YouSaid · the spoken record

Christian Hecker

lines on the record: 39
first: 2024-02-16
most recent: 2024-02-16
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yes, I mean, 5, 10, 50 years as you prefer, right? So we started with a pension gap, right? With Trader Public, and now we have two, three people just employed to think about this.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To implement, and so for people to love that kind of culture, but I guess it increases talent density a lot. And then you create a bunch of people, two, 300 people who are really in it, who really love what they're doing, who want to work more than 40 hours a week. And then it's not a fun actually.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, and I think that's really one of the biggest learnings, right? So I think if you grow up as a company, you go from, I don't know, like 50 to 200, 300 employees, you have the first bunch of people who are really unhappy in your company. And as a founder, you take it personal. You think like, how can you be unhappy? I try to make everything so great. So you sit down with these people, you open your book, and you write on everything. You try to make it better. And then you do all the fixes. Then still people are very unhappy. And then I think we recognize that if you cannot hide it, embrace it. So by now, I think we own our culture, which is very performance driven, which if you don't accelerate, if you don't push you out, we evaluate your quarterly. So we don't want to be this all, everybody's happy place. We want to be a place where those people who want to achieve something are welcomed. And so how do we determine this? I mean, obviously we have a rigorous recruiting process, but given the labor laws in Europe, we treat the probation period as an extensive form of interviews. So you're going to be evaluated all the time. At the end of your probation period, there's a committee to really that you can stay. So there's somebody to step in and pitch it for you. Takes some time.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, no, I think. I mean, as Europeans, we enjoy things more. But take it like this, right? If you're entering a market with some modes, right, with stepping out of your comfort zone, you can already out-compete, right? And outperform. So it's a pro and”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, of course. I mean, I think there's a combination of the money and the people who are willing to commit that money to these things. But for example, take Germany, where insurances are forbidden by law to invest in venture and all this stuff, right? So I think this is all prohibiting quite a lot. And I think we're thinking not big enough. To be very honest, if we really want to hire an engineer here in Berlin who has seen large distributed IT systems for millions of customers, we don't find them here in Berlin. We need to go to the UK. We need to go to Sweden, to maybe Russia to hire these people, right? And that's a pity that we don't have the talent. So I guess there's much to do. I mean, we pride ourselves that Europe has grown a lot, but still relatively speaking has lost a track with America and China. So much to do.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, there's a point to it, right? No, I think we're bearish in Europe. I need to admit. So I guess I think we love our investors and it's great to work with them, right? But the mere fact that basically when Trade Republic may exit, then pensioners in Florida get the money, right, that must kill you as European. We must have people who can really make the big, big checks here. I think it's incredibly important so you can build this ecosystem.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, this is something we underestimated. We thought those chaps are incredibly expensive, and why would you give them so much money? And now it's a bunch of ambassadors who re-drive your authenticity and are your biggest connection pieces to the audience, to the community, right? Especially for product like ours, that when you get it once in your hand and you use it, you tell your friends and family about it. So I guess this is one of the largest marketing channels we have by now.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Performance marketing. So I think we've been in this trap or rabbit hole, right? I think 2020, 2021, we would spend hundreds of millions at Facebook and Google. And then came 2022. We just raised our round and we thought, okay, how can we focus on uno-economics and just drive down cash consumption? And for one day on the other, we just basically stopped all things performance marketing. And we just killed it to zero. And we saw that almost we get as many customers as before. And I get that totally changed my mind where to spend money in growth. We don't spend much on Google, on Zeo, on Facebook. We do affiliate influencers, ambassadors, brand marketing, benefits for the consumers. But I think one of the biggest surprises I really had like 2023 is that all the money we spend on performance marketing might have been clever investment.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hiring the first person. I remember it was like Thomas and me and Marco, like three founders, and then it's so hard to find the first person, which is as crazy as you. So basically you don't have any money, you don't have any funding, right? You just say, well, it's going to work out. And then this guy was a backend developer. He had a wife and kid. And I think it took like six to nine months, at like twice dinner with the entire family, right? So that was, I think, in hindsight, one of the hardest faces. Because when you have the first person, he's like an ambassador for you. And then the second, third hire gets much easier. But I remember this time I said, fuck, if we lose this guy now, right? We start again and I need to meet the family. So this is very hard.