 Can everyone hear us? Lovely to be back at Slush. Thanks all for coming. I've got a fabulous panel with me here this morning that needs very little introduction. But for those of you who don't know, we've got Sonali and TS here of Monzo fame. We're talking about the journey from start-up to scale-up. It's something that everyone in this room has probably experienced, wants to experienced, or hopes to experience one day. And we're going to talk about that in some depth here. Monzo was founded in 2015 and has grown exponentially since then. Nearly 9 million customers now in the UK. I've just been reliably informed. But it's not been an easy journey so far. It should never be easy to build a bank. And TS is here having been a CEO in the US previously for Monzo. But during the pandemic, things went a little bit pear-shaped for everyone here, I imagine. And the company changed from a founder-CEO to TS here. And I'd like to start there, if possible, TS, with how it felt to join a company in the midst of the pandemic while you were based in California at the time. Yeah, so I think everybody has a crazy COVID story. And life was crazy for all of us. My version of crazy began at 2 AM every morning sitting in Palo Alto in lockdown and trying to run this business that was based out of the UK with a team that I was not physically with, had spent very little time physically with. And it was clearly an existential time. It was a difficult time for all of us, but also a time of enormous change in a good way. It was a point of inflection for the business. Mr. Naliyu, you were there at the time as an investor already. Well, I was a, and thank you, Callum, by the way, for being here. And it's great to be back at Slush. It was a very difficult time. It was, you know, the way I describe it, it was a bit of a triple whammy. You know, a lot of our companies and a lot of you in the room went through a very tough time. It was some companies whose business model became illegal, essentially, during COVID. But I think it was kind of in April 2020, where our revenue halved. Yep. And on top of that, we were in the middle of closing around and because the world collapsed, the investor at the time, nothing to do with Monzo, decided they were going to freeze every single investment. This isn't fun when you're relying on the money. And on top of that, we're also a regulated business. And so the regulator who asked, was asking us, rightly so, some questions. And so it was, let's say, it was a pivotal moment. It was a stressful moment. It became all hands on deck. Yeah. And in walked TS and things changed. Yeah. Definitiously. It kind of been easy to go from someone like Tom, who had been there from the start, you know, a repeat founder, having obviously been at Go Cardless previously, you know, had a, you know, like the rest of us, a very difficult time during the pandemic. How easy slash difficult was it to choose TS, to, you know, make sure that you had the right person in place to start the next part of the journey? Yeah. I mean, look, I cannot speak for Tom, who's been very vocal about his decision and why he stepped down. But I have a sneaking feeling that when Tom looked at TS, he saw his plan A in some sense, and it all kind of came together. TS, why don't you talk about how it felt from going from running the US to everything you did? And I'll give you my version of the story. Let's see if it matches up. Yeah, for sure. I mean, so it was a crazy time. As Sonali said, it was a difficult time for the business itself and the triple whammy that Sonali is describing about the business being under siege because of COVID and everything else, capital runway being a real challenge and the regulatory pressures as well. So in some senses, it was this interlocking set of problems where everything was linked, right? To raise more capital, we needed to ship product, to ship more product, we needed to make sure the business was ready to scale in that same way and we had comfort from the regulators and everybody else. To do all of those things, we needed a team that had to be great, right? To get the team right, we needed to have a vision. We needed to be talking about the future and not just fixing the stuff that there was. So it was a series of interlocking problems which there was just no other way to think about it other than to say, let's get on with it, right? Let's dig deep, let's find our conviction and let's take all of these things on. And then the good thing about interlocking problems is that you can be trapped in a vicious cycle where everything is sort of spiraling downwards, but if you can flip that around into it being a virtuous cycle, right? Start to solve some problems. It creates a virtuous cycle that actually gets you out of it all and creates a real point of inflection. So in our case, that was ship product. So within weeks of the transition, the first thing that we did was ship a major product for the first of our subscription products, Monzo Plus. And that meant that the team was motivated. It meant that there was a real proof point about where the business was going from a revenue and growth perspective. So we did that, we took on the regulatory stuff and said, look, we're gonna build this for real controls in