The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:00:37 · Harry Stebbings
[00:00:37] S1: Simply put, I have interviewed a thousand of the best entrepreneurs over the last decade, and two stand out above all others. Nick Storonsky, founder at Revolut, and then our guest today, Alan Chang. Alan is the cofounder and CEO of Fuze Energy, where, check this out, every single year, he has scaled revenue 10 x. The first year, 2,000,000. The second year, 20,000,000. And the third year, 200,000,000. So like Netflix beat incumbents to own media, Revolut beat incumbents to own banking, Fuse will beat incumbents to own energy. I think three of the most important categories that technology can own. Prior to founding Fuse, Alan was one of the first three hires at Revolut where he played a crucial role alongside Nick in scaling the company to an over $75,000,000,000 valuation. But before we dive into the show today, as an investor, I'm always on the lookout for tools that really transform how I work, tools that don't just save time but fundamentally change how I uncover insights. That's exactly what Alphasense does. With the acquisition of Tegus, Alphasense is now the ultimate research platform built for professionals who need insights they can trust fast. I've used Tegus before for company deep dives right here on the podcast. It's been an incredible resource for expert insights. But now with AlphaSense leading the way, it combines those insights with premium content, top broker research, and cutting edge generative AI. The result, a platform that works like a supercharged junior analyst delivering trusted insights and analysis on demand. AlphaSense has completely reimagined fundamental research, helping you uncover opportunities from perspectives you didn't even know how they existed. It's faster, it's smarter, and it's built to give you the edge in every decision you make. To any VC listeners, don't miss your chance to try AlphaSense for free. Visit alphasense.com/20 to unlock your trial. That's alphasense.com/2zero. After AlphaSense shows you what the market is signaling, Nexus helps you turn those signals into deals. Is your team using ChatGPT? How about Gemini or Midjourney? You probably don't know the full answer, and that's the danger of Shadow AI. Every day, your employees are feeding sensitive company data, code, and customer lists into, let's face it, public AI tools, creating a massive security and compliance blind spot.
00:03:08 · Harry Stebbings
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00:04:52 · Harry Stebbings, Harry Stebbings, Alan Chang
[00:04:52] S2: You have now arrived at your destination. Alan, dude, I am so looking forward to this. So I I have you to thank for hiring my chief of staff because we were sitting in a cocktail bar in London, and you were helping me hire. And I was like then, holy shit. This guy is brilliant, and I need to do a show with him. [00:05:13] S1: That was three years ago. So thank you [00:05:14] S2: so much for doing this with me. [00:05:16] S0: Yeah. Thanks for having me. [00:05:17] S2: I think a really interesting one to start with is you're a freaking machine, and I just want to understand, when we look at, like, transformative moments, one of the most transformative early moments to you was getting the job with Nick and with Raf Lude. Can you just take me to that? And Saker actually said I had to ask this one. Was like, you gotta start with how he actually got the job. How did you get the job with Nick, and what did that look like?
00:05:17 · Harry Stebbings, Alan Chang
[00:05:17] S2: I think a really interesting one to start with is you're a freaking machine, and I just want to understand, when we look at, like, transformative moments, one of the most transformative early moments to you was getting the job with Nick and with Raf Lude. Can you just take me to that? And Saker actually said I had to ask this one. Was like, you gotta start with how he actually got the job. How did you get the job with Nick, and what did that look like? [00:05:39] S0: At the time, I just graduated, and I was just perusing on the Facebook group. Like, it was called London Startups. And I saw this job post, Revolut. And I was like, okay. I have no idea what this company does. But I was looking for fresh grads. I like, okay. I I applied. And Nick replied within five minutes. I was like, oh, wow. That's that's very quick. And then he asked me to come for a face to face face interview the next day. So I came for an interview, and he asked me a bunch of physics questions. I was like... I I didn't realize I was look... I was applying for a physics job. And he offered me a role, you know, right after the interview. I said yes, and that was it. That was, like, the fastest interview process I've I've ever had. [00:06:14] S2: What was the position, and what size and scale was Revolut then? [00:06:18] S0: Yeah. So at the time, in terms of full time, it was Nick, Vlad, and two other full time engineers, and that was it. So it was just hot desking. Job was just... You know, was called operations analyst, but effectively, the first three months was doing customer support.
00:06:18 · Alan Chang, Harry Stebbings
[00:06:18] S0: Yeah. So at the time, in terms of full time, it was Nick, Vlad, and two other full time engineers, and that was it. So it was just hot desking. Job was just... You know, was called operations analyst, but effectively, the first three months was doing customer support. [00:06:34] S2: When did you realize that this was gonna be a massive $100,000,000,000 company? [00:06:39] S0: So at the time, Revolut was in a co working space called Level thirty nine. [00:06:43] S2: Yeah. I remember this. [00:06:45] S0: Yeah. And so Level thirty nine is... Yeah. For those who don't know, it's it's basically a giant start up co working space with maybe over 200 start ups. And Revolut was the only team that worked past 7PM on the weekday. So after 7PM, the whole floor is dead. It was also the only team that worked on the weekends. So when I realized that, you know, I knew there was something special, the second moment was I asked Nick, like, what's what's your ambition? Like, what what keeps you motivated? And at the time, he's, you know, worth quite bit of money already. So, you know, what what what drives him? Right? And he told me he wants to beat JPMorgan. So that's the second moment I realized this is gonna be a massive company. [00:07:25] S2: What do you think you guys did really right really early on that led to such success early?
00:07:25 · Harry Stebbings, Alan Chang
[00:07:25] S2: What do you think you guys did really right really early on that led to such success early? [00:07:31] S0: So at the time when when we got started, there were basically three players. There was Revolut, Monzo, and N26. Yeah. And for the first two years, at least from the outside, it feels like neck to neck. Right? It wasn't clear who the winner was. But for me, was crystal clear. Right? It was crystal clear who's gonna win. And and the reason why is because it's just the team's ambition execution. Right? Because ultimately, if you if you ask the same teams at the time, like, basically the product road map, almost everyone would tell you basically the same. There wasn't any differentiation in the product road map. But what differentiate between us and everyone else was basically ambition and speed of execution. I think that was it. [00:08:10] S2: How do you move so fast? What is your biggest lessons on how to create speed of execution within teams? I want this internally. You've met my team here. You see it. How do I encourage this urgency and speed of execution internally, and how do you do it? [00:08:24] S0: Yeah. So I think have small teams operating in a independent unit and give them very clear goals. Let them let them execute. And what you should do is monitor those teams. If they do well, let them be. If they don't do well, replace the team. [00:08:38] S2: What did you learn from Nick about managing people and people performance?