Building a startup is all about people. From your co-founders and employees to partners, investors, and clients. If you want to succeed it’s vital to create a community around your business.
With 25 years of experience as a C-level executive in the banking and financial services sector, Roger Van Duinen is the embodiment of the importance of creating and nurturing a strong network.
Back in 2015, he co-founded Varo Bank, a fintech focused on reinventing banking through machine learning and AI to help people achieve better financial fitness.
Just a year later, they reached a $2.5B valuation in their Series A round.
For Roger, it all started when a mutual friend introduced him to his co-founder, Colin Walsh. One “fantastic” phone call later, and they embarked on the startup journey together.
As Roger puts it, it’s “a good reminder for everyone—make friends along the way because you never know how those connections will help you later.”
Recently, I was fortunate enough to sit down with Roger for an episode of our podcast, The Startup Journey. He shared his insights into navigating the early stages of startup life – from achieving product-market fit to managing investor relations.
He also opened up about the challenges of balancing personal life with the intense demands of entrepreneurship and provided advice on building a strong, cohesive startup team.
Additionally, Roger emphasised the importance of connecting with your customers as people, not just customers – especially your early adopters.
If you’re an entrepreneur looking for firsthand lessons from someone who’s successfully built a unicorn, Roger’s journey offers actionable advice and key takeaways for your own path.
You can listen to the episode below, or keep scrolling to read the story in full.
Contents
The Inception of Varo Bank
Rui: Let’s start right from the beginning—where did the idea for Varo come from?
Roger: I met Colin through a mutual acquaintance. We got on the phone, and I remember very clearly—it was an hour-and-a-half-long conversation.
I live in Southern California, and it was a beautiful, sunny day (no surprise there). I was pacing around in my backyard, and we were talking about the problems in the current banking system.
What was really interesting is, that although we had very different career paths, we saw the same problems.
We resonated in our conversation about the issues with the banking system, and we also realised that it would be very hard to fix banking from the inside due to the internal pressures existing banks face to generate profit, and the ways they go about doing that.
(Author’s note: The next few paragraphs may not seem relevant if you’re not in the financial services industry. However, they emphasise a crucial element for success: industry expertise is a massive advantage when building a startup. Without it, pulling off success becomes nearly impossible.)
We also noted that modern banking didn’t look that modern. Old platforms are not very mobile-ready. That was the beginning.
Another thing we both understood—being bankers, not app developers—was that in the long run, having a bank charter would be a key differentiator in the fintech industry.
I have done banking in the U.S., and the U.K., and consulted in South Africa, Brazil, and Puerto Rico. One thing we understood globally was that there are regulatory and economic advantages to being a bank.
Almost every fintech out there operates what I would call a “half balance sheet.” They either offer a deposit-type product or a lending-type product. We believed that over time, these companies would be at a significant disadvantage.
It’s hard to make money with deposit products. It’s hard to lend at a low cost when you have to borrow money from someone expecting a return.
Banks don’t have either of those problems. From the start, we had it in our minds that we needed a bank charter. That decision became a pivotal point when it came to fundraising for Varo.
It was interesting to see which VCs and investors were on board with the idea and which weren’t. There was a noticeable difference, at least in the U.S., between East Coast and West Coast investors when we were pitching.
But to go back to your question, the very genesis of Varo was that conversation in my backyard. I think Colin was sitting at a café in San Francisco at the time, and we just had a fantastic discussion. We were completely aligned on the problems and how we thought the solution needed to take shape.
Forming the Co-Foundership
Rui: Was this a random event, or were you actively looking for someone to help you create something new? What was the overall dynamic of this introduction?
Roger: This mutual acquaintance of ours, a recruiter in the financial services industry, wasn’t setting out to connect us because either of us was specifically looking for someone.
It was more that she knew a lot of people, and when she originally spoke to Colin, she realised what he was trying to build and thought of me.
Let me be really clear: most of what Varo is came from Colin, not me. We were co-founders, but I was not the genesis of the idea, and I’d never claim to be.
