FF 007: Founding Europe's Largest Trading App with Nick Bortot, Founder @ Bux

Nick Bortot is the Founder & CEO at Bux, Europe's largest mobile trading platform with an incredible 175,000 active users. In his former life he was one of the driving forces behind the Dutch market leader in online brokerage, BinckBank. There he held several commercial positions before he was elected member of the executive board. After having spent five years in the boardroom, Nick started dreaming about a new company that would make the financial markets both fun and exciting. This dream turned into BUX. Bud has attained many incredible mentions and awards including being named on the Fintech50 2015. You can also check out their first TV add right here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: How Nick made the move from broking to founding Bux? What are the benefits of being a slightly older founder? What Nick would recommend to anyone looking for a technical co-founder? How to build a team of individuals with complimentary skills? What are the drivers for the incredible growth to 175,000 users? How is Nick planning to convert an audience of non trader to start trading? What advice would Nick give founders entering into heavily regulated markets? How Bux have built a great brand in a competitive market? Having raised funds from Orange Growth Capital, what was surprising and challenging for Nick about raising angel and VC money? What would Nick do differently if he was raising funds again? Does Nick agree with the concept of building a 'war chest' of funds? Items Mentioned in Today's Episode: Nick's Fave Book: Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography Nick's Fave Newsletter or Blog: VICE News Nick's Fave App: BRAINTOSS: Toss your thoughts straight into your inbox As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC, Nick and Bux on Twitter right here!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Harry Stebbings?

  You're listening to the 20 Minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings. Now, Friday is great for two reasons. Firstly, obviously, the weekend is coming, which is great for everyone. But secondly, it can only mean one thing here at the 20 Minute VC. It's time to bring out an incredible founder. And today is no different, as I'm so excited to welcome Nick Bortot. Nick is the founder of one of my favourite apps, Bucks. Bucks is Europe's largest mobile trading platform and app with an incredible 175,000 active users. In his former life, he was one of the driving forces behind the Dutch market leader in online brokerage, Bink Bank. There, he held several positions before he was elected member of the executive board.

• 0:45Harry Stebbings?

  However, after spending five years in the boardroom, Nick started dreaming about a new company that would make the financial markets both fun and exciting. This dream turned into Bucks, and Bucks has attained many incredible mentions and awards, including being named on the Fintech 50 2015. However, before we dive into today's show, not only do HiringScreen provide the fastest and smartest way to recruit your team, they are also doing a competition giveaway. Up for grabs is The Alliance, co-authored by Reid Hoffman. And all you have to do is tweet work to HiringScreenRH, and the first five listeners who complete the task will be in with winning the book.

• 1:27Harry Stebbings?

  All you have to do again is tweet work to HiringScreenRH. But now it's time to get down to the interview, so it's with great pleasure that I welcome Nick Bortot, founder of Bucks, to the 20 Minute VC.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  You have now arrived at your destination.

• 1:50Harry Stebbings?

  Nick, welcome to Founder's Friday.

• 1:54Speaker 02

  Thanks very much, Harry. Thank you for having me on the show.

• 1:57Harry Stebbings?

  Now, as a huge fan of Bucks, I'm so excited to have you on the show. And I'd love to start off by hearing a little about you and Bucks. And for any of our listeners that may not know what Bucks is, can you give us a little background?

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, I will. Um, let me first tell you a little bit about myself and my background. Uh, I worked in online brokerage for fifteen years. Uh, so stock trading for retail investors. And I met loads of investors, but I met even more people who wanted to invest. Because the financial markets, the stock exchange have a huge appeal to a lot of people. I think about the success of the film Wall Street. And so, um, there's this huge group of people who want to invest. And there's only, let's say, a much smaller group that's actually investing. And I was always wondering, why is this large group not acting on their wish?

• 2:54Speaker 02

  Uh, so why don't they open an account? And by talking to them, I found out that, uh, many of these people were a bit scared off by the complexity of trading by trading platforms. You know, all these bells and whistles, charts, blinking lights, jargon, et cetera. So I thought, if I want to reach out to this much bigger group, uh, I have to come up with a device, with an app, that's much more straightforward. Uh, the commission should be lower and it should be more fun. So that's what we did at Bucks. We basically created an app that makes trading, so stock trading,

• 3:34Speaker 02

  uh, very straightforward, very easy to understand, uh, extremely cheap. Our commission started at a fraction of what normal commissions are. And last but not least, it's great fun because we added a lot of gaming elements to trading.

• 3:50Harry Stebbings?

  And as I understand you, you're thirty-eight when you founded Bucks?

• 3:54Speaker 02

  Uh, thirty-nine, to be precise.

