This is Louwrens Van Schalkwyk, a seasoned entrepreneur with nearly two decades of experience in building and leading companies in the fintech sector.
When Louwrens and his co-founder first started out, they were focused on solving a frustrating payroll problem for the temporary employment sector in South Africa. But in tackling one problem, they discovered new challenges—which eventually revealed an entirely new opportunity.
Their solution, originally intended to streamline internal payroll management, ended up laying the foundation for a new startup, MyBucks.
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Louwrens and dive into his Startup Journey. He mentioned that he and his co-founder “almost stumbled upon the opportunity by mistake.”
However, it quickly became clear that their success was anything but accidental. It was built on countless late nights, strategic pivots, and an unyielding belief in the value they could provide.
Within three years, MyBucks evolved from a small, bootstrapped tech experiment into the first online lending platform in South Africa.
It ultimately became a leading fintech company across nine African countries, offering comprehensive services in banking, lending, and insurance.
They later expanded into Europe and made history as the first African-focused fintech to list on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, with an initial public offering just shy of $143 million
There’s a lot here for any entrepreneur to learn from, and I’m excited to share Louwrens’ story with you.
Scroll to keep reading and learn how MyBucks became a fintech pioneer, or listen to the story below.
Contents
About My MyBucks and Louwrens
Rui: Louwrens, let’s start at the very beginning: where did the idea for MyBucks, or GetBucks as it was originally called, come from?
Louwrens: To be honest, I think we almost stumbled onto the opportunity by accident. Initially, my co-founder and I were building a lending platform to use in our previous venture, focused on the temporary employment sector. We faced the challenge of managing weekly payrolls—something uncommon in South Africa.
When that venture was acquired, we felt we had something valuable on the technology side, so we decided to keep it and see where it could lead. We started marketing our loan management software but found it challenging to get traction. So, we pivoted to building a web platform for online lending. It was something we worked on during our spare time, and within a few weeks, we had a beta version ready.
We soon realised we could be our own first users rather than just selling the software. This pivot came from the challenges we faced in convincing others to adopt our solution, which made us think—why not prove its value by using it ourselves? With the support of some new partners, we secured capital to start our operations as the first online lender in South Africa. We grew organically, without big marketing budgets, and eventually reached thousands of applications a month—proving the concept worked.
The next year was rapid. We expanded across Southern Africa and built teams to support our growing customer base. Within three years, we were in nine African countries and started looking at opportunities in Europe. Eventually, we expanded our offerings to include banking and insurance, which helped us gain even more traction in underserved markets.
The Decision to Build MyBucks
Rui: You mentioned that before the acquisition opportunity, you realised you were onto something with the tech and decided it was worth pursuing. Why was that? Was it market response, intuition, or something else that made you believe this was an opportunity worth building on?
Louwrens: It was twofold. First, it was definitely about our positioning in the market. We were offering something that didn’t exist at the time—something beyond just the accounting aspect. While financial systems back then were mainly glorified accounting systems, ours had something different.
Most financial systems were essentially journals: you’d load a loan or a product, and based on accounting rules and journal entries, it would manage it for you. But they lacked workflow decisioning and customer management—features that were either absent or found only in very expensive, large-scale ERPs.
What we had was more than that. Our product was well-developed, robust, and highly configurable. We could give it directly to end users, and the speed to market was a major differentiator. You could get an operation live within weeks. That was huge.
The second consideration was more emotional. We had invested a lot of time and effort into developing the technology—it was our brainchild, something we had brought from sketches and diagrams to a fully functional system. There was a real emotional attachment there. So, part of the reason we pursued it was simply that we believed in it. We couldn’t let all that hard work just fade away.
Gaining Early Adopters & Reaching Product-Market Fit
Rui: You leaned heavily on your data, but ultimately, it was your gut feeling and belief in the product that drove you.
