Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Diversyfund CEO Craig Cecilio (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Is there a level of financial wealth at which you are finding people? Are these people beginning to build wealth?

Craig Cecilio: That’s a great question. We’re talking about this. We overlapped the statistics on the population and how many are accredited and considered sophisticated. We dove into our community and saw what that is. It was almost identical. There are about 10% to 12% considered accredited. We overlap that with our percentage and it matches. I found that fascinating.

Sramana Mitra: What percentage of your population is accredited?

Craig Cecilio: 10%.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about the assets that you are helping these people invest in. Double-click down on that.

Craig Cecilio: There are two parts to that. What we will invest in, because we went full-board during the pandemic. We bought a lot of assets. Most people who bought assets at that time did a great job with that stuff.

We were buying multi-family apartments throughout the United States. Around 200 units, with minimal renovation requirements, and just collect those cash flows and let it mature. Then we sell those assets and divide up the profits. As we enter this next phase, it’s a little bit different. You have to be more careful with your underwriting. The asset class is still performing well for us.

Sramana Mitra: Multi-family home is the asset class.

Craig Cecilio: That’s our primary product today.

Sramana Mitra: What do you do in FinTech? Explain the FinTech angle.

Craig Cecilio: The only way this could be accomplished is through technology. You cannot do this without this. We’re trying to solve problems for our users and our community. How do we make a better experience for them? How do we educate them more?

While doing that, we came across a couple of things. Maybe it’s something on the tech stack or the payment processing. It’s not exciting to a lot of people but it’s exciting to me – how everything comes together. Through that journey, we started creating tech stacks that haven’t been seen before. Sometimes, we borrow someone else’s technology and do a direct API into it. Then we’re finding out that there aren’t a lot of providers out there. I don’t want to say too much, but some of the stuff is in production right now.

The challenge is the whole banking system is archaic and is against Blockchain technology. You look at an ATM. They’re charging $2.50. If you have a million bucks in the bank, they waive that. It’s counter-intuitive there. If lower on the economic scale, you’re billed more than the people who can’t afford those fees. If you have a million bucks and you get charged $2.50, that might not be a big deal. How do you ever get that chance to grow wealth?

Sramana Mitra: What is the experience for the investor when somebody is registering on your portal and starting to transact with you?

Craig Cecilio: It’s different for everyone. We try to personalize it as much as we can. Either push content depending on what they know or do not know, and push them to the right areas with the right educational components. At the same time, give them as much transparency as possible. We’re constantly receiving feedback and upgrading our product and our communications.

Sramana Mitra: The experience that a new investor signs on is primarily educational content personalized to their stage of investing.

Craig Cecilio: Yes, and creating reporting and giving them transparency. For instance, we’re mobile-friendly and we have an app.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Diversyfund CEO Craig Cecilio
1 2 3 4