• 3:57Harry Stebbings?

  Thirty-nine. It kind of goes against the typical view of a kind of Stanford hoodie-wearing dropout founder. Um, so how have you found being a potentially slightly older founder?

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Um, I think it's it's it's good when you're when you're slightly older. All I I read in in an article in the New York Times that the the idea about uh founders being very young is is is not completely true, actually, because the the average uh uh founder of of a startup is thirty eight, I read. Um, but I think it's it's great to be a little bit older. First of all, um. You're much more focused when you're older. It it's harder to to distract me. Um, many problems you come across, you you've seen before. And um what what what really helped me is that that during these fifteen years in online brokerage. Uh, I I understood the importance of a team.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Um, I kind of developed a talent for for finding other talents. And what I did when I started Bucks is I I started with a team and I I started to to look look out for top-notch co-founders. And what I see uh that a lot of young entrepreneurs do is they uh they bump into a a a couple of guys at university, they start a a company together. But most or or quite often, the team is not uh uh very well balanced. So that's that's a great advantage of of being a slightly older.

• 5:30Harry Stebbings?

  So you started Bucks without a co-founder then. How did you find your co-founder?

• 5:35Speaker 02

  Um, I first started thinking, uh what what do we need? And um one of my experiences uh in in online brokerage was that loads of people don't trade to make money. Money for for a lot of uh retail traders is only secondary. Uh, most of them trade because they they just like it. It's fun, it's exciting, it's uh it's uh people, people uh like to learn about about what's happening on the on the markets. So I saw a lot of similarities between trading and gaming. Um, so I thought, if there are so many similarities, I need to find someone with a lot of games knowledge. Uh, so I started looking around in the Netherlands. We're based in Amsterdam.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  And there is quite a big gaming uh community here in the Netherlands. And I, uh, by, by, uh, after drinking, uh, loads of cups of coffee with, with all kind of people, I bumped into a guy and, and he, he's a specialist in, in, in gaming. And, uh, and, and he's also a specialist in mobile. So he was like, uh, this was the best of both worlds. And, uh, we, we, we form a great team and then we bumped into another guy who, uh, who is, is great in, uh, in, uh, um, developing scalable systems. Uh, he was in messaging before, um, and the fourth, uh, the fourth founder of Bucks is, is, is a good friend of mine who used to work in market making.

• 7:02Harry Stebbings?

  And then, you know, a lot, a lot of people have these ideas and these concepts. How did you manage to convince him to join you on the ride?

• 7:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, um, if, if you're, if you're in a, in a, in a, in a certain, um, industry quite long, uh, and you have, you have, I, I, I, I really have a vision about, about the fact that the market is way bigger than, than, than the current market. Um, I just, yeah, my, my story was, story was con- convincing, I, I guess, cause, uh, it, uh, it didn't take, take me a lot of effort, uh, to make them join me.

• 7:39Harry Stebbings?

  And would you, would you have any advice for founders looking for another co-founder?

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, the, the best advice is to find someone who is good at what you're not good at and, and, and the opposite. So make sure that, uh, within your team, and I think a team should, should consist of, of at least three or four people. Make sure that all necessary skills are, are there in the team. So there has to be a good presenter. There has to be a guy who's, who's ob- obviously good in, in, in coding. Um, uh, I'm a guy, for example, I, I, I'd like to push the, the pedal to the metal. And, and my, my colleague and our CFO and co-founder, he likes to push his, to push the brakes a little bit. So that's a great combination.

• 8:23Harry Stebbings?

  And then moving to the Bucks product itself now, you've got a hundred and seventy-five thousand users in the UK and Netherlands. Making you the most popular trading app in Europe. So congratulations on that incredible achievement. What do you think are the drivers for this incredible growth? And how are you planning to encourage this new wave of non-traders to use your platform?

• 8:45Speaker 02

  First of all, our app is extremely straightforward. We do not use complex bells and whistles. Secondly, the commissions are very low. If you look at a regular online broker, as a customer, you pay between five and 10 pounds or euros, whereas we start with 25 cents for a trade.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  The third element is our design. We love UX, we love UI. We're from Amsterdam, like I said, and our designer has a kind of rule.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  He wants to be able to, on his bike, place a trade, riding over the canals in Amsterdam. That's his rule.

• 9:33Harry Stebbings?

  That's his fundamental principle.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  It's his principle. And he managed to do that. So it's extremely straightforward. Another great asset of Bux is that we create our proprietary content.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Because we think that a lot of financial content, a lot of financial stuff on the internet is very difficult to read, hard to understand, is long. So we have our own editorial team. We have a very specific tone of voice. I think we speak the language of the millennials, so no vague jargon or quasi-intelligent bullshit. I think we're the first player in the financial space that really tells it like it is.

