The thing I think about most, especially when I'm on the go, but also when I'm sat here in the Diro of CS studio, is the WiFi internet that we have to work with. In fact, anytime I'm filming away from the studio, one of the first things I do is when I arrive, I open up an app and do a speed test to see how strong the signal is. And the number of screenshots I've sent to my team about WiFi signals at different locations is actually pretty crazy. It matters that much to me because it's such a competitive advantage to have Fast WiFi.
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Restrictions apply service not available in all areas. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you have heard the episode I did with Tom Blomfield. He was the former CEO and founder of Monzo Bank, one of the big FinTech Disruptor Banks here in the UK. And during that episode, he also tells us the story of his time at Starling Bank, the rival bank that he co-founded with Ann Bowden.
And that episode is dramatic. It should be a movie. They talk about their fallout in the episode Tom claims that anified 16 members of staff in the same day. So in this episode, Ann wanted to come in to tell her side of the story, but also to tell her story.
And it's an incredible story. It's an inspiring story. It's a story that doesn't quite make sense in the fact that she's achieved so much in an industry where she was an underdog at age when she also admits she is an underdog confronting stereotypes that make her an underdog. And despite the odds being stacked against her, she's built a multi-billion dollar bank here in the UK.
It really is a crazy story. One that I believe one day will be a Netflix show. Think about that. Two people came together to take on the banking world.
They came together and found a bank called Starling Bank. They had this major blow up. They separated and starts again. And they both build incredibly successful multi-billion dollar banks individually.
It is one hell of a story. It twists, it turns and it inspires you. So that further ado, I'm Stephen Parlup. And this is the Dario for CEO.
I hope nobody's listening. But if you are, then please keep this yourself. Humble beginnings. Do you think that's an accurate phrase to describe the start of your life?
Yeah, it was humble. My father worked in the Snail Works. My father came home from work with newspapers, Andres Arm, or Greasy from sort of doing hard work. My mum worked in the local department store.
And we were happy. President Susses? No, only child. My parents married late.
My father came back from the Second World War. Found his dream wife and they had a really, really happy marriage. And school life? I went to local comprehensive school.
It's a very, very new school. I was brought up in my grandmother's house with my parents and grandmother in a older house and the edge of a big, big council estate. And in the middle of this huge council estate, they built this new comprehensive school. And it was not a very good school.
It was very new. I was one of the first children to go to university. And to be honest, there was a bit of a stigma from coming from that area. And you were smart, right?
Because I know you went on to computer science. I know people do computer science, our smart houses. So you were definitely smart, right? Yeah.
I think I did most of my studying myself. The school couldn't do a lot of to help, to be honest. When I had my own levels, I think everybody was quite shocked by how well I'd done. But I did most of my studying by, you know, by my own textbooks and reading myself.
The house was, on day, an academic home. My father left school at 14, my mother at 15. There were no books at home except holiday brochures. We lived to go on holiday.
We were a very, very happy family. We had a touring caravan. We went all over Europe. But it was very unusual for a daughter of that home to be interested in studying.
Why? Why? I was studying or why was unusual for? Yeah.
I think the, my parents didn't push me. My parents believed were very liberal. You know, they, you know, all the kids of the neighborhood sort of hung out in our house. It was a very happy home.
We were very, very fortunate to have just a probably a little bit more money than everybody living around us. But there was no emphasis on education. That was something I did. You know, I went to the local academic bookshop.
And I remember sort of taking a book off the shelf, you know, what to do at 14? You know, what subjects you choose. This was all much, this was me choosing these things, not my parents. And you were choosing those subjects because you, you enjoyed, you intrinsically enjoyed learning or because you wanted to become super wildly successful as a mega entrepreneur?
I wanted a job with a briefcase. I wanted a job in an office. I didn't actually know anybody that worked in an office. My inspiration was from television.
It was very much seeing people on television and seeing that people had jobs in London, in the glamorous places, were doing interesting things. And I could do that. And my parents are very supportive. They gave me as much money as I wanted to spend in the bookshop.
Yeah. And they went out and bought me a 24 volume set of Encyclopedia Britannica. The only problem was it was 1953 edition. Right.
So all my knowledge was somewhat sort of outdated. But it was great home. And we did interesting things. And I did well in school and I went to university.
At that point, I'm guessing you didn't have a huge, from what you said, a desire to become entrepreneur. I never thought I'd ever be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is something which is quite recent. You know, coming out to school, it was very much, I wanted a job that was scientific or, or interesting where I could, I actually wanted to be a scientist.
I actually wanted to be doing something with chemistry and computers, whatever. And my mum said to me, you're going to try for one normal job, you know, apply for a job in a bank. And I did. And the competition for the job was huge.