Our friend spoke to Colin about what he was thinking and said, “Oh, I know somebody,” and connected us. So, it wasn’t a complete accident, but it wasn’t entirely planned either—it was somewhere in between.
Rui: Yeah, I’ve heard other stories start like this.
Roger: Just a good reminder for everyone—make friends along the way because you never know how those connections will help you later.
Validating the Idea Behind Varo Bank
Rui: We often see that entrepreneurs who raise money and succeed long-term tend to have deep industry knowledge. Many founders spend 10-15 years in an industry, spot inefficiencies, and build a product to solve them. Their success isn’t just due to knowledge; it’s the network they’ve built over time that positions them to succeed.
With both you and Colin coming from financial backgrounds, it’s clear how that expertise, combined with your network, has been key. It’s a recipe we see often—whether the founders are technical or not.
How did you validate the Varo concept when you first started? What was the process like for moving it forward?
Roger: That’s a really interesting one for us because, once we began building the app that became Varo, we certainly got a lot of user input—as anyone developing an app should.
We focused on ensuring that customers understood the features and could use them easily without creating unintended friction in the user experience.
Conceptually, though, our approach to building this new banking experience—apart from leveraging our extensive networks—was different.
We went out and talked to friends and colleagues in the industry to get their take on whether we were heading in the right direction. However, we didn’t go directly to the user market to ask, “Are you interested in this?” for a couple of reasons.
First, we had already done some research and understood that there was a gap in the marketplace.
Let me explain. If you go out and ask a hundred people what concerns them most in life, you’ll get responses like health, relationships, and money—these are universal concerns. Managing money and having enough of it is a shared desire.
Now, if you ask those same hundred people to list the brands they love the most and those they dislike the most, at least in the U.S., banks and cable companies are usually fighting for the bottom spot. It’s a strange situation in the banking industry—people want a product that helps alleviate financial anxiety and plan for the future, but they tend to dislike or, at best, tolerate the brands that offer these products.
Personally, having been in the banking industry for years as a consumer, I know how to avoid fees and I’m privileged enough not to worry about not having enough money. But a lot of people aren’t in that position. And those are the people the banking industry often targets. I hate to use the word “prey,” but when banks need to generate revenue, the easiest way is to increase fees on mistakes—and those mistakes often happen to younger or less wealthy people. That’s the need we saw driving our efforts.
When it came to validating the idea, we didn’t do much validation of the idea itself. What we did focus on was validating how we delivered the idea. One of our earliest hires was a researcher whose role was to conduct user research. That research helped us shape the app, refine the features, and avoid creating user friction. But as for the conceptual business model and strategy, Colin and I—having lived in consumer banking—felt confident enough to move forward without extensive user testing. “Skipping” that step might not be the right word, but we didn’t spend as much time on it as others might have.
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The Importance of Building a Mission-Driven Startup
Rui: Varo’s website now is very mission-driven, with a clear focus on providing better financial access for everyone. Was that mission always there, or did it develop after the product? Both approaches work, of course.
Roger: Yeah, really good question. It was there from the very beginning. Like with any mission-driven organisation, the wording, language, and imagery have evolved. But from that initial conversation, we both understood that the core issue we wanted to change was the idea that banks do well when their customers do poorly.
I grew up in the credit card industry as a banker. I remember being in meetings with CEOs where we talked about how our best customers were the ones who were delinquent but ultimately paid us back. Profit-wise, those were our best customers—they carried big balances, missed payments, we charged them fees, and eventually, we got our money back.
For me, that was the key driver. And for Colin, it was similar. He was constantly facing pressure to generate fourth-quarter earnings, and the simplest way to do that was just to raise fees. But those fees always impacted the people who could least afford them.
So, this basic idea—that banking often harms the most vulnerable—was there from the very beginning. Sure, the tone and presentation of that message have shifted over time, but the mission hasn’t changed. That’s what motivated us.
