The Lucent Perspective

Engaging with Impact: Community-Driven Growth and Shared Success, with Taavi Kotka

• Rebecca Hastings • Season 1 • Episode 14

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The trend of community-based business models in the tech sector is driven by the recognition that empowered and engaged users can propel a business to new heights. As technology continues to evolve, these models will likely become even more integral to business strategies, shaping how tech products and services are developed, marketed, and embraced by users.

My special guest, Taavi Kotka, shares his insight on how their platform can enable your business to engage with your community. Taavi is the Co-Founder and CEO of the equity platform Koos and the former CIO of the Estonian Government.

In this episode, Tavi provides insights into leveraging communities, digital governance, and equity models to drive business growth while emphasizing the importance of engaging people around purpose.


Episode Highlights

  • [01:31] The future of tech companies - how strong communities will be the ‘beating heart’ of every successful business.
  • [10:17] Discussion on the emerging challenges of digital governance.
  • [15:38] Taavi discusses the idea behind Koos and their billion-dollar give-back goal.
  • [19:59] How marketplaces use Koos for businesses to incentivize their suppliers and get meaningful feedback.
  • [21:44] Taavi’s insights on how they rapidly grew their client base.
  • [25:06] Top leadership tips to ensure success for your team.
  • [27:40] Setting up the HK Unicorn Squad, providing knowledge and skills in technology as hobby education only for girls.
  • [35:36] Wrap up - looking into the future of community-based startups.


Links

Rebecca Hastings, Founder and Director at The Lucent Group

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hastingsrebecca/

Would you like to be a guest? Book a time to speak with Rebecca: https://calendly.com/rebeccahastings/discovery-call

The Lucent Group Ltd website - https://www.thelucentgroup.co.uk/

The Lucent Perspective website - https://thelucentperspective.com/

Rebecca has extensive talent and executive search experience supporting digital and technology businesses through complex changes and fast-paced scale-up periods. She works with businesses advising on C-level, technical, sales and commercial appointments, workforce planning, strategic talent management, recruitment processes and associated technology and employer brand development.

Rebecca Turnbull:

Welcome to the Listen perspective. I'm your host, Rebecca Hastings. I've spent over a decade working with executives in the tech sector, and help successful companies build their leadership teams and scale. During my career, I've been lucky to have the privilege of learning from many exceptional leaders. In these conversations, you'll get perspectives from peers, be inspired, and learn what it takes to become one of the best. This is your chance to listen to experts talking about the challenges, solutions, and the vital insights they've gained in their careers to date.

Unknown:

The world needs something new that we just like, shouldn't just consume more and more, why to get one free, I feel by our loyal customers, you can then get them percent discount, like there hasn't been anything new for the customers in the world.

Rebecca Turnbull:

I'm joined by Tabby caught co CEO of curse, I know that you're also an investor. And we're an angel investor and wise, for example, to me, thank you so much for joining me, I'm really excited to gain your insights into tech startups, equity models and innovation. I know they're going to be super interesting to the leaders who listen to the podcast. So thinking about all the questions to ask you really struck me. And you're very future focused and purposeful in the things that you get involved in that really shone through to me. So the first thing that I want to cover is, you know, I think we're at a point where there will be considerable disruption to business models over the next few years. what can companies do you think you're going to thrive in that environment?

Unknown:

Yeah, it's there's a short answer a longer answer. I think what is important here is how companies define themselves, like, it's not the business owner anymore. So like it was, let's say, 3050, maybe 100 years ago, then, in pure capitalism, like money talks and bullshit walks. And my founders, CEOs, they do whatever it takes like to get more profit, that was the goal. But it is changing now. Because the customer are changing, the communities are changing, we care much more about the nature, like fossil fuels, equity, gender, so many more like other aspects matter. And I think there'll be a big shift, that people will start to decide that, okay, today, I use this telco company and this bank and they haven't much thought about it, like, why, why I'm still connected with them. So but people understand that they're, they're actually assets, that the customer has their assets, changes, like so I'm a big believer that communities are the drivers for the future.