There was thousands of people applying for a job at Lloyd's Bank to be a computer specialist, a graduate computer specialist. And I got the job. So when I got the job, I had to take it. This is post university.
Yeah. Why did you choose computer science university? And am I right in thinking? Because it's still kind of the case now.
That was a very male-dominated subject to choose. Yeah. It was almost all men. My father thought I could possibly be a metallologist at the same works.
What's a metallologist for some of these metals? Metals are made. Right. Yeah.
But there was no, there was no concept of home of jobs winning or jobs for men. That didn't really exist. I came from a home where my mother was very capable and my grandmother was very capable. So me becoming a computer scientist and going to Sondra University to study where there were all men.
It wasn't something that really fazed me. And you go off to university, study computer science, you do pretty well at university, I'm guessing. Yeah, okay. Yeah, you did great.
I'm sure. And then you get this job at Lloyd's Bank in the graduate program and you'll never how long? Four and a half years. I did four and a half years before I quit.
I really thought I'd have four and a half year thing going on. Right. So I was four and a half years at Long Bank. You know, great job.
You know, so did the branch thing, did all the jobs. And then my first boss told me, you better tone down your aspirations. Otherwise, you'd get very, very frustrated. And that didn't work with me.
I was really, really determined that I was going to get on. So I did four and a half years at Lloyd's Bank. I did five years at Standard Jotty Bank. I did three and a half years at Price Waterhouse, studying banks and advising banks.
And I went to UBS in the city and then I had to Switzerland, five years out in Switzerland, working for a big bank. I joined a big insurance company, worked all over the world, worked in Chicago a bit, and then joined a bank in Amsterdam, AB and Amro, worked in all sorts of places from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan to all the places around the world, got quit again. Spent some time in FinTech before going into Alad Irish banks as chief operating officer. So that's stint across all those different banks that you worked in, across all of these different territories.
How long was that in total? 30 odd years. So I did, yeah, I started in 1981 and I quit to become an entrepreneur in 2014. That's very atypical.
Oh, yeah, it's very, very unusual. I've also done different things in the jobs. I keep meeting people and people go, I know an anode and she worked in insurance. And I go, that's me.
And I go, no, no, no, no, this is an anode and she worked in just a computer scientist. She did computing things. That's me. So I've had a long career doing lots of different things in different companies, but I was a corporate person.
When I quit becoming an entrepreneur, that was something I'd never done. And did you consciously make the decision that I don't want to do the corporate life stuff anymore? I want to start my own business and give it a shot. And when you did that, what age were you?
54. At 54 years old, you decide that you want to go it alone and give up all of that corporate stuff and all the perks, some of the perks, the stability, the security of the corporate world. And yeah, I was getting up every morning thinking somebody has to do something about this banking industry. I was sort of ashamed to be a banker.
I wasn't quite comfortable with it. And the banking industry was, you know, hadn't hadn't embraced tech. Everything was changing and the banking industry was looking backwards rather and forwards. And I started thinking, look, you know, I've got a bit of independence now.
I can do whatever I want. I really like to do my own business. And perhaps I'll start a dress shop, right? You know, I quite like fashion, you know, pass out to a dress shop.
And I realized I know nothing about fashion. I know a lot about banking and what I should do is start a bank. And but nobody ever starts banks. No one goes from I'll do a dress shop, maybe a bank.
Yeah, I, the only thing I know about is banks and how banks are run. And, you know, people who start banks, well, they don't start banks. People don't start banks. And if they do start a bank, they are probably a billionaire.
And therefore, you know, I was very different, you know, and when I started talking to people about, you know, I'm going to start a bank. You know, I could see people thinking I was totally crazy. Of course. You know, first of all, people don't start banks and a five foot tall Welsh woman definitely doesn't start a bank.
Yes. I hate to support this there types, but I wouldn't start a bank. Like if I was a, you know, 40 year old billionaire white male, that was six foot 10, let alone a slightly shorter Welsh woman. So just one of you, because I really, this is purely for my curiosity here, because I'm trying to understand how you like, you know, because I don't have the guts.
So you're 50, 50 or two years old, you're currently in your corporate job. And whilst you're at the job, you start thinking about starting the bank. Okay. And at some point you hand in your resignation, at what point did you hand in the resignation?
Was it while you were still in the job and the bank had started moving, or did you leave and then start start putting in the foundations? No, I decided very quickly, I left. And within weeks, I was working on the new proposition. It's only last weekend I started unpacking the boxes.
I came back in Ireland, I was in Ireland, and I decided, you know, you know, get my notice in, you know, started the whole proposition, you know, book the removal of vans to bring you back over, and then, you know, put them in the house and immediately when knocking on doors, it's only now I'm finding some time to unpack those boxes. Wow. How many years later? Seven years.