a way that this becomes a real asset for Monzo. So we took that on, journeying the team at a time like that is not easy. That's because you're trying to get so much stuff done. So, yeah, I'd like to think that we used that spring of 2020 and that crisis. We didn't let it go to waste. We used the crisis to build a better, stronger, more successful company. You know, that's when I, T.S. has a few attributes and we can talk about it later. But one of the key ones that I learned during that moment, I was actually in a sunny place and locked down in COVID and T.S. would get on line and we'd be talking about what's gonna happen and he'd be all smiles and be totally cool. Meanwhile, it was two o'clock in the morning for him every single day. His day was night, essentially, for months on end, right? But the one thing was he was always smiling. He was always in a good mood and he was unflappable. And this was, this is when I learned, like one of your true superpowers was being unflappable. But Callum, what I would say about that moment and again, there are many companies who've been through different moments, but it really was, in many ways, a real founding moment or a refounding moment for Monzo. Monzo had done amazing things between 2015-2020, but we had a lot of challenges. And it was like a line in the sand in terms of you have the product, you have insane customer love, all our growth had been organic at the time. We were regulated, which is a good thing from a more perspective and a trust and a credibility perspective, but it came with certain requirements. And it was not gonna be easy to do the next stage. And TS and the team that had been brought on board managed to figure out that next phase in a way that actually includes many of the attributes that I think about when we look at sort of founders in terms of sense of urgency, astuteness, what's coming next in terms of product, resilience. It's not easy, but that's exactly what happened in that period and of course it's the benefit of hindsight, but it really felt like an incredible pivot and moment. And I mean, the final thing I wanna say on that is that I've been through a lot of founder, CEO transitions. It's kind of the dark underbelly of the technology world. People don't talk about it, like it's there and there's some, you know- We're talking about it right now. But you report on it. Now, what I wanna say is that this was one that was done in a celebrated way. We need to celebrate great founder, CEO transitions that happen and as I say, this is more like a refounding story in some sense. Yeah, I wanna sort of touch on that a little bit more actually for UTS because you were already part of the company. So you had already a great idea of what was coming next, what was in the pipeline, you know, a down round and COVID pandemic and everything else aside. And obviously the two AM starts can't relate to being in a sunny place during COVID unfortunately, but you know, nice for some. The point about products previously was that Monzo, you know, ubiquitous for, you know, bright pink card and you know, sort of very loved by customers. Hot coral. Yeah. Okay, but the general gist has always been that like, it was a bank first and foremost and you had your current account with the company and that was great. How important was it for you to sort of come in and put a stamp on things in terms of next on the product roadmap and in terms of also, I guess, building from, you know, a beloved startup into a revenue generating monetizable scale up business? Sure, there's a lot to unpack in there, right? So to your point about first being in the US, so my period being in the company before the transition happened with Tom was weeks, right? Almost days, so certainly didn't feel like months at the time and hindsight it feels like, you know, all of time at that point seems like a bit of a warp anyways, but here's the thing. So, it was important to me, to us as a team, that we rejected false binaries, right? One of the biggest false binaries that was sort of pervasive was this idea that we're either a mission oriented company or we're a great business model and I reject that false binary, right? Because I think it's important to be both of those things and done right, those two things build on each other. Right, so being mission oriented means we have a deep, deep commitment to building great products for customers, doing it in a way that customers understand the product, communicate in a wickedly transparent way and price it appropriately, right? So that's being mission oriented. Having the right business model means we understand how to monetize all of that responsibly, deliver it at a cost structure that we can scale at and build a real growth story. And the reason I say that's a false binary is because done right, they reinforce each other. If the mission is good and you're true to the mission, it actually creates amazing commercial outcomes. In our case, being mission oriented and building product like we do has meant that most of our growth has been word of mouth, right? So we're nine million customers in the UK almost now and most of that is word of mouth. That is extraordinary, right? So we don't burn a whole bunch of money on acquiring customers because we