Antoine Le Nel, CGO @Revolut: How Revolut Launch and Grow Products & Why CAC is a BS Metric | E1216
Antoine Le Nel (guest), Harry Stebbings (host)
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.
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.
Key Takeaways
Optimize for ROI and cohort quality, not for low CAC.
Focusing on CAC pushes teams toward the cheapest channels and weakest users; Revolut never sets CAC targets and instead optimizes for ROI and payback, even if acquisition costs rise, because high-value cohorts justify higher bids.
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Build the growth engine from day one and treat growth as a bidding war.
Growth is ultimately about outbidding competitors profitably across channels; the real edge comes from superior measurement and optimization of the full funnel (virality, performance, mid- and upper-funnel) so you can confidently bid more than others.
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Speed matters more than perfection: ship decisively, then iterate ruthlessly.
Revolut avoids over-reliance on A/B testing early on, aims for clear 10x improvements, and kills underperforming products and campaigns quickly (even long-planned TV runs) to maintain agility and avoid sunk-cost traps.
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Use specialists, not generalists, for growth execution.
Le Nel argues that ‘growth managers’ who do “a bit of everything” underperform; Revolut organizes experts by funnel layer and channel, reserving generalists mainly for leadership roles and cross-functional coordination.
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Global localization is overrated; reuse what works, with rare exceptions.
King and Revolut have seen the same creatives and strategies work across very different markets (e. ...
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Brand is built by product first, then amplified by marketing.
In the early stage, investing heavily in brand is usually a mistake; if the product is truly strong, penetration and word of mouth drive awareness, and later-stage brand marketing mainly broadens segments and improves conversion.
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Remote work can enhance efficiency and inclusivity if tightly structured.
Revolut runs 20–25 recurring weekly reviews and one-on-ones as structured problem-solving sessions, leveraging short remote meetings and ‘raise hand’ dynamics to flatten dominant personalities and give introverts more voice, while accepting reduced in‑person contact.
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Notable Quotes
“If you're a good product manager, you don't need an A/B test. You should be able to know what is the right product.”
— Antoine Le Nel
“There's no CAC discussion at Revolut. We only talk about ROI.”
— Antoine Le Nel
“Growth is a bidding war. It's about whether you're able to bid above everyone else.”
— Antoine Le Nel
“I think the idea of localization is completely overrated.”
— Antoine Le Nel
“We rarely look back at Revolut. We're never happy about our success… We never reach our targets.”
— Antoine Le Nel
Questions Answered in This Episode
How can an early-stage startup practically adopt an ROI-first mindset without rich historical data on cohort quality?
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. ...
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Where is the line between healthy ‘no-belief, data-first’ thinking and missing long-term brand or strategic bets that don’t show immediate ROI?
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In which cases does deep localization actually become essential, despite Antoine’s claim that it’s overrated?
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How can companies without Revolut’s scale or data science resources build a robust measurement framework for mid- and upper-funnel activity?
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What organizational risks or cultural downsides might emerge from Revolut’s very fast kill decisions and relentless weekly performance pressure?
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Transcript Preview
If you're a good product manager, you don't need an A-B test. You should be able to know what is the right product. I think the less you believe in, the better it is. I have no belief in anything. There's no CAC discussion at-
Wh- why?
... Revolut. We only talk about ROI. Because if you talk about CAC, you'll always acquire the worst cohorts. I think the idea of localization is completely overrated. Growth is a bidding war, all right? It's a bidding war. It's about whether you're able to bid above everyone else.
Ready to go? (upbeat music) Antoine, I am so excited for this. First, thank you so much for joining me today.
Thank you for having me.
Now, we have many mutual friends, mostly also hailing from your start at King, so I wanna start with that. When you look at the insanely successful growth of Candy Crush, what did King do well that was instrumental to the success and growth?
I think, first of all, everyone thinks there was, um, a huge amount of luck. I think the idea that what King did really well, I think they tested extensively everything. So it was a volume game, you know, at some point, and I think they understood, they understood that super quickly, saying, "You need to try as much as you can. At some point, something will pick up." You know? And I think they did that super, super, super well, and I think then there was this super fast pace. I remember, we were launching a game, like, I mean, every quarter, pretty much, we were launching a game. And not every w- all of them were successful, but just like, the pace at which we were producing games, releasing the games and so on, I think we did that super, super well.
The thing you have to get very good at, though, is cutting when you see the data isn't showing signs. How long is enough data, or how much data is enough data to know that it wasn't working?
I think that's the thing that's probably has changed over time at King. I think at the beginning, we were cutting things very quickly, and I think as, as time went, we started to wait longer and longer, say, "Oh, you know what? Give it another chance. Give it another chance. Give it another chance." You know? And I think, I think that's, that's the whole point on when... And that's how you probably can measure the agility of the organization, is how quickly you kill projects versus how many more chances you are giving to them.
So if testing and speed of iteration and testing was something that you did very well-
Yeah.
... what was something that King really messed up? (laughs)
It's definitely the most data-driven organization I've ever been in, um, in the sense that really data was driving the organization. Not just... So if you take the thing literally, the company was driven by data. I think it was so powerful that, uh, and worked so well that at some point we just went way too far in the sense that, for example, when we were launching games sometimes, we were probably looking more at the data than the game itself. You know? It's like, you could have meetings and then you just look at the numbers and you're like, well, uh, you, y-
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