Thank you. So you leave, you start knocking on doors. How did you feel emotionally when you leave the corporate system, you're having your resignation and you know, you're going, but you don't have your next move like solidified, you're still building that thing, you know, they describe entrepreneurship as throwing yourself off the cliff and like building a paraglider as you fall. How did you feel emotionally that is?
I think you have to cope with the fact that you no longer have that business card. You no longer have a title. And you know, I thought it was going to be relatively easy to raise money for starting back, you know, sort of, yes, I raised money in a job before. I could knock on the photos and they would give me the money I needed.
It was incredibly difficult. I, you know, going into lots of offices, basically saying, I have this great idea. Okay. It's an awesome idea.
I'm going to build a bank, I'm going to build a technology for scratch. It's going to be really fair to customers. They're going to have a whole new way of engaging with the people that could serve. And I'm going to take market share of Barclays and HSBC and Lloyd.
That's all I need is some money. People would, some people would tell me to my face that I was never going to do it. You know, the people thought they were being kind would say, you know, you've never been an entrepreneur and you've never run a bank as a CEO before. And those two things are things you can't, you know, raise money for.
So it's tough. And yeah, there was a lot and lots of knocking on doors, lots of people telling me it was impossible. And in some cases, it was really hard to carry on, you know, sort of sending emails. But I was determined.
And even the glimpse of people, somebody telling me something positive was enough to drive me on to the next meeting. And was there a blow at that time that felt the hardest? An email, a meeting? Yeah, I think that there was one meeting with a set of investors where I just didn't have any of the answers.
You know, you've been there. You're an entrepreneur. Okay. They ask you all these questions.
And I didn't have any of the answers. You know, hadn't got as far as, you know, coming up with that part of the plan. And that felt, you know, that felt awful. But you pick yourself up and you figure out how you're going to find the answers and you find the answers by asking people for help.
You ask people for help that are in the industry. You ask people that help before help that you work with in the past. There's a stereotype that people that build technology are from Silicon Valley, they're like young white men, you know, that probably went to Harvard or something like that. You buck that trend.
Yeah. When you're walking into those rooms and having those conversations, where you were aware that there was certain prejudice probably acting against you. Oh, definitely. You know, people assume that I'm not technical.
People assume that I'm not, you know, capable of coding. You know, there's code running in banks, big banks today that I wrote. People assume that you have to be from Silicon Valley, you have to be in your twenties or your thirties and look and sound a certain way to build a tech company. He don't look like me or sound like me.
But I was determined to build a tech company. And that was very, very hard for people to, to appreciate. What was the driving force that spurred you on regardless of the resistance that you clearly encountered then? What was it that made you, you're not going to keep going?
I'm going to carry on knocking. I think that at that time, I was talking to venture capitalists and investors about this concept of new bank. Yeah, it is possible to build a new bank. It is possible to be a bank that actually has a lower cost base as a different way of relating to customers.
It is possible to do this. I kept hearing those same statements replayed in different ways to different routes. You know, occasionally I go on to a VC sort of website from Silicon Valley and somebody to say roughly the same thing. There weren't any new banks at that stage.
There wasn't anybody else doing it. But I felt that there was, whether it was an echo chamber, whether it was getting my own ideas back to me, or other people are thinking the same way. I felt I was onto something. I felt that it was possible for people to create and organizations that are going to change things.
And you've never done it before. So would you describe yourself as someone that has a high level of self-belief at that point? I've managed to pull off things throughout my career where people thought I couldn't go to the next stage. Throughout my career, people have looked at me and thought, you know, okay, you should probably get one promotion.
Do you want to get any more? Those people were normally, well, working in my department a few years later. So I've always managed to go one step beyond or a couple of steps beyond what people expected. When I started this venture, I was surrounded by people who knew how this new world worked, they knew how venture capital worked, they knew how you behaved, how you talked, how you pitched your ideas.
I had to learn that. And I was as a woman and as somebody who comes from the corporate world, I was not used to overselling my ideas. One of the things about Starlings, the whole journey is that we tend to over-deliver because deep down, you tend to underplay your ideas or underplay your success. And therefore, you know, Starlings consistently over-delivered and surprised people over the years.
Is that a stereotypical, stereotypical, or typical feminine quality? This idea of like, because people talk a lot about the reason why some of the reason why women in business struggle to get promotions is they're less likely to equate and oversell themselves and demand promotions in the same way that men do. So I'm wondering that like that conservatism and that over-delivering, but not over-promising is something that's quite typical of women. Yeah, I think it's a question of it's a very, very difficult balance.