don't need to, right? So that's a great commercial outcome. The other great commercial outcome is that it's not just about numbers of customers, the vast majority of those customers, 60% of them are weakly transacting active, right? That's the level of engagement that they have with us. So every new product we offer those customers, there is a high propensity to buy it from us because they trust us. So being mission oriented drives amazing commercial outcomes and the other way around because when we scale because we have a great sustainable business model, it means we're delivering on our mission for millions and millions of more customers, right? So it was important to us to think about it like that. So to your point about my personal stamp on that with the transition and everything, it's a great question, but I like to think of it as being incredibly focused on what we will not change and then build new muscles. So what we did not change was the DNA of the company which was as customer oriented as we are. What we did not change was this maniacal obsession about designing delightful products that customers love, right? So you take that DNA and then add to it a whole bunch of muscles around scaling, around building product and shipping it faster. And the product roadmap that we have, you know, the roadmap is no rocket science, right? We know what we're building. We're building towards a financial control center, a single place where customers will manage all of their money needs. And it's about staying that course and just continuing to build at pace, scale it with our existing customers and make sure you hold really high standards, you know, for everything that we do. Yeah, I mean, Sonali, I mean, you've backed, you know, dozens of amazing companies over your career and you've been involved in Monzo since 2018, I think. And I guess the question then on product is like, there are a lot of companies where there are these foundational moments, be it like during the pandemic or other times, where it's a little bit make or break. A company could be doing okay and have an interesting product, but there are many competitors, particularly in the banking, particularly in the UK. What is it that you think are the sort of key hurdles to overcome in terms of getting a product that is loved, as we say, but actually into one that stands the test of time and will be around for, you know, presumably a while? Yeah, no, Calamity's a great question and, you know, in many ways we measure ourselves by looking at not just returns and, of course, those matter, but which of our companies are enduring? Which of our companies have the destiny or are publicly listed and have tens of thousands of employees over time? And it's not easy to figure that out at the very early stage, but if you just step back and it'll weave it a bit into what TS just said, to actually build a successful neobank was, of course, going to be very, very valuable because banking is ubiquitous, but it's bloody hard. It's complicated and it is capital intensive, even though everybody tried to sort of not think it was. And the attributes and the fundamentals of why Monzo was not just special, but pretty unique, existed right at the beginning and it existed all the way throughout, including in 2020. One is the insanity of the customer love. You cannot build a bank and have mass market adoption, which is kind of what we think was a blueprint of success, which is actually being really, I wouldn't say dominant, but having significant share in a geography. Now, if that's the US, it's smaller share, but if you're in the UK, that sort of meant being at least a top 10 bank, which is very hard given kind of the incumbents. And you cannot spend your way through that because the CAC, the customer acquisition cost and financial services is typically 100 to 150. It was free for us because it was grassroots, word of mouth, true love, which exists to this day. So that's what's carried through. The second was that we were never a one-trick pony. We weren't just about really nice analytics about spending and spend management and payments. We really wanted to be, as Tia said, your financial control center. And what does that mean? We wanted to be a better bank. We wanted to give you term deposits. We wanted to give you overdrafts. We wanted to give you loans. We wanted to give you premium products, insurance. We wanted to do everything as opposed to what you were doing today, which was very fragmented. That vision was always there, but of course it was very early and we were not monetizing, which was really the difficulty at the time. And then the final thing, which people don't talk about and it's sort of like, you know, kind of a little bit, you can think it's fluffy, but if you're going to be a bank at some point, something will go wrong. Sorry, Tia, it's true. Something's going to go wrong, right? We know all about, we read about banks, big, small, large, you know, in different countries here, et cetera. And so you had to be sure that you could sleep at night. And how could you sleep at night? You could only sleep at night if the team, at the end of the day, all they cared about was customer first. Really, it wasn't just about the mission, is that the wellness of the