The value is obvious to me, but you mentioned struggling to find early adopters and ended up using the technology yourselves, bringing in others who later joined the company. Why do you think that was? Was it a matter of timing, or was the industry too conservative? What made early adoption challenging, despite the clear value?
Louwrens: Yes, looking back, it’s always easier to identify these things. I think our approach to the market was perhaps a little too early. We were pitching our system and tech capabilities to well-established lenders who had made significant investments in brick-and-mortar outlets.
These companies had physical distribution, staff, and a traditional model. So, when we said we could automate many aspects for them—credit decisioning, processing, improving speed—they were sceptical. Their customers were used to queuing and coming to the store, and they saw no significant service differentiator in cutting down waiting times. It was more of a mindset: “My customers wait, whether it’s ten minutes or an hour.” They had such a strong foothold that they didn’t see the value in automation.
Another factor was our business model. We were pitching a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, which was not well understood at the time. These lenders were used to paying large, upfront licensing fees for systems. We specifically didn’t want to go down that route. Instead, we proposed a model where they paid a small fee for every loan processed, every month. This made them uneasy—many felt we were eating into their profits. They preferred the comfort of an upfront, predictable cost that they could control.
It’s funny looking back now because SaaS is everywhere and well understood, but in 2008 or 2009, the market just wasn’t ready for it. Our model didn’t fit into their established way of thinking, and that made early adoption challenging.
Rui: There’s a key lesson here—sometimes the market needs education. Even if you’d spent millions on Google Ads, changing customer behaviour would still be essential.
With innovative products, founders need to be out there explaining the product and its benefits. Without that, it just won’t work. So, that makes a lot of sense.
You mentioned it took about six months to reach product-market fit. Did you build everything in-house, or did you use external resources? What was the process of building the product for market?
Louwrens: It was literally bootstrapped from an in-house resource. From the first line of code, right down to the end solution, it went through extreme technological changes.
We started out, believe it or not, with Windows Forms as a distributable application. We quickly moved to web-based technologies, and at that time, we chose Silverlight. It was one of the first distributable web technologies, piloted by Windows. We went through Silverlight versions one through four. Then suddenly, other technologies started catching up—the Java clients and the various scripting solutions—and Windows decided to phase out Silverlight.
We had to pivot yet again and move over to more widely adopted scripting technologies. It was rapid, and we transitioned through a variety of underlying technologies in a very short period. But it was all in-house, built from scratch—from the first line of code to the millions that eventually ran the business. It was all done internally.
Rui: What was the team behind it? You mentioned that you started with just one developer—was it just one person handling all of this? Did you have anyone on product or design? What was the overall composition of the team behind the technical development?
Louwrens: Yeah, it was quite an experience. Before Agile even became a well-known methodology, that was pretty much how we operated. I was writing business requirements—although I didn’t even know that’s what they were called back then. Essentially, I was drafting user stories long before the term became popular, and that’s how we operated.
My partner was an absolute rockstar developer. He built the system based on the requirements I provided, and our process was highly iterative: develop, deploy, test, change, and deploy again. It was a continuous loop. We had tools to help us—like the code generators available in Windows Forms—but those could only take us so far.
Initially, it was just him handling all the development. Eventually, he brought in a close friend, and soon we had two, then three developers as our core team. This small group was responsible for building almost the entire platform during the early stages. It was extremely iterative, and we were very agile—often pushing multiple deployments in a single day.
It was literally: fix this, change that, test it again. It was an exciting time, and there was a lot of energy in those early days. We were moving fast, breaking things, and learning constantly. It was great fun, despite the challenges.
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Meeting the Technical Co-Founder
Rui: You mentioned something interesting—that you had a partner who was a real rockstar.
It made me think, a few decades ago, you could find the Steve Wozniaks of the world tinkering in garages—demand for them wasn’t as high.
Now, every tech stakeholder is a rockstar, like John Travolta in Grease. It’s tough to get someone like that on board with just an idea.
