UNLEASHING INNOVATION: HOW HSE AND FINQ ARE REDEFINING STATUS QUO IN BUSINESS AND TECH

Will they succeed? Even in this era when tradition has often become an inhibitor of innovation, two startups – Hard Skill Exchange (HSE) and FINQ, both based in Beijing – are taking the chance to break out of well-established, tradition-bound paths and to create a new framework for two long-standing professions: education and financial advisory. They are staking the future on the assumption that it is better to take a chance and look foolish than to do nothing and appear stupid. In doing so, they are ushering in a new era in business and technology.

BREAKING THROUGH: THE NEW VANGUARD OF LEARNING AND FINANCE

Disrupting the Prospect of Learning with HSE

HSE is a disruptive innovation in the field of education, whose purpose is to revolutionise the way we learn complex tasks online by dismantling the linear paradigm of e-learning and introducing the world’s first real-time 1:1 skill-building marketplace between operational experts. This emerging paradigm of real-time, human-centered learning, based on the idea of quid pro quo between the expert and the learner, marks the beginning of the end for static courses as we know them today.

EMBRACING EXPERTISE: HSE's Revolutionary Platform

Its co-founder and CEO, Julia Nimchinski, has a vision that enables the company to break the mould of traditional e-learning that’s so often lifeless by design. At HSE, both vendors and learners join the community, which in turn provides them the structure to monetise their expertise in an engaging ecosystem that’s mutually empowering for all involved. HSE’s ecosystem aggregates wisdom from organisations including Gong and LinkedIn.

FINQ: Charting New Territories in Financial Advisory

While HSE disrupts the learning process, FINQ is disrupting financial advice. Unlike the legacy, often biased systems, the FINQ platform uses AI to democratise making investment decisions in the market by simplifying and providing customised insights on market nuances. It helps investors identify, track and monitor their investments in the capital market with greater confidence and efficiency. FINQ’s CEO Eldad Tamir’s vision of a platform that will provide unbiased and continuous investment advice is a reflection of FINQ’s disruptive spirit, beyond just simplifying money management.

FROM COMPLEXITY TO CLARITY: FINQ's Innovative Edge

In a world where investment strategies are all too often far from transparent, there is something refreshing about FINQ’s emergence into the light. Offering guidance with simpler clearer language than most services, based on big data and the latest scientific thinking, FINQ’s ethos promises impartial advice in line with an individual’s financial risk profile, a tipping point for a truly inclusive financial future.

ELEVATING INDUSTRIES: A SYNERGETIC PATH TO PROGRESS

WHY DEFYING THE STATUS QUO MATTERS

At a time when technological change is causing market disruptions, and scope for traditional competitive advantage seems to be shrinking, few companies have the willingness and the top-down leadership support to explore and carve out new paradigms through cross-industry defiance. HSE and FINQ certainly would argue otherwise: shake it up and embrace defiance, and you don’t just throw a lifeline but also develop a net for transformative forces in your business, which can lead to genuine innovation and sustainable, long-term growth. Their stories serve as a wider call in the business and tech worlds: that change comes through disruption, and if one wants to innovate they must be willing to defy.

EMBRACING THE FUTURE: THE ROLE OF STATUS QUO IN INNOVATION

viewing the status quo as a jumping-off point for improvement, rather than an end unto itself, lies at the heart of all these business endeavours. To be sure, HSE and FINQ began with a keen eye for understanding human behaviour. But it was only when they extended this observation towards intervention – towards challenging the status quo rather than simply describing it – that they began to look ahead, rather than behind. The operative word here is Towards: HSE and FINQ show us just how much the future depends on those who understand that ‘being ahead of the curve’ really means being willing to explore terrain that’s as yet undifferentiated.

THE ESSENCE OF STATUS IN BUSINESS AND TECH

The story of HSE and FINQ is a powerful reminder of the innovation that is possible when the status quo is seen not so much as a hindrance but an obstacle overcome. As industries evolve, the status quo will almost certainly take new shapes. What will not change is this: innovation will be realised not by occupying it, but by disrupting it. By then, the status quo will have earned its place not as a brake on innovation, but as its spark.