Rebecca Turnbull:

And what those communities are, I think, is ever evolving as well, at the same time, that you know, community used to be the people who lived around you. But now you can be members of so many different communities that mean different things to you. You can have your community that you share a hobby with your business community, your family community, and all of those things intersect and mean that it's you have to like, I think, work harder and be more careful about the messaging to people so that you're not conflicting across those boundaries, as well, you really

Unknown:

commit still live close. Very quick example, telecom company. And let's say if telecom company wants to give you back some money for loyalty and being a good customer, etc, the margins are so low, then let's say one person can earn make do 50, up to five bucks or pounds per month, per year. So it's nothing. But thanks to technology, we now know that they all the people in from certain area, certain area that say from Birmingham, what if you combine your five bucks. So if you have 100,000 people from a certain region, everybody combined five bucks, it's 500,000. For that kind of money, you actually can build like, five up to 10. playgrounds, like in your community. So so we live together, but we actually don't know who services via using and that's why I think what it's like super important that the companies are so understand that I need to give back to the PayPal and bank to the communities and I can be very precise. I don't have to support the football club anymore. Like I can be very precise with my offerings and let people choose what they want to build together or like where they want to invest together. I think that's a game changer.

Rebecca Turnbull:

And that precision really is just an extra way that businesses can personalize their approach.

Unknown:

Not only personalized, but truly show that they care. So, like I said, like 250 for you is nothing but 250 combined among 1000s or 10s of 1000s ones 1000s can make a difference.

Rebecca Turnbull:

Definitely. So before cuz you were the CEO at Nortal, which is one of the largest software development businesses in the Baltics. And then the CIO at the Estonian government, where you develop the country's e residency program. I think that was the first in the world. I found this career transition. super interesting. So what motivated you to move from business to government?

Unknown:

There's very simple answer. When you sell your like, when you are the CEO of large company, and you sell your shares, the buyer wants you off the market. So for certain years, it's called lock in. So the handcuffs or whatever, like you want to call them like so. Basically, there was a condition in a contract that if you sell your shares, you can't compete in private sector, at least for two years. And the stone is very small. So it's 1.3 million people. So we all relatives here make so we often meet each other in weddings and funerals. Thanks. So the government noticed that they might be unemployed and offered me a job as a CIO, Chief Information Officer

Rebecca Turnbull:

and what inspired you to sell the E residency program?

Unknown:

If you're a businessman in government, that's not the usual thing like at least in Estonia, if you're fully free and totally healthy, you don't work for the government. Thanks. So. But as a businessman, you start to think they aren't How can I generate more wealth to my people, like just the unions, and you quickly understand that, okay, you can cut costs, but it's way more important to increase revenues. And I like the countries the same thing, like we like businesses that you need more people to be connected with your country that generates revenue. I mean, look at the amount of tourists in London, for example, or in Paris, so but nobody wants to come to stay with me have a shitty weather or even worse than in UK.

Rebecca Turnbull:

I'm in Scotland. similar climate.

Unknown:

But how to connect those people with dystonia? I mean, like, we can do a talent program, we can do Nomad visas and stuff like that. But they still like good weather, like we can't compete the Thailand or Bali like so to afford that if we are capable, and we are capable to service students worldwide, even elections, like why cannot we serve anybody who wants to have access to European markets. And that's why we generated the residency that can always become a digital Estonian. It's something a travel document, you can't move into Schengen with this. But you can have a business in your EU and then run it from behind your kitchen table. So Brexit was actually very good for us like lots of customers from UK. Yeah,

Rebecca Turnbull:

definitely. And it sounds like it's helped to stimulate a lot of businesses and create more of that revenue for the country.

Unknown:

Absolutely. I mean, every fifth company created in this country at the moment is created by any resident. So it's more jobs like for the local people, gives more customers to finance and service sector, like so. Accounting, auditing, everything like this also generates tax money, because it's a tax haven. So you still have to pay taxes. But we get the part of that, like so. I mean, the investment costs every year for the country is I think, like six, seven millions, and they in return, they get hundreds of millions. Wow,

Rebecca Turnbull:

that's a really good return on investment. Only government,

Unknown:

it's unicorn To be honest, like with this kind of numbers, if I would analyze this project, from the investor perspective, 3 billion, something like that.

Rebecca Turnbull:

Wow. Yeah, if only you could replicate that government story in business, which is quite unusual thing to say.

Unknown:

I mean, Estonia is famous for different kinds of unicorns like so I already mentioned Weiss, which is actually considered UK unicorn, but founded by two Estonian so we still think that they are ours. Even though their headquarters in London, but yeah, this is a land of unicorns. So we do it unicorns in every field, not only in private sector, but also in the government.

