0:00 don't allow any kind of parts of the business to speculate Banks blow up right they invest they call it invest customer money into financial instruments I just don't do it I want guaranteed Revenue very early on I realize that all these managers are not like me oneon-one how are you making sure people feel great for me I never bought it like great people don't need how are you as soon as you start spending time managing people they're probably a failure people need to be independent they need to self deliver it without my help you feel a lot more efficient and disciplined than most us companies yeah us is a large Market if you show traction product Market feed okay throw it your infinite amount of money and then you can afford not to be efficient my kind of it was always every day I want to be at 100% so I don't have regret in the [Music]
0:48 future I'm super excited to have this conversation with Nick the founder of revolute revolute is one of the largest Neo banks in the world with over 40 million customers worldwide and Nick is the founder having started the business 2015 so super excited to have Nick here and talk about his personal story and the story of Revol Nick first thanks for so much for coming man and doing this I know you don't do a lot of these so I appreciate it thank you for inviting yeah so I think we've met in 2018 or 2019 I think in London I'm trying to remember and I remember the the first impression I had of you was like wow this guy's a hardcore guy you know he's like super intense and focused and you know and I remember coming to revolut's office and
1:35 it was like 8:00 p.m. or something and it was like everyone was there it was like super late and like you know I was like oh it reminds me of uh some of these Chinese companies like people work so hard and I was really impressed I came back to brex was like we need to work more like those guys you know like they're crushing it there so so I'm curious right like were you like that since you were a kid you know were you always like super hardworking super intense in the beginning or is something that crew later yeah I think when I was s years old and uh I was at school school was pretty tough and uh I was also taking Parts in a lot of competitions like in math physics also swimming and because no one was really preparing me for for these competitions for Mass physics and then initially I
2:21 was losing them and because I was so competitive from the childhood I really kind of you know learned myself to work hard to compensate for uh someone else preparing because I was competing with other kids who had Parents preparing them for for olympiads and uh when I was losing like in the first three four years I was really kind of uh tough for me so I kind of get used to you know working hard and then putting myself 100% in in something I want to win and was math and physics like your main you're like a ma math physics or economics as well economics us from a young age well not from young age I think you know I started competing in olympas and economics when I was uh probably like 13 14 years old is it like
3:06 science Olympics is that kind of science yeah so it's uh very mathematical yes but is it the kind that goes to like the international physics Olympics like ifo those kind of competition does yeah did you ever uh go to uh do you do well or do you kind of no no I actually won twice uh International or I won uh when I was in ninth grade and on 11th grade as well oh wow the international one international yeah for physics no it was economics economics oh I didn't know they have it for economics what do they test you on uh so there are two parts one is uh is effectivly problem solving in economics like in a mathematical Olympiad but in economics and second one is practice this uh effectly you uh kind of play a game uh setting up business
3:52 and then putting money in R&D in marketing uh setting up the price and there are many many other teams who have companies uh and then you just uh compete in a modeled environment so it's all kind of computer program right it it is based on rounds for each round you set up price uh R&D spending marketing spending uh like hiring employees firing employees uh how many units you produce and who wins uh so you've got many many teams across many countries uh so usually 100 plus teams and then we have uh same as in football like in rounds right yeah and then uh in Final Round you compete against other I think seven or eight companies and yeah I won twice
4:37 when I was uh 14 and 16 but how did they sayde who wins it's uh it's competive program so winning is uh is basically how much profit you make overall so it's combination of profit market share uh quality of the product but how do they run the simulations to make on computer it's it's a computer program oh there's a computer program that like you use a you just input certain parameters right then computer calculates everything for all the teams interesting and then they give you report on your company in terms of what is the pel how much you sold and so on and then you uh put input like you know for the second round third round and so and how did you find out I never heard about this like how did you find out about it I think my teacher just introduced us to to it yeah interesting
5:23 so do you have econ class in Russia like when that was part of the Core Curriculum yeah yeah that's so cool yeah yeah huh so you you and then you're like okay now you have these econ classes like go do this olympits and exactly yeah and then when I went to un I went to study Physics uh it's top university in physics in Russia uh MIP is is equivalent of MIT but in Russia uh and uh yeah went specifically in the group where they had economics class as well so and why did you go study Physics not economics just because it was the best university and uh I always thinking it doesn't matter where you study it matters like you know how they develop your brains and then in my mind economics was much easier compared to physics and I I was actually living
6:09 alone since I was 13 14 years old and then I stayed with my brother oh interesting at the flat and then yeah I contined school so you're living by yourself since you're 14 it was cool yeah yeah that's that's very interesting that's like a different thing you know it's funny I actually had a similar experience uh I went to do exchange programs which kind of Liv in my family but then I kind of was living by myself since 1516 and I definitely think that living by yourself you know makes you an adult faster 100% yeah did you like have any like funny stories about you know that time you're living by yourself there was so long time ago but uh I mean preparing food for myself like cleaning for myself I think it's it's you have to do you were cooking for yourself cleaning up after yourself and and you're living in the home the day left they left anday okay and then how
6:56 does the uni process work you just do a test and you're kind of get in basically in uni back then it was uh like more than 20 years ago uh so they had exams so they had uh exam in maths and then in physics and we just passed two of them with the like you know highest scores and then got accepted to the our hardest faculty how do you think like you know growing up in like you know Russia now pre like what do you think about the US the Western you know like what was the kind of like narrative that you grew up with about what was the US for example I to don't see back then there was no real narrative I remember when um I was studying in the University a lot of people so basically I I was studied physics and then simultaneously I um got