• 10:24Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely, and that's been very beneficial for you as a brand, I presume.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Yes, it is, it is. And by building a great brand, it's easier to distinguish yourself from the competition. And it's also easier when competition gets tougher to hang on to a great brand.

• 10:43Harry Stebbings?

  And you've raised funds from our friends at Orange Growth Capital with Mark Berninger as a previous guest on the show. How did you find the entire fundraising experience? And was there anything particularly challenging or maybe surprising about it?

• 10:58Speaker 02

  When I look back, I especially look back at our first round with great pleasure. Because in an early stage round, you often raise capital with informal investors. And those informal investors are often former entrepreneurs themselves. And they all have their own story, and that's what I really liked, to hear their story, to see how they led their companies to success. That's very helpful. What I actually found surprising when raising money, that investors are just like normal people.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  Of course, there are the metrics and the KPIs. But when a startup gets hot, and in the round we, in our previous round, we, in the beginning, we were, it was quite tough, but gradually, bugs became hot and people started calling us if they could invest. So, when you get hot, it's like investors are losing their minds a little bit. It's like you're the most beautiful girl on the dance floor and everyone wants to dance with you. Of course, the question is how to become hot, I cannot answer that question. But that was surprising to me.

• 12:17Harry Stebbings?

  Do you ensure that at that stage, when you are hot, that your valuation doesn't get excessively high, leading to a potential down round in the future?

• 12:28Speaker 02

  It's good to keep that in mind, but it's hard to say what your value in the future would be. So, I think there should be a good balance between your valuation and other conditions in the contract, like a liquidity preference or things like that.

• 12:45Harry Stebbings?

  And where do you sit on how much money you should raise? So if you're particularly hot at one moment in time, should you raise far more than you initially set out to and, you know, build a war chest, per se? Or do you think you should just raise what you need?

• 13:00Speaker 02

  No, I think you should try to raise more, definitely. Not raise too much, because it doesn't make sense to have money sitting, sleeping on your bank account. But...

• 13:16Speaker 02

  What what what the approach I like is to to to tell investors that you need a specific amount of money to do this and that. But if you uh if you manage to get uh to to to get in more funding, you can do. Uh some some extra things on top of that. Um and you also have to make sure you're able to do it to to execute. So that that's that's that's the the approach uh I prefer.

• 13:43Harry Stebbings?

  And for your funding rounds, how much runway did you ask investors to give you?

• 13:49Speaker 02

  For eighteen months.

• 13:50Harry Stebbings?

  Eighteen months, and you think that should be the general standard?

• 13:54Speaker 02

  Um it's hard to say, it depends on your product, um but we we have we have quite a fast product, so. Uh we acquire customers and they they uh they monetize, we we monetize on customers pretty quickly. Uh I guess if you're in another in another um. Area uh where where things go uh don't go that fast and raise money for a longer periods.

• 14:19Harry Stebbings?

  And if you were to start the fundraising experience again from scratch, was is there anything you'd do differently? Be it, you know, be more relaxed or have less metrics or more metrics?

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Um I would I wouldn't talk to to uh to so many investors, I I would. Look ma- make a list first, uh look what investors really can add value to your company. Um also, uh look for investors that uh the that that that that give you a. A a good feeling personally, so it's not only about ratio, it's it's it's also uh. Uh it's something human, so so loo- look for someone you you like and who likes you.

• 15:01Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  Um because you have to work together for at least eighteen months and probably for for three, four or five years. Um and just then approach, uh let's say, uh your shortlist and and and don't approach twenty, thirty or forty uh different investors.

• 15:17Harry Stebbings?

  Maybe approach five or six in the right sector and the right size round and that sort of thing?

• 15:22Speaker 02

  Exactly, yes.

• 15:24Harry Stebbings?

  And and Bucks itself operates in a very regulated environment. What what advice would you give to entrepreneurs who are active in in regulated environments as the balance between getting a license? And then time to market being not an easy one?

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Yes, I see quite a lot of entrepreneurs, especially in fintech,

• 15:47Speaker 02

  doing everything in-house. So getting a license, building a front end, building a back end. My advice would be to focus on one part of your business, so let's say the front end or the back end, and work with partners. We work with a company called Ayondo Markets in London. So, and we have teamed up with Ayondo, first of all, because they are better in the back end and we are very good at building a product. Secondly, Ayondo already has a license for Europe, so we can operate under their regulatory umbrella.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  And that gives us a much more faster time to market. So my advice would be, don't do everything yourself, but try to find partners and focus at the thing you're good at.

• 16:40Harry Stebbings?