If you come over as arrogant, if you come over as demanding, you're not likeable. If you too soft and to underplay what you have or what you're doing, you're too soft, you know, you can't get it right. But I had to learn how to sell the ideas and it took years. It's interesting.
I don't like to do much on gender differences, but I think I'm asking that question as well because I remember a VC friend also a guy called, I think it's Chamath, but a guy called Chamath, who's one of the big investors, and he says that the female-founded businesses in his portfolio always have, Kevin O'Leary as well from Shark Tank, he said his female founders under promised and over-deliver consistently. Like he said, when I looked at all of my portfolio companies, I think he's got 4250, the female-led businesses were outperforming significantly because they were under-promising and over-delivering. So hiring those first few people, styling bank, what was that process like, and re- sort of laying the foundations of that business? Well, it was all about the phoning up people I knew, explaining what I was going to do, and the idea, and really working with every organization I knew, trying to get favours.
The traditional venture capital road wasn't open to me. Actually going to VCs and saying, can I raise 50,000, 300,000? It wasn't open to me because I wasn't like the other people on those schemes. I had to really work with big consultancy firms and tell them that I had this idea to start a new bank and they were going to miss out if they didn't back me.
Unfortunately, I didn't have any money to pay them. I would pay them once I raised the money or would they help me? And some of those big firms decided back me. Lots of people in those firms took big personal risk because most people in those big consulting firms thought that this was just a totally crazy idea.
She wants to take on Barclays, ha ha ha. It'll never happen. No, no, let's try it. We may learn something on the way.
She got all these crazy ideas. You may be able to take them and sell them to other customers. Let's just help her. I must admit, I hung out in their customer lounges for years.
Really? Yeah. Just chilling. Interesting.
So you raise money in a slightly unconventional way considering the industry. Then you start calling people that you want to hire from the banking world that you've met or? Yeah, I've found them up. I've always been quite an unusual boss.
I've always been quite different to the people that I work with and at an organization. People tend to be quite loyal to me and I've found them up and say, yeah, I've got a great idea. We're going to start this bank. Do you fancy coming to work with me and raise some money?
Whatever. And that's how the team got together. So he was in the core team? Yeah.
Okay. So there was a couple of core teams. Okay. There was the first core team was the bunch that eventually went to to found Monzo.
Tom's, which is right about in the book and Tom's been here. So that was the first cohort. Yeah. And then Tom left with the team and I started again.
I started again in exactly the same way. Foning people up and say, yeah, I'm still trying to start this bank. No, please, please come and help me. So Tom, in particular, Tom obviously sat here.
He did the podcast, which I'm sure you've had. And you've written about Tom in the book as well. How did you come to meet Tom? I met Tom at a dinner.
I met Tom at a dinner in 2011 when he was working with Go Cardless. And I I spotted him as being a very clever, funny, charismatic individual that was running a business and we kept in touch. So when you started starting, you needed it. Was it CTO?
He came on as a CTO? So I need a CTO. I could have a mentor to Tom. Tom had gone to the state to work for a group.
We kept in touch. I met him a coffee once or twice. And when he was back coming to the UK, I found him up and said, well, he contacted me. He says he's back.
And I hired him as CTO. So he then builds out the technical team. I'm guessing that's typically what he's doing. Yeah, we started hiring developers.
Yeah. Okay. And was there, because I was well-written, that there was a bit of a fallout here. Yeah.
Taking me on that journey. When did that, how did the relationship start? And when was there friction? It's one day Tom decides to go.
And fortunately, we were about to take funding, which meant that the D was not going to happen. And basically at that particular point, the funding and the team fell apart. Looking back of what happened, Tom had a really, really tough time with Monzo. I feel for him, perhaps that we could have stayed together as a team.
And I could have done what I'm good at. And perhaps Tom could have done what he was good at. But that's history. Both Monzo and Starling have done really, really well.
And having a bit of competition does actually lead to a probably better industry. The Klana founder that came on said a bit about after pay as well. I read that there was a funding deal early on, but you pulled out the funding deal because one of the founders was involved in a crime. Yeah.
It was, yeah. So you, Starling Bank was going to take funding. And you pulled out of the deal because one of the founders of the fund investing was involved in a serious crime or because Starling was involved in a serious crime? I couldn't quite.
No, Starling was not, you know, this was, this was, this was a fund we're going to take investment about from. And one of the founders of that term didn't have the reputation that we wanted. Starling is a very, very, something we have a mission. We believe in doing the right thing.
And I think it's very, very important that we, you know, especially in those early days, we maintain and attrue to our vision. And that caused a disagreement between yourself and that. It wasn't that. It wasn't that.
