As someone working in the insurance or financial industry, you might want to ponder one challenging question: Who's going to take over your business in the future? A succession plan is something far too many CEOs in these industries ignore until it's too late.
While you might think succession plans only apply to family-owned businesses, many insurance and financial businesses operate the same way. It doesn't necessarily mean passing on the business to someone in the family either.
A platform called FindBob had the foresight to create a service that helps businesses like these create effective business continuity. It's the brainchild of CEO Roland Chan.
As a Graduate of the Toronto Founder Institute, take a look at recent developments and the future of FindBob.
New Funding for FindBob
The biggest story for Roland's company recently is that they managed to land $1.6 million in funding back in December. This came from Grinnell Mutual, including participation from MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund and Ames Seed Capital.
Thanks to this new seed round of funding, Roland plans to funnel the money into sales and marketing, developing their product, as well as extensive U.S. expansion.
With HUB Financial, PPI Solutions, and IFB as FindBob clients, you can see how word has already started to spread. Still, the concept behind Roland's company has more room to grow since succession plans aren't always top of mind.
You'll want to visit the platform's website to see everything they do to make business succession easier for those in the insurance and financial industries.
The FindBob Platform
If you wonder where the name FindBob comes from, it literally means being able to "Find Bob", or the most logical person to take over an insurance/financial company.
As Roland Chan says himself:
Insurance and financial advice matter, and by aligning the interests of advisors, agents and their companies through the effective use of digital transition management platforms, we're helping orchestrate growth and perpetuation like never before."
On their website, you'll get a better idea of the procedures they use to make their platform so easy to use. Their main page starts with a major truth insurance and financial CEOs usually ignore: 80% of independent financial advisors over age 59 have no succession plan in mind.
FindBob's platform helps these companies buy, sell, merge, partner, or find a succession partner to keep the value of the business going indefinitely.
They start this process by letting you set up a profile that allows the platform to match up personality and company goals. These matches help whittle down particular companies or individuals who have the best credentials as potential buyers.
Thanks to a free sign-up, it's easy to get started immediately. In fact, the first seven days are free, followed by a $22.99 per month fee for continual use.
Roland Chan's Experience and Future
To give more perspective on Roland's experience, you can look back to his own career past. He became a successor to an insurance company himself almost nine years ago. When this occurred, a close business advisor died, leaving the value of the business in question. Without a succession plan in place, it left his company in limbo until finally finding stability more than a year later.
Having real-world experience gave Roland all the experience he needed to create his unique company.
The future of his company also looks bright based on the revenue he's generated in Canada alone. Now with the U.S. as their next marketing target, the sky's the limit. While you can find some succession planning companies in the U.S., you can't easily find one devoted to the insurance and financial industries.
Through the targeted nature of FindBob, it's soon to find new clients throughout America as a major solution to business longevity in two important fields.
Keep reading us at Founder Institute as we explore more of our star graduates from around the globe.
