Medium – Written Interview

Hannah Clark, Editor of The Product Manager on Medium, sat down with Merlin Investor’s Founder and CEO, Guido Petrelli, for an exclusive interview about what it takes to build a highly successful App. In the conversation, Petrelli shared insights drawn from his experience launching Merlin Investor’s platform, discussing key elements such as user-centric design, continuous feedback loops, and staying focused on solving real problems for everyday investors. Here is the full interview as published on Medium magazine’s website. Guido Petrelli of Merlin Investor On 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Highly Successful App. An Interview With Hannah Clark, Editor of The Product Manager. Get to know your potential users. If you don’t know them well, then it’s very unlikely you’ll come up with a product that will solve their needs. As a very first step, it’s crucial you identify your target audience. In our case the target audience is Gen Z and Millennials in North America who are already using a trading platform, as that demographic is driving the growth of trading platforms and would be interested in complementing their investing experience through our product. There are millions of apps out there. Many are very successful, but most are not. What are the steps taken by successful app makers that distinguish them from unsuccessful ones? In addition, many people have ideas for an app but don’t know where to begin. What are the steps you need to take to create a successful app? As part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Guido Petrelli, CEO and Founder of Merlin Investor: Guido Petrelli is an experienced Corporate Executive and Founder & CEO of Merlin Investor, a Fintech company on a mission to democratize access to investment strategies and offering a software for market study, strategic investment planning and portfolio tracking to retail investors. To empower the young generations to limit potential catastrophic losses and build long term stable results with the ultimate goal to become financially free is what gets him up in the morning. Before starting Merlin Investor, for more than a decade Guido was the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of a multinational automotive group where he was responsible for scaling the company globally and for running its worldwide sales and operations. Guido earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and Finance from Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. When he is not working, Guido loves spending time with family, investing in the financial markets and watching soccer. Thank you so much for joining us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you grew up? I was born and grew up in Italy in a small town and from a middle-class family. I moved to Canada for high school and earned my diploma before going back to Italy for college where I studied business administration and finance. Once I graduated from college, I moved to Singapore and worked in the business consultancy field helping European companies expand internationally to the Asia-Pacific region. After that, I joined a multinational automotive company and served as the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operations Officer for about 14 years. During that time, I was focused on growing the company’s global presence and opened several locations from scratch. I spent most of this time travelling all over the world to manage this business, especially in United States. During this time, I started to get fascinated by the world of technology and its application to the financial sector, which then ultimately inspired me to start Merlin Investor. Most of us have been around a lot longer than apps have. What were your hobbies and interests in your youth before anyone knew what an ‘app’ was? Yes, you’re definitely right, most of us have been around a lot longer than Apps have! Today, it’s hard to imagine our life without Apps, however, growing up I did not feel this way. During my childhood I spent most of my time playing sports (mainly soccer as it is a deemed religion in Italy) and liked spending time with friends and traveling. However, I also enjoyed trading in financial markets — a hobby that helped me create Merlin Investor. I was just sixteen when I opened my first brokerage account and I started to buy and sell stocks, which was a hobby not common for my age, but I was intrigued by the world of trading and wanted to grow my passion more. Little did I know that I would go on to create a company dedicated to empowering a community of young retail investors to take control of their own financial future. It has been said that our mistakes are our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that? Every mistake comes with a price and a very important lesson that I hope will offset the cost in the long term. The bigger the mistake, the higher the cost, and therefore, a more important lesson. One of my biggest mistakes happened when I was presented with a very promising, almost life changing, “safe” investment opportunity which was expected to deliver a high return in a short period of time. I decided to trust the advisor that was sponsoring it and take it, but I lost everything in it. I learned that you don’t become rich overnight and that although something may seem safe, easy and rewarding, this is not always the case. I also learned that it takes time, hard work and a step-by-step approach to build long lasting and sustainable returns. But let’s not get too serious here. Another mistake I made happened when I was visiting a facility in China and an employee had just returned from maternity leave. Making casual office conversation, I asked