Given how much the landscape has changed and competition has intensified, how did you meet your technical rockstar back then? How did you come together to work on this idea?
Louwrens: Yeah, so we were introduced through a mutual contact. In my previous venture, we had identified a gap in system capability, and I got introduced to him to help fill that gap.
You mentioned the napkin—our very first interaction was just like that. I met him on a Saturday morning, and I explained the problem: I needed a system, but I couldn’t find anything that met my needs in the market.
We started talking, and right there, we pulled out a small piece of paper. He began sketching out concepts and asking questions. It was very hands-on—we went through a small planning session on not much more than an A4 piece of paper, deciding what to build, what to adjust, and what features were necessary. At the end of that conversation, I asked if he’d be willing to build it if given the opportunity. He said yes, without hesitation.
Initially, we hired him to build the system for the existing business. But after that company was acquired, we essentially said, “If we can ringfence this technology, we’d like to have it,” and that’s when we decided to go out on our own.
Rui: A lot of founders today, especially first-time founders, struggle to find not only technical stakeholders to help them but also a good co-founder—someone that they can trust and with whom they can build a business.
What would you say were the main reasons why you got together and why your partnership worked so well?
Louwrens: So I’m going to disregard things like capability because I think that’s sort of the entry-level consideration. Obviously, your partner has to show good capability.
The most important thing for me, especially as a co-founder, is the ability to get along. It’s about someone who shares a set of values, and it doesn’t have to be 100% identical, but there has to be significant overlap in core values. It’s crucial to have someone who can both be challenged and challenge you back.
The reason why shared values are so important is that it keeps disagreements from becoming personal. We had disagreements; we had heated arguments, but it was always about what we wanted to achieve. Because we had those shared underlying values, it never got personal. We just clicked from day one.
Even today, we’re still friends, even though we’re now separated by continents. He’s doing exceptional work in Europe, but when we meet up, it’s like we saw each other yesterday. We can easily pick up a conversation, whether it’s about personal matters, family, world events, or business. That kind of connection is what makes a partnership work.
I think this connection and shared values are more important than the actual work you’re doing. Especially when you’re starting something from scratch, you need that kind of interaction and trust. Later-stage founders might find it a bit easier, but when you’re building from the ground up, it’s that personal chemistry that matters most. That’s just my opinion.
Growing the Company & Nurturing Culture
Rui: At Altar, we often see founders facing constant challenges, like putting out fires everywhere. It’s like a marriage—if you can’t work well with co-founders, it won’t succeed, no matter their technical skills.
Finding technical partners is tough, but having them in-house is usually best. We always encourage that because it just works better.
You mentioned focusing on product-market fit for six months before expanding rapidly. That’s a tough move—scaling from a small team to dozens while still figuring things out. How did you decide to expand so quickly, and how did you manage that transition?
Louwrens: Well, I think naturally, and this will probably lead to a bit of another discussion. As you grow, I think it’s important to start attracting talent that has other experiences and capabilities.
And once again, through sheer luck, that’s what we got. When we approached people to get involved in the business, these were people who had already been to various African countries. They had experience in taking businesses into new markets, albeit in a more traditional way—branches, people, heavy infrastructure, and those kinds of things.
But what they brought with them was a deep knowledge of the markets: which markets worked, how to approach those markets, and how to get there quickly. Once again, unknowingly, and maybe just through sheer dumb luck, we built a team where, on one side, Sorrow and I were driving the product and system knowledge, continuously evolving our capabilities. And on the other side, we had people who knew the markets and could tell us, “This is a natural fit. We can take this to Botswana, to Zimbabwe, and a few months down the line, we can enter Malawi.”
That’s the importance of having a diverse team if you want to take a business forward. You can look at growth in different ways: do you scale first in your market and then move, or do you go into diverse markets to grow faster? South Africa played a part in that decision. We knew that the financial market in South Africa was strong and competitive, and our space in it was always going to be limited. We were never going to dominate a specific segment, but we could be significant players in other smaller markets.
