Lenny's Podcast · A 4-step framework for building delightful products | Nesrine Changuel (Spotify, Google, Skype)
David Senra · Oct 25Competition, Intensity & Building a $115 Billion Global Bank | Nik Storonsky, Revolut
Runs as a numbers-driven machine on one ledger, live in 38 countries and adding 10 to 15 markets every one to two years, aiming for number one in 100. Gross margin was negative for 3 to 5 years before reaching 80%, and it waited almost 5 years for its UK banking license after applying with 7 million customers.
Tips
- Nik Storonsky fixes Revolut like a machine, solving one bottleneck at a time▶ 17:20Each bottleneck was solved with a new 'muscle' in the machine: independent teams, reg affairs, then a recruiting process.
- Storonsky funds Revolut's product bets algorithmically, doubling down on winners and cutting the bottom quarter▶ 20:28About 50 bets in 10 years; the top 10 grow 10-20% month on month and produce 1 to 3 million in gross profit each month.
- Storonsky applied for a UK banking license after reaching 7 million customers and waited almost 5 years▶ 9:00The UK license took almost 5 years, and no company with 7 or 8 million UK customers had applied for one before.
- Storonsky argues fintechs without banking licenses cap themselves at niche audiences▶ 11:10Revolut has about 80% market penetration in Ireland and roughly 20% in the UK and France, 30 to 40% in several other markets.
- Storonsky bets that founder-led Revolut beats professional-CEO banks that never play offense▶ 6:12He says incumbents avoid migrating legacy core banking systems because it adds risk, so resources go to protecting what exists.
- Storonsky hires self-guided people so he can run about 50 direct reports▶ 29:59He has about 50 to 52 direct reports and says he does not need to manage self-guided hires.
- Storonsky lets metrics and KPIs kill politics in Revolut▶ 19:50
- Storonsky removes VCs from his board and keeps investors purely financial▶ 41:08One investor pressed him to fire his best person for being too hardcore; he refused and the investors stepped back. He now has no VCs on the board.
- Storonsky stopped hiring experienced executives after keeping only 2 of 50 in Revolut's first five years▶ 45:40Roughly 50 experienced executives hired in five years, only two kept.
- Storonsky says easy money makes founders weaker and Europe's constraints made Revolut stronger▶ 37:38Revolut began with a negative gross margin for three to five years before reaching up to 80% positive gross margin; EU interchange is 20 basis points versus about 100 in the US.
- Storonsky competes against his own company, asking how he would beat himself▶ 5:00Revolut is live in 38 countries, with banking licenses in most, adding 10 to 15 new markets every 1 to 2 years.
- Storonsky built one standardized ledger so each new country is configuration, not a new bank▶ 1:05:35
- Storonsky spread an LLM-based design workflow across all of Revolut's designers once he spotted it in one team▶ 26:00The team works three to four times faster than with Figma screens.
- Storonsky is rebuilding Revolut's team structure around AI, from teams of 10 to teams of two or three▶ 23:31About 90% of customer support is automated, down from 5,000 plus people, and engineer speed is up 30%.
- Storonsky arbitraged physical impressions against digital ads to build trust, buying about half of Europe's airports▶ 58:00Revolut ads now appear in almost 50% of European airports.
- Storonsky started the Quantum Light fund after a fight with a VC, using models instead of judgment▶ 49:28The first $250 million fund shows about 56% IRR; a second $500 million fund is investing, and he puts it in the top 5% of funds.
- Storonsky wants Revolut's bank cash flow to fund moonshot bets outside financial services▶ 1:01:40Revolut sees 30 million transactions a day, billions in total, to train Pragma.
