Exirio Profile

Describe your product or service: 

“Exirio is a wealth tracking and insight app, designed to make life easier for anyone wishing to monitor their wealth and investment portfolio.”

Describe your company values and mission: 

“Exirio's mission is to help everyday people understand their investments better, to improve their investment decisions in the path towards financial freedom.”

How big is your team? Tell us a little about them (I.e. co-founders, freelancers, etc.) 

“Management team [is] comprised of one co-founder, UX expert (with equity), lead front-end developer (with equity), and lead back-end developer. The overall team is 10+ individuals strong, mostly on a freelancing basis.”

Did you always want to start your own business? What made you want to become an entrepreneur? 

“Starting and growing my own business has always been an ambition of mine. Firstly, nothing is as exciting as creating a company from an idea, taking it to a stage where it can offer a valuable service to the community. Secondly, the flexibility (managing your own time) and efficiency (doing away with or at least greatly reducing red tape and bureaucracy) that come with it are incredibly powerful drivers.”

How did you come up with your startup idea? How did you decide to actually act on the idea? What gave you confidence that you were on the right track? 

“The idea for Exirio came to me during the lockdown days of 2020. Many of my friends and colleagues had a particular pain point: they were spending far too much time creating and updating complicated spreadsheets to track their assets. I thought there really ought to be an app to do this for them, something to provide even better insights into how investments are performing and ultimately how one’s wealth is growing.”

How did you come up with your company name? Did you have other names you considered? 

“I debated several names, trying to come up with one that was short, simple, and easy to read and write across languages.”

What is the greatest challenge you faced in starting your business, and how did you overcome it? 

“So far, we haven't faced any existential challenge. We are still very much in the ‘honeymoon’ phase, and we have built a great team with high levels of energy and enthusiasm. But, I know that cloudy days are inevitable, and when they come, we will face them focusing on our core ambition and values, talking to our users, and seeking advice from industry experts.”

Who is your product or service made for? Who is your target market? 

“Firstly, we focus on expat investors, wherever they are in the world. Unlike most of our competitors, we have developed a tool that allows tracking in dozens of different currencies which is a requirement [for] most investors that have worked, lived, and accumulated assets in multiple countries.

Secondly, we want to speak to investors that range from self-directed, experienced, and finance-savvy to those that have just started investing their own wealth and may not be yet confident with their own knowledge and competence. We do this by constantly 1) improving our UX to make our app not just sleek but easy to understand and 2) producing personal finance content targeted at expanding or consolidating our users' knowledge.”

What's your marketing strategy? 

“We are a very young startup and so far most of our focus has been on development. This means we have not yet begun any aggressive marketing effort but worked on developing organically a community of followers across social media channels and investment/personal finance forums.”

How did you acquire your first 100 customers? 

“Personal relationships and their referrals.”

What are the key customer metrics / unit economics / KPIs you pay attention to to monitor the health of your business? 

“Monthly active users and retention metrics.”

What's your favorite book on entrepreneurship? 

“‘Startup Playbook’ [by] Sam Altman.”

What is your favorite startup or business podcast? 

“Naval Ravikant — ‘How to Get Rich’”

What is something that surprised you about entrepreneurship? 

“The joys of freedom and independence.”

How do you achieve work/life balance as a founder? 

“Mix of work, study, exercise, travel, healthy diet.”

How do you stay motivated? 

“Our relentless progress motivates me.”

What are you most proud of as an entrepreneur? 

“The fantastic product we have built.”

Recommended:

• Keep up with more startup companies by visiting our list of the top startups to watch.
• Hear startup stories from real founders on the Startup Savants podcast.
• Form your own startup by reading our review of the best online incorporation services.