Monzo CEO On Death Threats, Depression & Digital Banking Wars: Tom BlomField

1. 0:00 – 2:52

   Intro

   1. TBTom Blomfield0:00

      Your heart drops. Is this it? Is this the moment the company dies?

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:03

      Tom Bloomfield, entrepreneur, investor, and founder of Monzo.

   3. TBTom Blomfield0:08

      I've never actually talked about this before. In six months, I just thought, "I can't work with this person." I just really, it's really damaging to me and my mental health, and so I resigned. And the response to that resignation, she called an all-hands meeting and fired the entire company. If I knew then what I knew now, I would never have done it, really. If I knew what the amount of pain and heartache that would be involved, I would never have started, but I didn't know that. I cry quite a lot. (laughs)

   4. SBSteven Bartlett0:30

      (laughs)

   5. TBTom Blomfield0:30

      You know, I'm not ashamed of that. For about three or four seconds, I'd forgotten what my life was. I was calm, and then three or four seconds later, all the memories came back, and it was just like this crushing weight. That really was the moment I just sort of knew this is, this is no life. There were no other emotions in my life, really, apart from just anxiety. I mean, it was serious by the end. We would detect criminals and shut their accounts down. Customs would turn up sometimes with weapons, and they'd threaten to turn up with, you know, a bottle of acid and throw it in someone's face. That was tough.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett1:08

      Tom Bloomfield, what a remarkable entrepreneur. One of the UK's recent real success stories, and he and his team managed to disrupt the archaic incumbent banking system at a time when nobody thought it could be disrupted. But man, his story is crazy, absolutely crazy. And the reason why I started The Diary of a CEO is demonstrated perfectly in this podcast. It has it all, controversy, drama, business wars, depression, anxiety, resilience, success, and failure. And today, you're gonna hear a particular business story, one that's never been heard before. But Tom felt that today and here was the place to share it. If you're an aspiring entrepreneur and you want to get to the point in your life where you're running a hundred million or a billion-pound company, today might be your warning. Because as Tom is going to tell you, all that glitters isn't gold. And the true cost of entrepreneurship, the cost that nobody seems to talk about, is sometimes greater than the reward on offer. This is one of the most emotional, raw, honest, vulnerable, brilliant, gripping conversations I've ever had on this podcast. And I can't thank Tom enough for opening up his diary and allowing us to look inside. Without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. Tom,

2. 2:52 – 6:04

   Why entrepreneurship?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:52

      why, why entrepreneurship?

   2. TBTom Blomfield2:55

      I made a very bad employee. (laughs)

   3. SBSteven Bartlett2:58

      (laughs)

   4. TBTom Blomfield2:59

      I've never been promoted, and I've been fired, I would guess, two or three times, depending on how you count.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett3:04

      Why were you fired so often?

   6. TBTom Blomfield3:06

      Um, my first ever job was a consulting firm in London. I actually wasn't fired from this one. I was, um... but I wasn't promoted, and they said I was highly disruptive, and not in a good way. Not in a sort of, you know, tech founder disrupts industry. More in sort of, you know, annoying junior analyst can't follow instructions. Um, so I think I'm much, I'm a much better founder than I am an employee.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett3:28

      What was it about you that was disruptive, though? I want some specifics.

   8. TBTom Blomfield3:32

      Um, whenever I'm- I see a problem, I think this is in common with anyone who starts a business, I look at the way something's done and immediately start thinking of better ways to do it. Rather than just doing what I'm told, I sort of scratch my head and think, "No, this doesn't make sense to me. Why are we doing it this way? We could do it this other way, which is ten times faster." I mean, I- one of my first ever jobs was to, uh, with another analyst, go and count all of the jewelry items on a, like a massive jewelry website, there must have been a thousand, to do a tally chart of the price range. And this guy started doing them by hand. So I scratched my head and wrote a little Excel script to scrape, basically scrape the website and just tally them up and go, "There's your results." And that, but they didn't want that, because they were billing by the hour, and that had only taken an hour of my time rather than 20 hours, and so they could only bill me out for an hour. I'm like, "No, no, no. Go back and do it by hand." So it, that kind of stuff just drove me crazy, and I was always just looking for ways to automate, ways to do things better. Um, I guess that's what led me into entrepreneurship.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett4:27

      Have you heard about this idea of first principle thinking?

   10. TBTom Blomfield4:29

       Absolutely, yeah. My co-founder, Jonas at Monzo, is just, I think he would say first principle thinking at least once a day.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett4:35

       'Cause that's, that sounds to me like first principle thinking. You're looking at convention's way of doing things and thinking, "Well, now this is, there's a much easier way."

   12. TBTom Blomfield4:43

       Yeah, absolutely. You sort of start from physics and build, build up from there, really.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett4:46

       How has that, how has that boded for you in your, in your personal life, though? So, because life is, personal life is full of convention, marriage, school-

   14. TBTom Blomfield4:54

       (laughs)

   15. SBSteven Bartlett4:55

       ... follow this path. Do you know what I mean?

   16. TBTom Blomfield4:57

       Yeah, and I, you know, I, I'm not married, but certainly when I was younger, I followed that conventional path. I, I went to a grammar school. I did my exams. I got a place at Oxford. Um, I even did a master's at Oxford. So I sort of, I was following that conventional path towards becoming a lawyer, I guess. But somewhere along the way, um, I started realizing it probably wasn't for me. Um, but, but definitely in the early years, that was my path.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett5:20

       You built this hyper fast-growing business, which was, you know, funny that you use the word disruptor, which was known as one of the UK's great disruptors, and still is known as one of the UK great disruptors. Um, can you tell me why, like, because I, when I, when I speak to Shaq, do you know Shaq, Shakil Khan?

   18. TBTom Blomfield5:38

       Yep.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett5:38

       About Danielek.

   20. TBTom Blomfield5:40

       Yeah.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett5:40

       And when I think about your story, you both made the decision to take on just what, what, what many entrepreneurs would consider to be an immovable object.

   22. TBTom Blomfield5:48

       Mm-hmm.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett5:48

       You took on the banking system.

   24. TBTom Blomfield5:50

       Yeah.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett5:51

       Um, Danielek took on the inc- this massive music industry that was, seemed to be immune to change.

   26. TBTom Blomfield5:57

       I was talking to Shaq about this last week.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett5:58

       Oh, really? He texted me last night about, um, about Harry's new fund, so he, I think that's why he's fresh

3. 6:04 – 16:32

   What made you want to disrupt an industry?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett6:04

      in mind. Wh- wh-How- what- what gave you the conviction, like, and the confidence that you could take on such a mammoth industry with Monzo?

   2. TBTom Blomfield6:16

      Um, I mean, arrogance for-

   3. SBSteven Bartlett6:18

      Hmm.

   4. TBTom Blomfield6:18

      Naivety and arrogance, I think, uh, in no small part. Um, I'd al- I'd already built a company called GoCardless, which is a payment processor. So that sort of taught me that, you know, three young guys could get access to the payment system and, and actually move money around. Um, and banking was a step up from there. It was, it was more regulated, more complicated. Um, but I, I had the background in payments, and I was an early NatWest user, or rather when I was young and they were very old, I was a NatWest user, and I was deeply, deeply disappointed. And I think like any founder, really, a, a huge sort of dose of naivety. You know, you look at a problem and think it's probably... I think if I knew now what I knew, if I knew then what I knew now, I would never have done it, really. If I knew what the amount of pain and heartache that would be involved, I would never have started. But I didn't know that, and so I had a huge amount of self-confidence, a huge amount of naivety, uh, and just assumed that I could figure it out. And I think we got a really, really long way. And, I mean, the company's still doing fabulously. So I'm incredibly proud of, of, of what we built.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett7:15

      I find that point about naivety so interesting, because it almost feels like founders like yourself need to be deluded on one end in terms-

   6. TBTom Blomfield7:23

      Yeah.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett7:23

      ... of their own confidence.

