Startup Spotlight #114: Fintor
Fintor is a platform for buying and selling fractional equity shares in real estate properties with as little as $5 with zero commission fees.
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I got the chance to speak with Farshad Yousefi, co-founder and CEO of Fintor, about what he’s working on at his startup, and any advice he has for emerging entrepreneurs.
Fintor is a platform that allows you to buy and sell fractional shares of real estate for as little as $5, just like public stocks. Fintor’s mission is to democratize real estate investing for all. They are enabling everyone to have access, liquidity, and clarity in the real estate market – which has traditionally only been available to a select few.
Farshad Yousefi and Masoud Jalali founded the company in 2021. Fintor is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Startup Spotlight: Fintor
Problem: 100 million Millennials, Gen Z, and other underserved demographics do not have access to invest in real estate. This is due to high asset prices, long holding periods, a complicated process, and a lack of knowledge.
Market: The U.S. residential rental total available market is $14.2 trillion. There are 49.9 million U.S. residential homes with an average price of $282,000 (U.S. Census). The total serviceable available market that we are targeting at first is around $2.8 trillion dollars, which makes up the top 50 cities in the country.
Solution: Fintor is a platform to buy and sell fractional shares in real estate. Fintor mobile app allows users to invest in curated properties for as little as $5 with a few taps, and get the benefit of monthly rental income and appreciation of the property.
Team: Fintor’s team consists of Co-Founder and CEO Farshad Yousefi and Co-Founder and CTO Masoud Jalali. Their advisor Manny Khoshbin manages over $1 billion of real estate and has over 10 million followers across his various social media accounts.
Recent Success:
Farshad: We are a true seed company and have been very fortunate enough to have investors who believed and took a bet on us for our second company. Whenever you raise your first round at the seed stage, you are often told to raise from FFF - Friends, Family, and Fools. As a second-time entrepreneur, I have worked tirelessly and put in a lot of time to build connections and trust within the venture industry. Everyone who I have previously worked with has backed me in Fintor. Being massively oversubscribed in this round, I was lucky to choose which investors I would like to go on this journey with. I would also like to mention that, before releasing the app, we have gotten great feedback from the community and over 10,000 emails on our waiting list.
Recent Struggle:
Farshad: Being such a small team, we have to manage our time efficiently. I’ve really had to learn to juggle my time in every aspect of the business. Fortunately, this funding round will give us the opportunity to grow the team and hire individuals who can take on some of the responsibilities. When I’m hiring, I am always looking for someone to add to the culture. I’ve always believed that a culture of the company either makes a company or breaks a company. Setting the right foundation from the ground up has been something I have been really putting more focus on as we look to onboard talented early employees.
Founder Advice:
Farshad: Founders are told by investors that you need to focus on revenue from day one. I completely disagree. At the earliest stages of your company, the only thing that matters is building the best, most trustable product. You can break this into many subcategories based on your company's mission. Your goal at this stage should be to get your users obsessed with your product – meaning they will pay you the second you want to monetize. This is true whether you're B2C or B2B. It all starts with creating trust. In the early days, focus on building the best product quickly and ramp up monetization once you have gained the trust of your users and the community.
Three Cool Founders You Should Know About:
Farshad: Here are three founders you should check out next!
Safa Mahzari, Founder of Alluxo: Alluxo is the best way to turn your existing business data into actionable insights.
Michael Witz, Founder of Redemption Games: Redemption Games is a mobile game studio, originally funded by Supercell but is now proud to be a part of the AppLovin family.
Nawar Alsafar, Founder of Bytez: Bytez is a computer software startup that helps developers and data scientists work faster.
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