Alex We've raised like £30 million quid through crowdfunding which is quite extraordinary...It's very hard for a CMO of a start up to sit in front of a board and have that conversation...I don't know if I should publish the numbers but we've had two, two incredible growth months, this year, so far... Within an hour and a half we had 500 votes. Mark My guest today is Alex Latham who is the co-founder and CMO of Chip. Chip is a free app that builds your savings automatically and fights to bring you amazing rates. On the show Alex goes into detail explaining how Chip have managed to bring in £30 million in crowdfunding alone, we talk about building and engaging with both investor communities and also your user community. Alex also tells me how Chip have been able to grow the business by over 500%, which at the same time allowed them to triple the size of the team. I'm your host Mark McDonagh and this is the UKTN podcast. Sponsor Our sponsors of the show Uncapped believe it is crazy that for e-commerce businesses to fund growth through marketing, inventory or hiring they have to sell equity to VCs - especially when they know they’ll make that money back right away. Uncapped solved that problem and have already helped over 500 businesses worldwide. They offer up to £5 million of capital for a flat fee, you pay back only as you generate sales, with no dilution or loss of control. Founders simply apply online, receive a decision within 24 hours, and make monthly repayments that flex with your revenue. Head to weareuncapped.com/uktn to find out more. Use the code UKTN10 to get a 10% discount off your fees. Now let's get into the show. Mark Thanks for coming on the show, I thought it would be great to have you on because last time we sat down and did an interview was back in February in 2019 when I was with the startup van. long long time ago. 00:49.29 Alex Yeah, yeah, yeah, long time we ago you go the world has changed since then Christ. Yeah. Mark Yeah, a lot lots of things have changed with with me the change with you and I thought it be a good idea to have you on the show because I wanted to talk about funding and growth and obviously you being the CMO of chip and just it would be great to to talk to you about that and you have, in my eyes, I think, I should be probably introducing you nearly here now as the the crowdfunding King or at least chip as the crowdfunding King you've you've done so much though. 01:23.96 Alex It's very generous. Yeah I think we, we have I think I think yes, it's very, very kind I'm not sure I would agree with that. but ah but no we've we've always had really good success with crowdfunding, um I think we've done 6 crowdfunds now. Um, and we've raised. Ah, thirty million quid through crowdfunding which is quite extraordinary. Um, and yeah I think like as much as I would love to take credit for it. I think fintech is obviously a very hot space but at the same time chip has had some amazing successes crowdfunding and I think yeah I think um is the right sort of business. Do that and I think we've also got a great team um doing crowdfund. So yeah, but thank you? Yeah I'll take it. Why not add it to Linkedin Crowdfund King yeah 02:05.41 markmcdonagh Well I'm giving it you might as well take us. Um, but let let's I want to talk about the the last 3 crowdfunding rounds you did so I want to go back to April of 2020 when you raised 2.5 million and that would have been at the very start of lockdown. So. 02:22.58 Alex Um, yeah. 02:25.30 markmcdonagh Was there. There's obviously had a number of months of planning and pre like crowdfunding stages So, was there any doubt in your mind that it was that I was going to work that close to lockdown? Did you think of pulling it or was it No, we need to go ahead because Obviously we need the money as well because you need a bit of security coming into lockdown? 02:43.39 Alex Yeah, it's a good question so that Crowdfund was actually in response to lockdown. Um, so I think I think so for us literally? Ah I'll be very transparent honest with the train of thought there that we were going into pandemic. Um, we're all in lockdown we obviously are startup that needs funding. Um, and we were like shit. What what does this mean for chip? like there are businesses all around us suddenly doing drastic things like cutting half the workforce and stuff like that and luckily we didn't need to do any of that stuff. But at the same time we were. We're realist that. Okay, we know that we are going into a pandemic. We've already seen the kind of the the crashes in the world markets and we're like we need to make sure we have a good funding hand in front of us. Um, and we we we still have money we weren't running our money but we we were very honest with ourselves in saying. Ask kind of and board of directors that listen we need to put ourselves in the best position possible right now. Um, there's no point waiting. We need put ourselves and we we didn't know what was going to happen. No one knew what was gonna happen. But we didn't know what was gonna happen like two weeks down the line. Let alone six months down the line who who were known where the world was gonna be six months down the line. So. We took the decision very early on in the pandemic to go we have a very supportive um network of of crowd investors I think we had 17000 crowd investors at the time and um and they love chip. They love what we do. They supported our mission to date. So let's go and have that honest conversation with them and we did. And and we said to them listen we're about to go through pandemic we think that chip holds a good place as a um as a savings app to really help people through the pandemic and and grow through pandemic and keep growing as a digital business that helps people save. Um but we we want we want you to invest. Going into pandemic to give chip the best shot possible. Um, and yeah and we turned it around in a couple of weeks and and thanks to team at crowdcube for turning around so quickly as well. But yeah, that was um, that was actually ah ah, really? ah that was a very different one because that was also a very different narrative. Been out in the past of going like being quite transparent honest and we're always honest and transparent with our shoulders but being really transparent and honest with them about the the kind of that unknown in front of us. But luckily obviously chip was fine and we did really well and we are crowdfunded our crowdfund investors are hugely supportive as they always are um. And yeah, um, um, and we got through it and chip went strength from strength to strength through the pandemic which obviously not a lot businesses had the luxury of doing so all in all was good. Be yeah, that was definitely ah, a weird a weird situation. 