   8. TBTom Blomfield7:25

      Yep.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett7:25

      Right? Because if you look to the stats and all the odds, they're clearly against you. So, founders like yourself seem to be, uh, uh, deluded sounds like a n- a negative word, but it's like for me I'm saying it in a positive way, almost like deluded to the, or naive to the, the stats and the probability of the s-success.

   10. TBTom Blomfield7:41

       Yeah, totally.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett7:42

       But also self-aware enough to listen to feedback and to not be blinded by their hypotheses.

   12. TBTom Blomfield7:48

       Listen to some feedback. I mean, a lot of the feedback I got in the early days was, "This is impossible. You can never do it. You know, go back to your day job." Um, so I think you do have to be incredibly optimistic as well. But a little bit like investing, I'm doing a little bit of investing now, I think you, if you have a lot of experience, the downside is you've seen these ideas fail again and again and again. And it's really hard to then leave that baggage behind and, and look at a company. Um, I looked at one yesterday, it was like, I- I've seen that model fail four times. Not my, you know, I wasn't running it, others were running it. But to, um, have a fresh enough mind to think, "Okay, maybe the timing's different, maybe the founding team is different, maybe the technology's changed. This can now work." So I think actually the benefit of being naive and even being quite young in your career is you don't have that baggage of knowing how it failed the five times before.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett8:38

       Hmm.

   14. TBTom Blomfield8:39

       Um, which I th- I find super interesting.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett8:41

       When you're looking at founders in your investments now, from your own experience of being a founder-

   16. TBTom Blomfield8:46

       Yeah.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett8:46

       ... what are the attributes you're looking for?

   18. TBTom Blomfield8:49

       I mean, the, the really simple one is being technical, being able to write code I think is just a huge, huge leg up. And all of the founders who aren't technical, and there are many great ones, um, I think their biggest problem at the early stage is finding a technical co-founder. So that's just a- an immediate benefit. And if, you know, if I could talk to my, um, if I could talk to people in the sort of age 12 to 18, I would basically just go and say, "Learn to code. You're gonna have a really well-paying career for the rest of your life, and it'll, it's a great step in- into entrepreneurship."

   19. SBSteven Bartlett9:18

       Are you technical?

   20. TBTom Blomfield9:19

       Yeah. I learned to code when I was 12 or 13.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett9:21

       Oh, wow.

   22. TBTom Blomfield9:21

       Built websites.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett9:22

       Blimey.

   24. TBTom Blomfield9:23

       Um, um, I mean, I was never... I, I studied law, not computer science, but I can, I can code. I, there's still code I wrote probably in the Monzo code base somewhere.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett9:30

       Hmm.

   26. TBTom Blomfield9:31

       I think it puts the emojis into the, the wa- the push notifications. But, um, uh, yeah, so being technical I think is just the easy answer. Um, more fundamentally, I think just being really, really determined and resilient. Seeing a, as you said, an immovable object, and either finding a way sort of round it or over it or under it or just straight through it. You know, some that, um... Being indefatigable, basically, I think is, is the single biggest predictor of success.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett9:56

       You, um, you, you strike me as someone that has great confidence, and I imagine that's come from, as you kind of alluded to with GoCardless, you've built evidence over time that you could do things. So and, and I, I, I sometimes think of confidence as like a self-reinforcing cycle, either upwards or downwards. Um-

   28. TBTom Blomfield10:11

       I think I was more confident when I was 28 than I am now, for sure.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett10:14

       Really?

   30. TBTom Blomfield10:14

       And I think that comes with experience. Um, I think you, you take enough knocks that you start to... And you realize you don't know... I think at 27, 28, I thought I knew everything. And now I realize I, you know, I like to think I know a lot about a lot of things, but I, I realize I don't. Um, and so my, I'm still a confident person, I'd guess, but if you put me in front of my 27-year-old self, I think you would see two different people.
4. 16:32 – 21:23

   Monzo & Starling rivalry

   1. TBTom Blomfield16:32

      and then came back to the UK. And I think about 48 hours after arriving in the UK, I met up with Anne Boden at Starling and agreed to be their CTO within about, again, 24 hours. Um...

   2. SBSteven Bartlett16:42

      And then there's a lot written about y- how, I mean, how your relationship with Anne transpired, and your relationship with s- Starling more broadly transpired. What's- what are- what are the key highlights from that- from that journey?

   3. TBTom Blomfield16:53

      Choose your co-founder really carefully. (laughs)

   4. SBSteven Bartlett16:55

      Really. Really.

   5. TBTom Blomfield16:57

      Yeah.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett16:57

      Mm-hmm.

   7. TBTom Blomfield16:58

      Uh, I mean, there were 14 of us at Starling, and 13 of us started Monzo. It was that stark.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett17:05

      Wait, say that again? 14 people at Starling and 13 of you started Monzo?

   9. TBTom Blomfield17:10

      13 of those 14 started Monzo.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett17:11

       13 of those 14 (laughs) started Monzo? Okay.

   11. TBTom Blomfield17:15

       Including the chairman of the board, um, the entire management team, the office manager, everyone.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett17:20

       So one- one would say, well, you know, Tom must have ripped them all away from-

   13. TBTom Blomfield17:26

       (laughs)

   14. SBSteven Bartlett17:26

       ... Starling. (laughs)

   15. TBTom Blomfield17:28

       No, no.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett17:30

       Yes, you do. (laughs)

   17. TBTom Blomfield17:30

       I- I just didn't want to work with Anne. I- like-

   18. SBSteven Bartlett17:32

       Brilliant.

   19. TBTom Blomfield17:32

       There- I ha- I've never actually talked about this before, and there was- there has been a book, I haven't read the book. Um, I'll g- the brief version is, uh, after six months, I got fired twice in six months. Um, I was never paid. I invested my own money, which is- I lost. Um, there was never any paperwork, which is my fault. Um, and after six months, I just thought, "I- I can't work with this person. I just really- it's really damaging to me and my mental health," and so I resigned. And the response to that resignation, she called an all-hands meeting and fired the entire company.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett18:02

       Because you resigned?

   21. TBTom Blomfield18:03

       Yep. So I didn't- I didn't pull anyone away. She fired the entire company. That's not true. Two people happened to not be in the office, so they weren't at the meeting where they got fired. (laughs)

   22. SBSteven Bartlett18:12

       (laughs)

   23. TBTom Blomfield18:12

       So they had to work two weeks notice 'cause they weren't technically fired. (laughs)

   24. SBSteven Bartlett18:16

       (laughs)

   25. TBTom Blomfield18:16

       But everyone else was fired, so we all went to this gin bar to kind of- it was called Ask for Janice on Smithfield Market. It's a great bar, you should go there. Um, we all went there to basically commiserate, just thinking, "This is crazy, what's- what's just happened?"And literally, it's- I think we were there for two days, basically, in this gin bar, playing- we- we-

   26. SBSteven Bartlett18:33

       Forces. (laughs)

   27. TBTom Blomfield18:33

       ... we all played speed chess. It was this very nerdy kind of board player speed- we were playing lots and lots of speed chess, uh, just trying to figure out what we were going to do. And eventually, we were like, "We can, um, we think we can do this ourselves." Um, so it, it wasn't a case of like, you know, me leading a coup, me pulling the company away. I quit. I was just like, "Good luck to you. I'm just, I'm gonna go and sit on a beach for a while." And in response, she fired the entire company, which is just, I think, a reflection of the way she, she operates.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett19:03

       I can't quite wrap my head around the idea of one person resigning and then firing everybody as a show of... I don't even know.

