Fine Arts turned FinTech founder: everything you need to know from Sean Tepper

I spoke to Sean in episode two of The Road Less Travelled podcast where we talked about his curious career journey and his secret sauce for stock investment. Here’s six things I learnt from our chat.

Listen to the full episode here:

Sometimes life takes on a mysterious path. This is certainly true for Fine Arts graduate turned FinTech founder, Sean Tepper. Sean is the founder of the brilliant stock research platform Tykr, but his path to FinTech and stock trading wasn’t obvious. Sean is a true entrepreneur, here are my key takeaways.

1. “My marketing agency was the training ground for my investment decisions”

With his hopes of working in film dashed, Sean headed to its more lucrative cousin: marketing. He started and scaled a marketing agency which was eventually acquired. An inspirational feat in itself; but what he said next surprised me…

Whilst Sean studied his clients to help them with marketing, he also learnt essential business lessons that paid dividends (literally) a decade later. Taking inspiration from both from his agency and the business models of his clients, Sean learnt what a ‘good’ business looks like. This formed the basis of his own approach to investing and is now what you see in Tykr’s ‘4 M Analysis’. He didn’t know it at the time, but his innate curiosity and ability to draw parallels between seemingly unconnected things is the secret to all Sean’s success.

2. Business ideas should be brewed like a good coffee

After his marketing agency was acquired, Sean was left with the question, what next? He always knew he’d wanted to run his own business, but it’d be another 10 years before the right idea came along.

Sean dabbled in a few businesses, but nothing really took off. He was left with no option: head to the corporate world. It was ok but it wasn’t giving him what he wanted. So, he started stock trading. And it worked. Really well. Sean quickly outperformed the market seeing up to 50% returns consistently. Using a methodical approach from the lessons he’d learnt during his agency years, Sean had hit on a goldmine!

After a few years of trading for himself, Sean realised his approach could help others too. And so Tykr was born!

You can’t rush a good business idea, just like you can’t rush a good cup of coffee. It takes time to brew properly and sometimes you have to step away, let the water naturally drip through the grind to form the perfect brew.

3. Head vs heart

The creative world of Fine Arts and marketing to the mathematical world of stock trading looks like a big leap but it might be more logical than you think…

Sean has struck the perfect balance: creativity to draw unusual parallels and detect market gaps; logic to methodically plan and implement them. But here’s the greatest wisdom of all: learn to remove enough emotion to apply logic, but not so much you lose touch with the fun of it. Especially if you’re bootstrapping, you have to enjoy the journey.

4. Experience trumps qualifications, but learning feeds experience

The investing world can be elitist: don’t have an economics degree? Don’t have an MBA? This world isn’t for you. Or so they say.

Armed with his Fine Arts degree, Sean has smashed down these assumptions proving that experience trumps qualification. However, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t value learning. Quite the reverse. Sean looks for any opportunity to learn and looks for inspiration anywhere and everywhere. Always stay curious, you never know when it might help.

5. “What am I here to learn?”

Tykr has been bootstrapped its whole life and this is only possible because Sean has stayed in his corporate job. Being a project manager in a large corporation doesn’t ignite him however, he sees this as yet another learning opportunity.

If you’re struggling with motivation in your job, try asking Sean’s golden question: “what am I here to learn today?” This turns the situation into an active one rather than a passive feeling. Reframe the attitude that your job is happening to you. Make it work for you.

6. “Do that which generates revenue, first”

As a FinTech founder, full time corporate employee and a podcast host, Sean is a busy man. How does he manage his time? With this one, simple, rule: do that which generates revenue first. This one is from Papa Tepper and now we’re passing it on to you.

By applying that rule, even if you only get one task done, if it’s one which generates revenue then you can relax in the knowledge the business will be ok.

Final thoughts

Tykr is growing from strength to strength and whilst it might look like an overnight success, this is really the culmination of two decades hard work. Sean is an inspirational entrepreneur, taking his road less travelled one step at a time. If you take nothing else from this post, remember this: stay curious, look for inspiration in unusual places and the rest will take care of itself. Safe journey on your road less travelled.