Member Article

Bdaily talks to Christoph Rieche of iwoca

Bdaily talked to Christoph Rieche, CEO and founder of iwoca, a company that provides instant working capital to eBay business sellers and other online marketplace retailers.

What is your career history to date?

Prior to co-founding iwoca, I spent seven years in the investment banking industry where my job was to help multinational corporates execute the investment strategies that the bank had defined for them.

What is your current job title, and what does your role entail?

I co-founded iwoca and am responsible for strategy, finance and day-to-day operations – this includes anything from setting up partnerships to organising our internal darts tournaments!

What is the big story for your business in 2012?

Thousands of fast growing online merchants are cut off from credit as bank lending is in decline – this results in a drag on their future potential. The big story for the business is the huge growth in the UK’s e-commerce sector whilst traditional bank lending is declining. iwoca will aim to support the success of growing online retailers as Internet technology advances at an incredible rate.

What has been your biggest business challenge to date?

Keeping up with strong growth is great but a real challenge as well. We receive an increasing amount of requests every day and this requires getting all the people and systems to work smoothly together to give our customers the best experience.

What do you believe will be the challenge and the biggest opportunity facing your sector in the next 12 months?

The biggest challenge for the e-commerce sector is maintaining its sheer growth of 15-20% per year without proper access to finance.

With this challenge, comes our biggest opportunity - we hear from many online merchants that they are starving for more funds to grow their business. As access to trade finance is in decline they welcome our emergence.

What has been your proudest professional moment to date?

I was very proud when we made our first hire – a lead developer. Giving someone full-time employment and taking the responsibility that comes with it is a very humbling experience.

Who or what has inspired you the most in the course of your career?

I have huge admiration for entrepreneurs who have the courage to open their shop and to create a business from scratch with their own hands – Richard Branson is of course one of my heroes. Being one of these entrepreneurs has always been my dream.

Outside of the workplace, what is your main passion?

Hanging out with my family and friends, rock and roll music & good food!

If you weren’t in your current position, what would you be doing?

I would love to sail around the world, would my family let me go?

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Christoph Rieche .