Elevating thousands and 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 focuses on content material in style 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 approach, which just lately raised $2.2m and hit 1m+ customers.

She additionally gained 3 Emmys…

Supply: Tenor

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

Listed here are three issues she did proper to carry SUMA Wealth to the place it’s at present.

1. Concentrate on The Proper Viewers

From the get-go, Beatriz wished 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 suggests distinctive customs, expectations, and relationships with cash

• Underrepresented in media and underestimated as prospects

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

Most of those corporations give attention to the Spanish-dominant immigrants and their ache factors, such because the mistrust of banks or the wrestle with English.

However youths are the driving drive for the group’s monetary development, and 74% of US Latinos beneath 34 years outdated (Millennials or youthful) are literally born right here, and proficient in English.

Supply: Pew Analysis Heart

Beatriz sensed a giant 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 usually 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 isn’t one-to-one, however one-to-many,” Beatriz mentioned.

2. Let Group Drive The Product

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

Her mantra? Group earlier than product.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So the app pairs finance with cultural background to ease the anxiousness, utilizing references from each Latin tradition and American popular culture to interrupt down advanced ideas – like utilizing laborious and smooth shell tortillas to elucidate laborious and smooth credit score, or dissecting cash strikes of JLo.

Meals is a giant theme in SUMA’s monetary schooling. Supply: SUMA Wealth pitch deck

SUMA additionally helps younger Latinos navigate the anxious funds of courting, by a partnership with Latino courting app Chispa (a part of Match.com).

AI personalization is a core characteristic for the product – what every consumer sees displays their distinct experiences, from presents which can be particular to their monetary journeys, to personalised 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 reveals a must belong. So we constructed the group and product round that emotional connection,” Beatriz mentioned.

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

3. Believing and Investing in Your self

Elevating thousands and thousands of capital in your startup is usually glorified, however it’s a tough street for founders, Beatriz mentioned.

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

“The primary checks that are available in are betting on you as a founder, greater than on the income or the expansion,” she mentioned. “Just be sure you 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 be key.

Early SUMA buyers didn’t embrace POC or women-led VCs, and it was tougher for Beatriz to elucidate sure cultural and group facets 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 means to guide the cost, Beatriz was in a position to entice like-minded buyers.

Supply: LinkedIn

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

As CEO, she wished to be well-versed within the tendencies 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 courses as potential, and earned skilled certifications from Wharton, Harvard, and Stanford. Investing in her personal schooling provides her the boldness 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 outdated to begin one thing new that you just’ve completely by no means accomplished earlier than,” Beatriz mentioned. “It’s scary however thrilling which you could be taught and reinvent your self in that approach.”

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