Rebecca Turnbull:

And one of the things I noticed is you've got like quite an interest in digital governance. It's something that people in the UK certainly becoming more and more interested in. I've I've really noticed that it's something that was normally seen as quite a dry topic is actually getting a lot of traction. There's certainly been several networking events I've been to around it recently. I think it's just you know, technology innovation is happening at a faster rate. So, you know, there's more AI and blockchain products becoming available, and people are starting to think a little bit more carefully. Can you tell us your thoughts on the emerging challenges for digital governance and maybe give us some insights into how you think governance can help us right now,

Unknown:

there are two types of worlds out there at the moment, there are countries where everything is connected. And if I say everything is connected, then basically that make the whole digital society, private sector and government sector, they're built in a way that they can share information. And basically, you can combine information from the banks with information from the government, subsidized, etc. So everything is connected, so you can very well plan different policies and execute them. For example, when COVID happens, like how much support money, you should pay for different groups, etc, they can do very quickly, very transparent decisions. And there are countries who are not capable to do that, including UK, and Germany, and some others who basically have refused to use unique identifiers, which are like core elements for any kind of data connection. So. So countries like India, China, Nordics and Europe, they will flourish, they can connect data and train their API's and more very rapidly. And there are countries like most of the Anglo Saxon countries, already mentioned, who are lagging behind because they don't have those core elements put in place.

Rebecca Turnbull:

So we're going to be challenged, like to use the data and the information dramatically if we don't start there. So in the UK,

Unknown:

India is definitely for example, a very good example, how government develops together with very, I'll say, astonishing engineers from Google and other former Google core employees like they build together like the digital health stack, digital governance stack, which can be used. Again, it's not about the government, it's not about, like public sector, it's a public together with private sector. So you can easily exchange data and build services on top of the core architecture that the stack provides. Thanks. So I mean, you have a history with India. So we should have a very quick look.

Rebecca Turnbull:

And the skills tat, like the talent that they have within India is actually quite vast compared to some parts of the world when it comes to like data engineering and artificial intelligence, especially within financial services, I think,

Unknown:

yeah, I mean, there is a high growth from there at the moment, but you see, but the same kind of talent exists also in UK and then especially in Scotland. But the problem is that your Government, your politicians, don't listen, your engineers and I think that's a big difference like in India and the Nordics. The government, governments very much listen what the engineers have to say and let them build, like we have a saying here in this part of don't trust your engineers.

Rebecca Turnbull:

Yeah. In Scotland, where obviously devolved arrived, some matters, and there definitely have been a lot of moves towards engaging work closely with businesses, especially the technology community. I think that there's just a lot of restrictions around the legislation that can be an actus here versus the rest of the UK, unfortunately, in some matters, potentially.

Unknown:

I mean, to be honest, we actually have played with the idea of the pressure invaded Crimea in 2014. I mean, Estonia has been invaded every century by Germans by Swedes by Danes by Russians by bowls by German again by Russian again. So from for us it's always a question when it's not question if like so happened ever center. And when they they conquered Crimea, we start to play with idea like can we survive as a nation even if we don't control our own land let's say Joe's before the control River was born, because everything is digitally folded register our digital like you can start playing with those ideas like you can put stuff into cloud and basically keep working and keep existing as a as a society even if you don't control the land which was very interesting for Catalonia for example, when they wanted to bring broke apart from Spain and with my might be interesting for Scotland until you figure out your and how can you do the physical independency from the from the Okay, like so? Yeah, it's just interesting fact.

Rebecca Turnbull:

Oh, is an interesting experiment to think about as well and to like try and Think about how you would enact it

Unknown:

was my PhD, like, sorry.

Rebecca Turnbull:

So it would be great to learn more about your recent work at Coase your latest venture. So obviously, you're you're disrupting kind of traditional equity models just now. And I read that one of your goals is to return billion dollars in value back to the communities through the through the companies that are using cars. So tell me about the platform, what inspired you to form the company? And how did you come up with that billion dollar goal,