   29. TBTom Blomfield19:13

       No, it's not something I would do.

   30. SBSteven Bartlett19:17

       Where did, where did that leave Starling though, if they only- if they had lost pretty much everybody other than the two people that didn't manage to make it into work that day and-
5. 21:23 – 27:13

   Starting Monzo

   1. TBTom Blomfield21:23

   2. SBSteven Bartlett21:23

      Co-founders.

   3. TBTom Blomfield21:24

      Mm.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett21:24

      When you started Monzo, you started with... Was, was Paul Ripon your only co-founder?

   5. TBTom Blomfield21:28

      No, there were f- uh, and it was all, it was sort of weird actually because there were 13 of us, like how do you pick which ones are... You all, they were all literally there on day one. Um, so in a sense that was the founding team and they all got stock, like not options, but actually full, you know, stock. Um, but the, for arbitrary reasons, which I can't really remember, there were five of us. So myself, Paul, um, became deputy CEO and was the chief risk officer. He became deputy CEO because the Bank of England looked at me and I was, I think I was 29 or 30 or something, and they said, "You've, have you ever worked in a bank?" "No." It's like, "And you're applying to be CEO of our newest bank?" "Yes." And they sort of scratched their head for a bit and said, "How about this sort of very experienced guy next to you, this co-founder of yours? How about..." They didn't say that. They said, "We'd like you to find a deputy CEO who's actually run a bank before, please."

   6. SBSteven Bartlett22:16

      Okay.

   7. TBTom Blomfield22:16

      And I, you know, I said, "Paul has run several banks." So he became deputy C- uh, CEO. Gary was CFO.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett22:23

      Mm-hmm.

   9. TBTom Blomfield22:23

      He'd been at ABN AMRO, uh, and Mizuho Bank, I think. Uh, there's a guy called Jason who is sort of more customer and marketing, and then Jonas, who is the only one left now, was CTO. Really, really talented developer, um, so he stepped into the CTO role.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett22:39

       How important is that? You talked e- earlier about the importance of business partners and, uh, that being one of your big regrets. But how critically important is... 'Cause, you know, definitely one of the biggest mistakes I made in my career was, when I was very young, just hired anybody-

   11. TBTom Blomfield22:52

       Mm.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett22:52

       ... because I thought, you know, like, "Oh, you..." Like I remember being in Selfridges one day, there, there was a g- a guy selling Prada bags. I'd be like, "You can be a director." You know what I mean? (laughs)

   13. TBTom Blomfield23:00

       (laughs)

   14. SBSteven Bartlett23:00

       Because you don't know what you don't know and you're... (laughs)

   15. TBTom Blomfield23:03

       I didn't do that. (laughs)

   16. SBSteven Bartlett23:04

       I did. I was fucking... I was like 18, so-

   17. TBTom Blomfield23:07

       Yeah.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett23:07

       Um, but I, I, in hindsight, I know it's the most... Well, for me, that core team is the most important thing.

   19. TBTom Blomfield23:15

       Yeah, yeah.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett23:16

       It's the, probably the single biggest determining factor of success or failure, in my view.

   21. TBTom Blomfield23:20

       I agree, yes.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett23:20

       Yeah, so how, how important was, was it for you to, to assemble th- um, that skilled co-founding team?

   23. TBTom Blomfield23:29

       I mean, it was, it was luck at Monzo because that was the group-

   24. SBSteven Bartlett23:32

       You got it.

   25. TBTom Blomfield23:32

       ... that was at Starling.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett23:33

       Starling, yeah.

   27. TBTom Blomfield23:33

       And it was sort of like, "How do we keep this team together?" And it really was a sort of, it felt like everyone's going to disappear into the wind. Um, there was a ch- you know, it really was a debate, "Are we gonna really try and do this again?" Or, you know, "Is this it? We just go back to whatever we were doing before." And so to keep everyone together, I think it wasn't a... And so I think we were really fortunate we had such a, a great, um, different set of skills, um, but it wasn't hugely, uh, sort of planned. I mean, I, I have a- a- another example of this. I started a company at, um, when I was at university through Young Enterprise, and on day one there were like 14 co-found- co-founders of this business, which is just a ridiculous way to start a company. And within about two month... We had meetings, meetings, meeting. Nothing ever got done. So within three months or so, the three of us basically said, "Look, you're 11, you can have it, write it on your CV if that's what you want, but, you know, you're not really here to run a business." The three of... actually are gonna, like, work all summer, um, one of them-... uh, quit his job to do ... he'd just left to work at Deutsche Bank. The three of us are actually gonna try and run a startup here.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett24:36

       Hmm.

   29. TBTom Blomfield24:36

       And so figuring out that core team, I think is re- is really, really important to get right, and having a group of 14 is not the way to do it, really.

   30. SBSteven Bartlett24:45

       When you, when you started Monzo from that, I say from the gin bar, it wasn't really from the gin bar, but you see what I mean? That was the kind of, I guess, the inception moment. Um, what was the driving force for you to go on that journey? Was it money? Was it the, the chance of, you know, moving in industry? What was it?
6. 27:13 – 33:59

   Wanting to be seen to be a success

   1. SBSteven Bartlett27:13

      And th- one of the other reasons you gave there as a driving force was wanting to be seen to win.

   2. TBTom Blomfield27:16

      Yeah. Well-

   3. SBSteven Bartlett27:17

      Can you explain that one?

   4. TBTom Blomfield27:19

      (sighs) Not to win. I think that's probably the wrong ti- I used that phrase, but I- to be seen to be a success, I think.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett27:26

      Like validation, external validation.

   6. TBTom Blomfield27:28

      Yeah, kind of, yeah, and, you know, that's to my family, and my friends, and my school and teachers and, um, you know-

   7. SBSteven Bartlett27:35

      You'd already been a success, though, with GoCardless, did you n-

   8. TBTom Blomfield27:38

      Th- y- yeah, I had a bit, but GoCardless circa 2014, 2015 was, uh, still relatively unknown. It was doing well, but not ... it wasn't a breakout success yet, in the way it is today, I don't think. Um, yeah.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett27:54

      Just on that feeling of wanting that validation from friends, 'cause we can all relate to that. Like, I'm, I'm playing devil's advocate, but I know exactly what you mean.

   10. TBTom Blomfield28:01

       Who, you're on a TV show? (laughs)

   11. SBSteven Bartlett28:02

       (laughs) Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I'm doing a podcast with 17 cameras right now.

   12. TBTom Blomfield28:06

       (laughs)

   13. SBSteven Bartlett28:06

       You know, um, but, uh, but just drilling down into that, in hindsight, was that a feeling that you think could've ever been attained?

   14. TBTom Blomfield28:14

       Um-

   15. SBSteven Bartlett28:15

       Was it a mirage?

   16. TBTom Blomfield28:17

       I think I have attained it.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett28:18

       Yeah?

   18. TBTom Blomfield28:19

       R- uh, and I don't mean I'm the world's biggest success.

   19. SBSteven Bartlett28:22

       Hmm.