That understanding pushed us to expand sooner than some might have expected. In markets like Botswana, Zimbabwe, or Malawi, we could become major players quickly, even if those markets were smaller overall. When you look at the entire business, being a significant player across multiple smaller markets can make you much more interesting and resilient compared to being a minor participant in a big market like South Africa.
Rui: This is really interesting. It’s not the typical growth path most people would take, but the results prove it worked, and your reasoning makes sense in hindsight.
You mention luck playing a big role—like finding the right people—and feeling intimidated, not always knowing what to do. It’s fascinating because it looked like you had it all figured out, but you didn’t. You made decisions based on what seemed best at the time.
This is an important lesson: founders, especially those innovating, need to be comfortable with uncertainty and acknowledge that a bit of luck is often part of success.
Louwrens: Definitely.
Rui: Let’s talk about growth.
You went from just a few people to a few dozen. Was it challenging to keep the company culture intact?
Louwrens: No, surprisingly not. The cultural aspect is twofold, and I think it’s harder today, admittedly. In those first couple of years, we were very much a company driven by a clear vision.
We wanted to deliver a digital product to the market. We aimed to change how financial services were done in many of these markets—improving customer service, increasing access, and giving customers the tools to manage their needs themselves. We wanted customers to have visibility: how does the product work, how can they access it, what does it do? This vision created a lot of excitement among the people who joined us; it felt like they were along for the ride.
Later on, we did face some cultural issues, especially as we diversified into other ventures. But initially, we did things our way. People bought into our vision and understood what they were joining, and it all clicked into place—even across different countries, with people from varied backgrounds, belief systems, languages, and histories.
I remember funny moments—like when we spoke to people about cloud hosting, and they looked at us like we were performing magic. The concept was so new back then that it created immense excitement among the staff.
Initially, there were no real cultural issues because there was such a strong product and brand drive. By the time we started moving into new markets, we had begun establishing a brand. People noticed what we had done in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. By the time we entered Kenya, Swaziland, and other countries, we had a bit of a reputation: “These guys do it differently. It’s cool, it’s exciting.” That made it easier for us to build culture across the team.
Expanding MyBucks into New Markets
Rui: I can sense the passion and excitement throughout your journey. It makes everything easier—keeping everyone aligned and maintaining a positive vibe.
Now, let’s talk about your expansion to Europe.
Can you share your thoughts on that? I understand it wasn’t as smooth as the earlier phases.
Louwrens: Definitely. By then, we were operating in about nine African countries and doing well. We had acquired a banking license in Zimbabwe, and the business was growing—both in terms of customers and product lines. Our platform capability was strong, and we were confident in our technology.
Two main developments came as strategic choices. One was to move into more deposit-taking capabilities within the African market. The other was, quite simply, “Why not try expanding into Europe?” We thought we had figured out the online lending model, so we decided to give it a shot across the Mediterranean.
Honestly, we didn’t know where to start. It was very casual—Spain came up because someone had been there before and thought it was nice. Then we read a bit and decided Poland seemed like a good fit for fintech and online services. So, we launched in Spain and Poland, despite not knowing Spanish or Polish. We aimed to replicate the same concept we had in South Africa: unsecured, short-term, online lending.
But we broke our own rules. In Africa, we always had partners who understood the local markets. In Spain and Poland, we had none of that. The cultures were completely different. In Spain, for example, it’s quite common for people to delay repayments. “I can’t pay you now, but don’t worry, I’ll pay next week.” That kind of attitude wreaked havoc on our provisioning models and bad debt ratios.
We also struggled with third-party systems. In Africa, we were used to strong collection mechanisms. In Europe, it was different. Collections were mainly done through cards, which was far less predictable. We tried using Stripe for credit card collections, but after three weeks, they told us, “No, you can’t use Stripe for lending,” and they closed our account. We ended up partnering with Wirecard, but it was a tough adjustment.
