The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 21 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 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
Blomfield: Monzo received 96 consecutive investor rejections for a 2020 flat round
“And I had 96 no's in a row for that fundraise to try and do a flat round.”
Blomfield: European neobanks N26, Revolut, and Monzo failed initial US expansion
“N-twenty-six has failed, Revolut's failed, Monzo's, the first go's failed”
Blomfield: YC maintains an internal database rating 10,000 venture investors
“So YC has an investor database, which has 10,000 people in. I'm sure you're in there. We can perhaps look it up. And it has reviews from all of the YC founders that have taken investment from them, both on their process and what they would like to work with af…”
Blomfield: Monzo survived COVID by raising $100M in a 40% down round
“It was a sort of 40% down round. I think about 1.3 billion And we got a hundred million, and the company survived.”
Blomfield: YC requires 18-month visiting partner role before full partnership
“YC has this interesting model where they make you do a, be a visiting partner for 18 months, which is The, like, the most brutal job interview I've ever done.”
Blomfield: A single YC partner can unilaterally decide to fund a startup
“Each of the partners has access to the entire application pool, but if I read an application and I, I'm the first one to say, yes, that's mine, then I get to interview it. And if I interview it, and I'm the sole person who says, yes, we will invest, then it ge…”
Monzo acquired 99% of its 1.2 million users through viral mechanics
“And here we are, 1.2 million customers, 99% through viral mechanics.”
Blomfield: Monzo will launch a third-party marketplace financial control center
“I'm really, really excited about building out this marketplace of products from third parties on the Monzo platform to be a real control center, to let our customers manage all of their money wherever it sits within a single place.”
Blomfield: Monzo burned $100 million annually in early 2020
“We were burning a hundred million a year at the time.”
Blomfield: Monzo acquired its first million customers with zero advertising spend
“But we got to a million customers with no advertising.”
Blomfield: Roughly 60% of Monzo customers deposit their salary into Monzo
“So then we spent the two years getting everyone to put their salary in, and now it's something like 60% of customers put their salary in.”
Blomfield: Monzo revenue grew nearly 10x from $100M at departure
“I left at a hundred million revenue or so, and it's now almost 10 X that.”
Blomfield: YC requires founders to relocate to San Francisco for batches
“Yes, they, we more or less require everyone to relocate now to San Francisco in the dog patch where we have our office, and spend three to four months there.”
Blomfield: Founders Were Selling 25% to 30% at Seed Stage
“The advice we've seen, or the trends we've seen over the last few years is that founders were getting way over diluted in their seed round. They're giving away 25 or 30% of their company at seed.”
Blomfield: Monzo doubled growth rate over recent months via product optimization
“So our growth rate in the last three or four months has doubled based on product growth alone, which is free zero cap.”
Blomfield: GoCardless couldn't raise any investment in London in 2011
“We couldn't raise a single penny of investment in 2011.”
Tom Blomfield: Y Combinator batches are sharded into four mini-groups
“YC spit into four groups, so it's not a whole YC, it's four separate mini YCs, it's sharded, and you'll get a very different experience in each one of them.”
Eileen Burbidge Worked as Monzo's Interim CPO for Six Months
“When we lost a chief product officer, sorry, chief people officer, she came and did an exec job at Monzo effectively for like four days a week for six months.”