There was a culture clash around a corny video I heard that was introduced. I'm trying to understand what, because I get, I understand a point where founders part ways, but typically that there's lots of small things that happen leading up to that point, little points of friction or disagreements. And what were those points of disagreement? I think Tom and I have much more in common than people think.
You know, so Tom and I often sit on panels now, right? So, so it's a panel of four and, you know, and they go, great idea of left Starling and Monzo on the panel. I mean, have two traditional banks in the middle, you know, about these employees, whatever. And, and there's lots of questions.
And somebody asked the question. And there's going to be two answers. There's going to be one set of answers from Tom and myself. We tend to have the same view on things and then a different answer from the, from the incumbent banks.
And sometimes I can see, you know, I look across the panel, catch sort of Tom's eye and, you know, I answer he answers. There's lots more we have in common. And it's a really, it's a real pity. It, you know, it ended the way it did.
You know, you know, there's lots of places in the book where I talk about, you know, sort of, you know, Tom's intellect and Tom's energy. It's a real pity that ended the way it did. But they came a day where you turned to Tom and you knew there was something wrong. And you say to him, you know, Thomas there is there, you don't seem happy about something here.
And, and he responds that he's sick of your knee, Jack behavior. How did that feel? What was he referring to when he says sick of your knee, Jack, I think that, you know, businesses are very, very stressful. I think Tom, you know, is, is an individual that sometimes has tough times.
And, you know, sort of every single conversation between founders on the wrong day about the wrong thing could possibly lead to that sort of breakup. But wow, what a story, eh? How would you describe the differences in your personalities? Because it seems like that's probably at the heart of the clash.
I don't think different personalities lead the clashes. Interesting. I think that people have different personalities working together can create great businesses. I think Tom, you know, went on, you know, to, to, you know, sort of lead a great group at Monso.
And, you know, and I've listened to his, the show where he talked to you and he had a tough time. When you heard that, how did you feel about the way that the events were accounted? You honestly want to know that? Yeah, it's a very, very difficult, very difficult question to answer.
And I chose Tom as a CTO. I still believe he is an extremely talented individual. And he has, you know, grown a great business. Of course, starting as a better business.
But isn't it great that what happened, you know, the story of, you know, it's a, yeah, you know, two individuals come across each other. They meet, you know, sort of one decides to start a bank high as the other person. There's a falling out. Both businesses going on to really change things.
Well, it's, it's the story of digital banking in the UK. I keep wondering if, you know, if that story never happened, would we've all got so much, you know, sort of inches in the press, to be honest? It was quite a story. How did you feel when you heard the way that he recounted the events?
You listening to it, coming through your ears and thinking. It's the first time I heard it, but I knew that that story was being retold in places where I couldn't hear it. But I'm quite philosophical about this. We also the world and a story in different ways.
And yeah, you know, it's a, it's another piece in the story of the Starling Monzo journey. And at this time when you and Tom having a fallout within Stalin and you've realized, I guess, that you know, you have different ideas and perspectives about how things should be done and where they should be going. You hold a crisis meeting, you come together, I guess you have these meetings, I guess, because you're trying to discuss a way, a way through, a way to a positive outcome. I think at some point you realize that there's not going to be a positive outcome and one of you is going to have to leave and then you offer up your resignation.
So you offer to, to quit styling back. Yeah. I, you know, and that's, you've talked about, you know, how women have differently to men. I was prepared to give up stalling.
I was prepared to give up my part in stalling for the good of stalling. And that was a very stupid thing to do. Why? Because it was my business.
It was my idea. I'd got the business to where it was, but I was volunteering to give up my role in stalling because I wanted stalling to succeed. Tom, I think, didn't think I was capable. Somebody that, like me, that has spent so many years in corporate life that I wasn't capable of delivering and building a big tech company.
And I built a big tech company. Yeah. So he didn't have that faith in me, but I realized that I could do it and made it happen. Specifically, in those days, you decide that you're going to step away for the great to go for the business.
Adorable thing to do, some would say, it appears that it's one of the decisions you regret in hindsight, getting to that place. I'm just gauging by your reaction. Then it seems like it's something where you look back and think, why did I? Yeah, I should never have volunteered to sign.
I should never have volunteered to go. That was me saying that the survival of stalling was was more important than me. And both things are important. My part in stalling and the survival of stalling.
And what was it that changed your mind? Well, I think as I write in the book, I sort of retreated. I went to a coffee shop, went to Starbucks, and met a guy that I'd seen in Starbucks every Sunday for the, you know, for the previous 10 years. And, you know, he's a tech entrepreneur.
And he came to me and he sat opposite me and he said, you know, chat about things. And I said that I'd left away from stalling because that was the only way the business would succeed. And he said to me, what are you going to do next? And I said, I'm probably going to start another bank.