05:27.65 markmcdonagh It's great to be in a position like that where you can actually go out to previous investors I said a community of of 17000? What what was the response like like or what did you expect to to hear back and because I'm sure you had. You know a number in mind if 50% come back and say yeah, they, they'd be interest investing especially during the lockdown that we'll go with this so what type of numbers are we expect to hear back and what was the response. 05:49.71 Alex Yeah, yeah, so I think I think we said we wanted to raise another million pounds um and that would be that would put us in like a good buffer position and and I think we we basically do a q and a with our investors. We did an email to our our crowd investors and they came back to us really positive and they said like no, we we think chip has a part to play in in the world right now and we want to support you? Um, so and yeah, um, we we ended up raising 2.5 million so I think, I think, we it wasn't so much the case that we were I mean, whether we should do it. Knew we were going to do it but we didn't know how much money we were going to raise and it like like most crowd funds I did, it blew away my expectations of of how successful we were. 06:35.53 markmcdonagh Was the target a million? 06:38.36 Alex Yeah, yeah, million pounds yeah exactly 06:42.50 markmcdonagh And yeah, as you know I don't need to tell you about when it comes to crowdfunding. You need to have a certain amount um, committed and and closed before it actually goes live How much did you did you manage to have committed before it went live? 06:56.62 Alex So we're different from most startups who crowdfund in that we we we generally don't have anything committed beforehand. Um, but we always kind of back ourselves I guess to a certain extent that we always know there's high demand so we always do a pre-registration page and users can pre-register if they're interested. And people have doing our pre-registration pages always get between 60000 um registrations and so there's obviously quite clear demand. So I know a lot of start ah startups make sure they have kind of like an anchor angel that's like supporting them and and and and and so like. Basic guarantee the check at the beginning of the crowd fund but we've never we had it in early rounds. We did that but not in ah, not in any recent round we always know, not off the back of the preregistrations for our users. Um that we were in a relatively safe spot. That's kind of how we work anyway. 07:47.78 markmcdonagh I remember you telling me back in the interview that we did through startup van in 2019 that when money comes in whenever you close close a round of ah of funding the minute the money lands in your account. You need to know and you need to have the plans on exactly what you're going to spend that on over the next six to twelve months whatever it might be what was your plan for for the the 2.5 million how were you spending that? 08:09.54 Alex Um, yeah. 08:15.10 Alex Good question. Yeah, and I think that's actually um, a mistake I I made early on in my chip career is um, kind of and it's very easy to do for a founder and I'll admit I was a relative and inexperienced founder is like I was. Raise four million quid and that's like an insane feeling and you're on top of the world and then then suddenly you're like okay, cool brill right? now we need to knuckle down and spend this money probably and by that time you've really kind of got your head in the game and the team's got their head in the game. It's been um, been maybe a month or so. Um, which is obviously not ideal. But now we're a lot more efficient at doing that and we have um, a much tighter plan that comes into interplay um, kind of immediately as soon as the money's in the bank. But for the two point five million um that was about yeah that was about getting it getting us that was about growth during the pandemic. Um, so the 2.5 million pounds is about taking chip to to more people frankly a lot a lot of it was marketing. Um during the pandemic and making sure that we could get in front of people like like I said earlier, we knew that um we knew that chip had a real part to play in helping people save money. Um. The the end of the day during during the pandemic people weren't spending anything so startups like monzo, revolute, really struggled um because no one's spending any money. No one was using their monzo card because they're not going out whereas chip people are home saving money so we need to be in front of these people we need to give them the best solution. The best customer experience possible. So. 09:26.27 markmcdonagh Yeah. 09:42.60 Alex That's kind of where that money went to it always generally splits out between 50% of going towards new features of 50% on marketing getting in front of more people and that's kind of that. But obviously it was different with 2.5 million than it was from other crowdfunds because it was specifically about the pandemic. Um, but yeah, it worked out really well and we grew really quickly. Um during the pandemic which was a relief. 