   20. TBTom Blomfield28:22

       That's not what I mean. I mean that, like, I've tasted what that feels like. That's mixing my metaphors there. I've felt what that f- you know, I've experienced that thing, that sort of, like, being in the newspapers, and that sort of ... um, people using a Monzo card, and that stuff. And it's somewhat rewarding, but it's not l- like, I'm ... and I don't feel it anymore. I, I think what I'm trying to say is sort of that need to prove myself has sort of disappeared, actually. Um, and so either I've realized it was a stupid goal to start with or, like, I got far enough along that I've sort of, like, ticked that off the list and sort of thought, you know, that's sort of ... it was fun, but it's not my overriding purpose now.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett29:03

       Mm-hmm.

   22. TBTom Blomfield29:03

       Um, and I'm not ... and your next question is, "What is your purpose?" I, I'm not sure I have one. It's sort of more like living day to day and enjoying life. And I, I was never good at that. I've really, really driven from a very, very young age. So I worked incredibly hard for my exams and my, you know, through Oxford and starting companies, um, and very rarely paused to enjoy the journey, or the, you know, the, the cliché, the small things in life, the, you know, the ... choose your cliché, right? Like-

   23. SBSteven Bartlett29:30

       Mm-hmm.

   24. TBTom Blomfield29:30

       ... how your coffee tastes in the morning or the sort of, the tweeting of the birds in the, in the trees. And that stuff now I'm, I'm spending more time kind of being more, I guess, mindful and kind of living in the moment.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett29:42

       Do you have to, like, reprogram yourself to get there, though? Because I feel like society, well, for me anyway, is, um, kind of conditions you to, to chase, climb, promote, move up, strive, and, and you're kind of deferring your happiness t- t- towards some future achievement or accomplishment.

   26. TBTom Blomfield29:58

       Yeah.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett29:58

       So how'd you get to the point where you just enjoy it, what it, you know, life for what it is in the moment?

   28. TBTom Blomfield30:05

       (sighs)

   29. SBSteven Bartlett30:05

       Was there a reprogramming that you-

   30. TBTom Blomfield30:06

       Yeah, I guess, and like, you know, l- like you, I, I left my company. I didn't ... um, and that was t- really, really hard, and that was not a ... that was, um, you know, deep, deep anxiety, b- bordering on depression, and, uh, like I, I, I wouldn't use the words rock bottom, but, like, it was not a happy time. And so then recovering from that, uh, and I took a year off, and, you know, traveled around Europe, went kite surfing, and learned a language, and all this kind of, you know, clichés. Um-And that experience now leads me, uh, whenever I- I still get these, like, urges. Like, "Oh," (sniffs) sort of, um, the, my local MP passed away a few months ago and there was a by-election. I was like, "Why don't I, why don't I stand for that seat? And I could be a- an MP, and then maybe I could, you know, maybe I could be the Prime Minister." And then I'm like, "But then what?" (laughs)
7. 33:59 – 39:07

   What were the good times at Monzo?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett33:59

      (page turns) What were the, the, the, the good times at Monzo, the times you look back most fondly?

   2. TBTom Blomfield34:03

      Small team, so sub 100. Um, being able to, um, go from a, a kind of an idea or a customer insight, or something like a conversation with a customer about a problem, to figuring out a kind of product feature, to very quickly prototyping and building that and launching it and then seeing people use it, um, and then tell their friends about it. That very quick, iterative product development cycle, I love. Um, and a lot of the brand and marketing stuff. Uh, I... When I was at GoCardless, I didn't believe in brand, uh, which is a ridiculous thing to say. Um, I, you know, you... As a marketing background-

   3. SBSteven Bartlett34:43

      Yeah. (laughs)

   4. TBTom Blomfield34:43

      ... that's almost offensive, I guess. But I feel like, "No, this is, you know, this is, doesn't, this doesn't exist, really. People..." Um, and then the da- When I worked at the dating site, that really opened my eyes to the kind of power of human psychology and brand and, and mission and values. And we really took a lot of that into Monzo, and that... It, it was just astonishing. Um, so we started out, even before we had a product, talking a lot about our mission, uh, and, and some of our values, like transparency and kind of community orientation.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett35:10

      Mm.

   6. TBTom Blomfield35:11

      And that worked so incredibly well. Um, so yeah. It was working with a small team to build the brand, build the product, get it into users' hands really quickly and then see them enjoy it. I've talked about this a lot before, that feeling of, um, standing in line at a coffee shop and seeing the person at the counter paying with a, the Hot Coral/Monzo card. And then having the bartender or the, the server say, "You know, I've, I've got one of those as well." And then listening to that conversation as sort of an anonymous bystander. That's just incredibly rewarding, that feeling that you've had a hand in, in creating something that's, that people are enjoying so much.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett35:46

      Let's dig into the point about brand, then marketing, because Monzo really was a UK standout brand. I think everybody knew it, um, even if they didn't use it-

   8. TBTom Blomfield35:55

      Yep.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett35:56

      ... because of its disruptive values, because of it, it felt unconventional in everything it did. I mean, even the card-

   10. TBTom Blomfield36:02

       Yeah.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett36:02

       ... was completely unconventional.

   12. TBTom Blomfield36:04

       Intentionally, yeah.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett36:05

       Tell me, tell me w- what the secret was to Monzo's branding success.

   14. TBTom Blomfield36:10

       (inhales deeply) Um, authenticity, I think.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett36:13

       For the

   16. NANarrator36:14

       Okay.

   17. TBTom Blomfield36:14

       Um, it was... We had a couple of early marketing hires who, who didn't work out, um, and they were very senior people from very, very big companies, who came in... And they were a lot older. And came in as sort of like, you know, "How, how are the kids gonna think about this?" And we were like, "We, we are the kids." Um, so we had a very early community manager called Tristan Thomas, who was there from almost, you know, the first few months. Uh, he'd just very recently left to start his own company. And he's now, he was VP of, of, um, marketing, running a massive team with a massive budget by the end. But he was a 23-year-old when he started with us, you know, 23, 24-year-old. Um, and I worked, uh, on it a lot. Hugo, our head of design, worked on it a lot. And it was, um-It was just an authentic representation of, I think, who we were and what we believed, more than anything. And we'd- we did want to s- be different from the big banks. We intentionally positioned ourselves as apart, so the hot color card. Every other bank was, uh, you know, blue or purple or kind of a shade of black, basically. So we were like, "How far can- from that can we get?" And the big banks were very impersonal, you know? You, you never felt like you were talking to a human, and so we- everything we did was human and transparent. Um, we, we shared a lot of internal information. Everyone... You know, we published our product roadmap, "This is what we're gonna be working on for the next two years," which people thought were- was bonkers. But it- that was a way of building trust and humanity in opposition to these big, sort of faceless banks, um...

   18. SBSteven Bartlett37:39

       These all sound like first principles.

   19. TBTom Blomfield37:41

       Yeah. We- none of... Uh, Tristan had never worked in marketing before. His previous job was at a refugee camp in, in the Middle East.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett37:48

       (laughs)

   21. TBTom Blomfield37:49

       Uh, you know, I'd never really worked in marketing. I'd spent nine months at a dating site. But we... Yeah, we, um, we came up... We thought about these principles, and it felt like the kind of company we wanted to run. And so, um, we did, and it worked really well, um, yeah, with- without any experience.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett38:07

       Goes to show the risk of reading marketing books.

   23. TBTom Blomfield38:10

       (laughs)

   24. SBSteven Bartlett38:10

       No, genuinely, I've always thought this-

   25. TBTom Blomfield38:11

       (laughs)

   26. SBSteven Bartlett38:11

       ...'cause I, I've never s- studied marketing or did-

   27. TBTom Blomfield38:13

       Yeah.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett38:14

       ... any degree in... You know, our business w- worked, did really well in, in the marketing industry, but I, I think it did well because we hadn't read those books, and we hadn't been sort of diluted or polluted by convention's idea of how...

