E107: Starling Bank: Building a $1.5 Billion Business Against The Odds: Anne Boden

The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

FlightStory

Society & Culture, Business, Education

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 November 2021

⏱️ 92 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The story of how Anne built her business is a genuine blockbuster of entrepreneurship and perseverance. Starling is one of the biggest FinTech companies in the world, with billions in deposits, but after listening to this you’ll be amazed how it was possible.

When her co-founder walked out of the company, and took the funding with him, Anne walked in to an office where she was the only employee on the books, and had to start the company she’d built all over again. Little by little, she came back, and a year later landed a mega investment deal in one of the most incredible stories we’ve ever had on this podcast.

What really shines about Anne is the clear sense of mission she’s infused her company with. Anne really cares about doing right by the customer, and cleaning up an industry that historically doesn’t have a record of giving people a fair shake. Anne is in business to make the world a better place, and we think after listening to this you’ll agree that Anne’s story shows business success can come from the most unlikely places.

Topics

Humble beginnings
Entrepreneurship
Starting Starling bank & clashes with Tom at Monzo
Raising funding
What have you learnt about raising investment?
Managing your emotions when running Starling
Work life balance - maintaining relationships
Key advice you would told your younger self
Our last guests question

Anne:

https://www.instagram.com/anneboden/

https://twitter.com/anneboden

Anne's book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/BANKING-How-I-Disrupted-Industry-ebook/dp/B084H6N2GS

Our Episode with Tom from Monzo:

https://g2ul0.app.link/d0u5WwlOmlb

Watch the episodes on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/StevenBartlettYT?sub_confirmation=1

THE DIARY OF A CEO LIVE TICKETS ON SALE NOW 🚀- https://g2ul0.app.link/diaryofaceolive

Sponsor: https://uk.huel.com/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It was humiliating reading in the press what had happened.
0:03.6	I got fired twice in six months.
0:05.5	Unless we could raise funding.
0:07.1	I was never paid.
0:07.9	There weren't going to be any jobs.
0:09.2	After six months I just thought I can't work with this person.
0:11.2	You had a tough time.
0:12.3	It really damaging to me and my mental health.
0:14.2	Tom didn't think I was capable.
0:16.6	And so I resigned.
0:17.6	Nothing was going to stop Starling succeeding.
0:21.0	People don't start banks and if they do start a bank they are probably a billionaire.
0:26.0	When I started talking to people about I'm going to start a bank.
0:30.3	You know I could see people thinking I was totally crazy.
0:34.4	I hadn't raised a penny.
0:35.7	The only money that got into the business was my money.
0:38.1	And he said no I'm not going to give you three million.
0:41.0	I'm going to give you 40 years.
0:43.6	I have the privilege of running Starling.
0:46.4	And it is a privilege and there's lots of things going wrong
0:49.7	and lots of pressures on me.
0:51.7	But it's a great privilege to have.
	...

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