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'd love to stay close, but again, I would re say it's in a company culture, like it's very independent from me, which I try to install really of hands on decision making. Like few meetings, everybody in the room, and then just do decisions on the fly. I think that helps sometimes, but obviously something to work on for myself as you grow up as a CEO.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, first of all, we killed the word micromanagement in the company, right? It's not allowed anymore. We call it hands on, right? So you can do decisions on the fly. No, jokes aside. I guess, I mean, looking left and right, I think it's a curse of many, let's say, product-driven founders that they want to be close to the product, close to the decision, and close to every detail, right? Because that's what you used to do in the seed and series where you can decide every button's place, right? And then that might hold back certain teams. And obviously it's very hard to decide which decision is really valuating and which maybe is just inefficient to do. And the more you groom your executive team, the more you get people, you want people who actively disagree with you and call that behavior out. And so for example, my chief of staff, Julian, he now leads all growth, right? So we have a very intimate, very great relationship. And so he has no problem saying, well, I think I got it. Let's do it, right? And so you want to establish this, but obviously it's hard, but I need to have the final decision because eventually it's a direction I need to give to the company, right? And so therefore.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think naturally over the years you anticipate certain things, questions and points which usually people do, right? So you try to anticipate this already in the conversation to frame, okay, well, we see A against B and so you take away a lot of the anecdotal discussions already in the meeting.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of course, so basically, how we structure the meeting is we try to share the deck one week in advance. Likely, it's three, four days. And then we always start with the founder-only section where we talk very openly about what's good, what's bad. And then we invite the team. And then we have like finance, product, operations, legal, whatever is on the agenda. And then these people come and present it independently. And to be frank, I prepare the board for what I like about my team and maybe don't like and where we have areas to discuss. And so everybody can with that context listen to the pieces. And then we wrap up again together in a small group without the team and discuss next steps. And that's working always like this for years now.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Course, yeah, yeah, everybody can comment and should comment. We follow the same structure, it's very predictable. There's a monthly update, which is quite lengthy. And then when somebody has questions, we follow up. And wherever we see something not working, the first thing we share with people, right? So we rarely talk about the things which work well. We most often talk about the things which don't work well. And I guess over the years, it just creates a lot of trust and reliance.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think because we had the opportunity to build with each and every member a personal relationship even before investing, right? I think everybody knew kind of what they're getting. So we stick to the plan. I think everybody appreciates that, which is asset game of accumulating recurring deposits and stuff. And then again, I think, yes, we have these board meetings, but I have a really vivid relationship with almost all of my board members. Like we talk on a monthly basis and we spend time. And so I think there's no surprises. Everybody sees changes coming and we're very transparent about things that work and things that don't work.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obviously, we admire Robin Hood, right? I think they opened up the category and they did a tremendous job. They're culturally, very relevant, right? At the same time, we never felt that they were so overlapping with what we're doing. I think, yes, if you look from the outside, it might be it. But if you look even on the pricing of trade republic, a trade costs one euro. A savings plan is for free. So I think it's clearly where we want to nudge people, right? And to be honest, our competitors are much more the traditional banks in continental Europe. And so we felt that even if they might come, there's a reason for those two companies to exist. But then at the same time, we knew from own experiences how huge the entry barriers are into the market in terms of regulation, in terms of product market fit, in terms of having a great quality product for exchange trading. And so we've been never too nervous that they would come around the corner quickly and take Europe in storm.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so we went out. And Robin Hood was out, as you said, and because they've been a public company, you could take the quarterly earnings. And we could go to investors, a very selected number of investors which we saw as very complementary what we have today and show them that this is Robinhood. Everybody thinks we're like Robinhood in Europe, but look at the numbers. So they are churning monthly active users, they're churning assets, they're churning activity. At the same time, Traded Public has growing active numbers of customers, has growing assets, and has new savings plans. And by the way, nobody is quitting their savings plan during that already struggling market timing. And then we ended up with OTPP, the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, which is one of the largest pension funds on Earth. And so they really understood it in a second, that this is more of a child schwab wealth accumulation game than it is of a trading game. And so we've been very privileged to do around with them. And I think that was obviously the cornerstone of then now still pacing through the last two years.