The Ledger
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why aren't all 30 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Hecker: Trade Republic customers keep 40% of their private wealth on platform
“When we survey our customers we see that they have 40% of their private wealth with us. It's a KPI. No challenger bank comes anywhere close, right?”
Hecker: Trade Republic will become Europe's Charles Schwab or UBS
“So if we can just grow with these people, you're going to be the Charles Schwab, the UBS of Europe in 2030 years.”
Hecker: Trade Republic sold 75% of the company in €600K angel round
“And then we raised the 600,000 euros back then and sold 75% of the company.”
Hecker: Trade Republic grew users and assets while Robinhood lost users in 2022
“So they are churning monthly active users, they're churning assets, they're churning activity. At the same time, TraderPublic has growing active numbers of customers, has growing assets, and has new savings plans. And by the way, nobody is quitting their savin…”
Hecker: Berlin lacks experienced scale-ready engineers for distributed systems
“If we really want to hire an engineer here in Berlin, who has seen large distributed IT systems for millions of customers, we don't find them here in Berlin. We need to go to the UK. We need to go to Sweden to maybe Russia to hire these people.”
Hecker: Trade Republic treats employee probation as an extended interview process
“Given the labor laws in Europe, we treat the probation period as an extensive form of interviews. So you're going to be evaluated all the time. At the end of your probation period, there's a committee. To really, that you can stay.”
Hecker: Trade Republic evaluates staff quarterly and exits non-performers
“By now I think we own our culture, which is very performance driven. Which if you don't accelerate, if you don't push you out we evaluate you quarterly. So we don't want to be this all everybody's happy a place. We want to be a place where those people who wan…”
Brenner: Trade Republic had just 1,000 customers during its $10M Series A
“Well, it was five, six years ago. It was cheap in today's world. I'll tell you that. But on the other hand I felt expensive at that time, given a thousand customers in an A round of ten million.”
Hecker: Trade Republic prioritizes total assets and recurring deposits over trading spikes
“So eventually if we go to the board, The first one we talk about is assets, total assets. The second number is a recurring deposits over time, because we believe that's the biggest predictor for sustainable activity, because I'd rather have millions of people …”
Hecker: Influencers and ambassadors are now a top customer acquisition channel
“So this is something we underestimated. You thought those chaps are incredibly expensive and why would you give them so much money? And now it's a bunch of ambassadors who really drive your authenticity and are your biggest connection pieces to the audience, t…”
Brenner: Creandum required restructuring Trade Republic's cap table to increase founder equity
“This was actually a deed breaker for us in the end, because we really wanted to see Christian and the team own enough to be able to have, you know, sufficient as a founder to stay with the company long-term.”
Brenner: Trade Republic will hit €1B revenue and go public within 5 years
“TraderPublic is the complete financial partner to millions of Europeans. It has more than ten million customers, a hundred billion in assets, and a billion or more in revenues. It's publicly traded, and it's not only savings platform, but also the banking part…”
Reck: Trade Republic's founder centralizes all product reviews under himself
“He's centralizing all of product under him. You know, basically every product review runs through him.”
Reck: Trade Republic is one of the most underrated tech companies in Europe
“Trade Republic, which you know, is a very successful fintech company, probably one of the most underrated companies in Europe, you know, they're absolutely crushing it.”
Hecker: Trade Republic board meetings focus on problems, not successes
“Whenever we see something not working, that's the first thing we share with people, right? So we rarely talk about the things which work well. We most often talk about the things which don't work well.”
Hecker: Traditional European banks are Trade Republic's primary competition
“Our competitors are much more the traditional banks in continental Europe.”
Hecker: Trade Republic built 1-2 year relationships before adding VCs to cap table
“And I think any investor which we picked, we've built a relationship for over a year or two years, right?”
Hecker: Trade Republic refuses campaigns designed to boost trading frequency
“And actually we're not looking at it to it at all. So in any product manager It comes to me and suggest that we should an engagement campaign, helping people to invest more, more often, more frequently. We don't do it.”
Hecker: Trade Republic banned the term 'micromanagement' in favor of 'hands-on'
“We killed the word micromanagement in the company, right? It's not allowed anymore. We call it hands-on, right?”
Brenner: Trade Republic's 2023 revenue hit 5x Creandum's Series A plan
“In 20, 23, we're five X the plan that was presented to me on the, on, on top line.”
Hecker: Trade Republic's average account balance reaches €25,000 after three years
“So again, like the average account size is 9010 thousand euros. And this is the average. Basically, if you look into cohorts, which are with the company for two or three years, the average accounts is 25,000 euros.”
Hecker: Free ETF savings plans retain users through gym-subscription guilt
“So you subscribe to a ETF basket, so to say, and you put in money monthly, and this is something people almost never really quit, right? So you set up 203 hundred euros per month, and you just deposit money with this savings plan. And it's a bit like a fitness…”
Trade Republic bootstrapped until securing a banking license and 10,000 customers
“And so then we bootstrapped the rest between 2000 17 and 19. And once we had our banking license, And the first 10,000 paying customers, the VCs were all very excited all of a sudden and wanted to invest.”
Hecker: Trade Republic gets 65% of customers through organic word-of-mouth
“So it's still today we get 65% of customers for free through organic growth and word to mouth.”
Brenner: Startups should establish a formal board after raising $10M–$20M
“In Trade Republic's situation, you needed a board from day one because we regulated the company and make sure that we adhere to those regulations. But I think when you've raised that, when you've raised 10 to fifteen million or twenty million or passed your A …”
Hecker pitched over 200 VCs before raising for Trade Republic
“Between, I think, 2015 and 19, I met over 200 VCs.”
Brenner initially refused to evaluate Trade Republic in March 2019
“My colleague came to me one evening in, in, in March, nine, 2019 and said, we have this opportunity to look at a Robin Hood of Germany. Do you want to take a look? No, I said, and that was a, that was, so I said to myself, this is, this has been around for 25 …”