   29. TBTom Blomfield38:24

       Yeah.

   30. SBSteven Bartlett38:25

       I think this today when I go, when I work in, go into these family offices and I'm working on the marketing plan, that the CEO often will want to hire someone who's done marketing in that industry for 20 years.
8. 39:07 – 46:22

   What were the bad times at Mozo?

   1. TBTom Blomfield39:07

   2. SBSteven Bartlett39:07

      I, um... One of the things... So we talked a little bit there about the- your best times at Monzo, and I wasn't surprised to hear that it was when the company was small, um, 'cause I've heard that before, but I, I also understand the feeling. Um, and your worst times?

   3. TBTom Blomfield39:21

      Um... (sighs)

   4. SBSteven Bartlett39:22

      Least enjoyable times?

   5. TBTom Blomfield39:23

      Least enjoyable. Uh, I never liked fundraising. We did that a lot, and I mean, I, and I had to... I think Monzo's raised something like 600 million, and I probably did 400 of that, um. That was always tough. Uh, and you only hear about the really quick round, the, you know, the-

   6. SBSteven Bartlett39:39

      Crowdfunding and-

   7. TBTom Blomfield39:40

      Yeah, and the, "We hit a billion." The round where we hit a billion in valuation was very, very fast, um, and very competitive, so it was easy. But all the other rounds were a real slog. So fundraising was never fun. We had a weird time with the press, where they spent the first three or four years almost- not idolizing us, but certainly building us up, you know, the new kind of, uh, the, the sort of next great hope, a- almost. Um, and we could almost do nothing wrong, which is not healthy. And then we got big enough, and it flipped overnight. And just everything we did was- we'd get, uh, like vitriol for, in a way that I... I mean, I can understand it 'cause it drives readership, right? And it's, um... There was a point in time where The Telegraph would put Monzo in the headline at least every day. Even if it was a story about one of our competitors, it would be, "Monzo competitor," blah, "doing..." And it's just like, "Wh- why?" And I, I eventually sort of called out the journalist on this and sort of took him for a beer, and I was like, "Look, come on. Tell me what's going on." And he's like, "Look, every time I put your name in the headline," or rather, he's like, uh, "Look, it's my subs who do it. I, I write the article. They choose the headline," um, or my editor. "But every time they do that, we just get way more subscribers." It's like, "No, sorry." Um, but it, it was really the enti- from the BBC, to The Telegraph, to everyone, it felt like a pile-on in a way that didn't seem fair, uh, really. And it's- and not to say that we never did anything wrong. We absolutely did. But even the good stuff we did got, um, got negative headlines. Um, and I think that's a peculiarity of the British press in particular, sort of building something up until it's, like, big enough to tear down. And that was just so confusing. Um, yeah, that was tough. At one point, we had a BBC camera crew outside our office, um, and this was when we, we'd grown big enough. We had, um, a small nu- a small minority of people using Monzo for financial crime, basically, for money laundering, for scams. Um, and we'd have to freeze their account, and we weren't allowed to tell them why we'd frozen their account. We'd sort of send the money back to where it h- where it- wherever hi- it had come from, which is a very frustrating experience really, and it's quite strict in the law that you have to shut the account. You can't tell the person. So it's, it's a really bad customer experience. Um, but Watchdog were running a s- a program about this, you know, "Monzo freezes accounts." And they brought us a series of accounts that we'd frozen, um, over a period of sort of several weeks, saying, "You know, this is... We've got you." And, and we sort of brought the editor of the program in and said, "Look, here is the- here's the criminal background of the person whose account we've frozen. Are you really- you're really gonna run a program about, about this?" He's like, "Oh, no, no, no. Okay, okay, okay." This happened 12 times, and every o- every one of the times, we showed w- we- the evidence, and they're like, "Okay," you know? "Fine." And on the thir- it was the 13th or 14th, we're like, "That one's a 50/50." You know, "We've blocked the account, we stand by it, but we don't have cast iron proof." And they're like, "Great, we've got you." So a BBC camera crew turns up, and they'd commissioned a block of ice, an enormous ice sculpture with a frozen Monzo card in the ice that they dumped outside our office, and put a camera crew there for the day, uh, to see if they could find anyone walking past it, or else- you know, to watch the thing melting. We're just like- (laughs)

   8. SBSteven Bartlett42:52

      (laughs)

   9. TBTom Blomfield42:52

      ... "What is going on?" You know? I was like, "I started this company to try and sort of build a better bank, and somehow, the BBC is camped outside my office trying to, like..." I don't know. I don't know what they're trying to do, um.... drive, drive viewership. Um, but that was deeply annoying.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett43:09

       This whole press thing is, I've heard this a million times and it terrifies the shit out of me because, you know, joining Dragons' Den, you join and everyone's like, "Oh, my God, amazing." And then someone told me, I think it might have been one of the other dragons that's been there for nearly two decades, said, "Here's what's, here's what, here's what's gonna happen-"

   11. TBTom Blomfield43:24

       Yeah.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett43:24

       "... is they're gonna build you up to a point where you're interesting enough to tear down again."

   13. TBTom Blomfield43:28

       Yep.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett43:29

       And-

   15. TBTom Blomfield43:29

       Yep.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett43:29

       ... hearing you say the same thing terrifies the life out of me.

   17. TBTom Blomfield43:32

       And it happens in everything, in tech startups, (sighs) um-

   18. SBSteven Bartlett43:35

       Facebook?

   19. TBTom Blomfield43:36

       ... uh, yeah. I mean, Facebook's a great example of it, but it happens to sports stars, it happens to politicians, it happens to, you know, singers. Yeah. It... yeah.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett43:45

       What advice would you give someone that's-

   21. TBTom Blomfield43:47

       Don't read the good stuff.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett43:48

       ... about to be torn down? (clears throat)

   23. TBTom Blomfield43:49

       Or the, you know... Just ignore it all, basically. I think it's all, uh, yeah, just ignore it all.

   24. SBSteven Bartlett43:55

       The hype and-

   25. TBTom Blomfield43:56

       Yeah, 'cause-

   26. SBSteven Bartlett43:57

       ... the criticism?

   27. TBTom Blomfield43:57

       ... when the good, when they're writing good stuff, that's p- that's overblown as well. That's not real life. The bad stuff's also not true, so just, I'd just ignore it all.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett44:05

       And did that have an impact on your mental health, the worst parts of the press coverage?

   29. TBTom Blomfield44:11

       (clicks tongue) It didn't help, s-, and I stopped reading it. I mean, I r- genuinely stopped reading it. And I'd have friends c- sort of come and say, you know, on a Saturday or a Sunday, they'd read the, the weekend paper and was like, "Are you all right?" I was like, "No, I'm fine." Like (laughs) -

   30. SBSteven Bartlett44:23

       (sighs) I fucking hate that, don't you hate that? (laughs)
9. 46:22 – 54:35

   Was the business model of Monzo bad?

   1. SBSteven Bartlett46:22

      um... probably in hindsight, one of the things you should have thought about more in the early days, which was like the commercial model or the business model of the bank.

   2. TBTom Blomfield46:30

      Yep.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett46:30

      Is that fair and accurate?

   4. TBTom Blomfield46:31

      Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett46:32

      Yeah.

