 Wow, it's great to be here my first slush I've heard a lot about slush over the years and The energy is really great. So thank you everybody for organizing this For you for those of you don't know me. My name is John Doran. I'm a partner at TCV Based in London. TCV is a global investment firm We've been backing iconic technology companies for the last 27 years companies like Spotify Netflix Twilio Salonis and right here in Finland Relax and I'm here today. I'm delighted to be here today to talk to another one Revolut I'm great to be here with you Nick Maybe before we start I'll give you a quick story. I I first heard about Revolut when I was at home I was on holiday in Ireland visiting my parents and I was at this kind of small cafe in the middle of nowhere and I saw all these people Using their purple Revolut card and I asked the cashier, what is this and she was like, oh, that's that's the new thing that's Revolut everybody has that and very quickly after that I got in touch with Nick I got to know each other pretty well and You know here. We are today. We're investors in the company and delighted delighted about that Maybe as a starting point I suppose they congratulate Nick. I don't people saw the press release today 25 million customers. That's pretty amazing I Remember, I think it was in July. We announced 20 million that's five million customers in four months and I think it took four years to get to the first Five million so incredible momentum and clearly accelerating so congratulations on that I'm delighted to be here with you It's hard to imagine People here don't know what Revolut does or is but it's a pretty tech savvy crowd But for those who don't Nick, do you want to just give a quick background on on Revolut and what your mission is? Sure. So I saw Revolut in 2015 and they initially was my personal problem So I used to travel a lot and I was expert living in London So I send money abroad a lot as well. I was always amazed how much fees I pay to banks And to to exchange currency as well. So initially I launched Revolut as a simple FX card which allowed you to save money when you travel. So you save the about $50 for each thousand dollars that you have spent so I started Started the company. We got our first 500 customers and we know we raised our first seed round and at latest ages I Encouraged similar problems in other financial services. For example stock trading crypto trading Insurance business bank accounts and slowly we added all all these services to Revolut. So Revolut is now a digital bank a super up how we call it which which is life in 39 countries With 25 million customers several hundred thousand our business customers growing very fast Seven years old now They're pretty staggering numbers, right? You mentioned just there 25 million customers I think you said 330 million transactions per month. I think there's a thousand businesses in Finland alone now using Revolut business. I think you're adding about 2,000 businesses a week globally. So pretty amazing Can you tell us how you got here? What have been the kind of key lessons seven years incredibly short time to build such a big business What are the kind of key things you can talk about? Key lessons, I mean there are many of them The main one is I'll know the main one but one of one of the important ones are applicable to every startup or every business is the quality of people that you have I Think you know people always talk about quality of people but it's still So important how says 90 to 95 percent importance in success of businesses quality of people that you have Yeah, I agree with that I think One of the consistencies we see across all the technology companies that we work with and even our own organization is that great people solve Solve problems right and kind of can help you build One of the things that I think differentiates or differentiated Revolut from the first day was that you built a business or you had the ambition at least to build a business that was International multi-geo from day one Can you talk a little bit the challenge of doing that? It's not easy most I think most people if you're giving advice to startups here would say try to solve You know the problem you're facing in one country first You guys didn't do that. He tells a little bit about the thinking behind that Yeah, sure. I think So when I remember all these conversations with their especially VCs No one believed in the product and then when I show the app where you can simultaneously spend money You're the kind and also said money everyone was thinking I'm crazy and no one is going to use it because For people Put in two things together was kind of counterintuitive back then And then it took actually a lot of time to raise first seed round because not a single investor believed In the product. So this one thing that I've done, you know, which is counterintuitive I didn't really focus on one product. I don't we started with two another big thing is So we started working on launching simultaneously many countries UK and Europe Again, everyone was telling me that okay, you are too unfocused You know, you draw the focus on one country conquer the country and then you know more one. I mean luckily, I didn't do it because From infrastructure point of view to build multi currency multi country multi regulation product is easier from start Because if you just do it one country, then you want to expand into second country. I need to change a lot of back end You need to change regulatory process as well it's actually a easier to start multi country multi product Easier to go multi country multi product day one a long term is easier. Yes, I believe what's been harder the Going multi country. Is it the getting the people systems and processes right or getting the product piece, right? I mean, it's it's very difficult In terms of people and process and product as well because if you think about countries every country has its own regulatory regime so on-boarding Slightly different for each country transactional monitoring slightly different all these nuances Regarding compliance film crime risk Can be you know quite quite different. So to build it properly text time and You really need to build it in a modularized way when you switch on and off different components And as a result your system can be flexible enough to cover as many countries regulations as possible Got it. So it sounds like you think it's easier to do it day one So you see that competitive mode being multi multi country Multi-geo sustainable. You're not seeing anybody Are you seeing your competitors being able to kind of copy that or is this how sustainable is that mode in your view? Well, if you look at our history, so I think you know the most successful banks that achieved it was a city group and GP Morgan I think city group. There were some point on 60 countries plus then now they retreated to 40 30 countries Uh, really is very difficult to do. So the way old banks and spending they simply bought new banks in In other countries, but as a result the systems were different. They need to integrate system system didn't really work with each other as a result they had a lot of compliance