customer make money count. This was really something that was deeply embedded. The gambling block we did, which was revolutionary, we prevented consumers from spending on gambling, which would have made us a lot of money, but we didn't do it. This was really like core to the mission. And so these were the reasons why, you know, we think the company or the bank would be enduring. And I think it still remains true today, but the challenge was it was not easy to monetize. Candidly, that was a pivotal time. There was kind of the before and after. We had all of that there. But how do you actually make money and how do you make money in the best interest of your consumers, which is what banks frankly don't do, right? It's about intransparent fees or opaque fees, et cetera. So that was sort of, I think, the foundations. So I'll give you a couple of examples to illustrate what Sonali is saying, right? So the gambling block, which is such a cool feature, it gives customers the ability to say that don't let me top up my online gambling account without a 24-hour cooling off period. That we built that product because a customer service rep talking to a customer figured that this tool will actually change their life. And even a feature like that comes about not because you can monetize it and attach pennies and pounds of arpu to it, it comes about because you're trying to build the right thing for the customer. And it gets used, just in the last few months, we've blocked a quarter of a million transactions with the gambling block. That's a quarter of a million people that feel more in control of their money because of it, right? Or the investments product we launched two months ago. All of the research about the product suggested that most customers in the UK, most individual customers in the UK are spooked about investing and don't enter the space for two reasons. The two big reasons were, the first, they don't understand it, right? Because the incumbent industry has just thrown a brick wall of terms and conditions at you as opposed to educating you. So that was the one big gap. And the second big gap was people thought investing is not for me, right? It's for richer people, right? So we solved both those problems with the product that we launched two months ago. Where the education is bite-sized in the customer's language, really aims at not checking some control's box, but really about educating the customers better. And the vast majority of our customers are engaging with that education, right? Then we said, look, the entry point should be one pound. For one pound, you can get started building an investment pot. And we just launched that. And within hours of launching, we're without spending a penny on marketing. We had 150,000 customers put themselves on the wait list for the product, right? So that thing about saying, look, let's build the best product. Let's learn from our customers and ship that, creates all sorts of other knock-on great outcomes. Yeah, I think crucially as well, one thing that comes across from a lot of this is that there was a choice, I think, fairly early on to become regulated and entity in the UK. And as we know, not every Neobank has to be regulated or chooses not to be. But there's a level of scrutiny and difficulty that comes with that, particularly as a sort of startup as opposed to a scale-up that, you know, I have conversations with CEOs and founders regularly about the difficulty of working with banking regulators, and this could be a conversation that could go on for a long, long time. But just briefly, I mean, in terms of as a company, in terms of something that was difficult to do, but I presume now has been the right decision and feels like something that's made every difference. For sure, I think ultimately it comes down to saying, look, if we were in a different business column, if we were in the business of, say, being in e-commerce retail, then getting really, really good at distribution, at warehouse, supply chain would be crucial to your success. If we were building amazing devices, it would be about the design, but it would also be about sourcing the right chips from around the world, manufacturing at scale at a cost that you can actually deliver to customers. We happen to be in financial services in which industry it's important to get this regulatory bit right. And so we own that, right? And we said, let's solve the really difficult problem, let's own it, and in doing so, create a real mode around our business, that we can do that at scale, not in a way that we're sort of in denial about it or complaining and moaning about it, but saying, look, let's just be great at building a well-regulated business, creates a real mode for us. And it allows us to focus on the stuff that we want to be good at, which is put great products in the hands of customers, give them the tools to make good decisions and make the money work harder for them. Do you want to come in on that, Sonali? Yeah, after I stop coughing, sorry guys. It was not easy to figure out what this would mean, right? Because being regulated is a mode, but it's also not trivial to think about the requirements, right? From a reporting and capital and many other derivative side effects. But if you think about