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HOUSEKEEPING 📨

Today’s piece is a proud moment for me. Dom Pym is one of the most respected technology leaders in Australia and the mastermind behind who I personally bank with, Up, which also happens to be one of my favourite digital products in history.

If any of you readers out there are on the lookout for ripping global teams do let me know—we have been working with loads of readers lately and it’s super cool to see both of my worlds collide. Anyway, enough about that. Please enjoy the interview with the great Dom Pym.

LEADER OF THE WEEK 🎙

Dom Pym, Co-Founder at Up & Founder at Euphemia

Dom’s been involved in numerous start-ups and large scale technology projects since the 1990's, in Australia and overseas. He is currently investing in startups through his family office, Euphemia.

Dom sits on the board of directors at Fintech Australia, and the advisory Board at Bendigo Bank, and continues to work on Up—Australia’s most successful digital bank, highest rated bank, and most trusted bank—after its acquisition. Up’s built to help #Upsiders spend wisely and save effortlessly.

Dom also co-founded Ferocia, a leading Australian software company, acquired by Bendigo Bank in 2021, and Pin Payments, Australia’s first all-in-one online payments platform, acquired by Checkout in 2020, and Clear Interactive, which was acquired in 2009 by NZX, operators of the New Zealand Stock Exchange.

Tell us about the problem you are trying to solve? Why this?

For Up it's helping the next generation of Australians with financial literacy, which I think we're hitting out of the park. We're doing a really good job at it, and I think doing it better than anyone else, so that's pretty great. And then for Euphemia it's actually a derivative of that. Because of the sale of the business with Up, we're able to have a pool of capital to invest in other founders and other startups.

How did you come to found Up?

We probably stumbled into banking. It wasn't a deliberate effort. We had a software company and we were building software for anyone that would want to partner with us and jointly own intellectual property. We had this idea that there's two assets that you can develop, one being intellectual capital—the people. And the other one being intellectual property—the product. As a software company, we wanted to retain control of both. Where we landed was trying to raise capital, bumped into a bank, and ended up pitching for the mobile and Internet banking system, which we did for about six years before we started Up.

So yes, we stumbled into it. We worked with a couple of the big banks and the largest credit union in Australia, and we settled with Bendigo Bank. And when I say settle, I mean that we'd been working with them for a number of years, tinkering with the others, and we ended up forming a joint venture with Bendigo to create Up. And that journey took six years. It wasn't like it happened in an instant. We're five years in now, we're coming up to our sixth birthday later this year, and we should hit a million customers by that date. So I think the collaboration's doing okay.

What is your main day to day job today?

I'll spend about half and half between continuing working with the team at Up, and working on the family office at Euphemia. I've been working on a strategy for the next 25 years to enhance our digital capabilities at Up, bringing them into the community sphere for social good. Bendigo has been strong and passionate in this area for 25 years, and now we're reflecting on those achievements. We're asking ourselves, what have we accomplished, and how can we amplify, accelerate, and scale that impact using technology over the next 25 years?

That's where most of my brain power goes—thinking about how to scale this initiative. It's a multi-billion-dollar effort, reaching millions of customers and affecting the lives of many Australians. I also spend time with various teams—product, design, home loans, sales, engineering, support—helping steer the ship, offering guidance and advice, and providing input wherever I can.

I do a lot of testing, trying out new features and products, and giving feedback to the team to create a constant feedback loop as an early alpha user. Additionally, I answer a lot of customer questions. Every day, I respond to customers on social media and through our internal messaging systems, probably handling around 100 queries a day between meetings and other tasks.

For me, having the co-founder or senior executives stay connected to customers is crucial. It helps us gauge current issues, track our progress on our mission and vision, monitor the team's well-being, address any conflicts with customers, and ensure we're aligned with our financial literacy mission. Staying connected to customers and answering their questions daily is like a secret superpower for maintaining that connection and alignment.

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Detail your recruitment strategy. How do you hire all-star talent?

I would say that it's evolved over time. When we first started the company, we were two people, and now we’re 160-ish. So the recruitment strategy has changed. Originally, it was like one degree of separation. We had a no dickheads policy and focused on who we knew was the very best in their field, aligned with us in terms of culture, thinking, and belief system. How do we get them on board, indoctrinate them into our way of doing things, and let them contribute to and build our culture?

That was the very early stages of recruitment. The second phase was growth, as we went from 15 people to 30, then to 50, and eventually to 100. During that phase, it was very much about diversity—making sure we had diversity of thought, skills, experience, and all the different things needed to service a client base that we anticipated would grow from hundreds of thousands, to millions over time. We needed a strong team from all walks of life to provide the solution. That's where we've been for the last few years.

Now, we're moving into this scale situation where we have a full-time in-house recruitment team. We're no longer just using referrals of one degree of separation. We now have a structured recruitment process. Each team leader takes on responsibility, with our people and culture team working alongside them to bring people in. We collect expressions of interest, resumes, conduct interviews, and so on. Typically, we do it in our office, face-to-face, even though we're a hybrid virtual and physical team. We believe so strongly in the culture that we get everyone to come through the office, meet the rest of the team, feel the vibe, and be part of the brand and the team before finalizing recruitment.

