An Entrepreneurial Journey- Mr.

Musheer Ahmed

Name: Hitesh Mishra

UID: 3035617228

Mr. Musheer Ahmed is the founder and Managing Director of FinStep Asia. Mr. Musheer did his

graduation in Engineering from R. V. College of Engineering, Bangalore, India. He was passionate

about Entrepreneurship from his early age. He started his first business at the age of 16 but shut it

because his parents wants him to finish the studies. After completing the graduation, he started

working as a trader in a proprietary firm in India where within 5 years he was promoted as a Manager

at Mauritius office. After working for different offices for 8 years he left his job and decided to do his

MBA from The University of Hong Kong and completed it in 2015. He is also a member of the

United Nations ESCAP ESBN Youth and Women Entrepreneurs Taskforce. Mr. Ahmed has more

than 14 years of experience in Financial Services and Strategy.

He has a keen interest in technologies such as artificial intelligence, digital banking, and blockchain

that impact or disrupt the banking industry. He has also been to many industry events across the

region as a keynote speaker and invited as a guest lecture at many Universities including HKU,

HKUST, HKU Space, CUHK and Lingnan University on topics of Fintech, Artificial Intelligence,

Start-ups, Digital Banking, and Blockchain. 

Mr. Musheer always wanted to bridge the Fintech industry of India and China Greater Bay Area and

since he has initiated various programs to connect the two industries. He founded IndiaTech HK and

FinStep Asia working with government and industry participants, particularly investors and Fintech

mentors. This will help Hong Kong and India based start-ups in scaling their business all over Asia.

Before starting FinStep Asia Mr. Musheer Ahmed was also the co-founder and board member of the

Fintech Association of Hong Kong. Fintech Association of Hong Kong was started in 2017 with 10

members. Post the launch the number of members in the association reached 70 firms and more than

300 members within a couple of months. Now the association has more than 1500 members and 400
firms. The members include start-up companies from Blockchain, AI, WealthTech, Payments, Digital

Banking and Financial Inclusion as well as the world’s leading global corporations. The goal of

FinTech Association of Hong Kong is to unite the Hong Kong FinTech industry and ecosystem to

elevate Hong Kong's status as a FinTech hub. It is an independent, not-for-profit, membership-based

association representing Hong Kong’s FinTech community.

It works on creating awareness, employment, education, promotion and advocacy around

FinTech.  Fintech Association is now a well-known Association in Hong Kong with the highest

number of followers on LinkedIn. The source of revenue is primarily the membership fee and

organizing events. After the success of the Fintech Association, Mr. Musheer decided to move to the

next stage of his journey to pursue his other big passion: Bridging the Indian and Chinese ecosystem.

He did the following market research before deciding to start his venture:

“India and China are the two largest populations in the world, currently account for about 37% of the

entire population in the world. It is estimated that China will be the largest and India will be the third

largest economies by 2030. Both countries have the largest start-up ecosystems in the world and have

dozens of unicorns who are operating both locally and looking to expand internationally. This

tremendous growth of start-ups on both sides of the Himalayas provides a lot of opportunity for

interaction and cross border synergies in the world's largest digital economies which offer both scales

for B2C businesses as well as the B2B businesses underpinning the millions of enterprises of every

size. FinStep Asia will work on bridging this start-up ecosystem and enabling cross border business

expansion of start-ups into Asia and across Asia. 

The Fintech Industry in India is the third largest in the world. Many companies are functioning in this

sector with deep expertise in B2B financial services technology. According to Medici research, India

is one of the most popular and attractive start-up markets among the foreign investors the and country

represents a frontier market for global FinTech. Among them, most of the Indian start-up founders are

targeting global markets, with FinTech the most popular segment for serial entrepreneurs.”
So, Mr. Musheer saw an opportunity to establish a cross border platform to provide opportunities for

these start-ups and he started FinstepAsia, a Global advisory firm in Hong Kong. FinStep Asia is a

Fintech Advisor firm that provides advisory on Fintech & Digital ecosystems, Funding, operational

and networking support to start-ups and next generation of businesses based in Asia. FinStep Asia has

launched a cross border program for B2B India Fintech firms known as FinTech SlingShot. This will

help the Indian firms to scale and expand in China and South East Asia market. Mr. Musheer was

handling the operations, sales, business development, marketing, member engagement, committee

operations, and marketing while being the first point of contact for partnerships, regulatory &

government engagement and build the community. Recently, He launched a mentoring program

called Slingshot, a cross border scale program for B2B fintech firms to enter Southeast Asia and the

Greater Bay Area. It will help early and growth-stage companies to scale and launch globally while

connecting them to Investors, Corporates, and SMEs in the region. The program will be run by

experts and professionals who have proven deep FinTech and Asia expertise.