And he said, well, you don't have to start another bank. You can go back in and take stalling back. And I realized that I'd made a mistake that I needed, you know, I desperately wanted to create stalling. I desperately wanted to lead stalling.
And I had to take stalling back. And I literally ran out of the coffee shop. And I can see the street in front of me now. And I got into the car driving to London and took stalling back.
And what did that mean taking it back? It meant that I had to be, you know, totally, I had to talk to people and say that I had a vision of creating something which is an organization that does things in a right sort of way. You know, I'd been a banker for 30 odd years. And I was ashamed to be a banker.
And this idea of stalling was to do things my way. And I really wanted to lead the organization to where it is at the moment. So I had to make that clear. And I took back stalling.
But the consequence was that I was on my own. I was on my own in the office. So you walk back in the office and say to the team, I say to Tom that you're withdrawing your resignation? No, by then it refused to accept my resignation.
Because it's a long story. I don't want to go into all the details. But it refused exactly because, you know, of certain things. So I stepped in and took control of stalling.
And so I heard around this time you'd also been burgled at home. And this kind of exacerbated, I think, some of the emotional components of decision making. Yeah. It's an act you know, this, you know, this happened about the time of the doesn't burglaries.
And, you know, and why, you know, why that's in the book is that we, you know, we see those leaders of businesses, we want to be nerds, but we also human. And a burglary is quite personal. And how did that impact you and your decision making around that time? I think it was tough around that time.
But all issues and all things you do in a business are complex. And that was an added complication of that time. Just adds more to the mind and more things to think about and makes you feel a little bit unstable, I guess, I'm struggling your home, I think, has that psychological destabilization. While you were away, you'd have to do a notice at Starling and you'd left the office while you're away, I guess, Tom's running the office, is that accurate?
And, you know, the way that it's framed and pressed is that there's some kind of like, who that's gone, where, you know, control of the company's been seized from you in like a kind of Loki hostile manner. Is that a to accurate? I think you have to read the book. You know, there's a, you know, I, the book is the story, what happened.
There were lots of notes and emails taken at the time. And this was all written from my notes and emails written at the time. And I think it's up to the readers to decide, you know, what really went on. And you go in and you say, you know, I'm not going to resign.
I want to leave this company, I've got a vision for the company in this future. And that means that you have to fire Tom. Essentially, that's the decision you make. You say, I'm the CEO, still, I'm starting bank.
So I'm going to let you go. I'm going to rebuild my own team. And the way that, you know, when Tom's that he wants to make to me, he says that you fight the whole team. Is that accurate?
Okay. The story is that we lost the funding. You can't, if you can't pay people, it's very unfair to let them work. We were very, very honest with the people that unless we could raise funding, they weren't going to be any jobs.
And I think it's documented extremely well in the book about all the ins and outs. And it's quite a story. And so you lose funding because Tom's quitting. And obviously when people invest in companies, they're investing in teams and people's and CTOs across the world, the person that's building this out on the street.
So that's why the funding goes through it. You realize at this point, I've got to basically build this thing back from scratch. I'm guessing you had an inclination that there was a greater allegiance towards Tom with it, with existing cohort people. No, not really.
No. Okay. It was more just, you basically weren't going to be able to pay for them because the funding had been pulled. Yeah.
So that day, so you, you know, Tom leaves, the team are, I'll let go as well. And they go with Tom. And you know, that starts the story of Monzo. And as he's described it, they start their own bank.
And that's what we now call this Monzo that day after you walk into the office. So I'm guessing, I don't know whether it's a physical officer or a medical, but you walk in, you're alone, pretty much. Is there anyone else in the room? Is there anyone else installing as an employee at this point?
That's me. Just you. And how did that feel going from, you know, the climb, climb, we're building something here to grandeur. I'm very good at picking myself up.
You know, sort of at that particular point, I was feeling, well, I haven't got the responsibility now of having to raise money to pay these people. I can take my time now to find a new investor or I can build a new team. And it didn't take long before I was, well, is it gentlemen called Alan Chandler? Yeah, who turned up two days later and stayed and stayed working for no salary at all for nearly a year.
What was, what had you built at that point in terms of on the day when Tom and the new ones they crowded left? What had you actually achieved as a company? What was their technology? Was there?
Nothing from the technology side have been really done. We had a banking application. So when you when you apply for a bank, you have to have a banking application and it was in boxes. So, you know, so we had a banking application.
We didn't really have much tech. Okay. So your friend comes in, he offers to do the P45s for the stuff that just left and just to sort of give your hand. And then you start hiring again.
A lot of people would quit at that point. And a lot of people would give up. That's a pretty significant blow as far as I'm concerned. How many people had left total?