Credit scoring was another issue. We were used to richer, more established credit scoring models, which just weren’t available in these markets. We ended up lending to people we shouldn’t have, and language barriers made things worse. We had staff in our South African office trying to handle customer queries in Spanish and Polish, but it was far from ideal.
In short, we were completely out of our depth from day one. It was a steep learning curve—fascinating, but challenging. We also made a shift from GetBucks to MyBucks around this time. GetBucks was very much about quick lending—”get your bucks.” MyBucks was more comprehensive—about all of my finances: my insurance, my transactions, my savings, my lending. It made sense as we moved into offering broader financial services, and it sounded more mature.
We also started acquiring banks in Africa to speed up our market entry—acquiring customers and infrastructure instead of building from scratch. This eventually led us to list on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, as many of the banking licenses required a listed entity to own these operations.
At the end of the day, though, our focus got a bit too scattered. We strayed from our core competencies, trying to tackle markets and ventures we weren’t fully prepared for. That’s where we lost some of our identity.
Rui: How you envisioned how it would go is clear to me. Would you say that decision was driven partly by feeling invincible at the time, wanting to conquer the world? Was there a bit of emotion involved, maybe even too much?
Or was it a completely logical decision that just didn’t work out?
Louwrens: No, I think there was some ego involved—thinking, “If we can make it here, we can make it anywhere.” The European experience taught us that’s not necessarily true. I still don’t think it was impossible, but we approached it without enough caution.
We forgot that the journey in Africa had taken years—from developing the system, building a platform, and getting everything ready, to eventually going live. You can’t just drop yourself into a new European market and expect to be a significant player within a few months.
So, yes, it was a bit hasty and driven by overconfidence. Things were going well in Africa, and we were eager to take on something new. The excitement led us to look beyond Africa, and we thought Europe was the next logical step. The same goes for our later venture into Australia—there was an overzealousness to it.
Acquisitions, I think, are a different story. They are distinct from entering a market on your own, but still, we may have underestimated the complexity.
Rui: What would you say were the biggest lessons from that experience? Because even in what we can call a “semi-failure,” there are valuable learnings.
Louwrens: I think when you want to enter a market that is very different culturally—and foreign in more ways than just geography—it’s crucial to have local knowledge. We almost needed another founder for the GetBucks Europe initiative, someone who understood the local dynamics.
Maybe what we should have done was identify smaller tech companies or financial services startups that were trying to get off the ground in these markets. We could have approached them and said, “We have the tech, we have some funds for development and infrastructure, but we need your market expertise. Let’s combine forces and treat this as a brand-new startup in Europe.” It shouldn’t have been “GetBucks goes to Europe”—it needed to be a new beginning.
Financial services are nuanced. You can’t treat them like a cloud service where you just replicate it in a new location. It’s not the same everywhere, and how people interact with financial services differs greatly from market to market. A bit more caution, and a lot more local expertise—that’s what we needed.
It wasn’t impossible, but we needed to educate ourselves more thoroughly about what we were stepping into.
Rui: You mentioned the shift from GetBucks to MyBucks, which makes perfect sense.
Many founders, especially first-timers, try to build everything at once—features, layers, stakeholders. We always advocate for a lean approach and a focused value proposition to enter the market effectively.
You started with a focus on online lending. How crucial was that focus for penetrating the market and gaining traction early on?
Louwrens: I think it was very important. There’s much more value in bringing an MVP to market rather than trying to do it all. We didn’t know what we were doing initially—we were building a lending system to sell to other lenders. Then we built a front end and pivoted to become a lending business.
If we had continued down the road of building everything—creating a core banking system, building an insurance backend—we might have gotten lucky and sold it to someone. Or we might have spent another two years investing a lot of time into a system that nobody used, chasing a complete solution. It’s easy to keep building out features—lending, banking, transacting, insurance—but the question becomes: where do you stop?