   6. TBTom Blomfield46:32

      Um, and we'd, we'd thought about it for sure. I think what we didn't do was make the hard decisions to, uh, to turn the corner earlier. Like, we'd, we thought about it and it was, this was not, it's not like we w- um, blindly ran into unprofitability. We took a series of actions. We knew they were loss-making, but we, um, did that in order to, to acquire users without paying. So basically, we swapped marketing spend. We had no marketing spend, but instead we ran, um, uh, like neg- like operational losses.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett47:04

      Mm-hmm.

   8. TBTom Blomfield47:04

      So we'd give away features to customers that would cost us money to get more customers, because it meant our marketing budget was zero. And we grew to five or six million people with... we probably spent less than 10 million on marketing total. That's an average cost per customer of 1.50 pound.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett47:19

      Great. Yeah. (laughs)

   10. TBTom Blomfield47:21

       (laughs) Right. So-

   11. SBSteven Bartlett47:22

       Yeah.

   12. TBTom Blomfield47:22

       ... um, but that, that's how... that hides your operational losses. That's wh- the... our real marketing budget was giving away things like ATM withdrawals for free, for example, and we just didn't take the hard decisions to turn some of those things off when we, um, we got to a certain size, and it cost us way too much.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett47:37

       Free cards.

   14. TBTom Blomfield47:38

       Yeah. I mean, the-

   15. SBSteven Bartlett47:39

       Is that expensive?

   16. TBTom Blomfield47:42

       With that, it's like the long tail. It's, you know, it's the, um, the very small number of people who are ordering 20 or 30 cards a year. Most people, they order zero to one, that's fine, but s- some people just lose their card every weekend and they go, "Sure, I'll... no problem, I'll just order another one, it'll be here tomorrow morning." Uh, and that's just annoying and costly. The other thing though, um, so we should have paid more attention to reducing costs and taking hard decision to drive revenues earlier. Uh, we consciously didn't, uh, but part of it was a- avoiding those hard decisions. The other half of it though is weird. Um, and I've thought about it a lot. It's basically how you get, um, almost self-reinforcement from your investors. So you run a business a certain way, you get to a certain scale, and you present it to a set of investors, uh, and the ones who are... more or less the ones who agree with what you've done and think it's the right approach will invest. And the ones who think you're bonkers will not invest and they'll go to someone else. The problem is, that becomes self-reinforcing because they like what you did before, so they're like, "Yeah, just do more of that." (laughs)

   17. SBSteven Bartlett48:45

       (laughs)

   18. TBTom Blomfield48:46

       And it can become, um, a bit of an echo chamber where you just get the group of investors around the table who are all big supporters, who all really believe in the model, and there's not really anyone being like, "Uh," you know, "you're running, um, you should really think about this other stuff." And a really s- the... a really smart thing I've heard...... which I didn't do, and I, I hope I wi- will have the humility to in future is to sort of pick out the smartest investors you can, or smartest advisors or other, other founders, and ask them why you think your business will fail, and then really try to think deeply about that. Rather than, I think the natural tendency is just like, "Ah, you know, whatever. They don't know what they're talking about. I'll just... The people who think I'm brilliant, I'll listen to them."

   19. SBSteven Bartlett49:29

       Mm-hmm.

   20. TBTom Blomfield49:29

       Um, but that can become... I don't think you grow as much from that. So really finding the doubters, even the h- not so much the haters, but the doubters certainly, and interrogating them about your business, and really trying to think through how you can, um, uh, solve those problems. I think that would've helped us a lot.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett49:48

       Hindsight's a wonderful thing.

   22. TBTom Blomfield49:49

       Yeah.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett49:50

       Now you have those, some of those answers in hindsight, and what were, what are those answers in hindsight that you wish you'd, um, you'd known sooner? So one of them is obviously, you know, getting to a profitable business model sooner, making those hard decisions.

   24. TBTom Blomfield50:04

       Yeah, for sure. Profitable business model, um, cutting costs, driving revenue by taking hard decisions to sort of limit some of the free features and charges, some of the things we gave for free. I think we should've done that way, way earlier. Um, that's the biggest.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett50:17

       Any cultural decisions? I know there was a merging of the startup guys and the, uh, banking people which... But I guess that's necessary, right?

   26. TBTom Blomfield50:25

       Yeah. Uh, struggled to get the banking license without that.

   27. SBSteven Bartlett50:28

       Mm-hmm.

   28. TBTom Blomfield50:28

       And you've seen, you can see that at Revolut.

   29. SBSteven Bartlett50:29

       Mm-hmm.

   30. TBTom Blomfield50:30

       You look at all their recent senior hires over the last year or two, and it's bigwigs from the big banks because they're trying to get a banking license. So, I think that's sort of inevitable, um, and you pay a cost for that. You pay the price. Um, customer service is always a, one of big... One of our, uh, investors, who shall name, remain nameless, um, was a bit of contrarian, s- basically said, "The quality of your customer service is too high, and it's costing you too much, and it's gonna be the, you know, it's gonna be the weight around your neck for the next, whatever, 10 years until you can slash it." And I'm not sure if he was right or not, actually. Um, that's one I still debate. Um...
10. 54:35 – 59:08

    Leaving Monzo

    1. TBTom Blomfield54:35

    2. SBSteven Bartlett54:35

       Had you been thinking about that conversation for some time before you got to the point where you, you approached the board with d- decisiveness that, "This is me done?"

    3. TBTom Blomfield54:43

       Yeah. Uh, not even thinking about it, I'd been talking to them about it-

    4. SBSteven Bartlett54:46

       Really?

    5. TBTom Blomfield54:46

       ... for a year or two, yeah. Not the whole board, but yeah, to-

    6. SBSteven Bartlett54:49

       Select members of the board.

    7. TBTom Blomfield54:49

       Our chairman and our, uh, one of our lead investors, absolutely. We'd, we'd had multiple conversations about me not enjoying the role as it was then configured, and the answer was like, "Okay, let's reconfigure your role. Let's bring people around you, let's..." Because, because we were growing so quickly, um, and the way that senior hiring works, by the time you realize you've got a gap, it's 12 to 18 months before you can actually fill that gap. And, you know, Muggins here ends up doing... Uh, to be fair, all of my senior team were doing more than one job, trying to fill the gaps, but, um...That was the biggest problem for me, that we didn't have the right senior leadership in place, so I was working several jobs. Uh, and so the conversation was always, "Okay, well, we'll fill these roles, we'll fill these roles." But by the time you fill that role, this other role are there, the person who was doing really well at 200, you now have 2,000 people, and the person's burnt out or, you know, not doing well, and you have to replace them. And so, it was like Whac-A-Mole. Um, and I think that was the biggest contributing factor. But th- those are conversations I very regularly had with, um, board members and investors.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett55:53

       Do you think those conversations were treated with, with urgency?

    9. TBTom Blomfield55:56

       No.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett55:57

        From, from either yourself or the board?

    11. TBTom Blomfield55:59

        No, absolutely not.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett56:01

        Yeah.

    13. TBTom Blomfield56:01

        Uh, it was always like-

    14. SBSteven Bartlett56:03

        Oh, yeah.

    15. TBTom Blomfield56:03

        ... "Oh, yeah, we'll just hire, you know, we'll hire the person, and it will all be fine," or, "Oh, just stick it out for another couple of years, and it'll all be fine." Uh, and eventually it was like, "No, I've got a couple of weeks."