Yes, it’s great to create a startup, and even better to build one worth billions, but that wasn’t the core driving force. We wanted to see if we could do something different and better. At that stage in life, neither Colin nor I were doing this for the money. We wanted to make a real difference, and that’s been the mission from day one. You can see that mission more clearly than ever in how we operate today.
Rui: This topic is close to my heart because as a B2B marketer, I’ve helped many companies build their narratives. The most successful ones are usually driven by a genuine mission.
When I joined Altar, we were already focused on helping entrepreneurs, but no one was actively talking about our strategic narrative. It was embedded in our DNA—our team had startup experience, acting more like co-founders than suppliers.
My role was simply to communicate that. We positioned ourselves as a tech-savvy partner for entrepreneurs, which was natural since we were already living it. When your marketing feels effortless, you’re on the right track.
Roger: I agree. And in addition to that, as a company, it’s just easier to recruit great people when it’s not just about offering them the chance to work on cutting-edge technology. Sure, that’s great for developers, but it’s even better when they feel like they’re part of something bigger.
To be honest, Varo wasn’t using much cutting-edge tech in the beginning—we were coding in Java, and who does that any more?
What we offered was a clear mission that people could believe in. Most individuals, if given the opportunity, want to make a positive impact. By showing them exactly how their work contributes to that goal, recruitment becomes easier, retention improves, and overall workplace energy increases.
So, even if you didn’t believe in it, having a mission-driven company would be a smart tool. But in our case, as I mentioned before, from day one the idea that our success was directly tied to our customers’ success was the driving force behind everything.
Finding the Right Technical People
Rui: Let’s take a step back—otherwise, we’ll end up diving into human psychology, and I can already see where this conversation is headed! I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier.
Both you and Colin came from non-technical backgrounds, correct? How did you go about building the actual app? Did you recruit developers internally, hire a CTO, or did you work with an agency? What was your overall approach?
Roger: It was a bit of everything you mentioned. We had four original co-founders, and one of them was our CTO. He had a deep background in financial services technology, so he was the architect behind key aspects like data security, how we structured our APIs, and how we were going to deliver the app—starting with the iPhone version.
It started with him and a small internal team, but we also partnered with an external company that I had worked with previously.
They delivered much of the technology, and that partnership was crucial in the early stages. As we raised funds and felt more comfortable hiring full-time, we gradually expanded our internal team. Over time, the external agency scaled down their involvement, although I think they still work with Varo in a much smaller capacity today.
The agency brought in specific app expertise—especially in mobile app development—which accelerated our ability to launch. But behind all of that, our CTO designed the overarching architecture, which is still in place today. It allowed us to be confident in having a secure, high-performance platform as we began to scale.
Rui: Yeah, which makes a lot of sense. If you can bring in a technical co-founder or CTO from the start, we always advise founders to go for it. It makes a big difference in communication and in managing the overall process.
Roger: If I could just add to that, I think it’s important for any leader to make it their business to know as much as possible about different areas of their organisation. In my case, although my background is primarily business, I have a degree in computer science and electrical engineering. So, I guess I’ve always been a bit technical, even though I didn’t go down that path professionally.
That foundation allowed me to have informed conversations with technical people throughout my career. I made it a mission to learn as much as I could so I could engage in discussions on their terms rather than forcing them to explain things in mine. For example, I took the time to understand what an API is, taught myself about Docker, and more, just so I could have productive conversations and move things forward faster. It always seemed more efficient for me to learn than for others to constantly have to translate things for me.
Forming a Go-to-Market Strategy
Rui: That makes sense. While we don’t advise non-technical founders to learn coding—it takes too long, and the opportunity might pass—they do need to grasp basic tech concepts. Without that, they might be swayed into using a tech stack just because it’s familiar to someone else, which could harm the product.
Having a technical partner is crucial. Understanding the basics helps with due diligence in hiring or choosing a supplier. As entrepreneurs, we also believe that once you’ve proven the concept and achieved product-market fit, it’s time to internalize resources to streamline operations.