The key is to treat the one thing you want to bring to market as the most important thing and get there as quickly as possible. This allows you to test the waters and, importantly, gives you the flexibility to pivot without feeling too emotionally attached to sunk costs. You haven’t gone so far past the marker that you can’t turn back.
As a founder, you often don’t know what the specific unique selling point (USP) will be that makes the market turn in your favour. And that’s why I say luck is part of the journey. There are others in the market who didn’t experience what we did. I’m talking about the experience itself, not just monetary success. The seven or eight years I was part of that journey were incredibly important for me, both personally and professionally.
It was a blessing—lessons you don’t learn at university, or in big corporates. You have to be adaptable, face challenges head-on, and bootstrap your way through. That’s the kind of knowledge you can’t buy off a shelf. You can read about it, you can take in maybe 70-80% of it from founders’ books, guidelines, and best practices—but that last 10-20% is pure adrenaline. You only get that by walking the hard path yourself.
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The Day-in-the-Life of an Early-Stage Startup Founder
Rui: What was a day in your life like back then? How many hours were you working each day, and how was your focus split?
Louwrens: Right, so, I mean, we didn’t start too early. Neither of us were necessarily early risers, but we started early enough. We kept going until we were done, and that varied a lot. Sometimes, when you’re tired, you need a bit of a break for context. It’s also worth noting that both of us were already married at that point, so we weren’t single guys eating pizza in a dark room, coding for 23 out of 24 hours a day. We had to take breaks to spend time with our families, which was important.
Our arrangement was simple: we kept working until the work was done, or until we couldn’t see straight anymore. Sometimes energy levels were low, and motivation would dip. In those days, it wasn’t productive to force it. If we’d been grinding for weeks, working 11, 12, and 13-hour days, and then one day we hit a wall where four hours in we felt ineffective, it was better to just call it a day. Go home, take a break, give yourself some peace, refocus, and come back fresh. I think that’s important.
Some founders think they need to push at 110% every day to succeed, but I believe focus is more important than hours spent. Yes, we put in the time, but we also knew when to step back, recharge, and come back with renewed energy. Quality focus always trumps mindless hours.
Rui: About the focus split, what were you doing? Was it 30% managing, and 70% selling? I know you were putting out fires and dealing with the curveballs each day, but was there a specific focus that you had more than anything else?
Louwrens: Yeah. I think initially it was very much about ensuring that we could scale quickly. We went through a phase where, in the beginning, getting ten customers online was manageable in terms of capacity, but we quickly realised that as we started gaining more traction and significant numbers, we needed to address scalability.
So, for the first few months, the focus was definitely on making sure our scalability and services were robust. To be honest, we were a bit lucky—word of mouth and organic marketing helped us a lot. Yes, we did focus on marketing, but it felt like shooting fish in a barrel at that point. We were the only online lender in South Africa, so Google Ads was incredibly effective for us. We were ranked at the top, and there was no real competition.
We didn’t need to put in a special effort in terms of marketing at that time—it was just us, and people found us easily. However, there were also things like governance that we procrastinated on, and those aspects came back to bite us later. Those were the fires we had to put out, things we left until they became urgent.
Rui: You mentioned both of you were married, right? So, working until things are done can mean a lot of different things—you could stop at five or stop at 3 am. How did you balance this with your personal life?
Louwrens: I think the important thing, and once again, it goes back to the initial point that you need to find someone who shares the same values as you. We went into that period of risk with an assumed knowledge of what it was going to be like. But the agreement was always that both of us needed to be up for it, and we also had to check with our wives whether they were up for it too. It’s an impact—financial, time, and focus. We got buy-in and support from them, and that was crucial.
This understanding made it easier. If one of us said, “I’ve got some issues to sort out at home,” there were no hard feelings. We understood each other, and that mutual understanding was essential. There are days when a home needs more attention than work, and that’s just how life is. You need to look after those priorities.
