Steven Uster is the Co-Founder & CEO of FundThrough, an invoice funding service that helps business owners eliminate “the wait” associated with payment terms by giving them the power and flexibility to get their invoices paid when they want, with one click, and in as little as 24 hours. Launched in 2014 FundThrough has quickly become one of Canada’s leading fintech start-ups, funding millions of dollars in invoices every month. Prior to FundThrough, Steven was an investment banker in New York at UBS and Centerview Partners. Steven has an MBA from The Wharton School and a Bachelor of Commerce with Honours from McGill University, where he was a Loran Scholar.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
When business started difficulties overcame:
“was convincing investors and potential users that what we were offering was of value. To most of the world the concept of factoring existed and was known but to Canada where we launched it really is thinly known, most people don’t know it. And when we would go out and describe what it was we were trying to do we would often either get blank stares or you are crazy that’s not going to work. And we had to overcome that idea that well are we crazy or are we on to something that takes a lot of education. We took the path that said well I think we are onto something, it just takes a lot of education, so we went down that path. It was difficult to overcome and convince others to help supporters”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time Book by Howard SchultzFavourite Quote:
“If you get up in the morning and think the future is going to be better, it is a bright day. Otherwise, it’s not.” Elon Musk
Recommended Online Resources:
First Round Capital Blog – the first VC run publication providing actionable insights from the top people in technology
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“don’t take no for an answer. Always remember that the best things that get created are those that others already know about. So when people tell you this is a crazy idea, it’s not going to work don’t take that as a no, plough through it, force yourself to find a way to prove it out on a microscale before you start scaling it. But make sure that you have confidence in yourself to know that what you are onto is right”…[Listen for More]
More About Steven Uster:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
Mahatma Gandhi “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Other Quotes From the Chat with Steven Uster:
- “we made sure that we spoke to our users and understood what their needs were and built based on what the market needed and what the market wanted rather than just building this thing that we thought the market wanted”
- “test, iterate, it doesn’t have to be scalable, don’t think about scale early on, just think about putting one foot in front of the other and taking a step forward and making sure that you understand what it is that your users want”
- “culture has been key to our success. And right from day one we instilled this culture with my co-founders with our investors and then eventually as we grew with our employees as we brought on employees”
- “it’s right part of our onboarding process we’ve got a testings, measure them, iterate them, if we fail, we fix it, test it again and we iterate again. And we instil that right from recruiting on to onboarding onto our weekly meetings”
- “make sure that we are listening to our customers on a regular basis and we never lose that connection to them”
- “stay grounded, the highs are never as high as you think they are and the lows when you are an entrepreneur, and there are lots of lows, are never going to last that long. So it is a rollercoaster, you have to stay grounded”
- “always look further out not just what’s immediately in front of you but further out onto the horizon so that you can anticipate things before they come”
- “treat people the way you want to be treated, both employees and customers and investors”
- “you can innovate industries that not naturally be viewed as innovative industries”
- “you have to be an optimist as an entrepreneur, it is a rollercoaster, sometimes there are ups sometimes there are downs. But if you think that the future is going to be right it will be”
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