A Interview With Zak Westphal: What You Really Need to Start a Successful Business

Zak Westphal, the trailblazing CEO and co-founder of StocksToTrade, has an incredible story of identifying a need in the market and building a fintech company to level the playing field for retail investors. 

Since launching his trading platform back in 2012, Zak has led the company with a relentless vision to democratize access to powerful trading tools, and it’s safe to say his journey has been a resounding success so far. The platform has become an indispensable resource for its 30,000+ users seeking an edge in the market without institutional-sized budgets, and the platform continues to grow year on year. 

Zak’s journey as an entrepreneur originated from his own experience struggling as a retail trader years back. He realized the vast informational and resource mismatch stacked against the everyday investor made it almost impossible for regular people to make money in the markets. So Zak made it his mission to use technology to transform that landscape and flip the script. 

We had the pleasure of sitting down with Zak Westphal to learn more about his journey building StocksToTrade and get his advice for aspiring founders. Let’s dive in:

Q1: Zak, your journey with StocksToTrade is inspiring. What was the single most important factor in your early success?

Passion was definitely the key ingredient from day one. When you absolutely love what you do, it drives you through all the hard times. My passion for trading and helping other traders fueled me during those early days of building StocksToTrade. I became obsessed with bringing my vision for empowering retail investors to life.

That passion gave me the energy and determination to keep refining the software until it met my standards, and to cold call potential customers day after day to understand their pain points. It enabled me to persevere through every setback and rejection on the journey to product-market fit. My passion became magnetic - it started attracting like minded team members and early adopters who fell in love with the mission. They joined me in bringing StocksToTrade to the masses because they deeply connected with empowering traders to level the playing field.

So if I had to sum it up in one word, passion drove everything in those critical early stages - the vision, the stamina, the problem-solving, the community. When you solve problems from a place of authentic excitement and belief, success is a natural byproduct.

Q2: A lot of people have great ideas, but they struggle to turn those ideas into reality. What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs?

Don't let fear hold you back. The barriers to building Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) to test concepts have never been lower. You can access no-code tools, global talent pools, remote collaboration software, and cheap cloud computing power at the click of a button these days. The only thing stopping you is taking that first leap and going for it.

I would tell aspiring founders - validate your riskiest assumptions as early and affordable as possible. Seek genuinely open feedback from real customers, observers or experts on whether you’re solving a real pain. Some of the best business ideas can sound crazy at first, so get your concept in front of your target users right away before investing too heavily upfront. 

Equally important is being nimble and resilient through the emotional rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship. The lows can be brutal but the euphoric highs make it worthwhile. Build genuine connections to attract co-founders, team members and early users united by the change you want to see in the world. Use communities to fill your weaknesses and blindspots across functions like tech, design, marketing.

Q3: The business landscape is constantly evolving. How do you stay ahead of the curve?

I'm obsessed with always learning and rapidly adapting. Whether reading industry publications, attending fintech conferences, networking with other founders, or brainstorming with our power users - I'm relentlessly absorbing cutting edge ideas.

I empower my team to experiment often because the pace of change is too great for paralysis by analysis. We're continually putting out minimum viable features and offerings, seeing what tool upgrades or educational content resonates best with customers based on usage metrics and direct feedback. We move quickly, tweak based on insights, double down on what users value most.

I also believe in the power of surrounding yourself with future-focused advisors who expand your perspective. My mentors over the years have pushed my thinking on areas like blockchain, digital assets, AI and how integrating these innovations can unlock new possibilities. So while we execute on delivering an amazing experience to current customers, we have an eye towards the horizon.

Q4: What’s the most common mistake you see entrepreneurs making?

Far and away the biggest founder mistake I see is failing to build a strong supporting cast early on. So many aspiring entrepreneurs fall into the trap of wanting to control everything, wearing every hat in the beginning. They underestimate the breadth of competencies required to build a scalable company.

The most effective leaders know their strengths and weaknesses deeply. They focus aggressively on their unique skills that drive the most value. Then they delegate or adapt every other function through the use of mentors, co-founders, contractors and partners.

Surrounding yourself with the right people who share your vision but have complementary skill sets is crucial. Empower them to own areas you’re less skilled in. Guide the strategy, set the culture, but trust your team to operate autonomously. 

Q5: What's your best advice for building a strong company culture?

Culture starts with your leadership. Employees experience the organization through their most immediate supervisor. So setting the tone and leading by example is critical as founders. Live and breathe your core values, reward behaviors reflecting them. Make sure managers embrace empowerment, accountability, and employee growth.

Facilitate open communication across the company and willingness to challenge the status quo. Celebrate wins frequently while allowing failure without blame as learning opportunities. Take the health and wellness of your team seriously - burnout should be considered a major red flag.

Show you genuinely care about more than just performance results. Get to know employees as human beings, understand motivations and life context. Make people feel appreciated as unique contributors working towards a unified mission. When you build trust and community at that personal level, a positive culture blossoms organically.

Q6: What's next for StocksToTrade? What are you most excited about?

We feel like we’re just getting started pursuing our vision of leveling the playing field for retail investors! Lots of exciting developments ahead integrating complementary bleeding edge technology with our platform. Advancements in blockchain, crypto, AI and machine learning hold so much promise to expand possibilities for everyday traders.

We’re investing heavily into machine learning features that enable screeners to become “smarter” about discovering potential big winners based on historical catalysts and price action. Embedding these innovations while preserving platform simplicity is what excites me so much about the next generation of StocksToTrade capabilities.

But at the end of the day, our purpose of empowering individuals will remain the guiding force as adoption of these tools accelerates globally. We feel like we’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible by combining technology with educational community support.