problems money laundering problems and as a result they gave up and then they Retreated from from a lot of countries Our approach is different. We Build a soft right. We're not building a bank and then software should be as a model rights and flexible as possible to cover as many regulatory use cases as Possible the result is one system would not really need to integrate with every new system when we go to a new country But still because regulation so wide It takes time to launch a country got it You've had great success in some countries I think the penetration in my home country Ireland is more than a leader bank today after, you know, five six seven years Started pretty amazing. I think the UK also incredible penetration Why have you been so why have you been more successful in some and not in others and other countries? You're not going to enter because of You know incumbents or other reasons I mean some conscious banks she dealing in others. I'm as simple as that but in the island banks are terrible As a result, we will go see 60% market share very fast Some countries banks are better so it takes Slower speed for us, but overall we're problem top three Digital banking providing every single country in Europe than many in many countries. We are now number one such as UK Ireland top three in every country in Europe and that's based on number of users or just based on their Up any downloads up any activities got it. Okay, and What are the next kind of can you give us a preview of the next countries? You're going into it feels like the pace is picking up So we are working on launching Latin America. So working on the Mexican Brazil We're launching India as well. We started working on the Philippines Will it be the same product there or are you thinking in some countries you might have a full banking license? You know full full offering other countries you might be more payments oriented How you thinking about that? It depends. So it depends what kind of lights so we can get quickly But usually we start with the with the bank account and payments product once launched We are adding stock trading crypto trading and other products that we have got it We have a lot of founders in the audience who I think are either building B to C and B to B I think what's unique about Revolute is you have 25 million customers hundreds of thousands of businesses. So you've kind of gone down the path of building both What has been that your different your experience doing that has it been easier on the B to C side or the B to B side How do you think about the trade-offs? In terms of product B to B is definitely a much more difficult because there are so many So many use cases that you need to cover Plus complexity of unboring is business is much harder compared to To retell account retell account is very simple. Okay a person takes a selfie submits documents But then when you're on both business there are different corporate structures company can be based in multiple countries Company can own other companies. So it's it's hot. It's much harder. Got it I want to shift focus a little bit You know one of the things that a lot of CEOs are focused on these days is leadership There's a lot of focus on that around we've seen you know, especially what's happened in the in the press in recent weeks Can you talk a little bit about your leadership style? Leadership style with leadership style and how it's grown We are very flat So I prefer to have as many direct services as possible. So there's communication feel flows freely through the company then So the way it works because I'm already in business for for many years. I managed to create a great team of very capable people who are Autonomous and then self-sufficient. So they select the right goals themselves and then they execute in order to to reach these goals themselves and I'm all like a Say coach and because I speak with so many people sometimes I change their direction a bit to ensure they achieve their goals in the most Effective way. So in short, I prefer to be as flat as possible and then to have My direct reports are as smart as as self-sufficient as possible Got it so much surprising me to hear that actually I would have thought you were really In the early days at least really in the micro but it sounds like you're empowering your team more Is that has that been a change or has that always been the case? I'm still in micro details because my direct reports. They're they're so good. My involvement is not as Necessary because I know details themselves, but knowing details is super important. A lot of managers especially coming from big corporate fat jobs They're just managing being hands-off for them being hands-off means they're not into details. I think being in details is super important because The value of the manager is very simple. They a need to show direction and be changed direction if Direction is wrong and also observe quality of execution If if you don't know details, then it's impossible to show the right direction with number one and then impossible to evaluate Quality of execution as well. So the result a manager who doesn't know details is you simply paying them for nothing Got it You've been incredibly successful What are the kind of two or three traits that you think you admire in yourself that have kind of gotten you here I? Think for entrepreneurs is very important to be a great problem solvers Based on the logic based on the first principles not rely on assumptions or on experience just going diving to Two plus two equals four level right if there is some complex concept that you cannot explain yourself Down to the level of two plus two equals four then it means you don't understand something and I see a lot of people They just rely on their experience or rely on other people But that's not a good approach. I think enough entrepreneurs is super important to you to be as deep as possible On the binary level one is zero. It's number one and number two I think character is also very important being competitive being driven being always Hungry for success because reality is super hard to build a company and you'll have a lot of failures and a lot of setbacks so having a character and ability to Stand up, you know when something happens and having ability to problem-solve To to find in a right direction than executing the right direction is super important It's a good list so quantitative highly quantitative highly resilient competitive problem-solver Is it the same for the team for your team as well? Is that they the traits you look for is there other things you look for when you're hiring people? Yeah, we were with time because we obviously hire thousands and thousands people. I have probably interviewed myself about 10,000 people So what time are we we build the pretty robust system how we hire? So obviously you need to assess skill skill set of a person who you hire what is designed and develop a product person But I think you know more important is Assessing problem-solving so every single person are we hire there are smart people and the super important to hire smart people because Things change Industry change and then if if people don't have this first principle thinking ability When things change they are not able to to catch it so super smart people is very important and then secondly what is important is We called Boris interview or high achievers So we are really looking at their track record of every person that we're interviewing What they achieved compared to the peer group studying from university? And the reality is the past performance is a clear indication of future result statistically So if a person used to be a high achiever in university then in their first job second job third job Most likely they will achieve a lot in in your company as well So that's that's another important point. I don't know top of it the opposite interview for for skills We've talked a little bit about it around the topic I guess just now and I think there's been a lot of commentary in the press over the years How would you describe? The culture of Revolute today and how how is that evolved? I know you guys have been very focused on the quantitative side of measuring that book. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah culture. I mean basically describe is that we are we are like a professional sports team, right? So what I mean is in practice You are as good as you score and then you know no one will stay in the team forever because you know, obviously You know there are more people more competition More tournaments and everyone understands it and there accepts it So we're really a targeting hiring this elite athletes right who who are prepared to to work in competitive environment and who who want to win who want to be number one and obviously it's a competitive pressure and People to be the team they they accept it, but as a result Being in the team means that you learn from the best really fast And then you'll prove to yourself as an individual which is huge plus on top of it, you know having Such a brand as a Revolute on your CV Plus our training plus our kind of you know know how to run a business is super super important for every person. I Love the analogy of the professional sports team You've also got I think if an ownership mentality of Revolute I think it's well known that every employee has shares in the company We don't see that every day. I Think there's you know, there's Philosophies on both sides of that. What's what's your view been? Is that been the case since day one? Would you recommend that to other startups? Yes, so from day one I have this philosopher for that everyone should be an ownership of the company So when we hired people we gave them sign up bonuses and shares and then we also paid the Like performance bonuses and shares so what I observed with time especially early days people didn't really understand the concept of Options in the company, but now thinking that's more and more common in Europe But us from day one all all people appreciated options I see we're just running up on time before we go What is the most can you share with the audience? I guess? What is the most important thing you're working on a Revolute now and how you're making it happen? I mean the reality is a no matter how smart or my team is and you know, how how much we believe in any important things Reality is always different. So we we prefer to to work in the way when we do new bets We at the moment where they were trying to do like 10 15 new bets simultaneously and Based on my experience on no matter how I believe in you know one of them I'm always wrong. So I just you know preferred to run a portfolio of bets and hopefully two three five of them will work out How long do you give a bet? Before you decide it's working or not So we have clear timelines. So we from the time when we decided to to launch a new product to Executions usually nine to twelve months nine to twelve months to launch the product Then in terms of finding product market fit is another six to nine months If there is no product market fit, we just stop working in it then if there is product market fit then we need to To have at least 10 20% growth month-on-month on kind of you know use the metrics gross profit metrics Then one of the new bet reaches say one million dollar gross profit a month revenue Then we pump more resources into it and then we hire more people And then we have certain KPIs on on gross profit and ravines that we want to reach year after year So you've got incredible processes in place, right and success so far has been fantastic If we do a pre-mortem, right? So we're sitting here Five years from now and you've not achieved your ambition for the business for success that you think is the head of you What do you think is the reason for that? Well, I see it again again, you know, just company and teams they becoming I would say settled, right? Not as ambitious not as aggressive for as before slowing down, you know happy with what they have and It's always, you know the beginning of the end and there you see it again again Then if you look for example at SMP 500 companies The company on average stays is in the SMP 500 for what for eight ten years maybe 15 years And this this reality I think you know one of the most common reasons why a company Loses success. It's just people within becoming too to settled So thinking of if we don't achieve what we want to achieve in five years time. We were too settled Yeah, that's the company logo. Maybe to round off Some advice for founders here, you know one of the things that I see week to week we use just The left the intensity level never drops, right? It's seven years in You within a few years you appears fresh as ever How do you how do you manage to do that? How do you how do you refresh yourself? Such that you're you avoid burnout. What advice would you have for founders here on that front? I? Think advice is actually you also need to Manage your bed properly right because if something doesn't work for a long time you'd rather stop doing it and then switch to something else That's super important. I see a lot of people who are burnt out Stuck to products that don't work out for me personally. I mentioned it if a if a bed doesn't work out I mean like stop doing it, you know find something else or just you need to be as flexible as possible This one and then When you really find something that works out There is a product market feed then obviously you need to have a lot of energies to execute Then people have energy from different things. I mean I personally Do a lot of sports? I Tried to get out for a week switch off go kite surfing windsurfing hiking climbing So I I get a lot of energy from kind of no spots in nature Some people might prefer other things, but that's that works for me Great, is that something maybe when you were first starting the first year to you had time for it? Did you make time for that or is it you need to write because Otherwise if you don't do it your energy goes down and then you're not as sharp And then you make wrong decisions. So you really need to keep your energy very high all the time great Well, thanks everybody. Thanks Nick really appreciate you coming on today and congrats again on 25 million customers Incredible milestone and wish you all the best for the future. Thank you. Thanks everybody