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think we've been privileged in the years 2020-21 that we raised money where we never needed money, right? So we kind of had a cushion. But we also recognize that our business model has a so-called double whammy. So what does it mean? So if interest rates go down, capital markets go up, and so retail people trade more, right? And so your revenue explodes. At the same time, as venture valuations go up and the market is much more interested in having high valuations, right? So that elevator goes up quite fast. And so when I or we saw first cracks in the interest rates and okay, there was like this war situation in Ukraine and it was a very realistic scenario that interest rates would go up quickly. We knew this elevator goes down quite quickly in the other direction. And so I think that experience kind of made us pretty aware that now it's time to just really brace for another two, three, four years where you want to have all the money to press your competitors against the wall if you need to.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With valuation in all the rounds. So I think in every round we could have easily raised something much bigger than we did. We're trying to optimize the really end journey and not the step along the way.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think in hindsight, and we usually do it once a year, look into the pitch decks over the years, you see that our vision really gets bigger and bigger by every funding ground, right? So there's a new layer added to it or dimension added to it, right? I think in hindsight, that is a red line through all the pitches. And I think then we really found in every funding around the next big thing, right? So obviously Johan was the product market fit and then Sirius B with founders found in Excel was the scaling in Germany, going deeper the market, get really maybe millions and billions of assets. And then in the series C with Sequoia, it was okay, let's take the German successful business to something which works across Europe, to different markets that quadruple the addressable market for the product. So you find these 10x reasons every now and then. And then on top of that, I think we really learned to work with many good investors, right? So a bit divide and conquer. So not be dependent for anybody individually. And then second, obviously, raises little as you can. We try to be thought.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, first of all, I think it's the peak of COVID, right? So physical meetings are not happening. And then Doug says, well, casually, I'm in Berlin, do you want to meet? And then we would meet on this hotel to rest because the peak of COVID, everybody's a bit afraid to meet, right? And so, yes, we were sitting down. It was freezing cold on the terrace of a hotel and had this, I don't know, one or two hour initial conversation, which was 50% trade public, 50% of my private life and how I grew up and what I'm about to, what motivates me, right? And I think that led then to a very great exchange over the coming month and then luckily resulted into the investment and obviously we're very privileged to work with Sequoia, to work with him personally on the board. And he's somebody who's make you leave your comfort zone for sure.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, so, first of all, I think we saw the two sides of venture capitalism, right? So the first four or five years where nobody touches you, where you get rejected all the time, right? And then I'd say yes to the second half where we had the luxury of choosing with whom to work with, right? And I think any investor which we picked, we've built a relationship for over a year or two years, right? So all of them basically cover the company. We had multiple conversations. We spent a lot of time trying to promise and deliver. And then that led to this investment. So we would know the people very well before they entered the cap table.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So the really viral product of the Czech Republic is a so-called savings plan, right? So you subscribe to a ETF basket, so to say, and you put in money monthly. And this is something people almost never really quit. You set up 200, 300 euros per month and you just deposit money with a savings plan. And it's a bit like a fitness club subscription, right? So you feel so guilty by quitting it, you don't do it, right? So I think this is what we're trying to do. We're trying to get people this free savings plan. And it comes with no strings attached. It's for free. You can cancel it anytime, right? But still people don't do it. And I think that's the underlining current which is driving the business.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When we survey our customers, we see that they have 40% of their private wealth with us. It's a KPI, no challenger bank comes anywhere close. So again, like the average account size is 9,000, 10,000 euros. And this is the average.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About it differently. Today, a typical 30 35 year old is likely not married, likely has not a house, likely has not a car. So the disposable income is pretty high. And then to get a fraction of that as savings is not as unrealistic as it sounds.