16. 16 people. That's a pretty significant blow to, you know, it might be time to go back to corporate world now. Did I not crush your mind?
Not really. I got to a state of having almost having a banking license. I had the idea. I'd learned a lot.
I knew what we needed to do. It didn't take me long. And I was starting again. You say that like it's so easy.
Like it's just so effortless. And I know it's not. It was humiliating. Okay.
It was humiliating reading in the press what had happened. Because the story's been told in the press and the story's been told now. And not actually what happened. But you know, that's history.
You got to get on and you got to sort things out and you got to move on. And I was, yeah, I was up for it. I was going to do it again. You seem reluctant to correct false stories.
Yeah. That's clearly a decision you've made. Yeah. I think that what I don't want to get into is he said that, you know, she said this, you know, I I've written a book, which is, you know, which is a very accurate account of what happened.
And my side of the story and people allowed to have different sides of the same story. That's okay. But I wanted to tell my story. Your friends, that stopped by the office.
Yeah. And give you a hand. How emotionally important was that? How grateful are you to them?
I will be forever, ever grateful to Alan. I think that the one person to come in and be somebody who's said, yeah, this happened. But you know, you're going to start again. That's fine.
And I think one of the symbolic things that happened was that in the early weeks, you know, when they left, you know, Tom and the team had left all their debris behind, you know, sort of, and they had a hell of a lot of debris. I went out one day to do some fundraising. And when I came back, Alan had collected all the mugs and the odd socks and, you know, the, you know, all the various medications they were all taking. And it cleared all up and thrown it all away.
And the office was clear of the old world. And we could start again. And that was quite symbolic. And yeah, it was, I sometimes think if Alan had not come in, you know, would it have been so easy?
And I never know. But that was a start of a new team. And you know, that team, you know, the, you know, the 18, the team that left with the B team. There she is.
Was, you know, we attracted people that were, that sought out, Stalin, you know, this is woman is going to build a bank and she's going to do all these things. And they turned up and they were awesome. Okay, so the team have left and cleaned up the office. Is there, is there not a moment in you where you consider packing it in?
Is there not a moment where you think, you know what, this is April the 1st. April the 1st. That's when, you know, that's when I accidentally had an email from the team that left. And that was difficult.
You accidentally had an email? Yeah. You weren't meant to be copied on it? I don't know.
I never know whether I was meant to be copied on it or not. But they were making fun of me. And I thought, well, is that the day I'm going to give up? But I said, nope, you know, I went back in the office the following day and carried on.
Making fun of you in terms of your management skills, you're something you don't know said or very personal things. No, it's a question of, you know, you have to read the book about it, but it was a prank about them being arrested. But you have to read the story to understand the nuance. But that was the only day that I thought, you know, can I carry on?
And that lasted an hour. But I was absolutely determined. We upset really met you now? I was panicking about them.
I was worried about them. Why? I was worried about the fact that they could be in real trouble. And yeah, I hired these people.
They were friends for years. The, and I like them. You can't suddenly, you can't suddenly cut off all connection with people that you worked with, even though this thing had happened to me. Did it put a fire in your belly?
That wasn't there before. Because, you know, events like that can kind of send you one or two ways. Oh, and they can kind of send you both ways at the same time. But they typically, if we're just kind of broad strokes, they can devastate you to the point where you don't get out of bed.
Or they can motivate you to the point that you worked two times as hard. Nothing was going to stop starting succeeding after that happened. It's the work twice as hard. Yeah.
And did you, did you really, did you, were there moments like, where you, you know, you just put that extra effort in and you, you know, become a little bit more determined because of that, like, the moments you can think of, because I know that I'm a human being. I don't care. If I was in that situation, I swear to God, I'd have a picture of their face on the wall. My team would be hearing about it every five seconds.
That's the guy I am. Like it or not. Don't care. I do that about all the competition we have.
It motivates me and it is what it is. You don't have to like me. So I'm asking the question, like, did they become a real significant competitive driving force in your life? Okay.
As a woman, it can't be bitter. Okay. You can't show that bitterness. Why?
You can't. You have to be, you know, you have to internally put your energies into, into starting, you know, starting, starting succeeded. Starting is a successful business that I'm terribly proud of. And yes, when I take a lot of inspiration from other people's books and whatever, most, most businesses have a day near death moment.
It happens so often that the best businesses, the best entrepreneurs have had times when they lost it, they almost lost it, but they recovered. This was mine. And it played out very publicly. And I learned a lot from it.
And I decided to continue. And I think, Starling and me are better for it. When you started to rehire the new team, I'm guessing you made different hiring decisions in terms of, because of what happened, did it influence the type of people that you brought into the business for their chapter two? Not necessarily.
