Michael Katchen is the founder and CEO of Wealthsimple, a platform that make smart investing simple and affordable.
After starting his career off as a business analyst with one of the largest consulting firms in the world, Katchen got a call in 2011 from a friend who was building a new YC company, 1000memories, where he was a VP of product & growth.
After being acquired by Ancestry.com, some of his close friends approached him about advice on how to invest some of the money they got during the acquisition. Katchen then created an excel sheet to help his friends learn how to invest. This was the MVP for Wealthsimple.
Since launching in 2013, Katchen and Wealthsimple have since raised over $30 million in funding and grown to over 20,000 users, winning numerous awards along the way.
Katchen joins us to share his story, how he got into tech and startups, how he approaches building products, how they overcame early challenges when launching Wealthsimple, how they’ve built such a cool brand, what they look for when hiring and building a team, and tons more insights on building startups.
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Hack To Start is a weekly podcast focused on interesting people and the innovative ways they achieve success hosted by @FrancoVarriano and @TylerCopeland.