7:41 to se uh in the best economics School in Russia as well so I was finishing actually two universi simultaneously oh so you went to sorry during your physics one you applied to the other one too uh yes so basically physics I was doing for six years University so standard bachor you do four years and then two you the master so when I done Bachelor I also applied for master degree in uh economics and Finance in like top university in Russia so I was finishing to Masters and parallel for physics and then oh wow and they're both in Moscow both in Moscow yeah okay yeah but then a lot of people they wanted to go to do PhD in American universities even myself yeah thanks God I haven't done it yet yeah you didn't seem like the PHD kind of guy uh and then back then uh what actually changed my opinion on PhD
8:27 because all their uh in houses and investment banks that came to uh to recruit all the kind of know brightest gradates from physics and economics in Russia so I just decided to kind of change career path from PhD to going work to going to work yeah but like you know the USSR had like a very different economic model for a long time right like did you study the economic model or like you know it was like how do you even think about was it fully capitalism economics or like were there other ways when you're studying it no in Russia actually so you sck collapse when I was uh um 80 years old right so actually observed all the kind of capitalism right it was like pure capitalism yeah because uh there was nothing and then suddenly all people started you know building businesses or uh trading so you
9:14 were seeing that from very close how did it feel like like what did it look like like now I think I was uh too young right to get something down so I kind of you know observed everything as a kid yeah but I I haven't done anything myself because I was you know too young but you were observing it right I was observing it yeah what did think like you think like hey I need to start a business because everyone's starting businesses here is making money like is that kind of the conclusion you got I I just observed that like a lot of people you know become rich you see like different cars you see people buying cars before they they didn't have cars and uh for was like motivation to kind of you know earn money what was the was cars like you really into cars growing up as a kid as as a young kid yeah yeah yeah you're like you know I want get get many money I'm going to buy this awesome car yeah yeah yeah yeah you know like for me when I was growing up um I was
10:00 just a tall kid I'm like my height since I'm 14 and sometimes I traveled and I just I wonder even going to make money I'm going to go on business class you know cuz like this [ __ ] economy SE I don't fit in it you know it's terrible I remember that being a big motivation yeah very cool okay so you said the recruiters came to so yeah basically after first year for uh ma um so recruiters came for the internship uh and then internship was in London so I passed all the stages flew to London um and there I liked it there right they liked me so they gave me full-time offer I think there were they had like definitely 10,000 plus applicant lemon Brothers lemon Brothers yeah yeah my my last uh uh year in two universities I
10:49 was actually working full-time for Lon brothers and then the parallel finishing studies oh wow so you were doing like two masters and working for Leman which is not a chill job right not a chill job to be hon University last year was pretty chill sir yeah it wasn't that hard yeah and did you want to leave Russia yeah it was a good opportunity to effectively learn how things work abroad uh and uh yeah it just cool and you thought at that time that you're going to go back or no uh I thought actually that I would work for someone for two years and I start my own business in Russia or outside uh doesn't matter I just wanted to to start something on my own but then reality uh Li Brothers cab and I went to credit s and back then I
11:34 was on a rock permit Visa so you can't really resign from the bank and start your own business because then you will lose access to the country right so I had to wait I think 5 years until I get passport and then day I got passport I just resigned oh wow so okay so you're at Leman and what was your first job what was the kind of trading trading yeah and what was the like he's probably like a very you know it's a very intense I imagine it's a very intense culture like what was the culture like when you joined uh it was actually quite fun right and you know I I was always you know enjoying trading myself because I mean back then I thought it was like quite intellectual challenge to what were you training options options yeah but in reality uh option Traders are not
12:20 really speculating in the bank I mean they are speculating back then but the majority is just Market making right so you make prices on different derivatives the customers come they buy and or sell to you so explain to you know the how it works right like what was options trading job in practice doing there well just come in the morning right usually come 6:30 a.m. before the Market opens uh you've got you have a book right where you have all your positions Market opens and you have incoming requests okay some customer might buy you know puts or calls or I want to buy like a you know I don't know a you know six Monon call from Barkley is at like 30 bucks a share or something like that someone shows up yeah yeah and both sizes are usually large because they're all social ERS so they usually quotes
13:06 Inon 10 sometimes $100 million where the index then you make a price then they trade with you you put it on your book then you hedge position then you go through a broker to hedge your to resell this option uh to to some other bank or some other client so just uh Market making and you were the one doing that you're like talking to customers on both ends or you're getting some some sales guys sales guys were bringing deals yeah sales guys were bringing deals you're doing the job of like finding out what's the right price yeah you you just as a Trader you just ensuring that you make the largest spinel on your book as so you need to hedge the book sometimes you also take uh propositions because you think you know Market goes up Market goes down and was there anything you learned in unu that was you know helpful
13:52 for this or no you had to relearn everything no you need you had to relearn everything yeah just a core math that learn at University I mean reality back in un I was studying like you know blacks and schs models how to price options uh as as as a cause but reality when when you work as a Trader as a market maker you already have tools which price options for you and uh you just become you know so much more practical in terms of how you value options okay so then you're at Lan I mean you're were a Trader and then it collapsed right like you're there in a collapse how that was uh I think I was like 22 back then and 22 that's crazy was fun fun experience so tell me like what was the play by played when I collapsed you were there so on Sunday they announced uh that mer Lynch was
14:38 bought out by government or bailed out and then limo Brothers was effect let go so on Monday I came to work all the systems were close you can't trade but you and there were like other like you know two 400 Traders on the trading floor no access to the systems you just see there and they were all playing uh like the same computer game which which one some shooting helicopters yeah web based the only game which was not black blocked by corporate system wow and but like were the days before they already think it was going to happen like was no no no no one ever thought it would happen to be H it was like completely unexpected wow so like on the Friday you're like I you know I'm just going to come to Monday and then Monday they showed it's like oh [ __ ] yeah it's done
