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Nikolay Storonsky

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25
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2021-04-12
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2021-04-12
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1
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  1. “I obviously don't like Elon Musk, but the thing I like about him not because he built great companies, but that he goes against the crowd. It takes character to tweet what he tweets publicly about regulators, about anything. So he is very opinionated, right? And he's not afraid to share his opinion, right? And for majority of people, it's a no-no, especially in current polarized society. But he does what he wants, right? And that's very attractive.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “I think it helps to be a bit competitive because it drives you if you don't achieve things, you become a better version of you trying to compete for things. Secondly, curious, I think being curious is very important. Not like watch movies on Netflix or like other movies, but just being curious about the world, about technology, how things work. And number three is desire to build something is very important. So desire to build something, to leave something behind you, I think it's fundamental”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Do a lot of spots, right? And I try to keep energy level very high. And as a result, if you're having a very high energy level, well, you remain calm. As a result, you produce the best decisions. Like reality, what happens when anything bad happens with a business or anyone? So people first lose energy because something happened and then they also become very emotional and as a result they produce a lot of wrong decisions. So the key is to stay calm and have high energy level from my point of view.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Thing is, fundamental shift, right? Because reality, if you think what happened before, you had yield generating deposits, so you could put money on deposit in the bank and making a 5, 6, 3 percent, whatever, it depends on the country. Number one. And number two, access to financial assets was not that accessible. You need to have a private bank, I don't know, with Swiss banks to be able to trade different asset classes, different stocks, different derivatives. Now what happened, deposits don't make you money. It just sits in your bank account. And some bank in Europe, they even charge you for deposits, right? Can you imagine it? And obviously now what happened is there are simple apps where you can upload money and start buying and selling ass yourself. So people try it because deposits, they charge the money or they produce zero yield for them. So they try it. And then they become hooked because it's exciting. It's much better than sitting on at least for many people than sitting on Facebook and going through feed, right? It became a new entertainment for people. So that's why I think there is a fundamental shift and it's not going to go away.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Many years ago I read red dialogue principles, right? Not the current one. The current one is too large, right? It's like 400 or 500 pages. So I bought it and I couldn't even read it. It's too large for me. So that's the problem with books. They put it on two or three or four good ideas in too many pages. You can actually make it much more dense, right? I liked Ray Dalio principles. Actually, before they became a book, because I remember on their website, Bridgewater, they published principles, right? There was simple PDF of 50 pages. And that's a book I liked because there was only 50 pages, it was so dense and it was not PR polished, right? Because obviously, you know, when he published a book, it became so kind of nicer, more kind of balanced and so on, but principles in the beginning, like 10 years ago, they were quite different. So I don't like the book, but I like PDF.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Yeah, but it was not about the money, it was more about, I don't know, a game, like in trading, it's more like a game. Obviously, the goal is to generate money, but you don't think about money as money, right? But money is a score or your P&L right in trading. And then in business or setting up your bank, money is just a tool for you to hire better people, spend more in marketing, so you just resource. My relationship with Miami, and I don't have a relationship with money.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Yes, it's very playbooked. Everything is playbooked, right? And then ultimately to run the business while we have many products. For each product, we have department of people.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Should be both, so it's not simply two dimensional, right? Because in majority of companies, how it works. To switch off growth, you simply spend less on marketing, right? As a result, you become more profitable. But then there are other dimensions. You can deprive certain products, you can deprive expansion, you can optimize certain costs. So our view is we optimize as much as possible gross profit. So we minimize costs, we optimize revenues on the one side, then we generate profits, and then all the profits we invest in marketing. So that's our philosophy.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “We want to grow as fast as possible and remain profitable. That's the best answer. So every single dollar of profits that we make, we want to invest in growth, but not go kind of in a red line”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “I think it's ahead of the whole planet in terms of number of the products, the ecosystem, the engagement, and then the reality where they were able to achieve it, I think, because of less strict regulation compared to other countries. Well, if you look at which art, they just shop these products every month probably, because they are not being approved by regulators, not regulated. Probably the things will change now with the recent news, but before I think they achieved impossible things to achieve in Western markets.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Is quite complex to launch, right? Because we're in a regulated industry. Plus, there are so many moving parts, we have so many products, so imagine we need to have a license for trading, for payments, for banking, for credit. You might even end up having separate entities in a country, plus all your centralized systems, for example, for transaction monitoring, fund borrowing, for know your customer and so on, they need to be configured to your local country. Basically, it's a huge project, right? I would say there are so many moving paths, at least like 30, 40, 50 moving paths, and they all need to be delivered in sync, and that's why it takes quite a long time to get things done.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Basically, you should budget in up to two years. That's reality. Obviously, some of the markets will launch faster. But ultimately, it can take up to two years in terms of capital. Again, depends how fast you want to go, but again, I would budget $10 to $20 million properly capitalizing entity in the market and hiring team and making sure country scales. But you know, as soon as you set it up, you hire a team and then growth is usually quite good in the country with zero marketing. But then if you add on top marketing, I'm pretty sure we can outgrow any local competitors in the majority of countries.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Well, US worked on the country for two years and then when we were ready to launch COVID hit, we still decided to go on with the launch because TNT worked very hard and it's live already for eight or nine months. Basically we launched a very limited product compared to what we have in Europe because we don't have trading, we don't have other products there. But as soon as we get trading license, we'll add all the products that we have on the Revolut for US market.