Seedrun

Can you give a brief introduction about yourself?

I’m Hannah. I’m launching a fintech in the debt management space.

What inspired you to become an entrepreneur/startup founder?

I think for me, it was really driven by my background as a management consultant, where my role was to help large organisations try to be Innovative. In the end I decided it was time to practice what I preach. I wanted to have a go at it and work much more quickly and be much more purpose-led.

Can you describe your startup in a single sentence?

We are revolutionising the debt repayment journey for consumers, helping them to pay off their debts in a way that is faster, fairer and friendlier than any solutions available today.

How did the idea for your startup come about?

I worked in management consulting with my co-founder. We'd both got to this inflection point in our careers and wanted to do something a bit more purpose-led. I've always been obsessed with fintech - that's very much my professional passion. He identified this challenge initially from speaking to his sister, and his sister's friends who were all in the NHS. They were all really struggling with debt and felt totally underserved by lenders and the market generally. He shared the idea with me, and it really resonated. I could think of loads of my friends immediately who I thought would benefit from a solution in the space and that's how we got going.

What's the most unique aspect of your solution or business model?

We put the consumer at the heart of the debt repayment plan. By using tools like Open Banking we're able to really help them be much more proactive about their debt management and repayments.

What’s the most challenging aspect of building your startup?

To keep focused on the right things and knowing what the right things are to focus on. We chat to lots of people we really respect from the industry but sometimes you have to make choices around who to listen to. It is easy to go down a million rabbit holes and then not really move forward.

What's the most valuable lesson you've learned as a founder?

This is maybe contradictory to what I just said, but literally no conversation is ever a waste of time. Every single conversation I've had without fail has taught me something. that I didn't know already. So I always embrace whenever anyone says I can introduce you to so-and-so. I always say, ‘yes, please!’.

How do you manage work-life balance, especially with the demands of a startup?

For me time management is really important. For my whole career, work-life balance has been challenging so I'm kind used to it. I'm used to trying to be quite purposeful in how I manage my time. I try hard to accept that some weeks, some days are going to be really busy but then I take the opportunities where I can afford to have a bit of down time, or spend some time going for a run or getting out the house.

What’s the next big milestone for your startup?

The big one is obviously fundraising. We're at a point now where we're really excited about our idea. We're really proud of where we've got up to, but ultimately, we need to start bringing people along with us on the journey and we need capital to do that.

What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs or startups?

Just go for it but also don't be embarrassed. A lot of people are very humble and don't really want to share too much about their idea because people might think it's silly. I was definitely like that as well, but actually I'm building up a lot of confidence to be able to talk about it and say actually I'm really proud of this idea and I really believe in it.

Any ideas on how we could improve Seed Run?

Make it more regular.