10:06.97 markmcdonagh You'd have measured and seen a lot of different um responses and attitudes towards saving and I'm sure you'd had a lot of customers that you know might have lost their jobs and needs to pull the the money out of savings and I think I read in an article there before that. 10:12.91 Alex Ah, yeah. 10:24.10 markmcdonagh You You saw that the holiday fund which would have been one of the leading funds and ended up being the the safety net fund so that overtook the holiday fund and you also saw a lot of customers and maybe pulling money out to support small businesses and. 10:29.98 Alex Um, yeah, yeah. 10:41.84 markmcdonagh Obviously and invest in homeschooling equipment and also for any Diy projects was there was there any major trends that that stuck out? 10:49.10 Alex Yeah, so it's a really good question. Um, so yeah before the pandemic we generally had a lot of people that as you said set me up for holidays of a lifetime and and stuff like that and that yeah, really fell off a cliff. Um, and as you said we have it in in the app we've got a goal section and the goal section is a really interesting data point into how society's feeling about the world at the moment. Um, and yeah and and almost as soon I think as might February March Twenty Twenty the safety net funds started really rocketing and in terms of demand like people are. Setting up goals left right and centre of safety net safety net safety net which was honestly quite shocking to see and that was one of the things internally that as a team we were like holy shit this is this is actually if people at this level of scale are are worrying about their finances. This is quite scary even ah beyond Chip but just scary from a personal perspective seeing all these people thinking they need something in safety Net funds. Um, so that was definitely the biggest trend and the most shocking one I think I'm obviously a marketer I think from a marketing perspective our word of mouth growth really took off during the pandemic. Which was all which was very strange to see and like obviously it's nice to see as a marketer right? That's kind of what you dream of as a marketer and but seeing that really validated that we had kind of, we were, We were giving value to our customers at a time when they needed them when they really needed it when they really needed chip. 12:20.24 Alex Um, and that was quite amazing to see and that that was quite inspirational actually knowing that okay, well if our customers really need us and they need us now more than ever by hell or high water we are going to give them the best customer service we possibly can and that's kind of I guess the conversations we had internally and yeah I remember I remember in. Just before lockdowns. It must be the end of February 2020 whatever having a sit down as a marketing team in front of a whiteboard having a really frank and transparent conversation with each other It's like listen guys we have a we have a duty now to get in front of people in a time when they need to save money and we're gonna we're gonna do this. We can actually smack it and that's quite inspirational. Um, and it was very strange. But yeah I think um, yeah, like hopefully our customers still love us and they're still using chip. So hopefully they got they got great service out of it. 13:07.21 markmcdonagh How did you measure the the word of mouth did you have referral program in place? 13:12.68 Alex Yeah, so a bit of both so we got we have a referral program in place. Um, we have the last couple of years which has always been one of our biggest growth drivers actually I think about 50% of our growth to date has come from that so we've always been very reliant on our user base shouting about Chip, um, from the rooftops which has always gone down very well, But also our our organic growth. Um, which is obviously is a marketer's nightmare, organic growth, you never really know where it's coming from but and our our organic growth kind of really shot up as well. Which is people who who are organically talking about chip and and just signing up. Um, but also like. 13:48.44 Alex Being honest, we we pulled back on our our paid marketing on our our performance marketing during the beginning pandemic because we didn't really know what was going to happen. Um, so all the kind of CPAs on on Facebook and all the ad platforms are shooting all over the place. So we we kind of wanted to slow down a little bit take take stock and figure out what's happening. So. We kind of we slow down on all our paid performance channels. Um, but the level of customers kind of kept going up so that was a pretty good indicator for us. The organic growth was really taking off at that point now. 14:19.37 markmcdonagh Looking back now. Do you think that was a good or a bad idea to pull back on the marketing? and and the reason I ask is I interviewed Kieran Hannon who was the Ex-CMO of Belkin back in 2020, Early 2020 and you know the the trend was and we even found out through start up van found that our sponsors. We're were're pulling back because no one knew what was happening. Um, but at the same time. The some of the CMOs out there were betting on. You need to be marketing now in in a time of of lockdown and pandemic and I know lot not many have gone through anything like this before. But. 14:39.10 Alex Yeah, yeah, yeah. 14:57.35 markmcdonagh It looking back I know hindsight is great but looking back now. Do you think that was the right thing to do or would would you do that again if you could turn back time? 14:58.58 Alex Um, yeah. 15:04.90 Alex Yeah, so I think looking back at it out from a business perspective I ask one of the co-founders at chip it made complete sense and it enabled us to put ourselves in a good position and and just to to chill out the the amount of money we're spending. From a marketing perspective. No, we should have we should have pushed harder. Um, and I think I think if I purely was a CMO and if I was purely focused in customer acquisition I think we could have really rocketed our growth even faster if we had put more petrol on the fire and really accelerating our user growth of brand awareness. Um, because I think we had absolute perfect product market fit during that time of a time where no one was spending money. Everyone wanted to save money. How do they save? chip is the perfect solution for that. And I think we could have capitalised that um in a much more aggressive way. But obviously it made sense to preserve the business and and and there wouldn't have been any point like we no one had any idea what was going on in in the beginning of 2020 right, no no one knew what this actually meant. 