Antoine Le Nel, CGO @Revolut: How Revolut Launch and Grow Products & Why CAC is a BS Metric | E1216

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

October 18, 2024

Duration

1h 1m

Channel

The Twenty Minute VC

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Antoine Le Nel is the Chief Growth and Marketing Officer at Revolut, one of the fastest growing fintechs on the planet. Prior to Revolut, Antoine spent an incredible 7 years at King (Makers of Candy Crush) overseeing continuous expansion of the world’s most famous mobile game as VP of Growth. ----------------------------------------------- Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (00:44) The Success Formula of Candy Crush at King (03:52) Lessons Learned About Performance Marketing & Its Limitations at King (05:05) The Difference Between King & Revolut (07:37) How Is Growth Getting Faster at Revolut (11:19) What Is a Growth Engine & How Does It Drive Revolut’s Success? (18:56) What’s Been the Biggest Flop? (19:30) What Antoine Changed from King’s Playbook to Revolut’s? (22:57) Does CAC Drop with Brand Growth or Rise with Market Saturation? (27:03) How Revolut Chooses New Markets (29:05) Balancing Primary Account Focus vs. Broad Reach (31:54) What’s the North Star Metric for Measuring Success? (34:27) How Does Ideation Work in Growth Team Meetings? (40:18) Cracking the US Market (41:58) The Power of Remote Teams (47:35) Biggest Mistakes in Hiring for Growth Roles (50:16) What Does Revolut Still Need to Optimize? (52:18) Which Brand Antoine Respects Most Today & Why? (55:45) Which Product Had High Expectations but Low Impact? (57:11) Working with Nikolai (58:51) Quick-Fire Round ----------------------------------------------- 10 Questions with Revolut’s Chief Growth Officer:

1. Why does Antoine believe that the best product and growth teams do not need to do A/B tests?

1. Why does Antoine believe the best growth teams do not believe in anything?

1. What growth tactics have worked best for Revolut? What did they learn?

1. What have been the biggest growth flops? How did that change their approach?

1. Why does Antoine believe localisation in product is BS and overrated?

1. Why does CAC never come up at Revolut? Why do they not believe it is a metric to focus on? What metrics do they focus on instead?

1. What does Antoine mean when he says “growth is a bidding war”? How does one win the “bidding war” today?

1. Why does Antoine believe the best growth teams focus on optimisations and 1% gains not moving the needle for a company?

1. What are the single biggest mistakes growth teams make today? What used to work that no longer works?

1. What growth tactic is most effective but also most under-utilised? How can startups take advantage of this? ----------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Revolut on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RevolutApp Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/contact ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #antoinelenel #revolut #king #venturecapital #growth #product #onlinebanking #hiring

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Antoine Le Nel

  guest

• Harry Stebbings

  host

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of The Twenty Minute VC, featuring Antoine Le Nel and Harry Stebbings, Antoine Le Nel, CGO @Revolut: How Revolut Launch and Grow Products & Why CAC is a BS Metric | E1216 explores revolut’s CGO: Why CAC Misleads, Growth Is Relentless Optimization Warfare Antoine Le Nel, Chief Growth Officer at Revolut and former King (Candy Crush), explains how Revolut structures its growth engine, emphasizing ruthless experimentation speed, fast killing of failed bets, and a deeply analytical culture. He contrasts King’s hyper data-driven, A/B test-heavy approach with Revolut’s product-first mindset that favors decisive launches over endless experiments, especially when aiming for 10x improvements. A core theme is that CAC is a misleading metric; Revolut optimizes purely for ROI and cohort quality, even if that means higher acquisition costs. He also details how Revolut scales globally with minimal localization, builds a full-funnel growth engine, uses remote work and weekly problem‑solving cycles to maintain “founder mode on steroids,” and views brand as emerging primarily from product before marketing amplifies it.

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