An artist who turned FinTech entrepreneur by accident: a story of INSTO founder
An artist who turned FinTech entrepreneur by accident: a story of INSTO founder

On September 21st, IMP welcomed one of our honored guests - Mr Bruce Chen, the founder and CEO of INSTO - to participate in the first sharing session with our GMBA students.
 

INSTO is a FinTech Industry Payment Platform established on 14th April 2017 that supports credit card payments and installment payments. The company began its operations in Kansas City, Missouri in 2013 by developing P2P installment and regular payment services using mobile Internet technologies. After the launch, Mr Chen discovered that demand for single-time credit card payments outstripped worldwide predictions, leading to the official renaming of the brand to INSTO in 2017. INSTO now is the world's first person-to-person payment platform that allows buyers and sellers to schedule payments over time. Customers can buy or sell anything, and schedule recurring payments for things like services or rent. Compared with other credit card processing apps, what makes INSTO different and outstanding is that it requires no hardware installed, no monthly fee, and also offers installment payment service with a relatively competitive rate to any individual.
 

Before INSTO, Mr Chen also shared with us about his different working and start-up experiences. From a very young age, Mr Chen knew that he had a very great passion for art and graphic design. However, he chose to develop his second biggest hobby, which is computer science, and turn it into his career and it has become his main income stream until now. He used to be the founding member of Sina.com (Mainland China), head of strategy for Ebay (the U.S.A), and country manager of Wrapp (Sweden). As a person who is always looking for innovation, he explained to us why he founded INSTO despite the fact that his current salary when working for previous companies was significantly high. He also discussed the difficulties encountered, significant victories along the way, and the business's future. Even though INSTO only had less than 100 users in its first operation year, Mr Chen never gives up and always remains flexible for any change or evolution in business model down the line.
 

Currently, INSTO has 15 members in total who are working together with Mr Chen. And the team is expected to grow and develop bigger in quality and quantity in the future. And as he wrapped up his thoughts about the company’s core value of innovation, Mr. Chen hailed the INSTO team for its remarkable nine-year long journey.

 

(Written by GMBA student Nguyen Thi Thu Phuong (Faith))