16:16.26 markmcdonagh No. 16:17.63 Alex Um, or what the how the pandemic was going to play Out? So I think, um, I think in hindsight it was absolutely right decision to make. But if I, if I was purely a marketer I would have wanted to go harder I think the brands that really did go hard on marketing have done incredibly well from growth doing that. Because even like the the bids against your competitors on the ad platforms when all the competitors are Stopping. You can go harder sort of cheaper. So Even the economics of of the ads are much better. So Yeah I would have loved to go harder is the answer but um, um, um, I'm a Businessman. So I've got a. Ah, protect the business at the end of the day. 16:55.85 markmcdonagh Yeah, well you live and you learn as as you go on and like 2020 was a massive year for you. Um, and chip like your user base grew to ah the numbers I have here is like 280,000 um, savings grew to ah about 165m in savings and you tripled the size of of the chip team. You know so like even though you you pulled back on on your marketing. You still had massive growth. Um, and that kind of leads up to your your second crowdfunding that you did in September which was ah 10.7 million and with all of the crowdfundings that you've you've gone through you seem to be breaking records every time every time you do one. 17:34.33 Alex Um, yeah. 17:42.17 Alex Yeah, yeah, I know it is weird I think like it's always a bit of an ongoing joke in the office. Um, my wife takes piss out me this actually that every time we go into a crowdfund I'm I'm super negative about it. So like say I like the last crowdund we and the with the 10.71 went into I said. If we raise 4 million Quid I'll be delighted um and then and then we smack it and we'll raise almost. Ah I think yeah I think like between 4 and 5 is probably the Target idea. Yeah, it was yeah I can't remember 2 us. But I think but between 4 and 5 so we raised like 10.7 or something ridiculous like that. Um and I'm like. 18:04.62 markmcdonagh What was the target? 18:20.55 Alex Generally the the general rule of thumb is whatever I say I'm happy with we raise double that amount. So so that's sort was a nice face to be in but ah, but this is I feel like it is yeah I know exactly I I also felt like I'm going to jinx it, I Always say this this is stresses me out. Um, but yeah I think I'm. 18:28.58 markmcdonagh You should have said 10 18:39.15 Alex Like 2020 was an amazing like amazing year, but a super sreal year like I remember getting the end of it thinking like holy fuck I need a holiday because this is it was just ridiculous. Um, and yeah, we we grew the team. Um, and um, yeah I think I think we grew the team we got through the pandemic which is like the main thing to have be honest. And we managed to give our users a great experience and a great user experience and I think that was amazing and I think the fact that we grew really well. Um, and raised all that money was the the cherry on the cherry and the cake. Um, but yeah, it was a definitely surreal time. Super stressful. Yeah. 19:14.72 markmcdonagh How did you manage um, tripling the size of the team because that's difficult enough never mind a pandemic and I I take it the majority of the team were all hired remotely and you have an office in London? Um, I'm I'm taking it again. I don't know but and pre pandemic with the majority of the team in London and when you were hiring and growing through, through true lockdown. Did you decide to reach outside of London and hire talent outside of London or did you keep it keep it in? Sponsor A Quick sponsor reminder, if you're looking to fund growth without having to give away equity, Uncapped solved this problem. To find out more go to weareuncapped.com/uktn And to avail of a 10% discount off your fees, use the code UKTN10. That's UKTN10 19:53.00 Alex Yeah, good question. So yeah, so before the pandemic we had an office in Chancery lane and we were basically all in the office. We had a very small remote team about 3 people. Um and before the pandemic I think we were about 30/40 people something like that 40 people mainly. 20:12.15 Alex Um, and then I guess the end of 2020 we jumped up to 80 I think and then ended 2021 with about 130, something like that. So we kind of more or less doubled each year for the last two years. um I think the one thing I'm I'm actually most proud of in the last five, five plus years I've done chip for now is actually the fact that we have managed to scale that company culture with the team even in in ah even in in terms of in the face of kind of adversity in the the face of. Um, having everyone having to suddenly work remotely chips company culture is is really nice. We we always sum up that kind of we work very hard but we always take the piss out of ourselves and that kind of makes a really nice company to be perfectly honest. It's like people do massive podcasts and and essays and what makes a company culture. But I think if you work hard and everyone takes piss out of each other, it generally makes quite fun environment. Um, but for us. Yeah it was um it was a big shock. Um, it was a it was a big shock because we were we were we were working I was always an advocate I hated working from home. So the pandemic was a massive shock for me like I I'm quite an extroverted guy I like being in the office I bouncing ideas around each other and that's where I get my energy from I think a lot of people the same. But I think um I think yeah, we've managed to strike that balance nicely now where people come into the office a few days a week. They went home a few days a week and they kind of they get they get the benefits of both. Both worlds there. Um, and yeah, now we've got we've got engineers and we've got the teams scattered around the Uk scattered around Europe as well and some even further in Europe so it's um, is is amazing and it's ah yeah, the chip team work incredibly hard and yeah is is super inspirational. Um, but be a long way to go I think like our ambitions always um, our ambitions always massive at chip. We want to be the savings fintech unicorn um and and to do that. We're going to have to have a team of a thousand people I'm sure so let's see if we can scale the culture even further. That's kind of the objective at the moment. 