Now, Roger, let’s talk about your go-to-market strategy. How did you secure your first clients and early adopters, especially after delaying that phase for a while?
Roger: I’ll mix product and go-to-market strategy here because they’re so intertwined. From the start, we were running two parallel tracks. On one hand, we tested marketing messages and features by driving traffic to our site for sign-ups, using targeted efforts like Google AdWords and Facebook. This helped us learn who was interested and what resonated. On the other hand, we followed an MVP approach, focusing on the essentials for a debit card product: depositing money, using it, and checking the balance.
We kept things simple and tested with a beta group of 1,000 users, knowing the product was basic. We also had a smaller consumer council of 30 people providing direct feedback. This allowed us to gradually add features, improve the product, and bring more users on board. Early versions were clunky, and some design choices were awful. But as Reid Hoffman said, “If you’re proud of your product at launch, you’ve launched too late.” I wasn’t proud at first, but that’s part of the journey.
Aligning product development with go-to-market strategy is an ongoing process. A strong product manager or chief product officer is key to managing the roadmap and working closely with the tech team. With four co-founders involved in product decisions, it was crucial to have someone who could take all our input, turn it into a plan, and lead the team in executing it.
Rui: I want to highlight two things here.
First, the MVP mentality. Lean methodology is key, and we firmly believe in it. Focusing on the right features helps build efficiently and reduces risk.
Instagram is a great example—they started as ‘Burbn’ with too many features, but once they honed in on photo sharing, that simplicity became their success. Proving assumptions with key features is crucial.
Second, not charging early adopters makes total sense.
Early users aren’t just buying the product—they’re buying into the vision.
They provide invaluable feedback and act like an extended team. By not charging, you build traction, attract investors, and gather insights that improve your product.
Roger: One thing I’d add to that—and I think this will resonate with you as a marketer—is the idea of trade. Every interaction with a customer is an exchange of value. You give something, you get something. We were always conscious of whether the trade we were asking for was equitable.
We wanted to bring in beta customers, and internally, we often caught ourselves thinking, “Who wouldn’t want to be part of this fantastic thing?”
But the reality was, nobody knew what our “fantastic thing” was. People didn’t even know how to pronounce Varo, let alone understand what we were trying to achieve with it as a banking app.
So, when we brought people in, we had to give them something in return—and it had to be a fair exchange. For us, that meant no fees ever for those early adopters.
That was our way of saying thank you for trusting us – for taking the risk of depositing your money into something that was brand new. We even gave them guarantees around things like deposits, just to ease any worries they might have had.
One other thing I’ll mention, which was crucial in those early days, was our first group of around 100 beta users. We split them up among the founders. I had 25 people who had my personal phone number, and they could call me anytime with a problem or suggestion. Each of the founders did the same.
And you know what? Those users were fantastic. They didn’t abuse it; they only called when they had something they thought was genuinely helpful. It created this incredible dynamic where I got to know these users, not just as customers, but as people. It was a great way to stay close to what they needed and how they were experiencing the product.
But the key point here is about the trade. Your MVP is going to be a mess, and you need to acknowledge that. So, the value exchange has to be fair. If you’re giving your customers something subpar in the early stages, you need to make it worth their while by offering them something valuable in return. That’s just fair.
Early-Stage Startup Team
Rui: Absolutely. One of the most valuable lessons for any entrepreneur is keeping the user front and centre. From the start, you had the right mindset—you didn’t see users as a money source but valued their time, offering no fees for life and direct contact with the founders. This user-centric approach is crucial, especially in today’s competitive landscape.
Your transition from marketing to product was spot on. Product is at the core of our value proposition too. Today’s users have higher expectations, and if they encounter slow load times or confusing screens, they’ll quickly turn to a competitor. That’s why product is critical in both development and marketing.
Who handled these aspects early on? You mentioned everyone was involved in product, but when did you bring in resources to take over and improve? Who managed marketing and product at the start, and when did you make key hires?
