Tom Blomfield

Tom Blomfield is a Group Partner at YC. Before YC, Tom founded two unicorns in the UK. He was co-founder of Monzo (most recently valued at $5BN), one of the first challenger banks in the UK. Monzo raised more than £1bn and counts 15% of the UK population as customers. Before Monzo, Tom founded GoCardless (YC S11), an online payments processor, most recently valued at $2.1BN. In Today's Episode with Tom Blomfield We Discuss: 1. From Founding Two Unicorns to YC Partner: Does Tom believe that all great founders show signs of exceptionalism early? What does Tom know now that he wishes he had known when he started his first company? Why did Tom decide now was the right time to switch from founder to investor with YC? 2. The YC Application Process: How it Works: How do the YC partners select which companies are accepted vs rejected? What specifically does Tom look for in the problem the company is looking to solve? In the interview, what are the signals of the highest quality founders? What questions does Tom always want to ask in YC interviews with founders? 3. The YC Batch: How it Works: How do the YC partners work with the 25 companies in their batch? What is the interaction? What are the single biggest mistakes companies make while in YC? What are the biggest pieces of advice YC gives founders on fundraising approaching demo day? How do the best YC founders fundraise and use demo day? How do the most nervous fundraise? How are YC partners measured in terms of their success and effectiveness? 4. AI: Consumer vs Enterprise/ Infrastructure vs Application Layer: Does Tom believe there is money to be made investing in infrastructure layer models today? Why is the commoditization of foundation models the best outcome for society? Why is Tom most excited about the application layer for the next wave of AI? What are the most exciting opportunities in consumer AI that are wide open today? 20VC: Behind the Scenes at Y Combinator: The Interview Process | What the Best & Worst Do in the Program | Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | Why the Value is in Application Layer AI with Tom Blomfield

Tom Blomfield

Group Partner

Y CombinatorMonzo

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. Tom Blomfield has found multiple multi-million pound companies, but what is it which makes Tom such a successful serial-entrepreneur? In this moment clip, Tom reveals what he believes are the most significant qualities which made him the disruptive, industry-changing entrepreneur he is today. Episode 86 - https://g2ul0.app.link/KvEkNBrkTkb Tom: https://twitter.com/t_blom Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tom Blomfield

Group Partner

Y CombinatorMonzo

Tom Blomfield, wow what an entrepreneur. This guy has founded multiple multi-million-pound companies, that have become monumental disrupters in the industry. And let’s face it, Monzo, one of the companies Tom founded and led, is the one of the most forward-thinking, innovative, fastest-growing companies there is. Tom was born in Hong Kong and lived with his father and mother. His father was a business-minded civil engineer and his mother was an artist. When Tom was a child, he moved to London to attend grammar school in Amersham, Buckinghamshire then moving on to study Law at Oxford. Whilst studying at Oxford, at the age of 21, he co-founded Boso.com an “eBay for students”. After a few internships with law firms he decided being a lawyer wasn't for him and followed the entrepreneurial journey instead. In January 2011 Blomfield co-founded the UK-based company GoCardless, an automated payment method that processes Direct Debit payments on behalf of other businesses and organisations. Blomfield stayed in Silicon Valley during his three years at the company, it raised around £35 million of investment and hired 100 people. When GoCardless appointed Hiroki Takeuchi as CEO in 2013, he left (keeping a "very small share" in the £50-100m valued company). Tom moved to New York to work for dating site Grouper social club as their Head of Growth. Blomfield left Grouper in 2014, and it closed in 2016. Following his departure from Grouper Social Club Blomfield joined Anne Boden’s Starling bank as the CTO. Startling was, at that point one of the first digital banking companies. Tom left the company in early 2015 after reports of disagreements at Starling, telling the Financial Times that "he could not comment under the terms of his departure". Today we learn about what really happened at Starling. In 2015, he founded challenger bank Monzo, operating with no branches and instead offering accounts online. In its first fundraising round, the company raised "£1 million in 96 seconds”. In April, Blomfield announced he would forgo his salary for one year to help his company during the COVID-19 pandemic. In May, he announced that he was stepping down as CEO of Monzo and taking on the role of president of the company. In January 2021 he announced he was leaving the company permanently. This conversation today takes us through Tom’s wild entrepreneurial journey expressing the highs and lows of running a business. He also talks about the disagreements at Starling bank and ultimately his reason for starting Monzo in the first place. His stories are unique, and more importantly honest. Unbelievably honest. He tells you the mistakes he made, his deepest insecurities, his biggest challenges and the things he wish he knew. Wow this is a good one. Follow Tom: Twitter - https://twitter.com/t_blom LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomblomfield Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tom Blomfield

Group Partner

Y CombinatorMonzo

Tom Blomfield is the Founder & CEO @ Monzo, in it's simplest words, the bank of the future allowing you to open a full UK bank account in minutes, from your phone. To date, Tom has raised over $190m in funding for Monzo from the likes of Thrive, Accel, General Catalyst, Stripe, Mike Moritz and Goodwater just to name a few. As for Tom, prior to Monzo he was the Co-Founder of another of London's rocketship startups in the form of GoCardless and before that co-founded student marketplace Boso.com alongside Triplebyte Founder, Harj Taggar. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Tom made his way into the world of startups from University and came to found the bank of the future in Monzo? 2.) Why does Tom believe that scaling a company today can really be broken up into 3 distinct phases? What are those phases? How does what one needs for each phase differ accordingly? What elements has Tom found most challenging to navigate in the scale-up phase? Are there challenges or elements that are the same across every company? 3.) Why does Tom believe that product decision-making is both an art and a science? How does Tom determine when is the right time to add ancillary products? How can one really stress-test true customer love for the first product? How does Tom balance between product expansion vs geographical expansion? How does Tom balance between being customer-driven vs customer informed? 4.) Tom has grown Monzo to 1.2m users with virtually no advertising, how does Tom respond to the statement that there is a lack of free and open distribution today? What does Tom mean when he says "when it comes to customer acquisition you have to play a different game"? In building community, what have Monzo done so right? Where have they made mistakes? What have been some big lessons on early community building? 5.) Having raised over $190m in VC funding, what have been some of Tom's biggest lessons when it comes to fundraising? Why does Tom believe that so few boards are managed and run well? Where do they go wrong? What do great board managers do to run an efficient process? What does Tom mean when he says "use board meetings as a tool to instil operational excellence?" Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Tom's Fave Book: The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Tom on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Tom Blomfield

Group Partner

Y CombinatorMonzo