Our mutual respect made it work. We were going at a hundred miles an hour, but if one of us said, “My wife says I need to fix something at home, or I won’t have a home anymore,” then that’s what you did. You didn’t stay to build the business; you went home to fix the house because that was what mattered. And once again, it’s about respect.
Entrepreneurial Lessons for Startup Founders
Rui: Give me one lesson you learned about dealing with investors.
Louwrens: Oh, don’t take the first deal on the table. If you pitch something and someone immediately says they’ll invest, but it’s not on the terms you like, then you know you have something valuable. That’s your signal to look for someone else. Those kinds of offers don’t come frequently, so if you do one quick pitch and get an immediate “yes” with conditions you don’t like, chances are that investor wants in. Walk out the door, and they’ll come back. They’re interested, and you can negotiate a better deal.
Rui: So, learning how to read the room, right?
Louwrens: Exactly. As a founder, you have value—don’t let anyone discount that.
Rui: Great. One lesson learned about the product?
Louwrens: It needs continuous evolution. It’s never fixed. Don’t ever think you own the market, because you never do.
Rui: One key lesson learned about marketing?
Louwrens: Marketing has changed a lot, and customer engagement is key. You need to understand who your customer is, and unfortunately, that means casting a wide net. You need to tap into the emotions and needs of your customers more than just pitching the product. And if you go out with a promise, make damn sure you can deliver on it—because if you don’t, that’s a killer.
Rui: Exactly. Users are far more demanding now—I completely agree. I also agree with your first point: today, the marketers who succeed aren’t necessarily the ones with the most technical skills or resources, but those who understand their users deeply, know their pain points, and can address them effectively.
So, one key lesson you’ve learned on managing people?
Louwrens: Managing people is about flexibility. In the early days of management, there were a lot of different management styles. Funnily enough, those questions still come up now and again, which is quite absurd. As a leader, you have to be the one to adapt.
I think emotional intelligence is the driving force. You need to understand who does what, and what motivates people, and that changes from person to person. There are different styles for different scenarios. Yes, there are times when you need to be autocratic, make a decision, and take accountability for that. And there are other times when you just sit back and say, “Go ahead, let me know how it goes,” and let the team do what they need to do. So, for me, it’s about flexibility rather than a specific approach to managing and leading people.
Rui: One key lesson you’ve learned on creating and maintaining a good culture? And this is where passion and excitement come in, I think.
Louwrens: Yes, exactly. Don’t forget the vibe. When you start a business, you have a specific vision in mind of what you want to build, and you want others to come to work for that same reason.
If you do that, your culture is sorted. Sitting down later to define five cultural rules is nonsense. You’re just boxing people into a rigid idea that might not fit everyone. Keep doing what you’re doing. We’re here because we built a product, we have customers, and you joined because you thought it was exciting. That’s the culture—don’t forget that. The rest will take care of itself.
Especially today, if you say, “We’re honest, we do this, we do that,” you’ll find ten people who will challenge every single value. Just keep focusing on what we’re doing. That’s the culture: we’re here to make the business work. That’s it.
Rui: Cool. So, what is one resource that was invaluable to your success? It could be a book, podcast, mentor, mindset, or anything.
Louwrens: Honestly, my good friend Saro. None of this would have happened without him. Throughout our journey, we had different influences—we were groupies for some industry giants. We went through a Steve Jobs phase, and a Bill Gates phase, and had certain people we looked up to. But Saro was foundational to all of that success.
Thank You, Louwrens…
… For taking the time out of your busy schedule to sit down with me. Your insights are invaluable for startup founders aiming to scale, especially those tackling financial inclusion and underserved markets.
To our readers, I hope Louwrens’ story has given you practical lessons and inspiration for your own startup journeys. Remember, every big milestone starts with a bold vision—keep pushing forward, and maybe your startup will be the next great success story.
Thanks for reading.
