Fred Schebesta is an international speaker, serial entrepreneur, award-winning digital marketer, author, media commentator, mentor and active member of the startup, crypto and small business communities. He is the co-founder of finder.com, a global personal finance comparison website, which is estimated to be valued at $1 billion and sees about 10 million unique visitors per month. Fred has more recently been heavily involved in the cryptocurrency space, after launching crypto exchange comparison Crypto Finder, OTC broker service HiveEx.com, and crypto bill payment service HiveSpend.com.

His entrepreneurial journey started well before Finder. At just 22 – while still at university – Fred, together with his business partner and school friend Frank Restuccia, created Freestyle Media. They grew the business into a successful digital marketing agency that sold to a publicly listed company in 2007.

Their next venture was finder.com.au, which exploded into the comparison market in 2009 – one of the most highly competitive internet categories.

Finder was born out of a simple concept: to educate Australians and directly compare student credit cards. The magic sauce was leveraging all the proven and best practice digital marketing strategies they used to sell to their clients.

Over the years, it expanded and evolved to compare a range of products across different industries. Today, Finder compares virtually everything from cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets, credit cards and insurance to savings, travel, technology and electronics. Attracting over 4 million visits per month, Fred’s vision is to better all the world’s decisions by building “the Amazon of comparison”.

Following the success of finder.com.au, Fred launched finder.com in the United States in July 2015 and in the United Kingdom in February 2017. Today, the company operates in 10 countries, with plans to launch in a further 10 in 2018, and employs about 200 people globally.

As one of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs, Fred has countless accolades to his name, including 3 prestigious awards in 2017 by global professional services company, EY (Ernst & Young): Entrepreneur of the Year, Australian National Winner – Services Category, Australian National Finalist – Eastern Region, and Australian Regional Finalist – Eastern Region. Fred was also awarded ADMA Australian Young Direct Marketer of the Year in 2006, and at just 23, he was listed in Australian Anthill’s 30 under 30. 

See also: www.finder.com.au and www.HiveEx.com