00:13:56 · Sachin, Ben Pfisterer, Adam Miller
[00:13:56] S1: Sounds like that initial starting point was fairly simple. Like, you saw, like, what were the most fundamental things that people need in financial services and startups, and you stitched them together, but in a really good way. [00:14:06] S0: Very, very simple to say, but very, very hard to do. So that's basically three massive fintechs in one. So I guess the naivety of us starting at saying, yeah. Let's do this. It was probably on show there where we think build three, but that was the... That was also... That became a big trade of our business taking on those bold bets and making sure we can build big stuff. So, yeah, it was easy to say, but very, very hard to do, and we like building our infrastructure around products without relying on third parties if we can avoid it. So we built a lot of what we have today, which which which has boded well for us as we move forward. So we can go at the pace we want. We're a product engineering company. We can move quick. Most of our people we have working in our company are about doing products. I hate sitting still. I love building new products. I because of my background, don't wanna sit... Work at a company which is not building new products every day, and so that's kind of what we've done since the start. [00:14:58] S2: And I wanna go deeper into product in a second, but going back to when you started Zeller, you raised a bunch of money. You had a blank page on the kind of culture you wanted to build. How did you think about what would make Zeller become the most successful company in terms of culture?
00:15:14 · Ben Pfisterer
[00:15:14] S0: Yeah. Probably a bit contrarian on the culture debate because I've had so many experiences, and I just ultimately thought, well, I don't think you can fabricate culture. And I, you know, I've worked at the companies who have the neon lights on the on the... With the mottos on the walls, and I always found those ones tend to be the worst. And they tend to be... I'll put the light up so I don't have to actually walk the walk. So, yeah, for me, culture is just a coming together, an amalgamation of a whole bunch of different personalities, and whatever comes out of that is your culture. Yes. From top down, you can try to nudge it in the direction or influence it, but, ultimately, it's more of an organic thing. So often, people building business is what their culture to be away, but then something else gets spat out. And so, for me, I probably took all my background and experience and probably the lessons of places I hated working and what I hated about them. And so let's just not do that. And if we do the opposite of that, we should be doing something that's pretty good. And that's down to, you know, just being transparent and direct with people with having high expectations of what we wanna do, recruiting the right people who like being there, treating people fairly, supporting them to get... Become successful in the business, But just being upfront with what we're doing, like, we're very, very lucky to have raised a lot of capital. What we're trying to build and the problem we're trying to solve is incredibly hard. So we've got no other option to work ridiculously hard, love what we're doing, help each other, get the best out of each other, and do that together. So, yeah, just being upfront about that. We talk about it a lot. We don't shy away from it. We don't try to pretend something we're not.
00:16:40 · Adam Miller, Ben Pfisterer
[00:16:40] S2: Do you reverse pitch people when you're trying to hire them around the intensity of your culture? [00:16:44] S0: Reverse it? [00:16:45] S2: Yeah. It's like reasons you shouldn't join. [00:16:47] S0: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I I I call reverse pitch kinda scaring them off legit. So, yeah, I do. I often find myself in interviews thinking I literally sound like I'm scaring this person off, but I think the best people just love it. They embrace it. And they... And if if it's aligned with what we're doing... Because I don't wanna hire someone who doesn't like what we're doing or doesn't wanna be in the company that we've built. So I think you... You're you're better off to be up upfront about that. And Mhmm. If it does scare people off, that's fine. That's good. That works for both parties. But the people that know it and they walk in the door is no surprise that, hey. We're here, but we're moving fast. You got a lot of talented people around you. You're gonna feel a little bit overawed, but you're gonna be inspired by this talent as well. So we're taking on a huge challenge. We're a massive responsibility in the market. We've got a lot of customers now who have needs and are loving our products. Let's service them.
00:16:47 · Ben Pfisterer, Adam Miller
[00:16:47] S0: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I I I call reverse pitch kinda scaring them off legit. So, yeah, I do. I often find myself in interviews thinking I literally sound like I'm scaring this person off, but I think the best people just love it. They embrace it. And they... And if if it's aligned with what we're doing... Because I don't wanna hire someone who doesn't like what we're doing or doesn't wanna be in the company that we've built. So I think you... You're you're better off to be up upfront about that. And Mhmm. If it does scare people off, that's fine. That's good. That works for both parties. But the people that know it and they walk in the door is no surprise that, hey. We're here, but we're moving fast. You got a lot of talented people around you. You're gonna feel a little bit overawed, but you're gonna be inspired by this talent as well. So we're taking on a huge challenge. We're a massive responsibility in the market. We've got a lot of customers now who have needs and are loving our products. Let's service them. [00:17:33] S2: Just pulling that thread a little bit. Like, I think it's clear from what you said is that you can you know write these manifestos on culture but it really comes down to your first kind of twenty thirty people you hire and they dictate the velocity of the organisation but also like the way people show up and interact with each other Do you have any lessons on hiring those first maybe 10 people and the things you've got right and maybe the things you do differently next time?
00:17:58 · Ben Pfisterer
[00:17:58] S0: I mean starting at bringing together the founding team so there's four of us, and then I guess the initial people of 10 to 25. I don't know where the line stops. But from the founding team, that's probably one of my most proud things. I actually got these amazing and talented people together. I think there's no doubt with any of those three other people missing, this wouldn't be what it is, and I'm very proud of that. You know, we've never had an argument or fight. We've had, like, you know, strong conversations about topics, but we've never had a falling out. We're absolutely completely different people, so we complement our strengths and weaknesses, and I think that works well for us. We're very much aligned with, you know, what life is and what we're trying to get out of it and how big this challenge is and what it'll take, and you probably won't find four hardworking people in the world. And then the first the the the next sort of 10 to 25 people gets a very, similar thing. Because, like, I I do see all those people as founders as well, although the title kinda sits... I'm actually four of us, but, they've been with us for so long and have been so much to the journey. It's just all the cliche basic stuff. It's like, you know, am I gonna be able to work alongside these people? Do they add an additional positive layer? Do... Are they as hungry for whatever they're trying to achieve as we are? Are they willing to own the product? Are they willing to own the design? Are they willing to, you know, inspire the people they hire? And are they very, very good at what they do or willing to grow into that? All that cliched stuff, and it's not rocket science. It's basic stuff. But, ultimately, I think the best thing, we just click as a team, and and we aligned with what we're trying to do at a very difficult time with COVID happening, what have you. And I think getting those early runs on the board helped us sort of bond a lot more. So, yeah, thrilled with the team. Most of those people were still with us, which is cool.
00:19:40 · Sachin
[00:19:40] S1: In preparing for this episode, I asked a bunch of people, especially people from Square pick, like, would I most wanna ask you? And everyone wanted to know how you grew so quickly because a lot of companies, they can develop product pretty quickly or they can raise a bunch of capital, but it's very rare that you see a company can do both of those things and then make all of these sales really quickly and start to generate revenue to the point of where you were within two years. I'd love you to get specific here. What did your go to market look like that resulted in getting tens of thousands of customers within just two years?