Start-ups participating in the program will also get the chance to work with top regional and

international banks and insurers to refine their products and make them market ready. They will be

drawn from a wide variety of FinTech segments, including RegTech, Digital Banking, WealthTech,

InsurTech, and Trade Finance. On another hand, this is a great opportunity for investors to spot

“outlier” companies that will become next disruption drivers require non-conventional mindsets and

access to both macro and micro data points on each FinTech category and start-up, with high-quality

deal flow and access to top start-ups curated by Medici. For Corporates, it provides a unique

opportunity to access and work with top-notch Indian B2B start-ups, and onboard them to solve their

pain points through a tailored and curated engagement & POCs.

For this venture, Mr. Musheer used his savings and invested approx. HKD100,000 for launching the

company FinStep in Hong Kong in 2018. He uses his network of 7 years with people from different

industries connecting with different firms in the industry to get his first customer. Initially, he

bootstrapped for the first 3 months with low revenues, visited several firms and industry leaders,
explained them about his business plan and formed a penal of experts from different venture firms and

Banks to support him. Now the firm is doing well with breakeven reached already and has many

consulting projects. The firm is in the process of launching several events in India and Hong Kong for

start-ups to pitch their ideas. In the event, the experts from the different industries are the judges and

they will do the initial screening, audit and review the ideas submitted during the event. The

companies chosen after the final analysis will be provided seed capital, mentorship as well as co-

working space.

While interviewing Mr. Musheer, I learned that the most important success factors in his

entrepreneurial journey were his experience in financial and consulting, his networking skills and his

willingness to take a risk. Mr. Musheer also taught me that Patience, Persistence, Perseverance, and

Passion are the four most important things a person should have while he starts his entrepreneurship

journey. He further elaborated the four P’s as follows:

Patience: Mr. Musheer explained the several ups and downs he faced during his entrepreneurial

journey. Success never comes overnight; a person should have lots of patience and do not be in a

hurry. He suggested keeping a time horizon of 3-5 years to build a solid foundation and be successful.

During this period there will be several occasions when one may feel that achieving success is taking

longer than earlier assumptions and this leads to the development of a lot of self-doubts but still one

should not stop trying instead he should assess if the long-term direction is right, However, if you see

that the business concept is unlikely to work, then give up. But if it is just a shift in the course of event

and timeline, be patient. Reorganize your plans, the time and execute them patiently.

Perseverance and Persistence: There are many success stories of Entrepreneur and the mantra behind

their success is those who stayed long enough in the journey and treaded along patiently. Those who

didn’t setback because of obstacles but keep on working hard to achieve their goals. Many times, if a

start-up does not see quick revenue entrepreneur make the mistake of frequently changing its business

models or price-points or customer segments but he is never sure if by changing the business model

often he is adapting the market changes or if he is making the mistake of changing the model too soon

without giving the time it may require to grow. Likewise, with customers entrepreneurs should be

persistent in chasing them even if they have not bought in the first pitch is often a game-changer.

However, he should not chase the customer with the same solution again and again but only if he

believes that the solution could be useful to the customers. Also, Entrepreneur has to learn from its

mistakes and review the progress of its business continuously. No business can succeed in a day and

require years of hard work and labour in building a strong foundation for any business. 

Passion: The last and the most critical skill an entrepreneur should have. Unless there is no passion

there is a high chance to give up since all businesses go through ups and downs, and almost all

businesses and teams will have several challenging times.

Finally, I learned that Most businesses that ultimately succeed are the ones where the entrepreneurs

had the grit, determination, patience, and perseverance to succeed. In the most trying times, it is these

virtues that’ll pull you through, taking you through that last mile.