Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Diversyfund CEO Craig Cecilio (Part 4)

Craig Cecilio: There are little things out there that are meant to protect people, but we’ve to figure out a way to be able to push that out there so people understand what they’re doing. It’s hard for us to tell people exactly, “Don’t invest here. That’s too much money.” That has to be in place.

People need to be educated. That’s the whole thing with crypto. Everyone wants to put money in thinking they can be a millionaire overnight. It’s really the educational component.

Sramana Mitra: I always ask people who are guests of this program. What do you see as open problems in your industry from your vantage point? We just talked about a wide-open problem where there is a downside to democratization.

I’m a big believer in the democratization of opportunities. The whole philosophy of One Million by One Million is to democratize capitalism. I have put my career on the democratization of opportunity. I have to say this gardener experience has brought home that there are some real problems with the democratization of investment opportunities. They effectively get scammed.

Craig Cecilio: It’s about data too at the end of the day. If we have the data and spit it out back to people and say, “This is your journey. This is what it looks like for you. This is how this investment would affect your portfolio.

Unfortunately, the best investment advice goes to the people who are wealthy. We are still trying to figure this out. If you force a company just to focus on compliance, that’s millions and millions of dollars. Not a lot of companies will survive. There has to be a happy medium there. That’s where we should lead with education.

Sramana Mitra: That’s where we landed as well with One Million by One Million. A first-time entrepreneur hasn’t done this before. In the tech world, they often come from a tech background but they don’t know how the business side. They don’t know to sell, bootstrap, or generate revenue. That’s exactly where our conclusion is. That there is a lot of education that needs to happen for this to scale.

You sit in Silicon Valley where there is a tremendous amount of education available. Now there are also some other places with educational resources. If you really want entrepreneurship to happen around the world, the solution is to up the ante on education.

Craig Cecilio: I agree. It’s a ton of education. Going back, data is a good thing if used in the right way. It is exciting. It’s what gets me up in the morning. Now it’s about how we get to the next level and get more awareness and education.

We started to create tools like Auto-Invest to reach your investment goals faster. You’re not going to get wealthy with these minimal amounts these micro-investing dollars will build over time. Instead of having that money go into your savings account, put it in some other vehicle with a bigger return. That’s where the FinTech comes in. It allows these transactions to happen.

Sramana Mitra: Thank you for your time.

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