The Billionaire Rolodex: Building a DaaS Business to Target the 0.001%

Apr 21, 2025

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INSIGHT

DaaS vs SaaS Distinctions

Data as a Service marries a proprietary data asset with technology for unique delivery.
This marriage makes DAS inherently more complex but with a stronger moat than a typical SaaS product.

ANECDOTE

Manual Beginnings of Fintrix

Russ shared how early on he manually aggregated and curated data daily while also cold calling potential clients.
This hands-on method was exhausting but vital to reach a functional MVP and gain early customers.

INSIGHT

Why Vertical Data Businesses Win

Verticalized data businesses thrive by serving niche markets with complex, underserved needs.
Deep domain expertise lets them deliver more precise, valuable data than broad horizontal products.

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Russ D'Argento, CEO and founder of FINTRX, sits down with CJ in this episode to discuss building a Data as a Service (DaaS) business while also sharing insight into the highly lucrative world of family offices. He explains what a family office is (name a billionaire, they probably have one), their roles in wealth management, and how he identified this niche. He sheds light on FINTRX, what it does, and why building a verticalized data business for a niche market can be both exceptionally complicated and rewarding. He delves into the nuances of DaaS business models, what makes them different from SaaS, why it’s so important to own your own data, and the unique challenges one faces in a business like this. He also talks bout the fine art of workflow integration and how allowing customers to access FINTRX’s data in other APIs has been surprisingly beneficial.

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@cjgustafson222 (CJ)

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TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Preview and Intro

(02:57) Sponsor – Rippling Spend | Vanta | Tropic

(07:23) What Is a Family Office

(11:49) Why Family Offices Are an Attractive Place To Grow Your Career

(14:06) Examples of Family and Multi-Family Offices

(18:04) Sponsor – NetSuite | Planful | Subscript

(21:13) The Founding Story of FINTRX

(23:38) What FINTRX Does

(25:02) The Data as a Service Business Model

(28:50) The Challenges of Starting a DaaS Business

(34:07) Broad Versus Narrow in DaaS

(37:57) Building FINTRX’s Ideal Customer Profile

(42:20) Sourcing Your Own Data Versus Partnering With Others

(46:09) Hiring for Engineering and Data Science

(51:07) Using FINTRX’s Interface Versus Accessing the Data in Another Tool

(1:02:26) Advice for Someone Launching a DaaS Business

(1:02:02) A Habit That Russ Swears By as a Founder

(1:03:24) A Lesson From Something That Went Awry

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