Meet the founder of Truevo
I’m David Liu, CEO and founder of Truevo. Before Truevo, I founded and managed two payment businesses. I decided to concentrate all of my effort into Truevo, and sold the other two businesses.
There’s always a lightbulb moment before the beginning of a new venture. What was that moment for you?
In 2012, I came to Malta to find new acquirers and banks to do business with. Following a lunch with the President of a Maltese bank, we spent the afternoon walking around Valletta and speaking more about the financial landscape of the country. During this conversation, he explained to me that Malta allows fintech companies to apply for financial service licenses. That’s when I thought to myself I should apply for a license and become an acquirer myself.
How do you prepare for all the unknown obstacles when running your business?
It is very hard to prepare for the unknown obstacles, in fact, you don’t. Get a good night’s sleep so that your mind is clear and focused to overcome any obstacles that might come your way.
What inspired you to launch your business and what is the end goal?
As an owner of an SME, I’ve experienced difficulties in taking payments online, and even when I could take payments, it was expensive. That’s why I started Truevo. It took a lot of hard work to first get a financial service license and memberships to Visa and Mastercard so that I could get the best price from the source and pass this onto SMEs. We are here to champion small business owners and help them grow and prosper in their ventures.
There is no end goal, our mission is never-ending; there are always more small businesses created every day and we can help them grow and save on fees.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?
The importance of long-term thinking: play for the long term, invest in long-term gains, and don’t just focus on what you will gain in the next month or quarter. You are in this for many years so invest your money and time wisely.
How did you fund the business in the early stages?
Truevo was funded in the early stages from the profits of my previous two payments businesses. Today, Truevo is profitable and we reinvest our profits back into the business to grow it.
What does your business offer its target audience?
Truevo offers many of the usual payment solutions a business might need, but our latest brainchild is The Truevo Account. This one was designed specifically with small- and medium-sized businesses owners in mind.
The Truevo Account enables our customers to accept payments online. Through this, they also get access to business debit cards. Spending using these debit cards reduces their transaction acceptance fees through a monthly rebate. A clever client can get their fees to zero.
All of this comes with an online portal that easily provides detailed information on each transaction. Through the portal, customers can make withdrawals, learn valuable business insights, and manage their financial wellbeing in one place.
We're looking to grow this product even further and to add many features, but we're letting our customers paint our roadmap for us. What they find important is where our attention will go next.
How do you set yourself apart from other businesses in your industry?
When it comes to time and money, we know that each individual has different preferences and needs.
The one place we knew we could truly make a difference is on the price of these essential services. We want our customers to enjoy their hard-earned cash as much as possible and spend it where they see fit. We strive for the lowest total cost of our services. The same goes with time; we know that if we keep things simple with The Truevo Account, our customers can get what they need and will have the ability to spend that time on what matters the most to them, not on navigating clumsy products and even clumsier support.
Our vision is to remove the ever-increasing burden that accepting payments seems to invariably include. We reduce friction so that our customers save time.
Faster and cheaper and easier. That's better, right?
With all the success stories around entrepreneurship and how innovative people have to be to take the leap, how do you think you’ve innovated your sector and why?
SMEs have been underserved for years; they are the brave ones who innovate and drive our economy, so we endeavour to find the perfect solutions for this sector. We make every line of code work for our customers, we want to make sure that they have a flawless experience. We are constantly simplifying the customer journey by listening to what our customers have to say. Through that, we're making the journey a positive and innovative one.
In the payment industry, it is becoming increasingly difficult to truly innovate. Many will claim to be champions of innovation, but the truth is, so few really innovate. I can't say that we reinvented the wheel, but we sure have improved upon it and we are striving daily to perfect it. Payments don't need to be the part of a business that the owner is dreading. I believe it can and should be a quick and joyful experience.
What plans do you have for Truevo over the next two years?
Over the next two years, we plan to grow our client base and listen and understand what they need and build products to help them. We also have ambitions to partner with other companies that are experts in their field to add features and services to our products that bring value to our clients.
How important is company culture and what is your top tip to get it right?
It is critical to the success of any company. Culture is defined by what you focus on, so make sure that you focus on the right things. At Truevo, we have three touchstones that keep our team aligned: think big, make a difference, and put your heart into it. These are simple words that call us all to take creative risks, try hard, and leave a mark that improves the lives of our customers and our colleagues.