trust and long-term durability, which is sort of what a consumer is assuming exists when they give you the money, and one thing we haven't said, the goal, you cannot be successful if you don't end up being more or less a primary bank. You cannot be the second bank or the third bank or the fourth bank. You can do that over time, but if you really are fast-forwarding to an enduring company that is a standalone business that's extremely profitable over time, you do need to be the primary bank because that's where the data is. That's how you do the lending decisions. That's how you think about wealth management. And how are you the primary bank if you're not regulated, if you don't have that umbrella of trust that the consumers are looking for? So for us, in the early days, it was really, it took us a while to figure out is that the harder but more valuable route or is just that the harder route? And I think we very much went in the former camp. But of course, you have to embrace it. And that's what I would say in TS Stone Blush. I think that's what TS has done. He manages to be this person who can stand in front of the regulator and everything that sort of goes with it and have an extreme credibility, three decades in financial services. But when you go back in the office, it's sort of really, it is a startup that's moving at pace and kind of maybe not breaking everything, but it's a very nice combination. But you've embraced it, right? Instead of like trying to put it on the side, you're like, how can we be the best at being a regulated business? And I think that's the real mode, not just ticking a box. I think crucially as well, I mean, regulation very difficult, could spend all day doing that. We won't. But one of the other crucial things is that the company has been predominantly UK business, but has in the past attempted sort of retrench, gone back again with the US. And look what we got from it. Yeah, notoriously, yeah, I mean, great, great move ideally, right? But notoriously, a very difficult place to get regulated. Many have tried, many have failed. There's no shame in that. That's what we're all here for. But can you tell me a little bit about how that process has been in terms of the cost, the difficulty, the sort of application there, and then also a little bit maybe about what's coming next and with Conor now in place, like what's happening next? For sure. Look, we've never been shy to say that our ambition is global, right? The ambition is massive because it's consistent with the mission and it's consistent with the ambition that we have for the sector. And we also recognize that this is the beginning of the transformation of financial services, right? We're so at the beginning of this whole journey. But we also know that actually to succeed at scale, you have to build businesses at scale well. So I think it's no accident that now is the time we're actually doubling down on the US as well, right? Where we hired a talented leader there because we think we've earned that right. We've proven that the model works at scale in the UK and we know that our long-term success is going to be a function of a very, very successful win in the home market. And then we sort of expand beyond that. In each case, wherever we expand, the US of course and Europe soon as well, I hope, the approach is the same thing, right? Which is build a product that actually works for customers. And we know that that's the definition of our success. Once we get that, everything else follows. And I mentioned earlier this thing about false binaries. The other false binary we reject is that you can be an ambition versus discipline. I would get asked this question, oh, but we're so ambitious. Won't we end up spending, burning a lot of money? Or if we're so disciplined, how are we thinking big? And no, actually you can be incredibly ambitious but be very disciplined with how you build the business out. Stage gate your investments. Focus on what is crucial for success in our cases as a product market fit. Build the right product and then continue to invest with that ambition in mind. So we're just getting started, Callum, as much as it feels like 9 million customers and doubling revenues every year and profitable. And all of these are big milestones to talk about. It feels like we're just at base camp now and we're swinging for the fences in terms of the size of ambition we have. Yeah, I think it's all about how do you allocate capital in a judicious way, right? And that's the discipline. The ambition has to be there because we've just got started and certainly that's how we think about it. But it would really be foolish to not take our brand of how we do neobanking to a market that hasn't actually figured it out. Candidly, you have companies that are interchange only who sit on top of other people's stack, et cetera. And remember, the US is very large. I mean, California itself is a big market. So if you think about the opportunity, it is very sizable. And you have to think about market share and acquisition in sort of a very different way. But in many ways, the UK has really been the birthplace of some fantastic globally relevant fintechs. And in the way I look at it, Monza is the poster child of a great neobank. And poster