Job profile! Einhorn startup founder: Peter Thiel's Next Big Thing

Many startups dream of becoming the next big thing. Transferwise, founded by two Estonians, has real opportunities: Because Fac is also on boardebookInvestor Peter Thiel. We met the founders in Talinn and Berlin.

The next big thing?

The German-born investor Peter Thiel keeps making headlines: His Opinions according to German start-ups Anxiety before her own Success and think and act in a social-democratic way.

Thiel has ao Facebook made great. One of his more recent projects is Transferwise, the makers of which I recently interviewed in Talinn and Berlin and which has a good chance of becoming a big thing - especially after Richard Branson has also joined as an investor. Taavet Hinrikus explains the business idea here in the video.

Born of a real need

The Idea, to create an alternative and thus cheaper international transfer system is good and above all not out of thin air, but born out of a real need of the two founders, who regularly lost thousands of euros through foreign transfers. The motto: had a problem, Solution and thus found customer benefits.

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But it's not just a matter of having a good idea - after all, there were and are a few alternative payment systems - it's also about implementing the right idea at the right time. And finally, that is too Personality of the two founders is crucial Significance.

The business idea

The business idea, as one of the founders, Taveet Hinrikus at the Gala in Talinn, Estonia, explained in the video, is quickly told: TransferWise allows for cheap international transfers by bypassing the fees of the banks.

Because defacto never leaves the land border: it is paid in one country and paid in another country by another TransferWise account. For any deal up to 200 Euro, Transferwise 1 accepts Euro fees.

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Money from facebook-Investor

With this Concept TransferWise, among others, Peter Thiel, Facebooks first outside investor, convince them to make their first Valar Ventures investment in Europe.

Overall, TransferWise has received well over $ 7.35 million from some of the world's most recognized investors, including SV Angel, co-founder of PayPal; Max Levchin, IA Ventures; Index ventures; DAY (Robin Klein and Saul Klein); Seedcamp; Betfair's former CEO David Yu and owner of Le Monde - Xavier Niel (via Kima Ventures).

The founders

But the founders are not a blank slate either: Taavet Hinrikus, who at TransferWise for Marketing and product development, worked as Director of Strategy at Skype until 2008 and was the first employee of Microsoft's internationally successful IP telephony software. He also supports the start-up community as a Adviser and Business Fishing rod. He has invested in Tweetdeck, Mendeley, OMGPOP, Betaworks, Farmeron, and Teleportd, among others.

Kristo Käärmann is a mathematician and responsible for operations, development and compliance. He previously worked as a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting and PricewaterhouseCoopers. He supported European banks and insurance companies in the modernization of their processes and systems.

From the problem ...

The founding history is typical of many successful business ideas. The two estates worked in London and had to pay hoho fees for foreign transfers. Taavet worked for Skype at that time, was paid in euros, but lived in London. Kristo, on the other hand, worked in London, but had to settle accounts in euros in his home country Estonia.

Both lost by regular transfer charges thousands of euros. As Kristo told me at our meeting in Berlin, he was very annoyed. And he told himself that there must be a different solution.

…to the solution

The two came up with the following System: Every month, Kristo would transfer British pounds to Taavet's account and Taavet would transfer euros to Kristo's account in return. This allowed them to use the official mid-market exchange rate and receive exactly the correct amount, albeit at no cost. This saved them thousands of pounds in just a few months. The idea of ​​TransferWise was born.

this attitude Problems approach is typical for the Estonian start-up scene. "When we were building the country back in the '90s, we had nothing and had to start all over again," Kristo tells me. “That makes you creative!”

Licenses and regulation

A banking license was for them Foundation unnecessary. Rather, the resourceful founders use the accounts of established banks for their transfers.

TransferWise is also controlled by European regulatory authorities and has obtained the TÜVRheinland certificate in Germany.

growth

Since its foundation in the year 2011 grew Companys to around 85 Employees. Transactions in 19 currencies are now possible via the platform (equivalent to 234 currency routes). TransferWise is growing by 20 to 30 percent monthly. The customers already moved more than 1 billion euros via the platform and thus saved around 50 million euros in fees. Several million euros are transferred abroad every day via TransferWise.

TransferWise supports currency transfers between: Euro, British Pound, Swiss Franc, Polish Zloty, Georgian Lari, Turkish Lira, Romanian Leu, Bulgarian Lev, Hungarian Forint, Danish, Swedish, Czech and Norwegian Krona. In addition, transfers are also possible with the above currencies in Indian rupee, US, Australian, Singaporean, Hong Kong and New Zealand dollars. Transactions from US dollars to European currencies and many other directions are already in Planning.

Recruiting

The fast growth also introduces the founders to new ones Tasks regarding the Recruiting. "We have Recruiterwho pre-select the candidates for us,” explains Kristo. "But we still conduct the final selection interviews ourselves," he says.

An important criterion is that the Candidate Already know and use TransferWise yourself. In general, this is a new form of employee recruiting: “We often receive inquiries from customers who think the product is cool and want to work for us. This shows how important community building is when it comes to recruiting,” says Kristo.

The ideal candidate: a failed founder

The company also relies on innovative ideas in other ways, for example holidays with everyone Team: “We ask, for example, what the applicants can do that we can't ourselves - such as playing the piano or a certain language. And then we ask if he or she can teach us that. "

What I found particularly exciting: Kristos ideal Candidate would be a failed start-up founder. “He has learned his lesson and can do his Power and assess weaknesses much better," says Kristo - and thus reveals a completely different way of thinking than we have in Germany about failure, which is often stigmatized.

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