Riding a unicorn: Tom Blomfield, Monzo

An episode from our friends at Founders Uncut this week! We hope you enjoy... On the outside, it probably seemed that Tom was living his best life. The reality was very different. Tom grew Monzo from 0 to over 2,000 employees and was one of the youngest CEOs of a UK regulated bank ever. He raised over $500M on the Monzo journey and over 5 million people use the product they built at Monzo. Tom was also a co-founder of GoCardless. Today, Tom Blomfield is a prolific angel, and a visiting partner for YC. In this episode, you will hear more from Tom about: 1) The reality of the startup founder journey What did the end of the Monzo journey feel like for him? What does burnout feel like? Why doesn’t he think the word burnout is the right description? How do you maintain headspace as a founder? What could he have done to make the journey more sustainable? Would he still be running Monzo if he’d done those things? 2) How do you know your startup is living its values? How do you see/feel values in real life? What were some of Monzo’s core values? How did he as the CEO encourage and discourage certain behaviour when it was or wasn’t aligned with the values? 3) Tom’s Leadership Style and Lessons Why showing vulnerability is important in leadership Why crying or showing emotion as a leader is a strength not a weakness What’s the difference between leadership versus management? How do you know if your team is growing at the pace the company needs during startup hypergrowth scaling? What do you do when someone is not fitting in? 4) Fundraising and Who You Need by Your Side in the Startup Founding Journey What does it feel like to fundraise? Why you actually might want VC naysayers and doubters in your corner and not just venture capital cheerleaders. Check out more from him, including his famous fundraising guide, athttp://tomblomfield.com/ ( tomblomfield.com). This podcast was produced byhttps://fascinateproductions.co.uk/ ( Fascinate Productions) https://twitter.com/startupdadspod/ (https://twitter.com/startupdadspod/) A https://fascinateproductions.co.uk/ (Fascinate) Production.