15:24 well to was very young and uh very uh confident my abilities to find any other jobs so you weren't scared no not at all for me it's like interesting what happened yeah yeah good learning exactly is there any learning that you took at that time about like you know what to do what not to do life anything that we were thinking at that moment in time iil I was so confident in myself that you know I I in my mind I I can do anything I I I would never be without like you know man man or something yeah it's where do you think all that confidence kind of came from like did you just win a when you're yeah exactly I think you know when I was a kid because of all these competitions because you build certain track record also because you know universities were very hard with exams you kind of learned how to and you
16:10 were always like number one or something then you were like uh First Years in University I was U uh like always like you know top grades and so on but then I started working as well and then I I realized you know what like G deep into science is not for me so I started doing like you know some side projects started working as well like what side projects like just to make money like different things because back then uh like a lot of students were trying for example buying cell phones selling cell phones this kind of so you got into the buying cell phone business interesting how how did it work like that was kind your first you know I mean initially I thought I I lost money right but then yeah I actually made it all back and uh I think I made like you know five to 10 X on on what I would in but what was the
16:56 business like what was this buying sell on business so basically uh there were guys who were kind of uh who had their uh I think one shop and it was really you know going well they were selling cell phones they wanted to expand like a retail shop a normal retail shop yeah yeah so and uh so I gave the money and uh they went into the business but then business didn't do well initially so that I know well lost at all how but how do you get the money to give them at that you're so young right like uh yeah desire to make money right this desire to take risk uh and but how do you have the money to give to them oh because I was also working part time as well oh you were working part time part time yes so I had uh so basically I was doing um I was working part time at Institute of
17:42 economic research what uh it's economic research institute I forgot his name but it's kind of like a research job yeah it's like a research job so basically what you do they give you a problem then you read many many articles of foreign literature scientists on this problem right then what you do you just design certain way to solve the problem that you discovered in this articles right then you effectively program it in sta you calculate you know certain things then you write it down and then I think they they resell research to the government afterwards so this is the first job yeah that was my first part job yeah okay so you making some money from this and then you're using it to I still don't understand a cell phone business you would like give them money to expand their retail shs yeah so it's
18:29 kind of an investment oh kind of yeah okay so they were doing super well just retailing cell phones and you know you gave some I mean it didn't work well ini but they they then it worked well and then in a year they they they they returned this money so how old were you when you made this like first cell phone money I guess like uh like 19 probably okay so you had some con like I made money when I'm 19 I can probably keep making money course yeah because I think like there's a lot of people that like that's not the like they're 22 and they're like not confident you know and I think that's it does seem like a pattern I see in a lot of people who are successful that they're just like hyper confident when they're young I had the same thing I was like 100% sure everything was work for the same 100% sure that I gonna make money yeah yeah yeah and it's I try to
19:15 describe that to people today and sometimes I come out as like not relatable because people are like what do you mean you were 100% I just don't know I just 100% sure you know um and I think part of it is then you're pitching you're doing you're recruiting everything you know that confidence kind of transpires or exactly you just build a track record and you're because you're also young you have a track record I mean you're extremely confident yeah yeah exactly okay so Leman brothers You're trading there it collapsed and then what do you do so my boss he actually went to credit s and then he hired um myself with him as well so he he was hiding great s and he hired me for do same thing training same thing yeah training well funny the credit s also years later I was actually there uh first head job in namura for one month
20:01 to namura namura yeah but then he kind of hired me from namura to crazy okay and trading was the same thing yeah well but like and why didn't you do you think you're G to have like a long period in Wall Street because you could make a lot of money at a time in Wall Street right like if you just like kept doing what you're doing and like big bonuses and kind of yeah but to be honest I was never satisfied because like in trading job yes you have pnl but then uh Banks became very political so a lot of people who kind of you know lose money but they still being paid you know big bonuses as well yeah did you get paay big bonus yeah of course yeah yeah yeah um what was your like first bonus you remember first bonus I don't remember yeah but it was like you know half a million or something what yeah but that was your first bonus uh maybe a bit less but it was
20:47 like definely close to half a million that like kind of like order of Mag yeah when I like started properly trading yeah yeah makes sense makes sense makes sense and what were your like kind of hobbies at the time like what were you doing as kind of like outside of work around this time so I love the wind surfing so I started you know wind surfing oh you're where did you wind surf uh I think initially I started probably in Egypt Egypt in the hub yeah that's where I learned wind surfing and then uh I actually switched to kite surfing after I went to daab or probably I went to Croatia and then there was wasn't enough wind for wind surfing but k k still work kiting so I decided to switch to kite do you need more win for wind surfing than for kiting um I mean reality for wind suffering yes to really Glide you need more wind yeah and then
21:35 you move to kite setting watch year like you said it was like 2011 or something right that you moved King 2012 yeah probably 2011 2012 yeah yeah you're a very early ker the K were like kind of dangerous back then right no not really I mean to be honest you I looked at equipment now and back then uh I mean it didn't change much was it is it four lines already when you started five lines five okay because the early early kiing I think it was two lines that people had oh no it's two early now already like four line far lers yeah makes sense that was really dangerous that was like you know there was no way to stop you could just like get pulled away and um and then okay so you you know you're win surfing K surfing so you went to credit s and then you were trading same thing there just options options yeah same same Market making
