Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Maia Monell, Co-Founder of Nav.it, located in Seattle, WA, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Nav.it is a fintech company focused on improving the quality of life of everyday people. Nav.it is the first science-backed platform improving financial capability that is available both directly to consumers and through employee wellness programs. Nav.it's behavior-based product architecture uses proprietary models to coach towards lasting behavior change automatically. After 12 months on Nav.it, consumers (known as 'Navigators') pay down an average of $3,000 in debt, increase savings by $750, and boost credit scores by 50 points.
Tell us about yourself
I came to financial services and financial technology (fintech) through human performance. I'm an athlete myself and have grown up in highly competitive landscapes. I always wanted to help people perform at their best. That first took shape in the form of sports advertising, then sports tech, where I was one of the team members at BridgeAthletic, a company leveraging the best in artificial intelligence to prescribe better outcomes to athletes everywhere. My time in this space began to open my eyes to all the ways our daily lives impact our performance. I took a strong interest in the perceived quality of life factors that really weighed on an athlete's daily performance. Around the same time, I met my now business partner and behavioral scientist, Erin Papworth. Erin was working to uncover ways to identify financial behavior and perceived circumstances to coach better outcomes for everyday people. I saw firsthand how technology was making coaching more readily available to everyone. I was excited at the prospect of taking a similar approach to finance. From there, Nav.it, 'the fitness app for your finances,' was born.
I've always been fascinated by consumer decision-making. Most importantly, how our everyday decisions compound to impact our long-term health outcomes. At Nav.it, my team and I are on a mission to make financial health the key to unlocking improved health outcomes. And most excitingly, we're on the right track to making that mission a reality!
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Nav.it has celebrated a variety of notable accomplishments. From oversubscribing a seed round to launching an auto-savings account with FDIC-insured nbkc Bank, closing our first enterprise partnership, to uncovering preliminary insights that prove our financial well-being score correlates with improved financial health, our team, advisors, investors, clients, and users are dedicated to making financial well-being a key to unlocking lasting financial betterment. However, nothing has meant more to our team than the first shared accomplishment of a user. About a year and a half ago, the USA's top fencer, Daga Wozniak, started using Nav.it. Having struggled with high-interest debt for years, coupled with an athlete's income unbefitting of a 3x Olympian, Daga was looking for a tool that could help. Eight months later, she shed all of her debt and started investing. That was a team accomplishment as much as it was our product. Now I'm proud to say Daga's story is one of the thousands of Navigators share with our team. We still light up with pride for our team, our tool, and our users when hearing stories like Daga's. They remind us that we're on the right path, building a product capable of meeting people where they are and providing them the necessary financial tools to build capability and build lasting good behaviors to set them out on the financial journey they've always dreamed of.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
I don't think I'd be able to do this alone. Being a sole entrepreneur must be absolutely crushing as there's so much that happens in a growing business every day that you can't share with the rest of your team. Don't get me wrong, we have a brilliant transparency policy, but there's also a lot that happens behind the scenes that you don't want to expand upon until the opportunity or situation is closer to a close or resolution. Being a business owner can be incredibly lonely. My best advice is to find a co-founder if you can and build a network of fellow entrepreneurs and advisors who can help you navigate each step of the process.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Focus on profitability from day one.
- Build an advisory board on day two.
- Commit to measurements of success on day three and stick to them throughout your journey.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://navitmoney.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/letsnavit/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/letsnavit/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/letsnavit
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maia-monell-6a2b7555/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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