From the outside looking in, entrepreneur and mechanical engineer Tea Nicola is a fintech (financial technology) superstar who has parlayed comfortable life circumstances into enviable success. However, this easy narrative could not be further from the truth.
While her achievements are undeniable, Tea’s early life experiences were rife with challenges that would stymie many young people. It took strength, fortitude, and a tenacious spirit to overcome considerable obstacles.
Tea co-founded WealthBar, a digital investment service platform designed to democratise wealth management by offering everyday Canadians access to sophisticated investment strategies generally reserved for high-net-worth investors. WealthBar’s success exceeded expectations, and Tea and her husband and co-founder, Chris Nicola, sold the online investment company to CI Investments in 2018 after only four years of meteoric growth.
The story of Tea’s path to entrepreneurial success was certainly not “overnight” or typical and serves as a beacon of hope and inspiration, particularly to those starting from challenging circumstances. At 15 years old, Tea, an only child, and her parents arrived in Canada as Bosnian refugees. She celebrated her 16th birthday in a refugee settlement hotel in Toronto, exiled from her country, where the only remaining connection was news of ongoing combat—a daily reminder of what she had left behind. Despite the challenge of leaving friends and family in her war-torn homeland, assimilating into a new culture, and learning a new language, Tea completed grades 11, 12, and 13 in Toronto and was accepted to Queen’s University, initially studying physics but soon switching to mechanical engineering.
Majoring in physics and graduating with a mechanical engineering degree may conjure images of a young person whose only interests were maths and science. Still, Tea’s varied pursuits contradict this stereotype. “I did music and drama in high school,” admits Tea. “I was a voice major and saxophone minor. I also took fine art—painting and sculpture.” After graduating from high school, Tea wanted to study arts but was cautioned by her parents that, as a new family to Canada, they were not in a position to have her study something so uncertain. As a well-rounded academic with strengths in maths and science, she chose a degree in physics—an undergraduate degree sure to fit her parents’ definition of practical. However, Tea soon recognised she was an engineer at heart and switched to mechanical engineering and materials science. This degree allowed her to exercise her desire to build, create, and hone her critical thinking skills. Reflecting on her path, Tea states, “There has always been an artistic streak. I think all engineers have that. You’re a maker. You’re a creator. You can take a militant, diligent, machine-driven approach to it, or you can be looser with it, and then it’s art.”
During her undergraduate studies, Tea met her future husband and business partner, Chris Nicola. Their marriage soon followed, but WealthBar was many more years in the making. Before starting WealthBar, Tea spent five years in the forestry industry, where she worked as an engineer until the crash of 2008.
The subprime market meltdown in 2008 opened Tea’s eyes to the importance of volatility mitigation in the investment business. Through her long-term mentor and father-in-law, John Nicola, her education in the investment business began early and often. Enjoying Tea’s intellectual and academic capacity, John engaged his daughter-in-law in healthy debates about finance and the economy, and over time, Tea learned and absorbed information about asset management and financial planning. Her father-in-law is CEO of Nicola Wealth Management, a firm specialising in serving high-net-worth clients using cash-flow-centric, low-volatility models predicated on financial planning first. She learned that poor long-term investment outcomes were often the result of reactive investor behaviour in the face of market downturns. Tea emphasises, “When people experience high volatility, that in turn causes bad investor behaviour, and they pull their money out and behave in a way that is not in the best interest of their account.” Tea highlights that fear causes people to pull money out of the market—often after losses—and investors inevitably miss subsequent periods of appreciation.
Behavioural finance is the subject of many books and the impetus behind numerous strategies designed to protect investors from themselves and their emotions. Tea knew significant research showed that investors experience poor returns by acting impulsively. This behaviour has been the focus of extensive research, notably the famous Dalbar study, which shows that everyday investors underperform market indices significantly because they cannot refrain from pulling investments out during market downturns and adding to investments at market peaks. The idea that any of us can time the markets is fiction; from an investment perspective, we are our own worst enemy.
Knowing that volatility is often the cause of poor investor behaviour, Tea was clear that everyday investors should have access to the same volatility-mitigating strategies as high-net-worth clients. “We became the exclusive reseller of Nicola Wealth pools,” reflects Tea, “and were able to offer a very similar investment strategy with private assets and hard asset real estate—things that were not liquid in a traditional world—and that gave us a unique value proposition because nobody had that, and it was not easily replicable.”
WealthBar’s successful, diverse investment model proved effective, and there were very few redemptions from this strategy, especially in private assets. “In the end,” states Tea, “it did showcase that we had high integrity, and I got so many client letters of thanks when we sold, and Chris and I left.”
Reflecting on the company’s purpose, Tea states, “I just wanted people to have access to something good for their financial well-being. I wanted a dose of benevolence in the financial services industry. This industry has a lot of exuberance and drive, but benevolence is not inherent in corporate business models. I wanted to be a bit of Robin Hood. This is how the wealthy invest. Trust me when I tell you that it’s good for you.”
When asked about her drive to become an entrepreneur, Tea quickly asserts that such an idea did not exist during her upbringing. “I grew up in a very conservative environment in a communist country. Nobody around me was an entrepreneur. The state owned everything—everyone worked for the man. It was not natural to become an entrepreneur.”
Characteristic of entrepreneurial journeys, there was no roadmap, and Tea forged her course, often upending conventions and blazing trails. She was clear on her priorities and, when her son was born, brought him to meetings from the outset. “I do things that are unconventional,” Tea emphasises. “My son came with me to a brand launch when he was two days old. He was with me at almost every vendor and non-client meeting. I was breastfeeding in M&A meetings and management meetings. Everyone pitched in, and my assistant was there and helped. I breastfed a lot, and I was waiting for people to say something, and no one ever did.”
While Tea recounts how she blended motherhood with her work as a business leader, she quickly admits that society needs to unburden women from the lion’s share of parenting and household work. “This imbalance causes a lot of stress,” highlights Tea. “It causes a lot of stress, and it causes a lot of friction, and it builds a lot of resentment in women.” Tea is clear that stress and anxiety are the byproducts of a system where women’s values do not align with how they are expected to behave. “Men should be taking more parenting responsibilities,” she states. “Men should be taking parental leave.”
Tea has much to share as a leader and attributes her success to many key strategies. First, she is adamant that good leadership is predicated on empowering employees to make decisions. Like many strong leaders, Tea is a proponent of proceduralised communication structures.
While Tea is keen to share her insights as a successful entrepreneur, she admits that she is still learning and growing as a leader, and another business venture may be in her future. When asked how she will know when the time is right to launch an entrepreneurial venture, Tea confesses, “It’s like making a decision to have a baby—you’re never really ready. And yet, you make the decision because you trust that you’re going to figure this out along the way.”