The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
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?
00:08:38 · Harry Stebbings, Alan Chang
[00:08:38] S2: What did you learn from Nick about managing people and people performance? [00:08:42] S0: It's all about results. I think Nick's make this make this analogy before. There are three types of people in the world. There are there are people who can self identify the target and shoot and hit the goal. Then there are people who can't identify targets, but if you point, they shoot and they hit the goal. And then the third type of people, which is neither. Right? You wanna maximize the first and second group of people, and you want, ideally, the first and second type of people leading teams. And basically, the throughput of your company is basically sum of the number of people in the first and second bucket. [00:09:14] S2: When you bring those people together and you grow very fast, what was the most significant breaking moment in the early Revolut days? And what did you learn and take from it? [00:09:24] S0: I'll I'll say the get shit done culture, the best way to build something great very, very fast. And it's something I I I took on board, but I even amped it up even more. [00:09:34] S2: How do you amp [00:09:35] S0: it up more? Putting even more intensity. Right? Just driving a lot of urgency within the company. Always keep people on their toes. [00:09:42] S2: How do you, like, always keep people on their toes? Is it, like, pushing them in terms of their goals? Is it pushing them in terms of the hours and the work and the intensities? What what what is it?
00:09:42 · Harry Stebbings, Alan Chang
[00:09:42] S2: How do you, like, always keep people on their toes? Is it, like, pushing them in terms of their goals? Is it pushing them in terms of the hours and the work and the intensities? What what what is it? [00:09:51] S0: Oh, in terms of results, right, or or lack thereof. I always emphasize, like, we're we're not moving fast enough. We could be doing more, but we're not. You know, for example, like, I I told the team last year, execution was maybe four out of 10. Right? And we need to get a 10 to... 10 out of 10, and we're not passing. [00:10:06] S2: What was the problem there, and how did you fix it? [00:10:08] S0: The problem was speed of execution. We were too slow. We wanted to ship a bunch of things, and we we didn't. Right? Things were delayed. [00:10:15] S2: When were you off target in execution with Revolut, and what did you learn from that? [00:10:20] S0: I think we're off execution maybe every year. I think I think that mindset should be... I think you need to be best versions of yourself. So you always need to review, okay, in the past week, in the past month, what could I have done better? Maybe maybe a more extreme analogy. Right? Like, used to ask my team, right, at at Rev, if you have a gun pointed to your head today, would you have done more? If the answer is yes, that means you're not doing a good job.
00:10:20 · Alan Chang, Harry Stebbings
[00:10:20] S0: I think we're off execution maybe every year. I think I think that mindset should be... I think you need to be best versions of yourself. So you always need to review, okay, in the past week, in the past month, what could I have done better? Maybe maybe a more extreme analogy. Right? Like, used to ask my team, right, at at Rev, if you have a gun pointed to your head today, would you have done more? If the answer is yes, that means you're not doing a good job. [00:10:43] S2: There will be people who say, I also have a family. I also have other parts of my life. And I get this a lot. You... I'm I'm sure you've probably seen because you're socially aware, but, like, nine nine six I've been chastised for, actually, including by some of your investors at Balderson, interesting, who would say it's not work life balance. And I could always say, yes. I could have done more, but I have other parts of my life. Mhmm. How do you respond to them? [00:11:06] S0: Don't join Fuse. That's okay. Like, I I I have total respect for people who want, you know, like, nine to five job. There's nothing wrong with wanting work life balance. But I think the only way to build a generational company is very, very strong work ethic. I just don't see any other way to do it. [00:11:22] S2: When you look back now, Revolut is known for its intense culture as well. That's why I think you've learned a lot of this. Where was the Revolut culture amazing that you've really taken from it? And where was it, actually, I'm glad that we left that behind and it wasn't helpful?
00:11:22 · Harry Stebbings, Alan Chang
[00:11:22] S2: When you look back now, Revolut is known for its intense culture as well. That's why I think you've learned a lot of this. Where was the Revolut culture amazing that you've really taken from it? And where was it, actually, I'm glad that we left that behind and it wasn't helpful? [00:11:39] S0: Yeah. I think culture have never settled, like, in terms of speed and quality is something I took over. Like, Revelot had a lot of cultural values, and and to be honest, like, I think it's a bit too many for me. I always forget all of them. [00:11:51] S2: How many does it have? [00:11:52] S0: From memory, it's six. [00:11:53] S2: How many should you have? [00:11:54] S0: I think one. [00:11:55] S2: What's your one cultural value? [00:11:57] S0: So never settle. It's the one that resonated with me the most. [00:12:01] S2: Do you apply that to all parts of life? And what I mean by that is, you know, one of the heads of a firm recently said to me, and it's one of the biggest firms in world, but I do wanna keep this one private because otherwise they'll fucking kill me. They said, how you do anything is how you do everything. Like, if we have mistakes in a memo, that says that we're not thinking clearly and we're not putting the work in. And I actually didn't really agree with that. I think you have to pick your battles and choose where to be all in. How do you think about that never settle? Because sometimes it's okay to settle on 80% for a junior account manager in whatever. Do you know what I mean?
00:12:01 · Harry Stebbings, Alan Chang
[00:12:01] S2: Do you apply that to all parts of life? And what I mean by that is, you know, one of the heads of a firm recently said to me, and it's one of the biggest firms in world, but I do wanna keep this one private because otherwise they'll fucking kill me. They said, how you do anything is how you do everything. Like, if we have mistakes in a memo, that says that we're not thinking clearly and we're not putting the work in. And I actually didn't really agree with that. I think you have to pick your battles and choose where to be all in. How do you think about that never settle? Because sometimes it's okay to settle on 80% for a junior account manager in whatever. Do you know what I mean? [00:12:33] S0: I I agree with that. Yeah. I think you have to pick your battles for sure. Ultimately, like you need to identify the most important roles in the company and never settle on those roles. But the roles that matter less, I think it's perfectly okay to settle. [00:12:45] S2: When you're building Revolut with Nick and the team, what was your biggest disagreement with Nick and and how did that play out? [00:12:51] S0: I'll say the overuse of KPIs. Because ultimately, there are things you should measure, you know, which tells you the health of that team, how well they're doing, and you should hunt and do that. But then once you start incentivizing against that, teams find ways to game it. Nick is a super numbers driven guy. Right? And I think that worked very well in in a large part. But I would say not everything should be the KPI.