22:22 like you know hundreds of thousand doll in bonus and Beyond and then what what happened after that what do you do after you got your VIs said right like yeah I was already kind of Set uh to leave I was just waiting for last year for for the pport that's it so you already knew you wanted to leave you just didn't want to leave because of the passport yeah exactly and then you already knew you wanted to start a business or yeah exactly I want to start a business and then yeah just waiting for my passport to arrive and is there anyone you were like looking for like inspiration you know or like which entrepreneurs did you follow or track around that time like what was how do you even know like what to start you know like what's a good business all that good question I don't remember following anyone to me here uh because back then it was all like you
23:07 know about banking Consulting all top graders went into banking Consulting and then back then uh no one actually talked about tech and startups now everyone talks about techs and startups it's hot right but back then I mean which year this you think 2014 it was 2014 yes 2013 2014 I remember around this time I had just started my first business and I remember Tech crunch was like a huge thing for me I just like I was reading Tech crunch a lot and that was like a big inspiration oh interesting no I didn't know anything about te you didn't know any like like media websites online about tech and stuff like that no no no I I didn't really you know read it all and for me it was because I was an environment in London and London was really Financial capital of Europe maybe the world back then and uh I was surrounded by Bankers or Traders or
23:54 salese my friends from Bankers as well or or Traders and no one really talked about startups but like when you thought about starting a business you're like I'm going to start the next Leman Brothers was that was kind of going on to your mind no to be honest I was much more modest right I was just looking for some business idea just to start uh and I was looking for several ideas and uh or several problems to solve I was looking what's happening in China what's happening in us what worked in China what working in us uh and uh yeah just looking for for ideas and what it was tinkov already like successful uh no back then tinkov probably haven't launched yet oh it didn't launch yet or maybe they had but it wasn't like but back then I didn't
24:40 know about you didn't know about it yeah which is is interesting like until you know kind of recently it was probably one of the most successful kind of Neo Banks let's put it like that in the world right yeah me yeah probably yeah and so but what about like Venture like did you know that VCS wouldn't invest in startups like was that a thing you're like kind of like aware and no but then no I just wanted I had this desire to build something myself right to be kind of independent of all these bosses who they are not very clever and uh yeah just left had this idea about a cut with zero effects and transfers with Z so before we get into Revel like what were the other businesses you considered like what were your uh so I was looking at uh what was
25:25 it um loans business business like you know microl loans business micr yeah then I was looking into all in Europe or were you looking like just UK um and then I was looking for a Marketplace uh uh I think you know buying and selling clothes there was some kind of social network in in China back then that really you know took off and I thought you know maybe I just copy it in Europe how are you finding out what's happening in China like how are we even knowing I was just researching on the internet you know trying to to find some business ideas yeah interesting was there anyone that you got really close close to doing I I think I selected three or four ideas and then I just went with revolute do you remember what the other ones were uh so yeah L ideas were loans right micro loans like you know fast digital because
26:10 I think you know back then um there were no service who who who would give you know back loans you know very fast um then um this Chinese website as well replic and then it was Revol yeah was and the other one was Revol yeah yeah and what was the Chinese one exactly it was like just I don't remember the name but it was uh effective social social network where people post uh about their clothes and then you can also buy clothes on this kind of social commerce kind of yeah yeah interesting interesting and you know Talk's talk did you look a lot to China like what do you think of China back then yeah I looked a lot of China why I guess like it's not an obvious thing for someone to do back then I guess uh no just because you look at growth right
26:56 and you look at number of people uh and then you look at our Innovation what happening so I was looking at us and China then it does seem that like a lot of your economic stuff from back in the day did play a role in like how you think about the world right yeah maybe but for me it was just intuition right yeah yeah interesting yeah usually intuition you know you have to build it from probably from something um you're very kind of like numbers focused and you always talk about like the growth and the you know it's it's it's an really interesting like way to think when you're that young you know yeah yeah um okay so then Revue well okay so tell me what the first first idea for Revue was so I simply wanted to have a cut uh so basically what I've done I set out myself multiple bank accounts with
27:42 different currencies and when I was traveling I sending money I was trying to spend from these bank accounts and send money from these bank accounts but it was like super clunky like very difficult and then back then online banking was also pretty [ __ ] so you can really you know go on the website you need to put you know T tons of passwords some devices to it was like really messy back then uh so I decided to effectively uh build a company or a product uh like a bank account Plus account attached to it so you can go abroad and then spend in multiple currencies at into bank rate so I kind of in my head I already knew how to do infrastructure around it in terms of hedging cation change because obviously
28:28 I was a Trader I I know how things work uh but then in terms of cut payment infrastructure I knew zero so what I've done I started researching how to get it done uh I found call it Partners in the value chain like you know ising Bank processor um cut factory few few others to to put it all together to integrate it all and I launch a card and then I was trying to find uh how to issue multicurrency card how to stop infrastructure and everyone told me from ising bank that you know it's not possible doesn't exist so what I've done I I I hired the best uh consultant uh prepaid C consultant uh in UK to help me with the infrastructure how do you find that guy someone
29:14 recommended me to him and I called him and then he said no like it's impossible to get done I won't even charge charge you for it m I said okay why don't you wait why don't I pay you like you know for days Consulting just come to the office to explain me how M cut Works Visa Works cut processing works and maybe we'll figure something out so I sat down with a team and then why do you think it was impossible like why just because no one ever done it before in in the UK uh and uh so we kind of sat down with the team and then we figure out how to get it done we show the scheme to him and yeah it might be possible so that's what was the first version of it like how did you get it done early on uh so basically all the I think all the prepaid card provid as they were putting balances on the card right so it was