Depending on the role we're recruiting for, we have different induction programs. For example, engineers might go through an engineering questionnaire or test, which involves more rigor than hiring someone into our customer support team. Customer support team members need to be great with people, have a good rapport, contribute to the culture, and potentially be 'Up-siders' themselves, or have experience from the other side. So, we have different levels of rigor depending on the role, whether it's design, engineering, support, and so on. For senior roles, we ensure that people fit in with the rest of the senior team, often through group interviews or collaborative opportunities during the process.

That gives a pretty high-level view, but the objective in the process is always cultural fit over anything else. We feel that most skill sets and experiences can be learned, but fitting in with the team and contributing to building that future is something that's difficult to learn and is more innate in people and their comfort level around the rest of the team.

Do you have any questions, processes or indicators of a good fit?

Maybe a little bit of context is that we sold the business, as I mentioned, on our 10th birthday. For the first ten years, we did not recruit a single person without either my business partner or me meeting them before making an offer. We ensured that one of the co-founders had met every single person. Now, we don't do that anymore.

We've reached a scale where that's not feasible, as I'd spend all my time just meeting new people. But that’s what we used to do. Some of the tools we used included looking someone in the eye and asking them questions about their life to see how they respond naturally. To me, this was a great way to gauge how people would fit within our existing culture. By putting them on the spot and getting them to answer openly, transparently, and honestly, we could understand how they would contribute to the culture.

Often, the leader I shared the interview with would ask all the technical and recruitment-related questions, while I would ask things like, "What do you like to do in your spare time?," "What sports do you play?," or "What books are you reading at the moment?" I might even ask, "Do you have a favorite movie?" to get a better understanding of the person rather than their technical expertise.

I leave the technical evaluations to the experts running the teams. They know what they need, where the gaps are, and what skills they need to fill. But my goal, as the cultural guide, along with my business partner, was to understand the people more than their skill set or experience.

What does it take to build world class technology?

I would typically say two things, curiosity and confidence. Both are essential for each individual to be motivated personally, to be part of the team, and to be part of the solution. Curiosity and confidence are often topics I discuss during interviews to explain the type of individuals we want. These individuals are part of the glue that holds the culture and team together.

It's about offering the best customer support, having the best design, the best brand, the best features, the best pricing, the best product, and the best engagement. All those little things seem small. We benchmark ourselves not against other banks but against the best apps in the world. As a mobile-only bank, we compete with apps like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and Google.

We're not competing against other fintechs or banks; we're competing for people's time. We can't help someone with their financial well-being unless they spend enough time and engage with us passionately. So, we have to compete with big tech as world-class, quality applications for customers to benefit and for us to achieve our strategic outcome.

At an individual level, we're looking for curiosity and confidence. At a cultural level, we're looking for excellence in everything. These two things might seem like a dichotomy, but they complement and collaborate to create the dynamic that makes Up the most loved bank in Australia, and maybe one of the most loved brands.

Do you run hybrid, on-site or remote and why?

For the first ten years of the organization, when Tomo and I were running it, it was mandatory that everyone was in the same room, in the same building, working together in person. Now, that's not to say we couldn't work remotely. We're all technologists and software engineers with VPNs, laptops, and mobile phones, so we could literally work from anywhere in the world. And many of us did.

You could be working in San Francisco, Hong Kong, Barcelona, London, or wherever, but we made our base in Melbourne. We were in Fitzroy for a while and then moved to South Melbourne, where we stayed for ten years. During that time, we had two different offices, and everybody would come to the office not only for cultural sessions—the weeklies, monthlies, and quarterlies—but also because they just wanted to be there.

We had a full-time fitness instructor for mental and physical health, a chef providing meals for the staff, a gym at the office, a billiard table, and arcade machines. It was a great environment that people wanted to be part of. We used to say we were building great things with great people in a great environment.

When COVID hit, it was like one day on a Friday, Tomo told everyone, "No one is coming in on Monday; everyone's working remote." It didn't make much difference to our culture because we had developed it over ten years, being predominantly in the same building during that time.

Now, a few years later, the business is a hybrid model. Some people are almost permanently remote, coming in only for special events. Others are permanently in the office because they love being there every day. There's no requirement for people to specifically come in or stay at home. We set the culture around the work environment through leading by example. Our CTO, head of product, head of people, CEO—all these people come to the office every day because they love it.

Because they're here every day, other people become motivated around them. They might think, "If I want to catch up with them face to face, have a coffee, have a chat, I might head into the office." So we end up with more than half the staff here every day, just because they want to be, not because they have to be.

And that's it! You can also find Dom on LinkedIn or checkout his companies Euphemia and Up to learn more.

BRAIN FOOD 🧠 

If you feel like some learning this weekend, check Ray Dalio’s take on historical economic cycles and how they impact our world today. He connects dots between past and present, showcasing has world orders rise and fall over time.

If you’re curious about economic histories or wondering about the future of global economies, this video is a solid pick.

TWEETS OF THE WEEK 🐣 

FOR THE NERDS 🍿 

I know we have all seen thousands of different AI trailer remixes of well known movie franchises but this one was just too good not to share. I am devastated we never got to see Arnold, Sly or Jean-Claude Van Damme as Aragorn.

Oh, and a totally jacked Gandalf. Man the 80’s were a good time.

TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

Every week we highlight tools we actually use inside of our business and give them an honest review. Today we are highlighting Attio—powerful, flexible and data-driven, the exact CRM your business needs.

See the full set of tools we use inside of Athyna & Open Source CEO here.

HOW I CAN HELP 🥳