22:17.39 markmcdonagh Do you do you think that you you'd have scaled it that way if it hadn't of being for locked? You know because as said you were very London focused and people in the office, especially the growth that you saw during during the pandemic. It just goes to prove that. 22:27.18 Alex Um, yeah. 22:37.35 markmcdonagh You know working remotely can work and does work. 22:41.48 Alex Yeah, yeah, so I think had it been for the pandemic. We probably would have saved in the office I imagine we would have tried to scale the team out in London I don't see any reason why we wouldn't have because both Simon and I are quite good. Big advocates of getting in the office. Um, but. Yeah I think I like I put my hands up and and say like I think we were probably wrong I think you kind of have an amazing work culture and amazing productivity with people working from home working remotely and I think we've proved that so I think I think that had been for the pandemic if if the pandemic hadn't existed. We would probably still be in the office and. The company would and the office would be much bigger and we're spending spending much more money on a massive office but and probably much more money on on on talent as well. But now we've we've struck a real nice balance between people I can remain really effective. We have our 3.30 call on a Friday with a whole company and everyone everyone gets stuck in and has a, someone presents the company numbers and stuff. It's amazing. It's kind of amazing moment where everyone gets together as a company and the culture is really great. So yeah, I'm really happy with this at the moment. Um, and it's about maintaining it I think that's gonna be the challenge to be honest. 23:53.42 markmcdonagh You had mentioned earlier on that you would pulled back slightly on on the marketing and now with the the second crowdfunding which was September of 2020, when you raised the the 10.7 million, at what stage did you realise that you shouldn't have pulled back and you probably should have gone gone harder on marketing? What, did you realise, that before you raised this this round of funding? 24:23.27 Alex Ah's a good question. Really I think I, to be honest I don't think we've ever internally acknowledged that as a mistake and I still don't think it was a mistake I don't think we I don't think we I think we made absolute right call of of pulling back our marketing. And and taking stock, seeing what was going on in the pandemic. How the world was going to turn out and then carry on um I wouldn't have changed that at all. But being said, there were massive growth opportunities that we could have taken advantage of, if we could have told the future. But alas as good at marketing I am I can't tell the future. So I think um I think I think it's it's not the case of where I wouldn't have changed anything. Um I think we made the right decisions. Um, and I think chip is in a really good place today full stop like who knows where we would have been if we we hadn't taken different decisions. Um, so. I think I'm I'm comfortable with that and like very much a piece of that. Um, but I think um, yeah think I think to to some marketers hats off to them for having I guess the balls to go no, this is this is the biggest economic crisis a hundred years I'm gonna spend more money in advertising like I'm not, I wasn't brave enough to do that I think it's that's a mad thing to do so fair play to the people who did I guess but I'm not that person. 25:44.67 markmcdonagh Yeah to to be honest with you I don't think there was many um I'd be interested to hear what what did work for you because like you've raised a lot of money on and that money needs to be used and it needs to it needs to you know you need, especially when it comes to marketing it needs to, To do do its job and needs to bring in new customers. What what worked for you and what what is working for you. Um, and where were you able to double down on or triple down on with with the with the funding because it's just interesting as as a marketeer myself. Um, what? what is working? What have you tried? What failed but but but but again on top of that. What really worked? 26:23.89 Alex Yeah, so yeah, gar the question I could talk about for hours. So I don't want to bore anyone listening but um, yes, it's um so I think for us, there's there's 2 2 kind of well 3 core ways I look at this right, one is the product itself. And I think we we invest massively in that so we always know that we are only going to grow and be successful as a business fundamentally if the users love our service and they love our service enough to recommend it to friends. Um, and like the NPS Score Net Promoter Score is the way we measure that. And that's a really important metric for us and I thoroughly recommend any marketers listening to make sure they they worship over that metric because that's certainly something I do it up. Um, so I think that's the first piece we we invest ah in the product and yes in fast we made some incorrect product decisions but fundamentally. We do spend a lot of money on the product and that's really important for us. The second piece is the pure acquisition bit and that is kind of the I guess the the Facebook ads and the the kind of affiliate partnerships and and all those things and we've always had kind of pretty good results from that. Um, and and yeah, we've got amazing team who manage that now. Um, and we're really scaling that up. So I think that works. It's