An empty roll of toilet paper representing entrepreneurship failures

Entrepreneurshit – 6 Common Failures of Entrepreneurs and Start-Up Companies

“Don’t fear failure, learn from it.” That’s what my coffee cup says. 

Matthias Gall, co-founder of trimplement
trimplement co-founder Matthias Gall is not shy to talk about entrepreneurial setbacks.

Easy for it to talk. 

Sure, entrepreneurial mistakes can teach us valuable lessons. But honestly: Some failures are nothing you can just brush off. For instance, when you have launched a company and it goes downhill. You will have invested capital and time, plus you have employees you may not want to lay off. In hindsight, it might make a good story for a F*** Up Night. But wouldn’t we prefer if it all had just worked out? A coffee cup does know nothing about the nuances of entrepreneurship. 

I can speak from experience. Over a decade ago, my two co-founders and I established our fintech software company trimplement as a German limited liability company. As matters stand now, it turned out pretty well for us. A lot could have gone wrong, though, and I want to help aspiring entrepreneurs avoid such mistakes. 

Here are some common failures newly minted company founders face – let me tell you, I know them from experience.  

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A violet LEGO brick, symbolizing the platformization of fintech and Stripe's and Klarna's role in it

The Platformization of Fintech: What Stripe and Klarna Do Right

Matthias Gall, co-founder of trimplement
trimplement co-founder Matthias Gall shares his thoughts on the ongoing platformization of fintech.

In the financial industry, we are never shy to celebrate a good rivalry. Neobanks compete with banks who compete with fintechs who compete with Google, Amazon or Apple who compete with each other (and WeChat). Yet, the industry has also become known for promising partnerships. Technical providers, fintech platforms, merchants, telcos etc. combine their resources and expertise. 

I can relate: Where partners with different backgrounds support each other, it’s easier to create approach problems from different angles and overcome obstacles (shoutout to my co-founders here). Likewise, partnerships between fintech companies allow them to tackle new portions of the market and improve customer experience or services – and that’s often the goal. What’s more, where technological partners join forces, we can also see huge jumps in innovation regarding infrastructure. Those companies often lay the groundwork for other companies to utilize in their products and services. 

For me, the recent co-op of fintech platform Stripe and Buy Now, Pay Later provider Klarna stands as a prime example of this later case. The cooperation of those two effectively presents a straightforward route to BNPL for single online shops and platforms. Online businesses just have to tie in the Stripe integration and their BNPL is basically ready to go. 

However, this would not be as significant, if both Stripe and Klarna had not become known for their extensive service portfolio. Stripe acts as a payment facilitator for online marketplaces while, at the same time, being a fintech platform itself. It’s an expression of a trend some in the industry call the platformization of fintech

What do I mean by that?

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A wallet, money and a computer cooling system, symbolizing the rapid real-time payments of SCT Inst

From SCT Inst to EPI – How European Banking Is Changing

Matthias Gall, co-founder of trimplement
trimplement co-founder Matthias Gall traces the origin of the SCT Inst scheme and gives an outlook.

Having followed the European financial press in recent years, chances are you stumbled across the term SCT Inst. This seven letter abbreviation hints at an ambitious banking project that has sharpened the competitive edge of the European financial market: Instant, multi-national payments. 

The SCT Inst scheme was introduced to enable rapid, real-time payments between banks and financial institutions located in different European countries. As such, SCT Inst acts as a stepping stone for more banking projects bound to happen further down the timeline (like the European Payment Initiative or EPI). 

As you are reading this, SCT Inst has already taken hold in banking. But still, banks can feel the challenges it has presented to them. 

Let’s see what we are dealing with.

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A point-of-sale for credit cards symbolizing the developments in the digital payment industry of 2019

2019: The Year in Payments

Matthias Gall, co-founder of trimplement
Matthias Gall looks back on the developments in payments of 2019

When I sat down to write my article on innovation in fintech and payments last year, I was a little disappointed about what I saw in Europe, as you can probably tell from the article. I decided to look somewhere else instead and found more innovation on the African continent.

This year, though, things are looking a bit different: pressure to innovate keeps rising in Europe. When it comes to payments in Europe, there might be light at the end of the tunnel.

Let’s start with one theme that manifested itself throughout the last couple of years.

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A neobank building and an old bank building facing each other

Opinion: Neobanks vs. Old Money – How Traditional Banks Can Cope

Matthias Gall gives his opinion on how banks can cope with neobanks.

Times change. We thought we had already seen the Last Unicorn in the 1980s. But in the finance industry, the unicorns are alive and well. And what’s more: They keep multiplying. N26 is one of the latest additions to the herd. The German company acquired more than 300 million dollars in its most recent financing round. Now N26‘s company value is estimated at 2.7 billion dollar.

Good preconditions to shake the digital banking sphere to its very foundations. And the traditional banks? They rely on strategies that were last seen in the 80s, too. Although they have the potential to do much more.

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A lamp shining on an open book and revealing the writing '8 Must-Read Books for Fintech Founders'

8 Must-Read Books for Fintech Founders

Fintech books? Are they really a thing?

Modern financial technology is inextricably linked with the Digital Era. Mobile payment, personal finance management, and cryptocurrency trading are major application fields of fintech startups.

Thus it’s only fitting that the fintech community relies on the internet for exchanging views on the topic, too. There are fintech news platforms like Finextra or Financial News. Networking communities like Holland Fintech and meetups like Finfinity invite people to share their insights. Blogs centered around experts like Chris Skinner react on developments on short notice. It’s obvious: In-depth knowledge of financial technology is readily available and easily found online.

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