Roger: Early on, Colin spent a lot of time on product, and I spent more time on marketing, though we were both involved in each other’s areas as well. I’d say I was about 70% focused on marketing and maybe 30-40% on product—because, let’s face it, nothing ever adds up to 100% in a startup. Colin was the reverse, spending the majority of his time on product but also contributing to other areas, including marketing.
I wouldn’t say it was driven by committee, but we spent a lot of time as a team, arguing, debating, and hashing things out. No one person was driving it in those early days. About six months in, though, we brought in a chief product officer. By that time, we had also hired one or two product managers who were starting to take ownership of different pieces.
The CPO helped shape things further, focusing on product and the design of the app. That’s when the product started to come together, and the overall vision became clearer. There were specific design and product philosophies introduced at that point, which helped unify everything.
Around that same time, we also brought in a researcher for the product team. She was instrumental in working more productively with our beta users and customer council, extracting more valuable insights from them. Before she came on board, we’d have great conversations with users, but she was able to focus those discussions more strategically, zeroing in on specific feedback that we needed to improve the product.
So, about six months in, we realised we needed a more professional approach to product management, and that’s when we made those key hires.
Rui: In the early stages, founders have to do everything themselves. You’re handling hiring, product, marketing, investors—you’re constantly selling.
So, to your point, after about six months, when you hit a certain threshold, you brought in reinforcements to help take things further in those departments, which makes total sense.
I’m curious though, did this coincide with a funding round? You built the first version, gained some traction, went to investors, raised money, and then brought in these additional resources. Is that the general roadmap?
Roger: Close! We were pitching Varo the entire time. If I recall correctly, we pitched about 45 times before we finally got a yes. So, it took quite a while, and during that time, we were doing what we could with friends and family money to keep the ball rolling.
Our goal from day one was to raise capital, but it was just a matter of timing. Once we finally got the investment, it made a big difference. The real shift came when we found an investor who truly understood our strategy. Warburg Pincus was the group that initially invested in us, and when we pitched to them, it was a completely different experience.
We were essentially pitching the white paper they had written internally about the fintech market. By the end of the meeting, one of them asked, “Did you get a copy of our white paper? Because you’ve just told us everything in it.” We hadn’t seen it—we just happened to see fintech and its opportunities the same way they did.
When that clicked, it was magic. Everything up until that point felt like practice. But when it finally aligned, they were the best possible investor we could have hoped for as our initial backers.
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Dealing with Investors
Rui: This is super interesting because we often talk about the difference between “money” and “smart money.”
Getting investment just for the sake of it vs. securing funding from people who have industry expertise and can help you go further. There’s a compound effect in getting smart money. But what you’re describing goes even deeper—there’s almost a philosophical alignment here.
I’m assuming that was very important. Could you share other key lessons you learned about dealing with investors, especially early on?
Roger: A couple of things I observed along the way, and now that I sit on the other side of the table as an investor (I’m part of a local VC fund), I’ve learned even more. So, I’ll mix it all together, but I think it’s valuable for anyone starting a company.
One thing I’d say is that when we pitched Varo, I had no idea what investors were thinking. Now, having been on the investor side, I realise I completely misinterpreted what was going on during those pitch meetings.
Most venture capitalists probably listen to 100 pitches for every startup that moves down the funnel as an investment. The easiest thing for an investor to do is to eliminate companies rather than focus on which one will be successful.
So, during the pitch stage, investors are typically looking for reasons why a company will fail, not why it will succeed. It’s only once you get to the diligence stage that they focus on whether it can work.
When you’re pitching, you’re essentially up against all the reasons your company could fail. The most common ones?
- The product will never make money
- The market doesn’t want it
- The team can’t execute.
So my advice to any entrepreneur is to take a step back from your enthusiasm and look at your business, product, and team critically. Think about all the ways your company could fail and address those potential pitfalls in your pitch.