30:00 sitting with a processor but as soon as you take it out right you create LED yourself and then you just simply authorize uh based on the signals then it is definitely possible got it so what you do is like you basically instead of using the balances from the prepaid C providers you would like just use them as an authorization engine and then have the balances yourself and in The Ledger in The Ledger you know it's funny it's it's it's not too dissimilar when we started re because everyone told us that doing a credit card was very hard in the US because you know Banks and credit like so what we did is we we got a prepaid card and then we just pre fund it but have a ledger on credit in the back and we just like you know charge people and then like keep funding it you know for the for the amount ofing system
30:46 yeah exactly it's like similar I guess what you guys did so so the value proposition for the customer was I am traveling around and I don't want to pay FX yeah and you know I can just like spend in different currencies for free yeah I also wanted to to do transfers as well so I wanted to to have an account with a card which would also allow me to send money abroad because I mean it's just convenient and then everyone was telling me no it's crazy like you know two different products why would you put two different products in kind of you know one up like every single person told me VCS told me like you know Founders inch told me but I I just kept insisting so I build their effect account with the button transfer money abroad and then with the card as well to spend from the same balance got it so you would be you able to put like some balance there so you can like
31:31 transfer that to the card as well and that was impossible well card was attached to the wallet right so C was simply authorization method but then from this wallet from this balance you could also send money in different currencies to Def well and that was probably hard to build too right like that was hard to build too and like where did you get the Insight of that people would want that like how did you build that intuition just because I wanted it myself for here was obvious if I save money that way plus it's sliek to use why wouldn't other people use it as well so you're like I travel and when I travel I hate paying FX exactly yeah and you know if it's easy why wouldn't and were you doing some version of it yourself like would you have multiple cars that you were kind of using or something yeah before this product yeah I had multiple cards multiple accounts I
32:17 was you know transfering money from one account to another to the broke as well to exchange money so and like I guess have you always like being optim optimizing costs like that in your life uh no I me to you like I was uh all about revenues rather than cost like cost I I never cared but for me it was uh I just don't like waste you see what I mean yeah uh so for me it was waste right is H is okay one type of money goes into another type of money and then it's less I mean it's waste it's commodity right so it's it's you felt that like growing up it's now that you're super focused on your cost you would like spend money no problem yeah I was like completely I I I didn't really care about cost for me it was always okay I need to make more more money and then cost I mean doesn't matter right because
33:03 okay you reduce cost by 10% 20% revenues can grow th% 10 was is kind of what bothers waste is always bothering me yeah I I want to be as efficient as possible oh interesting interesting where do you think that came from like is there anything that uh I don't know I'm I was always in a perfectionist in what I do right and for me to get something done well I do not want to have waste me is like interesting okay so then you you doing this first version and how long did it take you to did you code it yourself like how do you get the first people to code you raise money basically uh so I done first research myself like you know figure out that is possible and I got contracts done with all the providers and you had a little bit of money at this point yourself right because you had made some bonuses and uh I had quite a lot of money back then yeah oh you did
33:48 yeah because of trading right and uh basically so first because I was very new to Tech right and development I hired a um kind of outsourcer like a team on Outsourcing to to build a product yeah like I I you like Engineers Engineers plus design on Outsourcing and uh and you paid up your shell I own Paca at this point I just pay them like you know transfer money to them they were Freelancers but like it was it wasn't Venture money yeah it was your own money no no it was my own money yeah U and uh so basically we kind of you know build their so we build something but I think back then it wasn't really working and it was like a very bad quality so I very quickly realized that Outsourcing doesn't work so I kind of oh no now I I
34:36 learn how to do like development right I know who to hire I started hiring people in house myself so I ended up hiring uh six or seven people like Engineers plus design in house and then we continue building the product and we we build the product did you know how to code yeah of course yeah you did already yeah because I learned it right Plus in in trading I was also like you know doing in Python and mlab as well yeah oh interest I didn't know that so in trading you had to code uh no not really but I was always you know back testing different [Music] strategies yeah got so so you knew how to interview Engineers for someone good or bad at that point no I wasn't good at it no no got so you just hired people that you thought were smart yeah I just hired first uh contractors and then I I
35:24 brought team in house and this is all yourself you're just building you know the prepaid card and you need to get like a provider who was your first provider for prepa card like the First Bank partnership uh it was actually Big L was called the optimal payments they were issuing Bank uh I think they later became paysafe paysafe yeah okay so they were kind of like your bin sponsor yes exactly early on and then you had a processor back then that you used to so it was GPS GPS GPS yeah got it got it so okay so you started you brought this team in house and they were building of these partners that you got in and and how long did it take you from starting to build to launching or 18 months 18 oh so it's kind of like a long build like in you know uh yeah it was U I think in know beta version like you know we were
36:09 testing already it was like within 12 months but on officially launch we officially launch to external people to a lot of external people to in 18 months and did you fund all of it yourself or you like kind of raise money in the Bine yeah yeah no I I found it all myself right and then when we started having our first customers I I raised money because I was running out of money oh yeah interesting and you applied to YC at some point I think right yeah did I think you were YC's biggest Miss ever I don't think there's I don't think there's a company that's more successful than revolute that like y missed when was this you remember kind of uh it was5 probably 20 2015 yeah and that's when you launch or that's when you uh I think I applied before we launched officially yes before you launch um so you're kind of trying to