Unknown:

the billion dollar goal is actually quite small. Because if you think about all the rewards, points, everything that has been allocated to the customers or like for the loyalty, etc, it's actually a 200 billion yearly market. So 1 billion is a very small number in that in that game, I think like, the world needs something new that we just, like, shouldn't just consume more and more, buy two, get one free. If you are loyal customers, you can then get 10% discount, like, get more like with this data. First thing, I mean, like there hasn't been anything new for the customers in the world. On the same time, like, if customers truly like you, that your true fans, or let's say your supply likes you because they are your true fans, like you can't incentivize them with equity, there is no there wasn't like any, like legal, bureaucracy free, easy way to get equity to them, and have this long term motivation. So we took this as a challenge. And today we are totally legal in EU and in UK and Switzerland and Norway, that you can actually make anybody your company co owner, your supply your customers, your partners, whoever helps you like to build your your your empire, or like build the company, can can be remembered. And whenever the good things happen, you can they can get dividends or like if you have a exit, then they get their, their share. And you can build it like without spoiling your cap table, which means that you won't have like 1000s of customers in your cap table. So so it's all is all managed in a beautiful way, which means that we are legal tech company. So we have combined legal and technology. And you can find it out by itself going to cause.io link. So we actually pronounce it cause because it means together in our language,

Rebecca Turnbull:

that's a great word. And I love the way that you're really incentivizing people to help deliver those goals that you have. I think that businesses when they're like trying to grow, they think about how they're going to incentivize their sales team or their growth team. But actually, for a lot of growth, you do need people outside of your business, not just your employees you need. You need to have those friends out there. Those advocates are the people that maybe make informal introductions. And there's many ways that you can grow your so

Unknown:

to write them in. Employee options have worked well, for employees, for example, already for decades. But you can't have similar options for let's say, for somebody who made an introduction for you, or like Who was your early adopter, you have to have something different than that's where we come to me. You can make anybody or company co owner without missing your cap table.

Rebecca Turnbull:

Yeah. And you're taking care of all the kind of legals and the communication in the background, I assume.

Unknown:

Yeah, I mean, it's still your own job to build a community. But obviously, as we, like we're experienced in this field. We coach you, if you want to plus we keep registry. Plus, we take care of the payment that will pay out whenever it's needed. And the model is, has been approached by different regulators in different countries, and also by different legal firms, including UK, I have basically reviewed the model and it works. It's legal. It's okay. So I know you've

Rebecca Turnbull:

actually got 40 Early Adopters already gets more and more really impressive. or more. How many are you at?

Unknown:

It's already 60. Now like so, when we agree. Interview it was like, sometimes I've passed like so. Yeah, it grows every every month like yeah,

Rebecca Turnbull:

so that's even more impressive for a company that's a year and a half old. What kind of companies are on cause

Unknown:

most of marketplaces especially because they have to incentivize their supply. Supply always has a choice. Like if I say, connect myself with this platform at that platform, why should I offer my services here, there, they have a choice and to get them more motivated to make them corners of the journey. That's like how my marketplace like us. It's also used in b2b sales and like motivating feedback, especially, you can't motivate sales. It's my Bing. But the fact that your already existing customers give are motivated to give you meaningful feedback, and how can you improve your service or product, etc. It's a very made, it's a great, great tool again, like, because, yes, like, most of the people won't even care, but your true fans and that you actually benefit the most they care. And they, they like these kind of things. And also any kind of like, ESG, or like climate. Like I'll say, associations, or like, if you build that a energy community that let's build a windmill together, or like, let's invest into green energy, like all in those areas, like me are super useful.

Rebecca Turnbull:

And are there any UK companies that are working with cause just cause? Just knife? Yeah,

Unknown:

there are like, so we feel constrained from UK, you won't be the first one like so. So we have first customers also in UK,

Rebecca Turnbull:

I'm sure every founder would love to know how you grew this client base. That's an achievement like so early on. So what what insights do you have,

Unknown:

I mean, the, we actually solve real real world problem. So this is not new that founders want to give back to the people they have, they will help them. So that's quite common, they just haven't been hasn't been like proper tool for this. And now there are theories like so. So that's, I mean, the simple simply source like, you have a need, we have offer, like it's a good match. Also, more, I think it's why it's important is that giving our tech with TV is cheaper. Because like if you're an early phase, you have to protect your cash flow. And paying those, like, bring free friends get 100 pounds back. I mean, this kind of campaign is, I mean, it doesn't work properly. And it's quite expensive. And you have to pay my now today, compared with the fact that I give you equity and if there is success, you will be highly rewarded, like way more rewarded than this 100 pounds like so. And, like tying this goal and success with a benefit. It's, it's currently more needed, because the marketing budgets and others are on the pressure like so this is a great tool, like to keep people motivated, but not giving out cash, incidentally. And I think there's

Rebecca Turnbull:

another benefit, if I were a marketer, the cost of acquisition has increased over the last few years, you know, if you're acquiring customers through things like Facebook marketing, or you know, Apple Stores, things like that. But the kind of marketing work that you could actually do to engage your communities, it's going to be much more fun, much more creative and much more enjoyable to execute.