  Fantastic. And I'd love to now move into a quickfire round.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:45Harry Stebbings?

  So your favourite book and why?

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just came back from holiday and I read the Elon Musk bio.

• 16:54Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely brilliant.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  Yes, I think maybe this book, maybe other people who were on your show have mentioned the book before, but I think it's a must-read, after the Jobs bio, this is the...

• 17:07Harry Stebbings?

  Walter Isaacson's one.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. This is one of the greatest bios I've read. It's a must-read for every entrepreneur.

• 17:14Harry Stebbings?

  And then when I say a successful founder, who's the first person that comes to mind?

• 17:19Speaker 02

  Yes, that sounds a bit boring, but that's Musk again.

• 17:23Harry Stebbings?

  No, do not worry, you're not the first. Musk has been the favourite.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm really amazed, especially after reading the book about how he's changing the way we kind of organise things on our planet and that's...

• 17:37Harry Stebbings?

  What achievement of his do you think is the most incredible?

• 17:42Speaker 02

  Um, I think running uh two, two huge companies uh that, that, that, that are SpaceX and Tesla that are probably uh going to change uh, change how we do things here on Earth. Um, I think that's amazing and, and of, of course, I don't know if, if, if, if he's ever going to manage, but, uh, but create a, a second life on, on, on Mars.

• 18:10Harry Stebbings?

  Well, that is his mission.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  That is, that is, that is his final mission, yes.

• 18:15Harry Stebbings?

  I wouldn't bet against him.

• 18:18Speaker 02

  No, me neither, me neither, no.

• 18:20Harry Stebbings?

  And then your favorite newsletter or blog?

• 18:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, as a startup founder and, and CEO, it's appealing to read everything about, about startups, VCs, et cetera. But I think it's good to, to uh also uh keep having a feeling for what's happening uh, uh, uh, on the other side of the world. Not everyone's into VCs and, and startups. So I, I love to read Vice, uh, the Vice, Vice magazine, Vice website.

• 18:46Harry Stebbings?

  And then gamification, trend or is it here to stay?

• 18:51Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm, I'm convinced that it's here to stay because it's, it's a much better way of, uh, of gradually, uh, uh, teaching people how something works. Look, look at the, the financial markets, which are pretty complex. But by, by, by taking people by the hand and by gradually, uh, uh, teaching them the, the different steps, uh, it's much easier to, uh, uh, to, to, to understand what, uh, how the financial markets work.

• 19:21Harry Stebbings?

  What apps could you not live without or always on the home screen of your iPhone?

• 19:26Speaker 02

  Yes, there's, there's one app I, I, I, I use a lot of, of standard app, apps, but there's one app I, I particularly like, and that's called BrainToss. It's a, it's a productivity app. Um, I, I came across it a while ago and it's, it's the most efficient productivity app I've, I ever came across. Like, I could recommend it to everyone.

• 19:48Harry Stebbings?

  And then the next five years for you and for Buck's?

• 19:53Speaker 02

  Yes, I, um, I, the next five years, I will be with Bux. And, um, we want, we want to build out our company, our company geographically and, uh, not only build a great app, but also build a great brand. Uh, I, I, my, my personal ambition and our, our dream as a company would be, uh, to create, create a, uh, a financial services company that, that has two fans. Um, cause I think when we, when we really have fans, um, we can offer other, uh, related financial products under the Bux umbrella and we, uh, could became hugely successful.

• 20:36Harry Stebbings?

  Well, Nick, thank you so much for joining us on today's very special episode of Founders Friday. I hugely appreciate it.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Thanks a lot, Harry. It was a pleasure.

• 20:45Harry Stebbings?

  Now, for all the incredible books, blogs and apps mentioned in today's amazing episode with Nick, head on over to our blog at www dot the twenty minute VC dot com. And I would love to hear what you think of our sister show in collaboration with Syndicate Room, where we interview the world's most prominent angel investors to discover their investing strategy, approach to startups and uncover their own personal experiences. And you can find that on iTunes by searching for Angel Insights and I would love to hear what you think of that. But before we leave today, we cannot forget the amazing competition giveaway. The Alliance by Reid Hoffman is up for grabs.

• 21:26Harry Stebbings?

  Remember it's the first five who tweet work to at HiringScreenRH will be in with a chance of winning Reid Hoffman's The Alliance. And stay tuned for our incredible interview with Richard Hanson, CEO and founder at Hiring Screen, which will be on the show shortly. I would like to say a special thank you to our past guest and friend Mark Berninger at Orange Growth Capital for setting up today's interview. We are incredibly grateful and thank you so much to all of you for listening. It's been an absolute pleasure and we look very forward to seeing you in the next episode.