$15M ARR Fintech Founder: I Found My First Customer on Facebook

How Caroline Tran did it: I Found My First Customer on Facebook

Caroline Tran is the co-founder and CEO of Hello Clever, which she describes as "a global financial payment technology company" that helps merchants and global businesses accept payments in 20 countries. On top of payments, she sees payment as "an engine for growth," which is why Hello Clever has products such as embedded loyalty and Clever AI — a data analytics product that gives merchants insights to understand their day-to-day business and help them grow.

It didn't start there. The original idea was "building a financial apps for Gen z's and millennials," and that's where the name came from: "we want people to be clever with their money." Thousands of users downloaded the app, but Caroline quickly realized that scaling a consumer product takes a lot of capital, and "Australia is not a market for consumers consumer product in general." They ran out of money. As she puts it: "we need to switch or pivot it because we run out of money right… either we need more capital or we pivot it." With interest rates rising in 2021–2022 and consumer products hard to pitch in Australia, they pivoted to a product that could "immediately commercialize and start making revenue."

The pivot came from a conversation. An advisor — a global chief compliance officer at a unicorn fintech — mentioned return payments. Caroline had assumed "payment is real time," and he told her it wasn't. Market research confirmed no one was doing real-time consumer-to-business payments in Australia, and Hello Clever became "one of the first fintechs that launched consumer to business payments in early 2022 in Australia." The first merchant came from a Facebook group: a CEO of one of the largest telco companies in Tasmania who was asking who did return payments because he didn't want to use Visa or Mastercard. Caroline reached out — "Ashley we do have something for you" — brought in co-founder Gavin and a young salesperson, and he signed up as their first merchant with "no brand," while they were still building their first product.

The flip to exponential growth came from a strategy Caroline describes as "multi Geo, multi infrastructure and multi product." Hello Clever was hyper-focused on Australia from 2022 until early 2024 — about 18 months — then started building banking relationships globally, because depending on a single bank to grow is "not ideal." They strengthened compliance, got their Australian Financial Services License, and went from about two banking relationships 24 months earlier to about 60 globally, including banks in Japan, the Philippines, the US and Australia, with the Philippines their strongest market.

Not everything went smoothly. A large merchant was about to start, then at 11 PM a general manager called to say they were shutting down Australia. That GM, Rush Kelly, ended up joining Hello Clever instead — he's been there nearly three years, based in their Singapore regional hub, now leading a team of 10. Looking back across the journey, Caroline's most valuable lesson is getting the right people in the team, and the thing she'd tell her 2020 self: make sure you have enough money to do it, look after your health, and she wishes she'd started earlier.

What you'll hear

• No payment background — how Caroline built a payments company starting from a consumer cashback app with zero connections in banking or merchant e-commerce
• The pivot out of money — why a consumer financial app for Gen Z and millennials didn't scale in Australia, and the advisor conversation about return payments that opened up payments
• The first merchant on a Facebook group — landing the CEO of one of the largest telco companies in Tasmania with no brand and no finished product
• Multi-Geo, multi-infrastructure, multi-product — the strategy that flipped Hello Clever into exponential growth after 18 months hyper-focused on Australia
• The 11 PM call — the merchant deal that fell apart the night before, and how the general manager became one of her best hires
• Clever Together and Clever Pitch — how a 70-person team across five offices and 10 languages stays connected
• What she got wrong — believing you should build products fast, and why she now demands "justify the demand" before building

Key claims from this episode

Chapters

Quotes from this episode

Themes Caroline returns to

• Pivoting until it works — Caroline keeps returning to the idea that "it actually takes a couple of times to get it right" and that you won't find the right problem right away
• Payment as an engine for growth — beyond accepting payments, she frames loyalty and Clever AI data analytics as ways to help merchants grow
• MVP and demand first — ship something small, get feedback, and now "justify the demand" before building anything
• The right people — her most valuable lesson, and the through-line from "keep in contact with your smart friends" to hiring Rush Kelly
• Empowering the team — trusting people to do their jobs, not micromanaging, and keeping a global team connected