Unknown:

Definitely. And I mean, we all fight for customer attention, like so. Like to get him or her just watching what we have to say, for a couple of seconds or like maximum minutes. Like it's a huge challenge. And you have to be you can make a differentiation differentiation here. My challenger brands are actually aware. Our customers, they want to challenge Uber or any market leader.

Rebecca Turnbull:

Interesting. So have you managed to reward any community members yet?

Unknown:

Yeah, I mean, we have done first payouts. It's not as it's the issuer, whoever issues virtual shares to their recipients. They also do the payment, so we never touch money. So it's always going to read but might be due the all the bureaucracy and they can load them make complexity, which is there. So for the issuer, it's very simple.

Rebecca Turnbull:

So you strike me as someone who's really driven and very much a change agent in the things that you get involved in. I know that you've got an exceptional track record of getting things done. And obviously you can't do everything on your own. You know, a lot of that success is going to have come through the teams that have delivered on your behalf. So what are your top leadership tips for ensuring that your team succeeds.

Unknown:

Um, first of all, I'm an engineer, which means that I like great challenges, which means things that hasn't been done before, or has been done, just in a very simple way that like, that's, like important for me to have these kinds of challenges. And the team around me has the same belief that we can actually change the world, the fact that he gets so much help from the community. I mean, in the beginning, there are three F's family fools and friends, or like, you have a new product and like your, you'll find a first true fans or like your musician, and you'll find your true fans, remembering them, giving them back and also starting to get like energy from the community and then guiding in the right direction. Like, it's game changing. And it's interesting. And I mean, it's inspirational for my team. And I'm, I'm grateful that they have joined together to achieve this. First, in first i impossible goal. But as we already have customers than me know that me on the right track,

Rebecca Turnbull:

definitely. So what I'm hearing from you is, you set those ambitious goals, find people who really want to do those amazing things. Look at the step before that, I suppose. And then make sure that people are really inspired by the purpose of what they're doing. So that they maintain their motivation. Yeah, and they're

Unknown:

co owners plus our mean, our own community. So like, owner of the of the company, so we eat our own dog food. And that's, that's why we know like, what they like and what they don't like, and how it should be sure served.

Rebecca Turnbull:

And another thing that you've been involved in is HK, unicorn, Scott, I know that you helped set that up. It's a girls only technology club that's provided coding and robotics education to a couple of 1000 girls now, Estonia, is that correct? Free 30,000. That's amazing. You know, obviously, tech is still really male dominated in the UK. And there are some great initiatives going on to try and help over come this. But very few actually get that kind of traction that you have had with that. I know you don't run it on a daily basis. And I'd love to know a bit more about hope ways how you set that up, and how you managed to get there, you're really delivering and making an impact on so many people.

Unknown:

And the listeners cannot see we actually have a reader. Here. You see on the right, the girl with a horn like so that's a school logo. Yes. And you Okay, with the student 18 I have a daughter and three sons, the daughter was kicked out from the robotics, because she and another girl, they were only two girls among 30 boys. And this number of seats in that class was reduced. So both the girls were kicked out because they are not. So I was saying like, their do modest, like so they were kicked out. And they were so pissed. Like, you only have to have two girls and you get them both out like so what kind of what kind of teacher you are like, etc. So, and I started to study this problem more, because being a CEO of a very large software engineering company, I think when I left, I had 600 employees, and among them, I was only I think three female programmers. And none of those were in high places. It's more like junior programmer or like just the programmer, not senior level or even architect and it's obvious that women doesn't have access to this high paid software engineering jobs. I mean, yes, I mean, it's a public offering you can apply and if you're lucky, you get this job but it's as I said to male dominate. And the problem is that the girls like practice, so already in age of eight, the girls are one and a half years behind the boys in the same age in robotics and technology. And the gap increases for the years because boys continue to play games and then program drones and then doing stuff and girls are doing girl thing with mostly pushed by the parents leg. So situation that may have some few girls in STEM. It's not the problem of girls. It's a problem of parents. And I mean, saying math, I couldn't I couldn't do math. They go to a dad that does math like so. I mean already. I from me, I think so stem or like robotics or engineering. It's the same like playing tennis. So if we both go to the field, you will have already practiced one half years. And I hold the record first time. What's the beauty to play? Together? None. I mean, it's not. It's not fair. And that's why girls are more modest in robotics, they push boys in front. So we started with my wife, this problem, and especially UK boarding schools, my exact space boarding schools performed better in STEM Bay compared with mixed groups, and the remove the boys, we started with my first group from our own garage, we gathered basic nearby girls together and started to give them stem lessons. And it worked. And then we fought, okay, like, why not to try, like, with other places in the sternum. So we worked out model, what should we teach? And also logistic models? Like how can they get the drones and iPads and stuff like, so they can give the lesson and then send back all this stuff to us. And that's how it started to grow. So currently, we have 3000 girls in the system, more than 1000 girls waiting, because I mean, be funded 100% from our own our own family fund, so so they test limits. But basically, it's just a question of money, like how to how to increase it if you like. And it's, it's fun, like, they do six time half a year to finish the school. And now we between a age of eight, up to 14. And now we do extra courses for the 1110 10 and 11 grades. So the ones who are already in that level can decide in which faculty or like in which direction, direction they want to go with a profession, like soy. And that's it. They don't like boys, they've sold all the mixed crops we have had or broken or like finished. But the sex based thing, females only that works.