36:56 raise money a little bit at this point for me it was um yeah I think back then you know I I wanted to raise money already because I know I was you know running out of cash and the advice was first to go to like typ of you know accelerate YC because then they will promote you to to other investors because I was starting pitching to investors and uh like every single investor declined me and someone gave me advice okay why don't you go to accelerator and then you have a wider reach of investors and then they will also prepare you to raise m interesting what why do why do you think like looking at your pitch with you know now back then like why do you think you didn't get in I don't know to be honest back then already realized that uh at least accelerat to too much or
37:42 take too much in equity right for what they provide and back then I was I wasn't already you know that motivated yeah to get it done because I just apply it and then see what happens and then if if they would accept then you know I was St really looking at this seriously oh interesting okay so it was like an optionality thing why not it happens nice you know it's another option but it doesn't and how much of your own money did you spend between raising money and uh uh well I wasn't working for two years right so I probably spent uh like 700k on business plus and personal expense like but that was like a big percentage of your money again was that a big percentage of your money that point yeah it was yeah like I think over all my cost for for this years was 1 million plus Personal Plus yeah so it's probably like risk there's a lot of risk
38:28 right to like spend this out of your own money and like do it I mean to be H your like I always had this uh attitude that I can always you know make money so I wasn't really scared at all so you're like look worst case in here if this doesn't work job exactly yeah and finance and make millions of dollars again kind of thing kind of yeah yeah yeah makes sense that's a really good like uh safety net yeah yeah yeah cool so so then you started Revol you got these first team and then when you raise your first money 2015 as well it was after launch before launch it was just before launch so we I think we closed in uh May or we agreed the deal in May and then in June or July I launched what were the kind of like early terms back then pretty bad for me uh I think they
39:13 gave me one or one a half million at uh six million pre six million pre yeah well I'll tell you my first deal and you can see you're going to feel better about yours my first deal was 300K for 60% of the business oh that's crazy in Brazil um so you know the Market's definitely got fro here since then yeah I think it makes sense right because uh reality is uh I think back then like a lot of companies were undervalued yeah well they weren't the big outcomes right to kind of Justified yeah yeah and did you think it was a great valuation back then or no you thought it was okay um I was running out of money so I I took what but but did you think wow I got a great deal or no you were like I got a shitty deal but it is what it is no right I wanted to take money as soon
40:00 as possible and then you just focus on so you won you're like hey I won you know I got money which is what I'm yeah and then you know because I was already fundraising it was U I spent already like five or six months fundraising everyone said no so for me it was uh it was a hard fundraising it was super hard yeah interesting it was London right Plus in London there is no kind of back then there wasn't that much many VCS so it was very very hard what was the biggest push back back that people had back then they were all selling now like un economics doesn't work how you make money it's monetization yeah there was so kind of uh spreadsheet focused rather than product focused and for me was always you know I I'll figure out economics
40:46 later I just need volume first was that very obvious that you could you were going to be able to monetize to you for me it was obvious because uh again this mentality that I can uh compete right with other organizations other people because okay I was in ker wolf which is U London Foundation Center you look around all this you know huge buildings huge Banks making a lot of money right and then uh okay they make money how come I I I wouldn't be able to make money so you're like hey if I compete with these guys I'll win yeah of course so therefore I just need some volume so I get to compete with these guys exactly yeah very no one believe me the say no like econom doesn't work so the first product was this you know you launch and was it instant product Market fit or it took a little bit to kind of get right it took it took some time so it took like I
41:32 remember we had the one one sign up a day then went to five signups a day 10 signups um suddenly went to 100 signups a day so it just and retention was always good from the beginning or no to be honest here like first three four years I didn't even measure retention right all all those things I was so focused on product on product yeah infrastructure product product infrastructure yeah interesting and then was it how how long was it just like one product or like two I guess the wallet and the um not long to be hon here so we launched with s traction and then I started looking to other products like you know credit uh trading and then at this point when did fundraising kind of become easy I think second round was easier yes third round was even easier
42:20 fourth round fifth round it was like really bumped because that was in a bad economic environment so it was very hard to raise money so it was hot um yeah sometimes like generally every single every consequent round was easier but sometimes we had bumps makes sense makes sense and then at this point do you think that the vision that you had back then kind of sticked or like what change in the vision not obviously changed right because uh like reality is you never have clearly defined Vision or clearly defined idea right like really need to uh start working on it to get more information uh to build something to rate uh it's like uh finding a gold right okay you try here you try there
43:05 okay this thing sticks you go deeper and what is um what do you think if you had asked you know Nick back then like what's the vision for rol what is a 2015 version of it what it looked like uh I mean it was just uh just a wallet and a card I wasn't even thinking about Vision to be honest back then I was always skep I about people who kind of have you know great vision for 10 years forward they have strategy like I was never like that to be honest for me okay that's an obvious problem yeah let's let's get it done uh move on right that was my Approach and after you started like which were there companies that you admired more than others they were like oh yeah I kind of want to model these companies and you know did you keep looking to China as kind of
43:51 like model companies as well yeah I looked at weot I think back then uh I looked that well because I I started looking at Tech obviously I looked at you know big Tech successes like you know stripe or airnb as well but like company culture operating model did you were those the company you kind of looked at like stripe and rbb because you guys seem to have a very different culture than they do yeah no I I looked at it but I I was never know going deep to understand how they operate I was just too busy to you yeah how did you like did you think you know intentionally about of company culture or was it something that you just did and it kind of just happened early on I think company culture is just a product of a Founder right uh itally replicates
