future of Front Office technology with Jon Butler, the CEO of Velox, I knew the company would fit well in the episode. Jon was happy to participate, and the rest is YouTube history (alright, just a tiny footnote).
The video is meant to be fun but also to:
Show the challenge facing Axe Capital (and similar firms)
Explain the complexities of implementing a new trading strategy
Introduces the audience to the technology
Highlights a possible solution
The rationale behind Educational Marketing is that prospects must be educated to understand the quantity, quality and value of results that are produced before they engage your company’s products or services.
Webinars, articles, whitepapers often belong to Educational Marketing. They are at one end of the spectrum. The above video is at the other end.
Attending a webinar is a significant commitment (although it doesn’t mean being focused, engaged, asking questions, etc.). And it’s meant for people who are somehow interested in the technology, not just discovering it.
While webinars and whitepapers play a critical role, they are not ideal for the earlier stages of the customer journey (or top of the funnel). Content that is educational and entertaining (let’s call it Fintech Edutainment) is a better tool.
Entertainment is not the key; engagement is. And storytelling is a way to achieve that goal. The content can be inspiring, illuminating, or challenging. It doesn’t have to be a popular TV Series. We are working on more formats, which I will be sharing with you soon.
If you are interested in featuring your Fintech solution in a future episode, please get in touch. We are particularly looking to explore the fields of Fund Distribution, Investors Relations, Compliance / Regtech, Trading Technology.