obviously a really fickle beast to get working so especially especially kind of like paid Facebook paid Google it's very intimidating when you're sitting in front of kind of. Ah board and you're spending like quite a lot of money. Um, and the CPAs are coming in high and how you can optimise and stuff like that and all those complexities. So I think like there's there's obviously that second bit which is pure acquisition and the third bit that I look at is is the brand awareness right? and that is um and that is kind of our our Tv ads and our out of home and our billboard wars and so. And that is something that we're only really dipping our toe in and start launching the beginning this year and we're seeing a massive impact on that from that and I think that's something that that again is is really hard for a CMO to sit in front of a board and go right? I'm going to spend. X amount of money hundreds of thousands millions of pounds weather. Um on something that's not attributable. You're not going to know how impactful was that billboard is just literally no way you are going to be out to and you need to you need. It's very hard for a CMO of a startup to sit in front of a board and have that conversation. Um, but. 28:42.45 markmcdonagh Um, yeah. 28:53.75 Alex All you can tell them is that yeah, just you've got to trust me and then like needs to say afterwards they their minds are blown with the results which is nice. Um, but the brand awareness when then we launched our first Tv campaign and on boxing day our first out of home campaign our first proper out of home campaign on around the same time January the fourth of thing it was um and. All the other performance channels I think that's the biggest thing and the biggest takeaway is all the other performance channels operate so much better so much better when you are running brand awareness campaigns. So the Tv and the out of home. Although you can't attribute it to how many customters you bring in. Suddenly the Facebook ads start working better suddenly the Youtube ads are working much better suddenly all the partnerships are working way better and and that's largely because of the brand awareness. So as I said I could talk about this for hours, so I've already started rambling on unconscious of it. But I think for us when we invest that kind of money it is on the product. How can you How can give our users more value? How can we work on the product for Nps score perspective secondly is how can we scale our our kind of direct response acquisition more partners more affiliates more page channels unlocked be it Tiktok ads bit influencers all that stuff and then the third piece is how can you scale brand awareness. Um, um, we do that for Tv and out of home and that's kind of the way I look at it actually generally with all my marketing those are the 3 prongs I try and take and some businesses do really interesting ways of doing that right? So like Monzo always finds a really interesting example that Monzo's brand awareness is actually the card itself right? because they're they're very clever because every time someone gets out their orange. Pink coral. Whatever it's bloody called card. Suddenly everyone's seeing it and that's an amazing tool of brand awareness they don't need out of-home billboards because everyone's seen a bloody monzo card about a hundred times when you're in a pub or something. So I think that's really clever. So I think like I always try and focus around those 3 pillars and then I I kind of chop and change my strategies flitting in in between those 3 and trying to understand what works and what doesn't but yes, some channels of shit. Some channels are great and it's that's the exciting thing about being mark to trying to understand which ones good and which which is not yeah. 30:58.14 markmcdonagh Well, it's very interesting you they're being you know, super honest on you know, not knowing the impact that something is going to have and you know also you putting trust in what you've been told is going to work by by whoever is selling the the Tv as the radio as the billboards. Um. 31:14.40 Alex Um, yeah. 31:16.83 markmcdonagh And it's also interesting to hear that on top of that because brand awareness piece is. It's so difficult as you said to measure but it has that knock knock on effect with as you said like your Facebook ah ads where people have seen the brand somewhere. It's built some sort of. Trust. 31:32.33 Alex Um, yeah. 31:36.53 markmcdonagh Um, in the brand and now when they see the ads they click on it and they take action. Um, which it has has that massive knock on effect because I'll I'll lead up to your to your final round that you did now in a second but like 2021 again another massive year in growth for you guys. 31:39.81 Alex Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. 31:53.43 Alex Um, yeah. 31:55.97 markmcdonagh Your user base was up 60% to over 400000 users growth of 500% in chip I think you've saved, today's, now these numbers could be wrong or old and you've saved but there's been savings of over 640000000 and that is really showing. Where the 10 point what was it the 10.7 million went and what it brought in. 33:15.86 Alex Yeah, exactly yeah and I think coming back to like my my 3 kind of ideas about where ah where where we how we scale marketing right into the product. The acquisition and the brand awareness I think 2021 was actually about the product or anything else. Um, ah, 2022 certainly different, but 2021 has been about how can we offer people an even better user experience and we launched so many features by our our investment products and we've partnered with blackrock and biggest investment manager in the world to launch. Um, a really amazing selection of investment funds. And then we we launch our our chip x tier which enabled to get a stocks and shares icer and then we launch ah the marks high savings account and all of those things really compounded to help us really rocket user growth force of rocket deposits that as you said there the amount of money that people are saving