00:05:35 · David Senra, Nik Storonsky
[00:05:35] S0: I love this. Have you spent any time with Toby Luque, the founder of Shopify? No. Not yet. Okay. So he was on the show. I'm actually recording with him in another two weeks. But he says he likes to take the view that he's a corporate raider, that somebody now has bought Shopify. It's him. And he's like, the hell was the previous management doing? How would I essentially improve every single element of what this previous management was even though it also is him? So you said basically the same thing. It's like, well, okay, you can't really control what your creditors do. I can control what I do. Let me analyze how I'm doing and then how would I beat me you know, from the outside. [00:06:10] S1: Yeah. That's part of the game, Azuliya. [00:06:12] S0: Why do think you have this opportunity to be number one? Like, what do you see that they're doing wrong that you think think think that you can do better?
00:06:12 · David Senra, Nik Storonsky
[00:06:12] S0: Why do think you have this opportunity to be number one? Like, what do you see that they're doing wrong that you think think think that you can do better? [00:06:18] S1: A lot of them, they are are... They're not founders. That's number one. Right? So they're there only for three, four years at best. They just collect their bonuses and the search rate. And then they might, you know, optimize certain parity metrics. But I mean, they they are not really 10x people. Right? So they are... Mean, I they're just there for their bonuses effectively for three, four years. As a result, they don't really need... Do bold decisions. They always play in defense. They never play in defense. I have a different style. Right? So... Yes. Of course, I play defense as well, but I always think, okay, what I can do more. Right? Which industry I can go? Like, which product can I launch? And so on. So it's like, you know, always pushing myself, pushing myself to do more. [00:07:00] S0: Why do think it's important that you're competing against non founders? [00:07:03] S1: I mean, it's much easier to compete not against founders. Right? If I would be competing with all the banks and they were all founder led as a road, we would all have, you know, much better products by now. So that's not what's happening. Right? Yeah. [00:07:17] S0: Say more about the difference between... In your perspective between a founder and a professional CEO.
00:07:17 · David Senra, Nik Storonsky
[00:07:17] S0: Say more about the difference between... In your perspective between a founder and a professional CEO. [00:07:21] S1: Well, professional CEOs, ultimately, their goal is not to improve organization. Right? Their ultimate goal is to protect their job. So there, by definition, they make suboptimal decisions for for the company. Because they they think about themselves and they think about the companies as two entities. Right? I think about myself and as a company, as a as a one entity. Right? Like, I do everything what is good for the company, and I never kind of try to dirge myself what is good for me. This should be different to what is good for the company. For me, it's the same. So I have, like, a 100% alignment with the company. [00:08:01] S0: Yeah. Heard you say something like your entire life is work. It's like 99.5% of your time is dedicated to building your business, correct? Yeah. [00:08:12] S1: Yeah. Also, we speak with regulators, they're all kind of fear about growth or it's not a good mentality and so on. And my answer is very simple. Every time when you think as a regulator that I'm an excessive risk taker, it's completely wrong. Right? Because I'm the only one motivated for this company to succeed and to survive, right? And that means I'm actually not going to take stupid excessive risk compared to professional CEOs or professional boards. Because there's no separate... This is
00:08:12 · Nik Storonsky, David Senra
[00:08:12] S1: Yeah. Also, we speak with regulators, they're all kind of fear about growth or it's not a good mentality and so on. And my answer is very simple. Every time when you think as a regulator that I'm an excessive risk taker, it's completely wrong. Right? Because I'm the only one motivated for this company to succeed and to survive, right? And that means I'm actually not going to take stupid excessive risk compared to professional CEOs or professional boards. Because there's no separate... This is [00:08:40] S0: what I hate when I was like, oh, it's just business, it's not personal. So like, such thing with founders. Yeah, yeah. So this is another thing that surprised when I started reading about you was originally you set out to like not be regulated. And there was something about you saying this is like the worst mistake you ever made. Can you talk about what happened and how you learned this lesson? [00:09:00] S1: Yeah. Basically, when we got several million customers and then we applied for banking license, the entity with zero customers is less riskier compared to an entity with millions of customers. And then the regulator eyes, they become much more risk averse to you. Right? Because for them, it's much easier to give a license to a company with zero customers because maybe they will have zero customers in three, four, five years' time. If you give a bank license to a company with five, 10,000,000 customers and something goes wrong, then the regulator will be to be blamed.
00:09:00 · Nik Storonsky, David Senra
[00:09:00] S1: Yeah. Basically, when we got several million customers and then we applied for banking license, the entity with zero customers is less riskier compared to an entity with millions of customers. And then the regulator eyes, they become much more risk averse to you. Right? Because for them, it's much easier to give a license to a company with zero customers because maybe they will have zero customers in three, four, five years' time. If you give a bank license to a company with five, 10,000,000 customers and something goes wrong, then the regulator will be to be blamed. [00:09:36] S0: Why were you not regulated before? What was the state of the business when you applied for the banking license? What were you doing before? [00:09:41] S1: Well, we simply got e money license, payment licenses. So we [00:09:45] S0: You're just moving money. [00:09:46] S1: Much lighter licenses. [00:09:47] S0: Yes. Okay. Yeah. [00:09:49] S1: And then the idea was, Bankylacense back then was three, four years to get. While eMoneyalyse, you can get within one year. So, obviously, as a founder, you want to do things faster. So, that's why we went for eMoneyalyse. Then we got a lot of customers and then we moved to Bankylise. And then it became almost impossible because we're very, very large. I think in history of UK, it never happened before that a company with seven or 8,000,000 customers in UK applied for banking license. So is that a difficult process? Like what happened? It took us almost five years to get a bank license in UK.
00:09:49 · Nik Storonsky, David Senra
[00:09:49] S1: And then the idea was, Bankylacense back then was three, four years to get. While eMoneyalyse, you can get within one year. So, obviously, as a founder, you want to do things faster. So, that's why we went for eMoneyalyse. Then we got a lot of customers and then we moved to Bankylise. And then it became almost impossible because we're very, very large. I think in history of UK, it never happened before that a company with seven or 8,000,000 customers in UK applied for banking license. So is that a difficult process? Like what happened? It took us almost five years to get a bank license in UK. [00:10:26] S0: Okay. So what would you do differently before? You would have tried it like... Think the way you put it is like regulation. It's not a moat. That's not the the right word to to... But it's like there's a huge benefit to actually getting yourself regulated. Is this correct? Is this the way you thought about it? [00:10:41] S1: It's like there are pros and cons. To build a lush business, It's a must. Right? Because if you want to really compete with banks, you need to get trust from customers. They need to put salaries in. They need to put a lot of their wealth in the accounts. They need to start trading stocks with your ETFs and so on. So they need to trust you. And then in their minds, mean, they they trust banks. What do you [00:11:06] S0: think the American, like, fintech companies are doing wrong about this? To build a very large business, to