    16. SBSteven Bartlett56:13

        (laughs)

    17. TBTom Blomfield56:13

        (laughs)

    18. SBSteven Bartlett56:14

        Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

    19. TBTom Blomfield56:15

        Um, yeah. I think a lot of them did a huge amount. I mean, Eileen, the, the, one of our investors from Passion, personally put in so much time to support the company and to support me, and I'm really, really grateful for that. Uh, but ultimately, um, yeah, we just didn't hire se- great senior people fast enough. Uh, if I can find one root cause, it was that.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett56:40

        Do you think if you'd gone to the board with more urgency and decisiveness yourself that you would've been taken more seriously?

    21. TBTom Blomfield56:48

        (sighs)

    22. SBSteven Bartlett56:48

        If you'd said, "Listen, I'm gonna go (laughs) next week (laughs) if these issues aren't fixed." 'Cause I, I, I'm, I'm asking these questions, but for m- s- same reasons as, uh, I said before. I went through the same thing-

    23. TBTom Blomfield57:00

        Yeah.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett57:00

        ... where I approached the board and said, "I've got some problems here. The- these are the issues. Can we fix them?" And it was, uh, probably a little bit of lip service-

    25. TBTom Blomfield57:05

        Yeah.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett57:06

        ... until the day that I resigned.

    27. TBTom Blomfield57:08

        (laughs) I don't know. I think a lot of people put a lot of effort into fixing it. Ultimately, it was, like, on me to fix.

    28. SBSteven Bartlett57:13

        Sure.

    29. TBTom Blomfield57:14

        'Cause no- no one else is gonna come in and hire a really top senior team for me. It's like that's sort of my job. Um, so I don't know. I also, I do wonder whether you really could have got those great senior people in at a earlier stage. The analogy's sort of like a football team. You're starting in the, I don't know what the fourth division n- now is called, but, you know, you're there, and you get promoted-

    30. SBSteven Bartlett57:36

        Mm.
11. 59:08 – 1:04:14

    Not sleeping because of the stress of the business

    1. SBSteven Bartlett59:08

       (page flips) You said you weren't sleeping-

    2. TBTom Blomfield59:09

       Mm-hmm.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett59:09

       ... working seven days a week. Talk me through those moments when you, when things w-

    4. TBTom Blomfield59:14

       Gosh. Uh, (laughs) have you ex- experienced that?

    5. SBSteven Bartlett59:17

       I've, oh, definitely experienced, um, anxiety and not sleeping well, and an issue usually like payroll or some kind of investor issue-

    6. TBTom Blomfield59:26

       Yep.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett59:26

       ... plaguing me for days and days and- and then getting sick.

    8. TBTom Blomfield59:29

       Yep.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett59:29

       And then, and why have I got a cold? I never get a cold. And then, yeah-

    10. TBTom Blomfield59:32

        Yeah.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett59:32

        ... oh, of course, 'cause there's no fucking money in the bank or something, you know? (laughs)

    12. TBTom Blomfield59:36

        Yeah. Um, similar things, uh, n- we talked about it a little earlier, sort of that depletion of emotional energy, so that you have a, you know there's a s- sort of a problem there that you need to take a decision about. Maybe it's, like, one of your senior team's not working out, and you know you have to fire them basically, but you're like, "If I do that, that's gonna cause a bunch of other knock-on problems that I don't wanna have to deal with yet, 'cause I'm, I'm just trying to close this, like, 100 million pound funding round, so just let me focus on that." And, and the w- um, the realization was sort of when the round closes, when the money's in the bank and that weight lifts, you then look at all these other problems, and they're very, very easy actually. Like, you re-energize quite quickly and are able to take those decisions. But while there's just too many things sort of resting on your shoulders, you, it piles up and piles up and piles up. And so for me, yeah, it was, um, waking up at sort of 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, often with, um, often with problems in the cold light of day are relatively easy to solve. But the s- the conscious part of your mind gets turned off when you're sleeping. It's a sort of subconscious, like, irrational part that blows the thing into a unsolvable problem. And the next morn- you can, whatever, you write it down, you come back to it the next day and go, "That's, that's ridiculous, that, why am I even worrying about that?" Um, so it's not a rational thing. It's a, a much more of an emotional, um, or at least for me, emotional response. Um, but because you're tired, you make worse decisions, and because you make worse decisions, you end up creating more problems for yourself. Um, uh, you know, and the, the solution i- easy to say and hard to do, which is exercise more and, you know, stay off alcohol and get to bed early and don't have your phone in your bedroom and, like, turn off your computer at the weekends, all this sort of stuff you know you should do. Um, but when each one gives way, the next one's harder, you know? You haven't slept well, so you don't wanna go to the gym in the morning, and because you don't go to the gym, you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, so you can either get into, I think, really good reinforcing cycles or very destructive, kind of negatively reinforcing cycles.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:35

        Because you knew your mind was gonna do that when you fell asleep, did you...... upon getting in bed and laying down, presumably you knew that your mind was then gonna run off with all of the th- thoughts and worries.

    14. TBTom Blomfield1:01:46

        Mm-hmm.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:47

        Did that make that process just before you fall asleep quite, um, unpleasant?

    16. TBTom Blomfield1:01:52

        Yes, and it, you sort of going to sleep almost inevitably knowing you're gonna wake up at 4:00 AM is, uh, quite annoying, to say the least. Um, and the s- ve- very depressing thing to say, but sometimes when I did sleep a sort of full night, I'd wake up at 7:00, 8:00, 9:00 AM, whatever, and for about three or four seconds, I'd forgotten what my life was. Like, I'd forgotten what I was doing, what my job was, all the pressures, and I was like, I was calm, and I was sort of, you know, not stressed, not anxious. And then three or four seconds later, all the memories came back, and it was just like this crushing weight. That, uh, (laughs) that feeling was just terrible. And that really was the moment I just sort of knew this is, this is no life. You know, I want the l- the life three seconds ago where I can wake up and not be worried, and not be stressed, and not feel like just anxious the whole time. Like there would, there were no other emotions in my life, really, apart from just anxiety. Eh, that was a 10 out of 10, and every other emotion felt like it was a, the volume had been switched down to one out of 10 because, like, anxiety was just 10 out of 10. And that was no fun.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:05

        How long did that last?

    18. TBTom Blomfield1:03:08

        (sighs) A year and a half, two years maybe.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:11

        Fucking hell.

    20. TBTom Blomfield1:03:13

        Yup.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:14

        Oof. God, I couldn't imagine two years.

    22. TBTom Blomfield1:03:17

        Not fun. And I split up with my girlfriend as a result of it. Was like, "Mate, you know, my life's shit. What can I do about it? Let's like one by one try and change things." Um, and rather than changing the job first, I changed the girlfriend first. Um, and that was really tough. Um, I left Monzo, and within about a w- a week or so, I was sleeping f- perfectly through the night. I mean, really it just all went away. Yeah. And now I, you know, I am, uh, I hesitate the word, to use the word happy, but yeah, happy.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:49

        Mm-hmm.

    24. TBTom Blomfield1:03:50

        Like content, calm, relaxed. Like, I find things to do with my day that I find, you know, that I enjoy. And, and suddenly, like, the small, those, like, emotions that were one out of 10, when they're not being crushed by a 10 out of 10 anxiety, like, sort of start to bloom back, which is cool, which, um, I like.

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:08

        This is life. (laughs)

    26. TBTom Blomfield1:04:09

        Yeah. Yeah. (laughs)

    27. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:11

        (laughs)

    28. TBTom Blomfield1:04:11

        It's like, this is how normal people feel. (laughs)

12. 1:04:14 – 1:07:47

    How was holding down a relationship while running the business?

    1. TBTom Blomfield1:04:15

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:15

       (laughs) The girlfriend topic I find compelling because I s- I've also struggled in that department forever.