44:36 you who you are and because I was always extremely competitive extremely aggressive on what I do uh extremely wanted to win plus I was perfectionist as well so it uh as a result when I was hiring people when I was hiring people who are very different to me I mean we didn't really you know work together well so I ended up uh building interview process how to hire these types of people who I know they will deliver so you started hiring these people that's how cult is born right because then these people start hiring the same people and do you think that like you ended up hiring people that are similar to you um at some point you probably try the idea of hiring people that are different than you do you think that was a good idea or no you just kind of came back to like hiring people that all
45:21 people are different right all people are different nationalities different background but uh like values are same right so for me very important was hard workking uh very important was uh kind of delivering things very fast very important was the perfectionist or quality of the product for me as soon as I saw people that are not fitting into this values right obviously you couldn't work together well for long so one of the things that I find very interesting on this people topic is that you you have a lot of direct reports right yeah how many do you have now like 40 around 40 four zero yeah 4 Z I thought it was like 30 and it was like already a lot yeah you know like 32 direct and then another like 10 15 indirect or function we call
46:06 them so you know obviously as you know there's not a lot of CEOs that do that why do you think that's kind of what you do Jensen is a very successful one that does right like I he has 60 reports or something like that uh well reality is there My Philosophy is very simple right so uh as soon as you start spending time managing people they're probably a failure right because then you need to dive deep you need to tell them what to do my U approach was always people need to be independent they need to be self-guided right so they need to kind of self-identify what needs to be done they need to self deliver it without my help and then we have one-on-one of business reviews just to Sy on Direction what needs to be done across the whole company and but as soon as you kind of
46:53 you know go deep as soon as you start uh telling people are doing things wrong and you do it consistently on a weekly basis so they just wrong people and remember when we talked you talked a lot about like building the systems right um what does that mean to you exactly well basically because I was always you know quantitative by Nature you know by my education and by trading job I was always you know trying to quantify things and uh uh not rely on emotions but rely on effec machines right to deliver outcomes that I want and then machines are obviously uh process and then people within processes so I think you know quite early on I figured out so usually I I kind of you know was managing myself directly like you know
47:39 20 30 40 people and Company grew up say about 50 people and then I had to put management structure in place uh and then uh like very early on I realized that all these managers are not like me rather then don't go down into details they they just simply have all this class iCal management thing oneon-one how are you making sure people feel great for me I never bought it right like for me people don't need you know how are you right or like great people don't need how are you they they just need to have fun at the job and having fun at the job is when you build great products when you see results so I was always against uh classical management uh Styles and I also remember arguing with the my VCS they always wanted me to hire like you know sen Executives they
48:25 gave me example how these guys are great and I just never kind of trusted their opinions uh for me people who are kind of senior Executives who are like in the market for sale right they probably like negative selection buyas Tot so I I was never like into like you know all the people saying Executives you know it's interesting that I think in I don't know the last couple years maybe 2019 2020 2021 you know I would hear about revolute and and that be the I think the main criticism it would be something along the lines of you know Nick doesn't hire enough like great senior people you know like or or something along those lines and I felt really good like yeah we High great senior people you know and then like now 2025 come out like I'm
49:11 like [ __ ] Nick was right from the beginning you know like you know very few of them actually work and you probably have to you overpay them and ex you know a lot of our leadership team today is just people who grew up at the company they're like really Talent like a lot of people they just career Harvesters I mean that's reality right they you know great CV then they sell the CV but they they they canot really deliver yeah what did you call them career Harvesters career Harvesters okay that's interesting career harv SEC yeah yeah I like that name um and but like what do you actually like you know when you say Building Systems right like I once you gave me an example um I remember you guys had this I remember which year was like some compliance care that was like all over the Press when was that uh it was like probably like some comp system yeah 2020
49:58 2021 something along you know remember there was like some it's all over the press and yeah basically we were uh basically because I was never relying on uh Senor people how they did things because I saw in the past because I was very kind of system driven Tech driven systemizing everything yeah then obviously when I looked at compliance like all these people from Big Banks I don't know they they don't really have technical education they don't know math physics and they approach solving problems in the very um traditional way right and for me it was always about building models or building rules models to kind of solve compliance problems or systems because early on like I realize that machines are so much better a standardized problems compared to humans uh and I was
50:45 always you know Building Systems to replace manual work uh and the same with managers I very early realize that okay this management structure doesn't work for me so a very early on started developing system in house to manage people like you know assigning kpis to each team on Department level on a company level U making sure everything is super transparent in terms of kpis dashboards analytics or P team in this system then building up the whole recruitment process uh defining people as their skill set then value set and then deliverable set and then actually testing each of their parameters within interview process U so yeah very alone so so like this is like you know I talk to a lot of C lot of compan this is like
51:31 one of the most unique things I think about you and refl is like how much emphasis in time and energy you spend on like building the system so I want to make sure we I really understand it so like let me let's get an example right in this sense obviously every company has like kpis you know but I think the hard part is you know what is that you have a meeting and they're off the kpi for example like what do you do yeah I mean reality when you're doing one-onone so you do business reviews you do it two three or four times right you always start with kpis where they are the road map and then you dive deep okay what's what are you building why you building it what's wrong like within two three iterations you realize who is good who is going you know deep enough and who is not so you've got also intuition about person or team uh then this intuition is