childs tend to get exported. And the question is how and when, with what capital and what base. But that's why we have a lot of time because we control our own destiny because we're profitable. Yeah, I actually wonder from that point of view as well. I mean, the US competitive landscape incredibly different. And I mean, California, bigger economy probably than the UK. So great place to start, if anywhere. But the, I guess, general thing about that is that there is a lot of competition. There has been a lot of, I presume, times where things have been quite challenging in terms of what competitors are launching, what you're actually sort of trying to build. How difficult has it been over years seeing rivals both in Europe and in the US taking different parts of the neobanking idea and doing it a little bit differently? How has it felt or changed for you? It's a great question. Yeah, so, you know, so Nali was joking earlier about me being sunny-side up and optimistic and all of that. I think it's crucial in any of these roles. So these are not roles for the faint of heart, right? Because building and scaling a business takes a lot of these entrepreneurs all over this room who know what that looks like. So you have to play the long game, right? You have to play with the conviction of what you're really building and be able to see through all the storms along the way, right? COVID was a storm. Competitive dynamic is a storm, right? Of course, you have to respond to the market. Of course, you have to be mindful of what's out there, what choices customers have. But you have to have the conviction also about what you're building, right? And not be distracted by someone playing at this and someone playing at that. And the good news about this last couple of years, right, with the macroeconomic slowdown, the capital market slowdown and so on, I think, has been that you can, you know, the whole cliche about, you know, when the tide goes out, you realize who's been swimming without, you know, without costumes, trunks, is true, right? Because when things are frothy, every narrative can carry the day, right? But in difficult times, you separate great companies from the rest. You separate real business models from stuff that was propped up by cheap cash, right? You separate real products that customers use and love from capped dollars chasing a mediocre product, right? So I think from our perspective, that's the thing to be focused on, right? So of course there will be competitive dynamics. Of course there will be stuff happening out there. But if you're focused on a great product, a great business model and a great team, right, you have to see through everything else. Yeah, you know, I think of it as, Monzo's at a point where it's a really good example of when leadership, insane customer obsession, really focusing on the next thing. So building product at pace and business model come together in the banking world. And there's a lot of companies that have some of that, but not all of that. So I think it's the combination of that, that's this balance, it's the sort of a dancing act. And my view is that the market is very large. There's a 30 billion profit pool in banking, just in the UK, that's just the UK. So it's not a winner takes all by definition. And nor should it be. So there's place for everyone, but at the end it's your customers who vote with their paychecks. Where are they depositing their paychecks? And if you have that going for you, there's a lot that can happen regardless of who's raising money and who's launching what product. Yeah, speaking of next things, and perhaps finally raising money is quite difficult at the moment. But how are things looking going forward for Monza in terms of capital and potentially maybe looking at public markets softening again in the next year? I mean the good news for us is, Callum since we're profitable, we don't need to raise capital. That I could never raise capital and we'd be fine. But the good news also is that inbound interest is very strong from investors as they sort of look at us and sitting with someone that's on our cap table and she can speak better for the investor market. But I'm hoping that standards have raised and we're attractive because we meet incredibly high standards. So not worried about capital, but we'll get it when we need it. And to listing in public markets and so on. Look, we'll make a great public company one day. Too early to talk about it. We're so focused on just building out the business for now. Is that time for you, Sonali, in terms of the sort of enduring feeling? Yeah, I think the destiny of Monza is to be a standalone public business. I don't know exactly when and what shape that'll take. But that is really where the path going forward and every financing. And I think we've all learned that. We all used to celebrate financings. People don't celebrate financings as much anymore. It's just a point in the journey and the journey's a long one. Absolutely, well, a great place to leave it. Thank you both to TS and Sonali for taking the time this morning and thank you all for being here. Have a lovely rest of the day and hope to catch you outside soon. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, thank you. Is that that one?