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, and I guess this is a conviction piece we must have in this play, right? So basically, the underlying thesis of Trader Public, and I guess coming from the US, coming from the UK, you don't understand the problem we have in continental Europe. So continental Europe doesn't have any incentivized government incentivized way to do capital markets, pension savings. So you just depend on the generational pension system, meaning you depend on the young people paying money into the system and old people getting money out of the system, meaning the guaranteed pension from the state is falling apart. And many, many people realize this right now. And I think this is a transformation we're believing in, the transformation we currently see in the market, that a whole generation of young people recognizes, oh my gosh, I have a problem in 20, 30 years. I need to save some money now. Trade Republic today has 35 billion euros of assets because of that fact. Because all these young people deposit money on a monthly basis. And so yes, we believe that over time this will happen. And maybe think...”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You don't, so basically, I think we want to have an incredible focus, which is basically having the most customers we can beneath, let's say, 30, 35 years of age, depositing recurring money. Why do we do this? Look at Trader Public today. We are 4 million clients. The average trader public client is, let's say 28, 30 years of age, right? This person already holds an average 8,000 euros with the account. Now, these people are going to double or triple their wealth in the next five, ten years to come, right? Because as everybody knows from themselves, during the 30s, you accumulate the vast majority of your personal wealth. So if we can just grow with these people, you're going to be the Charles Schwab, the UBS of Europe in 2030 years. And so basically we have this really incredible focus of young people recurring deposits. And obviously during the journey, you get a lot of 40 and 50 year old people down the line. Maybe that's what we're seeing today. But the core focus is still the young people.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, and I think that's a very, very important question, fundamental question for Twitter public, because many people confuse us to Robinhood. And you think you're just a trading company? And if you follow that thought, I would look into trades per customer per month maybe, right? And actually, we're not looking at it at all. So in any product manager comes to me and suggests that we should an engagement campaign helping people to invest more, more often more frequently. We don't do it. Because we believe we want to help people to accumulate wealth. How do you predict this is by monthling recurring deposits? So basically we try to optimize to have as many young people putting in money monthly into the product. And so this is a core metric. So eventually if we go to the board, the first number we talk about is assets, total assets. The second number is recurring deposits over time because we believe that's the biggest predictor for sustainable activity. Because I'd rather have millions of people doing little business over the next 30 years recurringly than a lot of business during GameStop and then they're gone with the market.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think initially the idea obviously is that it gets more expensive down the road, right? That you penetrate a niche audience and from that it gets expensive. And I think this is where maybe the question mark is coming from and we had the same, obviously. I think in hindsight, what we underestimated is that if your next best competitor has 10 bucks per trade and you offer something for free in an app with a German banking license, right? The word-to-mouth growth is something you can just not predict and imagine. So it's still today, we get 65% of customers for free through organic growth and word to mouth. It's like a virus that spreads positively. And I think we saw the same. So basically, as Joan said, I think we overly underestimated how cheap we can acquire customers and how big the LTV is because another fact, which is a great pro enter contra in the European banking market, is it's hard to acquire customers that once you have them, they're incredibly loyal. Like they don't really churn. So this is why your LTV is always higher than you initially expect.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“After that, right? So it was incredibly obvious to everybody if you make trading for free in a great looking app, people will use it. It's going to be successful. But to come to that point where you have all those modes and it's defensible, that took the initial conviction and the initial entrepreneurial journey. And for that, we just wanted to have people who understand the product and to help us on the journey.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Most of the time, you don't have a choice. So I think you all see this obvious advice. You want to work with great individuals and superstars and broad capital, blah, blah, blah. But to be honest, nine out of ten founders don't have a choice at all, right? So basically take what you can. And I think the second one is, I'd say in hindsight back then we were in for really the entrepreneurial journey, meaning building that product, right? The rest we really didn't care about. So we were never motivated by money. We were never motivated by big numbers. We really wanted to build this product and to make it work and to have something which is actually there, right? And that fairy tale kind of kept you going through all the ups and downs of that journey, right? I'd say in hindsight, race as little as you can at a reasonable valuation and just really try to build something which is defensible modes, which is unique, and which has a true value proposition. Because to be honest, the moment we had the banking license, the moment we had the first 10,000 customers, no investor I met. The ones invested, the ones who didn't invest it, nobody ever questioned product market.