The inspiration to start Monytri came from an experience my co-founder, David, had with his godchild. He wanted to gift stock and financial education but found it surprisingly difficult to do both. That’s when he reached out to me. At the time, I was already working as a growth hacker in the fintech space and had co-founded another fintech company. However, that product was very niche and felt more like a tool rather than an independent business.
David’s question reignited my passion for financial education. I saw the power of simplifying finance and making it accessible. One of the biggest lessons from my previous startup was the importance of simplification—simplifying the product, the message, and the user experience. That’s exactly what we’ve implemented in Monytri.
We’ve also engaged our early adopters in shaping the MVP, creating a feedback loop to ensure we’re building something they truly need. We’re now nearly ready to launch the MVP, and the process of involving our users has been key to our progress and motivation. Financial education is at the core of our mission, and it’s what drives me to make it more accessible to everyone.
One of the first and most essential things we did as a financial company in the Netherlands was ensuring compliance with AFM regulations. We thoroughly researched the rules and made sure we adhered to every detail. We also focused on simplifying our approach as much as possible in the early stages, allowing us to validate our business plan before scaling up.
Currently, we’re reaching our business goal of educating our users about finance and helping them take their first steps in investing. As we’ve gained traction and engaged our users, we’re now transforming this experience into our app. However, the most critical step in this journey has been validating product-market fit. While we’ve made significant progress, we know that validation is key to long-term success, and that remains a priority for us.
We began by building our customer base through friends and family, leveraging their support as our initial users. Since Monytri’s app has a network effect (theoretically), this will allow us to gradually expand our user base as new customers invite others to join. We also focused on pitching our concept to various communities and sharing our vision through word-of-mouth and targeted outreach. A significant milestone in our growth was being featured in FORBES, which brought valuable exposure and credibility to our business. This recognition helped us reach a wider audience and accelerated our growth.
One of the biggest mistakes we made early on was overcomplicating our initial product design. We were trying to include too many features at once, which made the platform less user-friendly and harder to develop. From this, we learned the importance of simplification—keeping things streamlined and focusing on the core value we want to deliver. This approach not only made the product easier to develop but also provided a better user experience. Another lesson was the need to validate product-market fit early. We initially spent time building without fully testing with our target audience, and we learned that user feedback is essential at every step of the process.
Starting Monytri came with doubts, particularly around entering the heavily regulated financial space and competing with established players. However, we overcame these barriers by leveraging our unique perspective and personal experiences with financial literacy gaps. Instead of seeing regulations as obstacles, we approached them step by step, ensuring we fully complied with legal requirements like those from the AFM (Dutch Financial Authority). Also talking to other founders helped a lot, with overcoming barriers and discussing what steps to take next.
Our proudest achievement so far is that more than 50% of attendees at our offline events started investing after joining. This success comes from engaging with our community directly, offering practical, hands-on experiences, and providing them with the knowledge they need to take action.
One piece of advice I’d definitely share is to become part of a female founder network! Being a member of networks like FEM-Start, Founderland, and TEN has been invaluable for me. These communities provide support, resources, and connections that can truly help accelerate your business journey.
In 2025, we have exciting plans! We will raise funding, build partnerships with major brokers across Europe, launch our app, and release a podcast, expand the team. Additionally, we’re planning to publish a book or manifesto to further share our mission and vision.
FEM-START is ready to support you on your entrepreneurial journey. We provide educational courses on funding, pitching, and finding investors, nurture a growing community of female entrepreneurs, and organize events all year long.
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