20VC: RobinHood's Baiju Bhatt on The Importance Of Design in Fintech and Having A 10X Better Product

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2016

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Baiju Bhatt is the Co-Founder and CEO at RobinHood, the wildly successful stock market trading app with absolutely no commission fees. Since launching RobinHood there have been many amazing milestones including being awarded an Apple Design Award (first Finch company ever to achieve this), funding from the likes of Index, Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and even movie star Jared Leto. They were also nominated for best mobile app at The Crunchies by TechCrunch this year.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Baiju made his way into the world of tech and came to found RobinHood?

2.) How did Baiju deal with the regulatory hurdles heading into the fintech and trading world?

3.) How did Baiju go about building the waitlist for RobinHood to 1m people? What were the defining strategies and channels that made the difference?

4.) What is the thesis behind the design of RobinHood? Will this design enable previously untouched markets to tap into the growing trading market?

5.) What are the biggest challenges for Baiju and RobinHood going forward? What keeps Baiju up at night? What is Baiju's biggest piece of advice to a founder scaling their startup?

6.) How can early stage founders really determine whether they have product market fit and what does this look like? What re the metrics required to suggest serious traction?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Baiju's Fave Blog or Newsletter: TechCrunch

Baiju's Fave Productivity Tool: Slack

Baiju's Fave Book: The Case For Mars

As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Baiju on Twitter here!

If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Founders Friday from the 20-minute VC with your host, Harry Stebbings.
0:04.5	And before we dive into the show today, let's try something new.
0:08.0	So if you want to visit the world's most famous VCs and founders through the lens of my Snapchat,
0:13.4	then follow me on Snapchat with the username H. Stebbings.
0:16.9	But back to the show, and I'm so stoked to have an incredible founder joining us today.
0:21.3	As you might remember, I recently did a tour to San Francisco, and while there, this app was a real
0:26.7	constant for me.
0:28.0	Really is super, super cool, and I'm delighted to welcome Bijou Bat, co-founder at Robin Hood,
0:33.9	the wildly popular commission-free stock trading app.
0:37.1	Now, why are Robin Hood so exciting?
0:39.3	Well, they were invested in by the likes of Andresen, Google Ventures, Index, slow ventures,
0:44.9	and many more of the world's best.
0:46.7	They're also the first fintech product ever to win an Apple Design Award.
0:51.2	They were able to build 1 million people waiting lists pre-product launch. And if that
0:56.0	wasn't enough, they were also nominated for Best Mobile App at the Crunchies this year by TechCrunch.
1:01.6	As always, I have to thank the awesome team at Matamot for providing all the data and analysis for
1:06.2	the show today. And if you're loving the show, then do not forget to sign up for the newsletter
1:10.1	on the 20
1:11.4	minute VC.com. But without further ado, it's time for our chat with Baiju Bat, co-founder at Robin Hood.
1:18.2	Three, two, one, zero. You have now arrived at your destination. Bayjou, awesome to have you on the 20-minute VC.
1:29.1	I'm a huge fan of Robin Hood.
1:31.0	So thank you so much for joining me, today.
	...

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