Rebecca Turnbull:

And, you know, looking back in my education, there were times when I was in like much more female based classes versus male based classes, so that the schools that I went to, and it was very common at that time, you were put into like sets of achievements. So there were very few girls in my science class because I was in the top set. So I think there was maybe like three of us. And it did make it harder, I think, to engage. And I know that that might seem a little bit silly. But obviously there were times as a teenager, when the boys were a distraction, or you weren't really focusing on what you needed to learn in the class. But the the language and the examples, I always find school were for me a bit harder to engage with, like, it got to the point where advanced mechanics maths that was all about throwing cricket balls. And even if you're not into cricket as a sport, you know that you know, they do not substitute for tennis or something where there's maybe like more female interest, it might have made it a bit more engaging

Unknown:

you also to write that all the exercises and lessons have to have meaning. For example, they have a series of drone lessons, every half a year, half of the year, they have two drone lessons, which starts from so for example, the first exercise is that you have to fly a drone in a way that it can bring medicine for the foxes in the forest. So there is like a spot in the middle of the room called forest. And then you have to deliver like basically the drone needs to go to there and then go to the like on top of the forest, then do a flip. So the medicine actually falls in exactly the forest, then come back and land. So that's for example is a first level drone exercise and it's a meaning. So the second one is half a year later like you learn how to find people from the forest plus people from the forest like so the candles on the floor and now we have to that's how we learn cycles like the four and repeat cycles thing. So how do you actually have to go through the area in a way that the drone blows away the candle? So if a candle gets blown away, which means that okay, you know you have found the person makes so again like you're absolutely right Right that that lesson has to have meaning.

Rebecca Turnbull:

And that sounds like so much fun, even is.

Unknown:

I mean, it's fun because the drones always done work and operate as planned. So it's actually more fun. That's the beauty with real time systems. I mean, they never like it depends like, what is the light conditions? Is there a slight breeze in the room? How much metal is in, in the room? So it all matters. So you'll never get the same? Exact same exact results, because the conditions are different. So that's why it's more fun.

Rebecca Turnbull:

Definitely. Well, to have a thank you so much for your insights and everything you've shared today. I found it really interesting. And it's definitely going to make me think a little bit more about communities and how they impact the kind of startups and scale ups that I'm working with. It's an interesting conversation, because I don't think founders immediately think about how to reward them other than through your cashback or like free taxi rides, things like that. And you're absolutely right, that's expensive and hampering your growth and meaning you're taking more investment at an early stage potentially,

Unknown:

so but also like, I want to be part of your success. So as I said, I was already invested in wise the company was worth 5 million. So when they go public, it was 10 billion. So it's a 2000 times return. So I want to be part of Mike so it can be huge amount of money.

Rebecca Turnbull:

Again, yeah. And, and then you can have an even bigger impact with that. So thank you so much for joining me today. It's been really valuable, and I hope to hear from you again.

Unknown:

Okay, thank you.

Rebecca Turnbull:

Thanks for listening to the Listen perspective. I'm Rebecca de St. Founder and Director at the Listen group, a tech sector executive search and talent consultancy. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it with others, post about it on social media or leave a rating and review. If you're a company looking to hire top technology leaders, or you'd like to discuss your next move, please reach out to me on LinkedIn or send me an email to Rebecca at the listen group.co.uk Thanks again for listening today.