with chip has gone pretty nuclear and I think like. Like going back to when we really started the business about five years ago we were that little auto savings app that that squirrelled away people's money. Um and we took a conscious decision in in 2020 that we didn't want people to think about that anymore we want see people to see us as now we're the savings account of the future. Um, and to do that we needed to change perception with a ah serious set of feature sets that really gave people good returns. Great financial products and that's what we focused on in 2021 was about how can we? How can we give people the best savings account in the market. How can we give them amazing investment funds. Um, and that resulted in really good use growth and deposit growth and now we're in a really good place for the products. It was. It's amazing I love it It's really good. Um, and and now it's just something that's ah, a pleasure to shout about. So. It's really good going to market with something that. Our Nps Score is awesome. The users. Love it now. We're just kind of trying to scale it really and that's kind of where we're at the moment. 35:11.28 markmcdonagh That that brings up to like October 2021 where you did another crowdfunding campaign you brought in Eleven point five million again you you've smashed some targets out of the park here and you you brought in over I think it was 12 or 13,000 investors. Ah, biggest of all time on crowd cube and you close 1,000,000 in under 10 minutes um I think was about eight point six million in under 48 hours you know so again some some some really aggressive numbers that you managed to smash out of the park there did, did you with this round go out to your community again because now you had an even bigger community from from the the 2.7 million round you did? 35:56.62 Alex Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what we did. Um, and yeah like I guess again it did completely blow away my expectations that round I remember really vividly. It was only a few months ago saying um, internally to the team like if we hit 5000000 I'll be absolutely delighted. We hit 11000000 um, so it was ah it was very surreal. But I think um, yeah I think it's it's coming to the stage now where we're really considering where VCs and its institutional investors fit within our journey. Um, like in the past we're always like yeah Vc Vc we need to raise ah we need to raise big institutional checks. But the the crowd money gives us so many added benefits in terms of really loyal customer base a customer base who shout about you from the rooftops who want to support you who who? um, also like hold you to account in the same way. Any investor would which is good and healthy. Um, but also they refer their friends as well. So it's a marketing channel with it. It's incredible. So I think to us we're we're always looking at how we can onboard more crowd investors and at the moment it's kind of looking less about how much money we can raise from them and more about we just want more investors now because someone is always binary, someone being an investor or not is what I look at because if someone's a chip investor then suddenly they're super engage of the business and and then also like we all very strongly believe in our mission and we're all very confident on our mission I want people to join that mission I want people to. Want people to to share it in in that success that that we're seeing and that that we will continue to see um and like we've we've had I don't know if I should publish the numbers but we've had ah we've had 2 2 incredible growth months this year so far. Um, like by far the biggest growth months we've ever had and already we're having new customers say to us we want to become investors too when we become investors too, we'renlike holy shit like what do we do? This is kind of weird thing where we've got people biting your arm off to join our investment journey. Um, but the same time like we've already got investor community you say. Yeah, so trying to balance that that's difficult. But um, but yeah I think um, that's kind of where I see it obviously raising £11000000 an incredible massive team effort. Um, and thanks to the team at crowdcube as well because working with them was extraordinary and making this happen. It was very stressful because their their website I think we crashed their website briefly for about 20 minutes which was which is really really stressful. It's like 1 of these things in hindsight was actually probably like a good thing because it showed how much demand there was but for us in in the office I think I wasn't office I think I was actually going on holiday that day I think I was on the train or something, like oh god's so stressful. But anyway here where it's out so it's fine. 38:42.97 markmcdonagh It It just goes to show the confidence in you know at this stage going on holidays on the first day of crowdfunding. 38:44.28 Alex Yeah. 38:48.85 Alex Yeah, why is Zaca now I think yeah Italy I yeah that was a rogue one. So I think Simon still holds that against me for whatever it all works. Maybe maybe me getting on holidays. Actually the thing that meant we did so well who knows. 