I think that I didn't set out to get a different set of personalities. I could focus on getting more qualified people and hire caliber people, because I had a better business proposition. It was, you're in 18 months in, you know, it wasn't a blank sheet of paper. It was a fully formed proposition, but it almost raised money, where we had an application for the banking license that was almost fully formed.
So it was less risk for those people coming in. And I also spent 18 months figuring this thing out. I was better at selling the idea. So the second time around, I could bring in a, you know, I don't want this to be derogatory on, you know, Tom or whatever.
I hired a, I hire caliber, more appropriate set of people for the problem we had to solve. I think that's, I think that's a natural thing. I think even in, you know, Monzo's business, I'm pretty sure when I had the conversation with Tom, he speaks about hiring, you know, hiring a different caliber of person to meet an evolving business challenge, especially, I know, particularly Monzo's case, they did start bringing in people from like the banking world and stuff like that. And even in my business, I talk a lot about how we did the exact same thing.
I, at the very start, didn't quite know the caliber of talent that I needed or the, you know, their experience. And in year three of my business, I realized that the first one or two years of hires that I'd made weren't adequately experienced in solving the problem I had to solve. And also the type and scale of problem you have to solve evolves, right? When you're one, two years old, it's a different set of problems to when you're like a thousand employees, right?
So that makes perfect sense. Pivotal moments then. So chapter two of Starling funding. What was the pivotal moment with getting, getting the money in the door?
It was very, very difficult. Yeah, it was, right. But two years in, I was approached by a family office. And I wouldn't return the calls.
Okay. You know, I was absolutely determined that I was going to have a VC, these people I knew, it's going to be in these well-known firms, or you know, my investment bankers are going to find me this sort of investor. But I was approached by a family office that had seen an article about Tom in Bloomberg and had investigated what's going on in the new bank scene in the UK and wanted to talk to me. And I started conversations with them.
And it took a while for me to actually engage with them. I'd never heard of them. And I wasn't going to talk to people I didn't know. Anyway, I ended up going on a plane to the hammers.
Oh, that's when you know they're rich. It was a yacht, wasn't it? It was a yacht. And spent three days being interrogated by a gentleman called Harold McPike, who was an algorithmic trader.
And he asked me the most complex questions that anybody had ever asked. He was really into the detail. And yes, at the top of the four, I joined him on his yacht. And how big was this yacht?
The big yacht. It was a big yacht. And yeah, he asked me lots and lots of questions about me, about the business. And it was very, very detailed.
And at 1115 in the evening, he offered me 48 million pounds for 66% of the company. 66%. I read that he said he said something to you like, I'm not going to give you a 3 million. Yeah, I was trying to raise 3 million.
I was trying to raise 3 million. That's all I needed was 3 million to get to getting the banking license. So the idea was to raise 3 million and then 15 million and 30 million. I only wanted the 3 million.
I hadn't raised a penny. The only money that got into the business was my money. So it was impossible to raise money. And he said, yeah, so he said, no, I'm not going to give you 3 million.
I'm going to give you 48. That's like Chris Taren from Unsomelina. That's a huge amount of money. That's also 66% of your business.
Tough. And at that particular point, you know, all the other things that you're working on, all the other leads are going to go. You may have 40, 50 different leads you're working on. You're going to accept this offer and sort of somebody else now controls the company.
But with 48 million, you have a situation where you can build a test best take in the world. So, no, I've been doing this for two years and it was really difficult. And I had somebody who really understood what I was going to do was super intelligent, actually believed in my conviction I could do this. But I was have to give up 66%.
But it would mean like a bill, something that nobody else had ever built. I mean, in that moment, he's valuing what is, and correct me if I'm wrong here, essentially an idea. Yeah, it was a 16 page deck. He's valuing a 16 page deck at 72 million.
How long did you have to think about that, Susan? Probably about 30 seconds. And how do you feel about it? Because a lot of people look back on those fundraising decisions.
It seems that every start to bunch of my regrets, how they value their business at the start, because they always, especially when it becomes a multi-billion dollar company, they feel like they saw themselves short. How do you feel about it? He's not listening. Do you think the department is on this massive year?
I think that it is more and more important to actually create this vision. I was so excited that I can now start. And we eventually signed the deal on the 21st of December and submitted the banking license on the 22nd of December. It was finally, we could start.
It was hugely exciting. Did you celebrate? Well, I couldn't actually celebrate, but we didn't actually have a term sheet for another three days. So it was in the Saturday night.
I was flying back and I had the term sheet an hour before picking up the flight. But once you signed the time sheet, it was all signed off. So you never celebrate term sheets. You celebrate getting the money in the bank.