{"id":35321,"date":"2023-10-20T14:37:51","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:37:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/fail-fast-moneybrilliants-peter-lord-on-why-you-should-quit-your-job-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:37:51","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:37:51","slug":"fail-fast-moneybrilliants-peter-lord-on-why-you-should-quit-your-job-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/fail-fast-moneybrilliants-peter-lord-on-why-you-should-quit-your-job-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cFail fast\u201d: MoneyBrilliant\u2019s Peter Lord on why you should quit your job – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

When Peter Lord quit his well-paying and stable corporate job to found virtual financial advisor MoneyBrilliant<\/a>, he thought he was going to change the world.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even though the reality was a little different, Lord says quitting his job was one of the best decisions he ever made and encourages other would-be founders in similar situations to do the same.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHave fun with it. Find something you really enjoy doing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll wake up in the morning and there\u2019ll be so much stuff to do. But it\u2019ll be easy if it\u2019s something you love doing. It was very much the field of dreams approach. If I build it they will come.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course it was much more difficult than that, he admits, but now the hard work is starting to pay off. Last week Money Brilliant closed a $1.5 million round from AMP which gives it a solid runway to continue developing the product and acquiring users.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing I didn\u2019t do was I should have got customers a lot faster. I was afraid that the product wasn\u2019t good enough and we\u2019d get bad feedback,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI should have been prepared to fail fast. That feedback would have helped make a better product. Now I man the livechat, and everyday I\u2019m listening to what our customers need and want. It\u2019s the best way to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

While many startup founders will say the capital raising process can be exhausting, when Lord says it, he means it quite literally.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first money he ever raised came from conversations while getting working out with a personal trainer.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI just kept telling him about the idea, he\u2019d listened to me gasbag for such a long time he thought he\u2019d invest,\u201d Lord says with a laugh.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt a little bit bad because he was so supportive, but it worked out and he\u2019s still my trainer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

MoneyBrilliant is a virtual financial assistant, which keeps track of its user\u2019s finances and helps them \u201cstay in the green\u201d. The goal, Lord says, is to help people like his mother, who had a difficult time managing finances before retirement.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a common problem, research from Rice Warner found that 35% of boomers<\/a> describe themselves as \u201ccompletely unprepared\u201d for retirement.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mum wasn\u2019t in control of her everyday spending. And What I\u2019ve found is when people don\u2019t have a really strong grasp of their everyday finances, they tend to do nothing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt probably cost my mother around $300,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

MoneyBrilliant is competing with the likes of Pocketbook<\/a>, a Sydney-based startup that offers a similar virtual financial assistant and boasts over 100,000 users<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lord says MoneyBrilliant differentiates itself by offering a broader picture of a user\u2019s financial health, integrating superannuation and investment accounts, as well as bank, credit and loans.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The basic service is free and the startup is working on a number of optional features will eventually be available for purchase.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re doing something with the simple goal of helping as many people as we can. And that makes us feel really good. When those dark days come along I can think, I couldn\u2019t help my mum, but I can help lots of other people,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Want to grow your business with Instagram? <\/i>StartupSmart School can help<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Peter Lord quit his well-paying and stable corporate job to found virtual financial advisor MoneyBrilliant, he thought he was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35321"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}