39:04.41 markmcdonagh You've actually got the second largest um shareholders community when it comes to fintech in the Uk and you've got one of the largest in in Europe are you able to tell out of the 23000 that are that are shareholders. Because you've got 2 communities I'm taking now to look after you've got your community of users and you've got your community of and of investors. How how do you How do you manage that community and engage with that community because there's so many companies now that are trying to build a community, but they end up doing it the wrong way around. And we built a massive community of founders through the startup van but we weren't selling anything to to our community. We were trying to create great content to deliver to them and and you see some really good brands coming out now leading the way with a gym shark for one you know the built and engaging community and it's kind of like service and product comes come second. But it's so important you've built a really big community now as well. But I'd be interested to hear how you how you manage the community. Do you? Obviously you separate them because there are users or our founders our investors I should say and so how do you? How do you engage with them? 40:13.97 Alex Yeah, so we have people that work work with our investor community full time. Um, and I think I think that's always a really sensible investment for anyone who's done um a crowdfund is to is to do that so we've we've hired a community manager whose name's Fred and he's sitting behind me somewhere. Um, and he he is responsible for every single day working with our investors to make sure they are having their voice heard and and and that any any concerns or anything that I have or any ideas I have is fed through to the relevant people at chip. Um, and he's also responsible for not only taking information from them. But also feeding the information back to them in terms of what is going on. How can they help all those cool things so we do have an amazing team the the work with our community I think really, it's it's just about it's it's a content exercise really right? It's about engaging with them as transparently as you can. The right content that they want to know, and they all lap up that content and they always do that investors love all the content we throw them be it a, and a be it videos even this podcast I'm gonna share it with them and they and of bloody love it. Um, and all of those things are really important to get your community engaged and. Think it's it's about it's about yeah, it's about user engagement. It's about content but it's about trying to trying to get the most out of them in in a positive way I don't mean that kind of a cynical marketing way. But in terms of like how can you unlock value out of them and out out of that community in terms of feedback in terms of um in terms of. Kind of branding advice in terms of tapping in some. That's a product resource like For example, we we yesterday we put up. We have a Facebook group called the chip investors. Um, and there's about 7000 people in that Facebook group. Um, and Facebook's a great tool for it as well. I don't think people should overcomplicate it with the tools they use just Facebook groups work really well. Um, and we put a post up saying here are 2 screens for 2 designs we're we're thinking of there's screen A which shows the screen like that screen B shows a screen like that can you please vote and let us name a favourite within an hour we have 500 votes. We had 500 people who have taken time out to give us feedback and tell us which was their favourite. And yeah, and we listen to them and there's amazing resources and so we went okay, well clearly a so let's go with A and and stuff like that is really powerful. It adds so much value to the business. So that's the kind of way we we look and we and and we unlock value out of them. Um. And and yeah and I think they're hugely and I think that well I think they seem to love it like clearly from the crowdfunding they they do so? Um, yeah, that's kind of the way we do it. But I think the more more content you can do the the better with the investor community. 42:51.72 markmcdonagh Yeah, um, you know you're you're doing it the right way and this where a lot of brands and and business struggle with the the involvement and the engagement with with building a community and the transparency you know like telling them exactly what you're thinking what you're looking to do like you did with going out to the investor community before you um you launched the the crowdfunding back at the beginning of the pandemic and lockdown you know and and in including people in it you you've had some fantastic growth and and I'm looking forward to to when you're allowed reveal more numbers in the future and we can get you on again and For for another podcast and I normally end the show with asking and the founder that I'm interviewing what book has had the most impact on you as as a founder or a CMO in this in this Case. Um. On on the business, on chip? 43:49.16 Alex Good question, Very good question. Um I think um, yeah, ah, there's ah, there's a book I love and I don't's so a Cliche answer to be honest, but it's a book called shoedog and it's you probably read it. It's by it's about it's by. 44:06.17 markmcdonagh Um, yeah, um. 44:08.80 Alex The the founder of Nike and um and I think there's just 1 quote that I've then I love from it and it's actually I've got it on my computer screen. It's on a post it and I scribbled it down about four years ago whatever and it's still my it's this horrible crinkled up post it note um and my wife hates it. It. It makes my. Horrible, um, but the quote is um, the cowards never started the week died along the way and that leaves us and I think those those few words are just insanely powerful and something that no matter what startup life throws at you it. Sums it all up and how resilient you have to be and and the fact that even when you're having a crap day running a startup you know that? no you you you? you started this, you're here and not people wouldn't have started that that means you're already better than everyone else and I think that's pretty inspirational. So I think I think it's less about um. Kind of the operational side of business. Um, or my my role as CMO but that quote the cowwards never started the week dud along the way that leaves us is something that is definitely one of my favourite quotes quotes all time and I did that from the book shoe dog Mark/Sponsor Thank you for listening, before you go could you please take a moment to push the subscribe button wherever you're listening to this podcast, I'd really appreciate the support. And remember, our sponsor Uncapped offer up to £5m of capital for a flat fee. You pay back only as you generate sales, no dilution or loss of control. 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