That doesn’t mean saying, “We might fail because of the market.” Instead, it’s about flipping that around and presenting the positives: “Here’s why our market loves us,” “Here’s why our IP is protected,” or “Here’s why our founding team will be successful.”
By addressing potential concerns upfront, you achieve two things: first, you answer questions before they’re even asked, and second, you come across as smart and thoughtful. And that’s critical, because investors are not just evaluating your idea—they’re evaluating you and your team.
The second lesson is to never assume you’ll get all the time you’re promised.
In about 80% of the pitches I’ve been involved in, we got less time than expected. You might think you have 30 minutes, but the partner could walk out after 10. So, make sure your pitch is structured in a way that allows you to convey the most important information quickly.
I always advise startups to have two parts to their pitch. The first part should be a very simple story: within 90 seconds, you should be able to explain what the problem is, what your solution is, and why it matters. If an investor is 10 or 15 minutes in and still doesn’t understand your business, you’ve lost them. You’ll never make it to the diligence stage.
After that, focus on ordering your information from most important to least. That way, even if you get cut off early, you’ll have delivered the most crucial points first. The last thing you want is to get interrupted just before sharing the most important detail.
The third takeaway is that sometimes it’s not about you—it’s about the investor. You might pitch and they just don’t get it. That doesn’t mean your idea is bad; it just means it’s not a fit for that particular fund. They may have a different thesis or focus. For example, they might only invest in SaaS subscription models, and you’re opening a chain of pizza restaurants. It’s just not a match.
Of the 45 times we pitched Varo, I’d say 40 of the “no’s” were because we weren’t a fit for that specific fund. It had nothing to do with us or our idea. So, as an entrepreneur, you need to categorise those rejections.
Was it a “no” because we weren’t a good fit? Or did we fall flat on a key question and need to address that in future pitches? Some “no’s” can be learning opportunities, and others are just mismatches.
In the end, you keep at it until you find that click. For us, it was Warburg Pincus, and when it happened, it felt like magic. So, those are my big takeaways from both sides of the table—having been in a couple of startups pitching and now as an investor listening to pitches.
A “Day-in-the-Life” of an Early-Stage Startup Founder
Rui: Thank you so much for sharing that. Now, how was your day-to-day life back then? How many hours a day were you working? How was your focus split between marketing and product? You’ve mentioned a bit about it already, but could you expand on that?
Roger: Sure. So, I live in Southern California, while Varo was based in San Francisco, which made my routine a bit unique compared to the other founders and most of the employees. I’d spend a week working from home and then a week up in San Francisco.
What was interesting about that setup was when I was in San Francisco, I was completely disconnected from my family.
At the time, I had two kids in high school, and there was a lot going on at home. But when I was in the office in San Francisco, I could be 100% focused on Varo. I’d be up early, hit the gym, and be in the office by 7 or 7:30, working until 7 or 7:30 at night.
When I was at home, I had more balance. Since I didn’t have a commute, I could roll out of bed and head to my home office. I’d still put in a full day, but I was able to balance work with family life a bit more. For me, that balance was really important, especially knowing that while you can push 110% in the short term, you can’t sustain that pace forever.
That said, there were plenty of late nights and all-hands-on-deck moments, especially when we were preparing to launch a new feature or when things needed to get done. But there were also quieter times, and I made sure to take advantage of those to recharge, spend time with family, or get to the gym.
One thing we did that was pretty unique when we started recruiting our development team was focusing on work-life balance. We tended to recruit developers who were a bit older and more established. These were people for whom a healthy work-life balance was just as important as being part of a startup. It allowed us to have conversations with candidates where we could say, “You don’t have to kill yourself to be successful here. You can leave at 5:30 or 6, go home, and spend time with your family. You won’t be sleeping under your desk.”
That was important to us as co-founders, and because when we did raise money—our first round was $26 million, not a small $2 million seed round—we had the flexibility to recruit experienced developers and employees who valued that balance.
Warburg Pincus, our investor, actually pushed us to raise more than we initially planned because they knew from experience what it would take to succeed. That gave us room to take this different mentality with our recruitment.
