Linda Du is the founder and CEO of Moola Money, a fintech startup helping millennials build healthier financial habits through personalized, AI-powered tools. With a background in management consulting for global banks, Linda holds an MBA from Yale and an M.Eng. from the University of Cambridge. She is also the founder of Okta Investment GmbH, a private investment company based in Berlin, managing assets across renewables, tech, and emerging markets. Having lived and worked across five continents, Linda brings a uniquely global lens to entrepreneurship, finance, and innovation. She is passionate about building inclusive financial systems, mentoring underrepresented founders, and exploring the intersection of technology and impact. Her adventures span from the North and South Poles to cycling expeditions across three continents.
What is your typical day, and how do you make it productive?
Most of my time goes into building Moola Money, the fintech I’m building to make high-quality personal financial guidance available to millennials. I’ll check in with team members on deliverables, work with my co-founder on strategy and fundraising, and often dig into product feedback from customers. I also try to have lunch with someone new every day, e.g. an investor, founder, or creative because I those conversations spark fresh ideas and broaden my thinking.
How do you bring ideas to life?
Fast experiments. I like to work quickly to build out a concept and throw it into the world to see what sticks. One recent example is the Moola Money guide for couples having financial conversations. We had a tool to assess financial attitudes, and after meeting Moqi Groen-Xu, a researcher studying household finance through a corporate lens, I created a quick guide on Notion using our psychographic assessment tool and shared it with users to test with their partners. It’s all about learning in the wild.
What’s one trend that excites you?
AI assistance – not just the proliferation of tools, but the level of trust people now place in them. I’ve read numerous interviews with people in romantic relationships with their Replika AI companions. That level of intimacy and reliance shows how deeply embedded these tools are becoming. It reinforces the demand for what we’re building at Moola: AI-assisted financial guidance people can trust.
What is one habit that helps you be productive?
I don’t write every day, but I do keep a journal. When things feel chaotic, journaling helps me reset, organize thoughts, and regain focus. I’m reading Bittersweet by Susan Cain, where she cites a study where participants who journaled about challenging and painful times, ended up in a happier place afterwards having used their practice to process their emotions.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Don’t wait for permission. Nobody has it all figured out. Start before you feel ready, you’ll learn faster by doing.
Tell us something you believe almost nobody agrees with you.
Banking is a utility and a human right. During my time at Kiva as a fellow on their Southern African portfolio, I saw firsthand how small-scale entrepreneurs had no access to capital outside of microfinance. Without it, many couldn’t fund their businesses or support their families. Access to finance should be as fundamental as access to water or electricity.
What is the one thing you repeatedly do and recommend everyone else do?
Get comfortable being bad at things. That’s how you grow, and you’ll learn faster at the start of a learning journey thanks to the margin of diminishing returns. I think of my first cycling expedition across Madagascar. I was completely underprepared and had no idea what I was doing. But I did it anyway, and have since done cycling expeditions across Europe and Central America. You build resilience by starting before you’re “ready.”
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
I walk away, literally. I’ll go for a walk, take a break, or sleep on it. Distance gives me clarity.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business or advance in your career?
Build relationships before you need them. Whether it’s hiring, partnerships, or capital, so many doors opened because of trust built long before there was a clear “ask.” I also love collaborating with people and learning about their fields. I believe that innovation is a product of cross-pollination.
What is one failure in your career, how did you overcome it, and what lessons did you take away from it?
I took a role that sounded great on paper but was misaligned in values and leadership style. I left bruised but learned two things: don’t outsource your sense of fit, and be very intentional about the people you work with. It shaped how I build teams today, where Moola Money has not issued a single public job posting, and all of our people have been sourced from organic networks and referrals.
What is one business idea you’re willing to give away to our readers?
A cross-border investing platform that helps immigrants and diaspora communities invest back into their home regions, not only through remittances, but by deploying capital into localized investment portfolios tied to growth and local impact. One of my SPVs at Okta Investment focuses on emerging market managed portfolios, and as an immigrant myself I have a deep understanding of the journey of migrants and their connection to home.
What is one piece of software that helps you be productive? How do you use it?
Notion. I use it as a second brain for company wikis, investor notes, reading lists, and journaling. It helps me keep context across multiple projects, and we also use the dashboard functions to create transparency around customer pipeline and product status without having to bring in additional tools.
What is the best $100 you recently spent?
A meal at Little Berenjak at Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire for my boyfriend’s birthday. Great food, a chance to get out of the hustle and bustle of London, and it’s great to splurge on the people you value the most.
Do you have a favorite book or podcast from which you’ve received much value?
Book: The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa – a haunting and beautiful meditation on memory, identity, and resistance.
Podcast: The Prof G Pod by Scott Galloway – insightful, unfiltered takes on business and culture. I appreciate the blend of data, opinion, and heart.
What’s a movie or series you recently enjoyed and why?
Beef. It’s raw, hilarious, dark, and deeply human. A portrait of rage, shame, and connection that sticks with you. It’s also great to see Asian-American actors in the spotlight.
Key learnings:
- Start before you’re ready: fast experimentation and learning by doing are the best ways to bring ideas to life.
- Trust in AI is growing, and that opens the door for human-centered tools that guide people through emotional topics like money.
- Access to finance is a right, not a privilege: financial inclusion must be treated as a global utility.
- Being bad at something is the first step to being good at it: whether launching a startup or cycling across Madagascar, growth begins with discomfort.
- Conversations build momentum: from daily learning lunches to idea validation, dialogue is a key driver of progress.