    3. TBTom Blomfield1:04:19

       Yep.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:20

       Um, how, how was it trying to hold it down a relationship whilst also this business just being this crushing force in your life?

    5. TBTom Blomfield1:04:28

       Terrible.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:28

       (laughs)

    7. TBTom Blomfield1:04:29

       Uh, and I really, um, uh, we're, we're, we're, um, good friends still. But she was a lovely, kind, considerate person, and I was just not a nice person to be around a lot of the time. Was just, like, really, um, short-tempered, like, inconsiderate, and, like, intolerant. Basically intolerant. There's something that was, um, like, mm, tiny, tiny thing that a normal person would just be like, "Oh, it's, uh, just a cute quirk." I just went, "That's so irritat-" you know. Um, and so we just ended up not enjoying spending time together, sadly. Um, and I th- I think she was doing a lot to try to, you know, make our lives together wonderful, and I was just a monster because my, primarily because my work was so shit. Um, which I regret a lot.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:23

       It's interesting. So when, um... What I noticed about myself is when I had a girlfriend at the, at the height of my, uh, c- CEO bullshit, um, I would make her feel incredibly, uh, lonely even if I sat next to her-

    9. TBTom Blomfield1:05:37

       Mm-hmm.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:37

        ... because I, you know, I was selfish and self-absorbed, and I didn't, wasn't interested in anything but my own problems.

    11. TBTom Blomfield1:05:42

        Yup.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:42

        And I also didn't particularly wanna talk to her about them because that was just, it felt like it would grow the problem if I then went home and just-

    13. TBTom Blomfield1:05:48

        Yup.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:48

        ... brain dumped on her.

    15. TBTom Blomfield1:05:49

        Yup.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:50

        Um-

    17. TBTom Blomfield1:05:51

        Yeah.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:51

        Do you, do you think it's possible for a CEO that's in a high-intensity situation to ha- have a successful early-stage relationship?

    19. TBTom Blomfield1:06:02

        I mean, I never managed, but I believe it is possible. I've seen other people do it. And then y- I think, um, part of it is maturity and, um, uh, detachment, but not in a bad way. And I mean detachment from your job, being able to compartmentalize. So Paul, one of my co-founders, is a little bit older, um, and I think he had a really great ability to sort of come to work and be fully present in work and then to go home and just totally switch it off. So he, as soon as his head hit the pillow, he was asleep. Uh, he had, um, he and his wife run a, a lovely alpaca farm in the north of England, and he was just really good at having s- sort of, of compa- compartmentalizing his life. I think similarly with TS, the new, um, the new CEO at Monzo, he's, uh, an older guy, um, I think he's in his 50s, uh, had, has run big banks before and is f- you know, finds it challenging and exciting and a li- little stressful, but I think he's able to go back to his family and, and sort of switch that part of his brain off.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:58

        Mm-hmm.

    21. TBTom Blomfield1:06:58

        And I could never do that. I, it was all-consuming, uh, sort of emotionally, but I would never, even on holiday, I could never switch off the nagging feeling about the work. Um, so towards the end, there was a little bit more detachment. And talking to Jonas, my co-founder, as well, I think he took everything so personally in the early days. And sort of six, seven years in, you, you, there's a bit of detachment, um, and I think that's actually really healthy to realize that your entire person is not intrinsically linked to this company. And you can leave and the company will continue, and maybe the company fails, and you'll still survive. And that's sort of, um... Oh, by the way, I think Monzo's doing incredibly well and it's not gonna fail. Um, but just that emotional realization that you're not, like, the same being as your company, uh, would've been helpful earlier on.

13. 1:07:47 – 1:12:11

    The “red phone” in your bedroom

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:47

       I heard you had a red phone in your bedroom or something. Is that true?

    2. TBTom Blomfield1:07:50

       Yes. (laughs)

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:51

       (laughs) Why was it red?

    4. TBTom Blomfield1:07:53

       Um-

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:54

       That's a... That's a big turn of events.

    6. TBTom Blomfield1:07:54

       It was more like a sort of, um, childish pink color, actually.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:58

       Right, okay.

    8. TBTom Blomfield1:07:58

       Uh, the red phone is probably a dramatization. I think I did describe it as a red phone. It was a pink... It was an old Nokia. Um, uh, wh- and why? B- c- so the reason why, um, is first of all because, to help sleep, I didn't keep my own mobile in my bedroom, so I turned it off and I had it charging out in the hallway-

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:17

       Nice.

    10. TBTom Blomfield1:08:17

        ... which I think is... I encourage everyone to do. I think it's great 'cause, you know, the first thing I used to do when I wake up, and sometimes I do it still, is, like, you grab the phone and start s- and that's just not healthy.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:26

        (laughs)

    12. TBTom Blomfield1:08:26

        So not having the phone in your eye l- lasting at night, not having it the first thing in the morning, just charge it in another room. Um, that is a great step. Unfortunately, when there are really significant problems at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning... And it doesn't happen often, but, you know, it'll happen occasionally. You need to be able to wake the senior management team up and the CEO up to make the hard calls. Um, and so that phone was like the Batphone. You know, if something went wrong, that would be the only one in my room. The only n- no one had the number. It was linked to our automatic alerting system, so if at Monzo, if something went wrong, you'd sort of click a button, it would escalate. And if it got escalated far enough, the CEO gets woken up. But only that system had the phone number of this-

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:06

        Okay.

    14. TBTom Blomfield1:09:06

        ... phone. And so if it rang, it was because the bank was down. Um, and that happened a f- a handful of times. Not, you know, not every week, but every two or three months sometimes. Um...

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:17

        What an awful phone call.

    16. TBTom Blomfield1:09:19

        Yeah.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:19

        (laughs)

    18. TBTom Blomfield1:09:19

        Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it wasn't a person, it was a bo- you know, it was a robot saying, like-

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:23

        "Wake up."

    20. TBTom Blomfield1:09:23

        ... "There was an incident, you are required to bla bla bla bla." You're just like, "Ugh." Yeah, that... And it's horrible 'cause we know <|agent|><|en|>

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:30

        I can see by your hand gesture then how it felt.

    22. TBTom Blomfield1:09:32

        Yeah, the heart, your heart drops and you know it's gonna be... The rest of your week, if not your month, is gonna be ruined, and it's... You don't know if this is, like, the one that's gonna kill the company. We had a few like that that's like, you know, is, is... And I think a lot of founders have, like, those moments like, "Oh shit, is, you know, is this it? Is this the moment the company dies?" Um, and there's often not a lot you can do actually as a ce- uh, you know, your engineer's running round trying to fix the problem, and you getting stuck in is not gonna help, help fix, so you're sort of almost like a helpless, uh, sideline observer. Um, you know, you have to make the phone call to the board and to the investors and sometimes to the regulators at 4:00 in the morning. Um, but yeah, it's... You're in a pretty helpless situation. Yes, but it was a red phone. It was more like a pink Nokia-

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:17

        Okay.

    24. TBTom Blomfield1:10:18

        ... but it sounds better if you... (laughs) It sounds more dramatic.

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:20

        Yeah, it sounds way more, way, way, way more dramatic.

    26. TBTom Blomfield1:10:22

        It sounds more dramatic if it's-

    27. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:22

        In the movie, it'll definitely be a red phone.

    28. TBTom Blomfield1:10:23

        Yeah.

    29. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:24

        Um, it'll be in, like, a box with like a maybe a code on it. Um, I find that, what you just said there, really, really interesting, so that there's... 'Cause I've been through that, those key moments where you're not sure if your company's gonna survive-

    30. TBTom Blomfield1:10:34

        Yep.

Episode duration: 1:48:45