We were able to attract great talent who traded some salary for lifestyle, which worked out well for us. These were experienced people, not just on the development side, but also in product and other areas. They could get more done in less time because they knew what they were doing.
So, while it was a lot of work, we never lost sight of the human element. We recognised that balance was key, and I think that’s been consistent throughout the journey.
Entrepreneurial Advice
Rui: I couldn’t agree more with your point about senior resources. It’s the same here at Altar. Our teams rarely go beyond two or three developers, even for complex, data-heavy fintech projects.
It’s all about efficiency and the ability to manage the process from A to Z effectively.
So, Roger, this wraps up the story-based questions. Let’s move into a rapid-fire round for some quick advice for entrepreneurs.
What would be your main piece of advice for an entrepreneur starting out now?
Roger: Put the right team around yourself. It doesn’t matter how smart you are or what you can do—if you don’t have a good team, you’re going nowhere.
Rui: Can you share one key lesson learned on product?
Roger: I think I’ve already mentioned it, but it’s crucial: never forget that you’re building a product for your customer, not for yourself.
If you leave them out of the equation, you will fail.
Rui: Love it. How about one key lesson you learned in marketing?
Roger: You can’t always get the audience you want. So, expand. We had a very specific market in mind, but we were never able to effectively target that group. At some point, we had to shift focus to who was interested and adjust our product for them.
There are two basic philosophies: either you stick to your product and keep looking for the right market, or you find a market that’s interested and build your product for them. You can’t sit on the fence—you have to choose one or the other. And there’s no one right answer.
Rui: One key lesson on people or hiring?
Roger: Go as long as possible in a startup before you hire your first asshole.
Rui: That’s great advice! I’ve got to follow up—what should you do if you’ve already hired one?
Roger: Get rid of them as soon as possible. The culture you create in a startup is fundamentally shaped by the people you hire. You can’t be successful long-term if you don’t get rid of someone who’s disruptive, selfish, or just not a team player. We all know that kind of person.
We made sure that before hiring anyone, everyone had to talk to them and give a thumbs up.
There was an expertise test, but just as important was a culture fit. If one person wasn’t comfortable, we didn’t move forward. It’s already hard enough to achieve what you need to in a startup—having to deal with someone who’s not on the same page can be a disaster. Just don’t hire them in the first place.
Rui: I was listening to an episode of Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman, and they mentioned how the first 150 employees are like cultural co-founders. It resonated because those early hires shape the company’s long-term values.
Now, what’s one resource that was invaluable to your success? A book, podcast, mentor—anything.
Roger: Wow, that’s a personal one for me. Early in my career, I had a mentor who spent a ridiculous amount of time helping me—this young, analytical, introverted guy—learn how to present to people. He taught me how to stand up in front of a group, know my material, anticipate questions, and deliver a message with confidence.
That changed the trajectory of my career. It allowed me to stand in front of VCs and pitch, and to inspire employees around the mission and vision of the company.
To all the introverted entrepreneurs out there, you can do this. There are ways to build confidence in front of people and share what’s in your head. For me, that skill was pivotal. It’s what has allowed me to get up in front of people today, to do things like this podcast, and even to teach a pitch course at UC Irvine.
I used to be terrified, but now I actually enjoy it. So, however you can, build that skill—it’s invaluable.
Wrapping Up
Rui: Roger, thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to sit down with me and share your story. Do you have any closing thoughts to share with our readers?
Roger: If you haven’t started something yet—do it.
I spent most of my career in big companies, doing things other than what I wanted to be doing.
Building a startup is so concentrated and such a pure effort—it’s really joyful. Whether it succeeds or fails, the work itself is more rewarding than anything I’ve ever done, other than raising kids, which is its own kind of startup, because you never know what you’re going to get there either.
Just do it. Don’t let fear stop you. The rewards, even in failure, are far too great. You empower yourself, and those around you, and you move toward changing the world, even in a small way. It’s way too rewarding to say no.