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Well, for us it's very important because our vision is we want to build a global bank. And obviously sooner or later someone would do it and we want it to be us. So that's why we try to expand. Well, not in as many countries, but with reasonable speed in as many countries as possible. Because we've done it before, we have playbooks, we know how to do it. So we slowly add 510 countries a year.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Well, basically, the way we operate, we have many product teams, so they usually eight, 10 people, and then the team has all the resources in order to build a product. Then teams are mentioned in departments, and then effectively we give WOS or KPIs to departments every quarter, and then from department level it's being cascaded to team level, right? And then things that they do or roadmaps, they're being linked to team KPIs and team KPIs being linked to department KPIs and department APIs are being linked to company KPIs. So the result is Cascade, okay, what we want to achieve as a company, then we cascade it on department level, then we cascade it on team level, and then the performance is linked to what they achieved as a team.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “When we first started, right? We were not very sophisticated about it, it was more like very entrepreneurial approach. Someone thinks, oh, you know, I think that's a good idea. People get excited and we build it, right? And sometimes things don't work out, sometimes they work out now. We're a bit more scientific about it. So we just, basically we have standalone teams and people who just research what's going on in the world, pick up business models, pick up ideas, and we effectively prietized based on our resources, based on our infrastructure, based on our customers, which ideas or which business models or which products which are already there built in either standalone country or standalone product we want to implement as well. Plus on top of it we have our own ideas and again we go through kind of thought process in terms of how fast it will take us to build it what is pal potential there what is engagement potential there and so on to summarize before it was more like cut fill now it's a bit more sophisticated based on our internal ideas priorities plus what's going on in the world”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Well, it's our secret weapon, right? It's how we compete with other companies because ultimately all the businesses, what they do, they give products to people. And then the faster you can ship products, the faster you can iterate on products. So the more chances that you will win. As a result, last five, six years, we just perfected the speed and we're paying so much attention to speed and the quality of the product. Because I think ultimately product wins.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Ultimately, what I learned, right? Sometimes you go through a bad rocky path, right? Sometimes you go through good path. But the good thing is when you go through bad rocky path of your life, soon later it will end. That always added in my experience, so I trust it will end sooner or later. So simple that.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Depends how you define ambitious right for me, a bit about differently. I have certain goals for me, and these goals need to be interesting for me, right? Because again, I have a track record of achieving goals, and each new goal should be interesting for me, more complex than previous one. Yeah, maybe for some people, these goals would mean it's super ambitious and possible to reach, but for me, I have no track record of achieving goals. For me, it's interesting to reach. Just to give you maybe an example comparison, right? If you're a professional hiker, right, then you claim veritable mountains. Obviously, if you want to go to Everest, like for majority of people, it's just too...”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Think you need to be realistic, right? You yourself need to have a track record of achieving goals to be able to evaluate how difficult is this particular goal. In your head, you already need to have a playbook or template how you would solve this goal and approximately how much time and what kind of resources would it take. And then based on this estimation, you kind of adjust the goal based on the skill set or kind of seniority for persons with whom you work. It's very dependent on your experience. If you are very good at solving problems yourself and achieving goals, you'll be very good at evaluation how long will it take to achieve this goal and how many resources a person would need.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Today, I just give people goals. I always quantify goals so they are measurable and then I let them reach these goals. As simple as I don't even know if things are going smoothly, I can see on a weekly basis during business review, so during one-on-ones, I know they're slowly moving metrics, they're slowly achieving the goals. I give them all the freedom in the world. And then, you know, if I see that goals either not achieved or metrics are not moving, then I dive deep and try to understand what's going on. And then usually see that the problem with the leadership or my direct repose or there are some external situation or they need some help in terms of my knowledge or my playbooks, how to run the business. So I would say I'm giving goals, quantifying goals, staying away, but then diving deep in very fast if I think things are not progressing from week to week.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Is very important, right? If I look at all my friends who are entrepreneurs, they are all extremely competitive people, right? And I think it's kind of a character thing and people probably either born with it or not, right? Because I know some kids are very competitive, so some are not. And majority of entrepreneurs, successful ones, they are mad, they're extremely competitive.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Like when you do five, ten trades a day based on a tuition. Sooner later you realize the world doesn't work on the IT shirt. So you need somehow to plan it in a better way rather than your intuition. So I became very model driven and numbers driven. So think these are three things that I would say create a major impact on me.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Good question. I think he thinks I learned I became very thick skinned to anything William If you're on derivatives trading and then you know one day you lose $5 million $10 million you just become very thick skinned to any problem and become very calm headed right so thinking that there was lesson number one and training number one number two I guess it was extremely focused because a lot of people well at least in my experience they can't focus very fast right and they can't switch their attention and I think because I was in trading for seven years especially in complex derivatives like my attention spam you know I became very short but then it became very focused as well so I kind of you know dive deep into any complex matter than one minute to minute it just because of this training and I can switch between complex metals very quickly number three I became extremely I would say model driven and numbers driven rather than intuition”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Here are working on the bank. I just got pissed off with banking structures with banking managers, Bar and Marlene. At a certain point, I decided, you know what, I can do better than them. And I resigned inside of my own company.”

    2021-04-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Revolut Founder Nikolay Storonsky on His Leadership Style and Relationship To Ambition, His Biggest Lessons From Scaling Revolut Globally; What Worked, What Did Not & Why Speed of Product Shipment is The Most Important Thing · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source