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Can do it. And if we get to the point where we have maybe the first hundred thousand customers, it will go somewhere. And so we said, well, it's better to have a tiny shareholding of something big than a big shareholding of nothing. And so we did it. And then we raised 600,000 euros back then and sold 75% of the company.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, so again, going back in time a tiny bit. So, we start with Comrades Bank and they will give us some money, wet employees and stuff. And then they basically pulled the plug. One Sunday we would lay off eight people, unfortunately. And we moved to Berlin. And we bootstrapped from that onwards. And during that time, as I said, nobody would give us really money. But we got this trading competition going the first traction and people would use the app. And so we look for alternative ways of funding the business. And then we met many people who again rejected it. And then somebody said, well, you should meet this company in Dusseldorf in Germany. It's like a small high frequency brokerage company called Sino. And they are entrepreneurial. They understand the thesis and they have the guts to do it. And we met them. And I think they saw the potential and they were very eager to invest, but they said, well, I think we have leverage. And so it's either this or nothing. And we thought, okay, well, we're three years in, we have the confidence we can build it. We've seen it Commerce Bank what is required.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, we never tried to think about the big thing. If you would ask me back then, was it my inspiration to build a unicorn? No. We always told ourselves that as a brokerage business, you can be very profitable, meaning with 80,000, 100,000 clients. You can be a small profitable salary paying company. And that idea sounded much more feasible than just founding this behemoth with like multi-million clients. And we started very small, so we built a trading competition for students. So we took our money, we bought a few iPads, and we went to universities and we will make these training competitions where they could simulate the stock market, right? And all of a sudden we had 15,000 people using the product overnight. And obviously these things motivate you and keep you going.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you fail, it's always your mistake, right? So you're not here to blame any other person. So I think in hindsight, you obviously improved a lot about how we present the company, the mission, and how we understand our business. Let's travel back in time, right? 2015 Entry 6 just started, Revolut just started, right? So the entire idea of doing banking on your phone was quite novel and not really proven. Second, you're entering a market Germany where there's historically a very low quota of people investing in the first place, right? So only...”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This programming competitions, and he mastered the skill, and he won everyone he participated in. And so we won one of Commerce Bank, like the German bank with the yellow sign, and they then invited us to join their so-called startup garage, so their internal accelerator, so to say. And so we moved to Hamburg and we spent one year with them to develop that idea, and they would give us some money, and then one day in early 2017, they would say, well, we will not back this. We set it against it, so we're done. And so then we bootstrapped the rest between 2017 and 19. And once we had our banking license and the first 10,000 paying customers, the VCs were all very excited all of a sudden and wanted to invest.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of course. So I think, first of all, it was never really a decision from us, right? So we tried to raise many times. So between, I think, 2015 and 2019, I met over 200 VCs. I was rarely invited and every time we were invited, we almost never saw the partner. The usual story goes they just cancel the meeting five minutes before and then you may meet an intro, you may meet an analyst. And then you're pitching to them a very simple idea, right? That you believe that there's a pension gap. people are going to invest starting in Germany, you're 25 years of age, you're going to find a bank. And then everybody calls it bullshit, right? And says this is not going to work. As Joan said, nobody wants to invest. And it's heavily regulated and the potential is not there. And so nobody really gets anywhere close to writing a term sheet. And so during that time, we looked into alternative ways of kicking things off. And my co-founder Thomas, he's a gifted engineer. And at the beginning, he would participate in hackathons, you know.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure, says Christian, one of the co founders of Trade Republic. We started that journey nine years ago. Before that, worked in the investment banking and before that actually studied philosophy, so no clue how I ended up here, but it's a lot of fun.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Between, I think, 2015 and 19, I met over 200 VCs. I was rarely invited and every time we were invited, we almost never saw the partner. Nobody really gets anywhere close to writing a term sheet. And then somebody said, well, you should meet this company in Dusseldorf in Germany. And we met them, and they were very eager to invest, but they said, well, I think we have leverage. And so it's either this or nothing. And so we said, well, it's better to have a tiny shareholding of something big than a big shareholding of nothing. And so we did it. And then we raised $600,000 back then and sold 75% of the company.”
2024-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source