Startup tips from Nektarios Liolios, CEO of Startupbootcamp FinTech & InsurTech

By @SimonCocking. Great interview with Nektarios Liolios co-founder and CEO Startupbootcamp FinTech & InsurTech.

Your background, how did you end up doing what do you now?

Greek, born in Germany, moved to London in 1996 and lived there every since (with a 4 yea stint in Sydney). Like many, I stumbled into the financial industry and work there in various roles. In 2011 a friend of mine called and ask me to join him in Innotribe, SWIFT’s innovation initiative and that was truly life changing. I got the opportunity to be part of fintech Innovation before the term ‘fintech’ existed. Within that we build and grew the Innotribe Startup Challenge, the first global fintech startup competition building a bridge between the startup community and the financial industry.

Why did you found Startupbootcamp? How is it going?

Startupbootcamp has been around since 2010. I joined to found the FinTech arm in 2014. The idea was to build on the great achievements of Startupbootcamp as an Europe wide startup accelerator and bring in the industry depth and focus from my Innotribe life. Since then, we have launched FinTech programs in London, Singapore and New York and a dedicated InsurTech program in London.

Anything you’d do differently?

From a life perspective? Absolutely not. Any choice, any mistake, any failure contributed to where I am now and I would not change it for the world.

From an SBC perspective: Lots of things :). In the best possible sense. Running multiple programs a year allows us to review after every year, improve whatever we felt did not work and experiment with new things.

Pitches at #sbcSelectionDays for @sbcInsurTech. Soon we will have picked our first #insurtech cohort. # goosebumps pic.twitter.com/dmd4Jx20CL

— Nektarios Liolios (@nekliolios) December 4, 2015

What Fintech / Insurance trends are you excited by?

I could not point out a specific idea or technology. What does excite me is to see how archaic, costly and risky processes and products are replaced by technology, based on different principles, build by people who are not burdened by the legacy. I love it when P2P or Crowd can do that. The emergence of distributed ledger technology has the potential to significantly transform industries (not just financial). Being part of that exploration excites me!

What are your top tips to do well at Startup bootcamp and beyond?

Top tips to ANY startup are:
– you must be solving a problem!
– be open to feedback
– execution is everything!

Thank you to @Dionatos, @doxaras, @Warply & @InnovAthens for allowing me to talk abt #fintech #startups @sbcFinTech pic.twitter.com/K5ImLQb9c6

— Nektarios Liolios (@nekliolios) January 13, 2016

London, UK. Pros and cons of working here?

PROS: Great startup vibe, lots of support, easy access to customers
CONS: expensive, lack of talent, potential visa challenges

Your plans for the future?

We are growing our network of FinTech and InsurTech programs globally and will be launching more in 2016. At the same time. we are constantly reviewing what we do looking to find the best model, eg. collaborating with nexuslabs in Zurich is an attempt to do something meaningful in the blockchain space without necessarily running a full accelerator. I believe the accelerator model will evolve significantly in the next couple of years and we intend to be a big part of that evolution.

Blogging, who do you follow / like?

Pascal Bouvier, Chris Skinner, Liz Lumley

How do you manage life / work, and online / offline balance?

I am not very good with the balance. Having spent 17 years in the corporate world

Anything else to add / we should have asked you?

Why did you not ask me about my sneaker collection? Everybody else does 🙂

Ok tell us about your sneaker collection. Are you like Tricky with over 1500 pairs?

Sneakers see here! Not Tricky, but a solid 240 pairs now, all New Balance 🙂

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