52:18 a lead indicator is a head of K even if kpi is not there but you agree what the team is doing you agree that they're delivering fast you agree that quality is good you know that KPS will catch up so you have the stion got it so you're saying is like look it's you need to build the when you do these business reviews with your like 40 direct reports what you're looking for is trying to see okay are they doing the right thing in order to drive this kpi is the logic right right is there is the direction right are they going uh deep enough into details sales right it's super important uh because a lot of managers I would say you know 95% plus managers are across all the areas they don't go into details and that's wrong for me manager is a person who goes down into details and is able to direct the team and then identify if something goes wrong because
53:05 reality how do you achieve goals right so you define goals and then you define road map what needs to be done what direction um and then you execute right so team can be very good on execution but Direction can be wrong so they all kind of work half a year but Direction was wrong they all wasted all this effort right and then great manager or any manager in my view need to go down into details understand the quality of execution and then only details will help you understand direction as well you know in in a lot of cases you think okay you know this product would would work that's how you do it but then you go down into details you realize yourself no no that's not how you need to build it so you change but is you think your job when you're doing that is to kind of like also know the details or make sure they know the de like how do
53:51 you know because the company is so big today like you can't Poss I go down into details myself like as soon as I see kind of you know refed flx I just go down details like on design level code level like in know structure level and then uh that's the best way to identify of week performance right you go down into details lower compared to them you see the difference and then they're not good right I mean how come you're doing it like 100% of your time yeah I just you know spend weekend diving deep into details and then yeah exactly like unacceptable interesting and then whenever someone leaves from that role like you know that makes it very easy to like put someone back there right because you kind of have the systems yeah exactly plus because you kind of into details you also know um each team member as well and that's pretty easy to kind of you know promote someone so if
54:38 someone leaves you always have someone there kind of like in the back bur because yeah because you're into details yeah because you're into the details and of everything interesting but like are you not at the level now that like it's is so big that you can't get into the details of kind of everything or no everything no but uh again uh I have all this you know key kpis metrics and then if things go wrong uh you see it on kpis and if kpis are not moving the right direction for a long time I just got to go down into details so very selective where I go down into details and then you know obviously I I kind of feel that in product the way to do that is a little bit more obvious but you you feel you do it all in the entire company right like marketing and compliance and you know in every function yeah when when things are going well right you obviously don't
55:23 dive deep right you you kind of know that okay okay this this person who manages self-guided they in details themselves as soon as things go wrong right you see it on metric and you dive deep yeah yeah yeah that's how you end up you know having you know many many reports because uh like if you have philosophy that you only work with self-guided people like with time you filter out a lot of you know bad people and good people stay and then you can actually uh have many direct reps in the system because they all self-guided they they deliver all the that and how do you know who to have a report to you versus who to like not report to you I mean if things go well right I usually kind of uh let them go on their own plus I might you know put uh someone to manage them uh but then in critical areas where I uh kind
56:13 of don't trust my intuition you know I always you know manage like what was an example compliance fin crime got it so that part you manage yourself always because yeah I always into details because it's it's a complex area it's buiness yeah interesting and how do you think about experience right like hiring people with some experience in that area versus not just having smart hungry people uh reality ideally you need to have both right but that's very very rare so I usually prefer smart smartness and hunger to experience because reality if you if you hire a smart person who solve difficult problems in the past and they give them easier problem to solve that they didn't know about they they all figure it out right but as soon as
56:58 you h a smart person and they give them super complex problem they haven't solved so above the IQ level then they they will fail and then uh in a lot of cases in finance and banking uh because they always you know rely on manual process and not Tech uh people with a tech background smart they can solve the problems through Tech uh much better compared to traditional people the only thing is they need to know the edge cases right from that problem like they need to know like what are they even solving for yeah exactly but then here is a trade-off right obviously if you have experience you know H case if you don't have experience okay you build system and then you know system is not complete because there are H keep improving yeah you keep improving and yeah they make mistakes obviously but then time they they fix it yeah
57:44 interesting the other thing I found very interesting about how you run the company is um you know you're you're the first person that actually knew how much an engineering team cost like you know X people cost this much much you know and kind of think about the ROI I literally never heard a Techo talk about it like that which because I I buil it in my system as well so got we build this software right called revolute people which we sell now externally to to other companies which shows you kpi on a company level department level Team level individual road maps uh like all these trust metrics that we have NPS uh customer support tickets box audits findings and one of the tops there is the financial costs right so every time when I go when I kind of dive deep into team I see like apis road map I see
58:30 total cost per year right I mean well that's another interesting thing it feels that like a lot of times the software that you have creates the system and not the system kind of like builds the software you know uh I think you start building uh you have IDE about system in your might right you first create spreadsheet then you put it in the software and then you look at it right and then your because certain user features don't satisfy you you kind of add add add and with time it becomes in a very good but like I kind of keep thinking about kind of like HR software and I feel that like for example you know it's kind of hard to pull from traditional HR software and like all everyone's salaries and like you know allocate that across teams you know like if you're workday or something it's like not the easiest thing in the world to kind of do that that's why I
59:16 build my own system yeah no that's what I'm saying like I feel that a lot of companies just say okay like given this is the software I'll adapt my system instead of being like well this is my system you know what software can kind
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