How at Fvtura we are doing the impossible, and why we're succeeding.

Spoiler alert, changing the world, for good is harder than what you might think (LOL). But it's totally worth it.

A toxic job.

It was September 2017. While leaving a hardcore trading environment, in finance, with sometimes 20 hours straight of trading, managing clients' positions. And with a number of successful companies built from the ground up, as a track record. I honestly thought that moving into sustainablestartups, positive technologies, for the good of society (rather than for the wallets of few shareholders) would have been an easy transition.

From managing, millions of dollars, employees, yearly performances, high demanding institutional investors, offices in 3 continents. To suddenly have the occasion, to start again, smaller, in a field that is (supposedly) less money-driven.

You know, something like from being used to run 10km a day, suddenly going for a walk in the forest. That's what I was imagining while preparing to leave the last company that I founded. Discussing with my partners the reasons why I wanted to step down as a CEO, and start something different, something that didn't have to do with speculation, but rather with value being created. I was far from the truth.

A difficult transition.

Running a project for good, improving society, is far more difficult than running a project purely for money. And that is a sad reality, that I didn't expect.

As some ruthless businessmen told me in the past. "exploiting people is easier than helping them".

An ecosystem that is not mature.

I live in the SEA region (South East Asia) mostly in Singapore. As a region, it's probably the fastest growing in the world. With cities literally blooming, landscapes changing month by month.

But everything is focused only on one thing, "Economic Growth".That is the biggest push, driver, behind every job, company, institution, VC and even most of the governments in the region.

If you have a Fin-tech (financial technology) startup, your path is challenging but clear. There is a plethora of Incubators, Accelerators, VCs, Banks, ready to fund, incubate projects that can bring a higher yearly return for their investors. Your financial models, your EBITDA, ROI, and all the other dollar-based formulas are looking great, with investors lining up to check the projects and jump onboard.

But what if your project it’s not aiming at high profits? But rather at creating a high, positive, impact on the life of thousands of individuals. What if your target is a long-term return on society, rather than a short-term profit-driven strategy?

This is where we realized that there was something broken in the current startup ecosystem.

Try to imagine, launching an impact-driven project, in a super-competitive environment where rentals are crazily high. Where jobs are chasing people (very low unemployment rate), and everything, from social status, to the access to healthcare, spins entirely around money.

Where your landowner, the office owner, the landlord of your team members, don’t care even slightly if you are an employee, a trader, a businessman financing unethical companies in underdeveloped countries, if you are exploiting child labor, or if you are working hard on doing something truly good for society. They are looking for their rental cash at the end of the month, nothing else. And the same concept applies for the Investors, stakeholders, of any fund, VC, private bank, incubator or accelerator. That is the reality today. Whether we like it or not, but is the mechanism dictating the survival rate of jobs, people and companies, and

It's not built to do good, it's built to make profits.

Many stakeholders don’t see money in doing good. And therefore, they don’t have incentives in supporting initiatives that are going into that direction (if not comparably profitable as other industries).

And, due to high salaries and rental costs, the survival of startups, today, strongly depends on their ability to secure funds.

This is a sad reality. We have created economies that incentivize people at taking (sometimes making) money, greedily, no matter how ethically, and strongly disincentives people at giving forward, or being altruistic doing things for good. Because at the end of the month, they’ll have to pay the same bills, give back the same interests, paying the same costs as anyone else.

But is it fair?

It doesn’t seem good, as a long-term strategy, to reward people that are good at taking, and discourage those that are good at making or giving.

"Wrong is wrong, even if everyone is doing it, Right is right, even if no one is doing it. “

And that is where we started doing the impossible.

We saw that the root of the problem was so deep, that changing the current ecosystem would have been just so complex, with the old, pushing back at every occasion.

The easier solution was to create a new one. Bottom-up.

Reverting the pyramid, creating companies where the users and employees (contributors) are the main shareholders. Where the end-user, is also one of the owners.

Changing from highly competitive structures into highly collaborative environments. Switching from high pressuring companies cultures (PUSH), to highly rewarding and fulfilling projects (PULL).

Only in that way, we could have created projects where the focus would have not been the interest of the few but aligned with the needs of the many.

We realized that our work was going deeper than just improving the current startup ecosystem. We were creating a new economic working culture, based on purpose and collaboration. Rather than on blind competition and irresponsible businesses.

Why are we succeeding?

3 main reasons. Purpose, Community, Culture.

Thanks to modern technologies and knowledge, we are moving away from unproductive, pressuring competition and unfair wealth distribution, with a heavy toll on people's lives, societies, and even on the surrounding environment. We are helping young entrepreneurs in finding their purpose and transform it into action.

" For a future where sustainability and ethics are rewarded. And where the only healthy competition is the one within ourselves. "

This is what the younger generations are demanding, a win-win system, that aligns the interests of the individual and the community involved, with fewer people oppressed and more people empowered. "Inclusive rather than exclusive".

"Where more valuable things are prioritized, before financial interests."

And this is what most of large, centralized corporations are missing. Due to a pyramidal structure, where the bottom puts the same hours (and often efforts) but the rewards are sometimes a hundred times (or million times) lower, compared to the few top-level and shareholders.

Or societies, where rich people, that were born rich, have access to every opportunity, while, people (also very intelligent) that were born poor, have access to none or little opportunities throughout their entire life. And that is such an utmost, waste of human potential.

"No people should be left behind, but rather empowered with tools, to build a better world"

Empowering millions of startups.

By creating a new ecosystem, collaborative platforms, skill-exchange environments, frameworks, large networks of experts and distributed ownership, we are creating the foundations for millions of startups that every year are created and often fail, due to the current dysfunctional support system. We are creating a new prototype of economy.

" When we realize that our time and resources are limited, we start to figure out ways to maximize the results, with what we have. Some movements are becoming very destructive, and some, are becoming very creative. We are part of the second type. And the potential of collaboration today, for such movements, thanks to the internet is as powerful as underutilized.

To be continued in the next article...

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My story, is one of the many stories behind Fvtura. A distributed organization, a movement that is attracting thousands of people with one goal in mind. Making the world a better place, not for money, fame, or recognition. But because it’s the right thing to do.