How Ali Niknam changed the world of banking with bunq

00:02:21 – Ali | “And I look around and I see all these opportunities, how we can be better, better as humans, better as a world, better as a collective. And when that doesn’t happen, that frustrates me”

00:08:17 – Ali | “I’m an engineer and I have an engineering mindset. When I see something is broken, I like to fix it.”

00:12:15 – Ali | “So if we create a product people love to use, they will be willing to pay a couple of euros. If we don’t, they won’t. So our business reality, our commercial existence is completely based on the fact that we make our users happy”

00:15:42 – Ali | “It is very rare for me to make a move for just one reason. I usually make a move that hits multiple goals at the same time.”

00:16:04 – Ali | “At the same time, for me, it was also an opportunity to try to get the Netherlands back on the world map again in that sense, because I felt that this country has so many great people, so much talent.”

00:30:27 – Ali | “I do think that if I had been more open to investors, we would have been more international than we are today.”

00:32:13 – Ali | “But I think at the beginning it’s more healthy if people focus on the product-market fit and concern themselves mostly about users and about a healthy business model and then take on capital. So that’s what we did at bunq.”

00:32:42 – Ali | “I think a part of our DNA is now set in stone, which is good user-centricity, the love for the product and attention to detail, and no investor can change that.”

00:41:35 – Ali | “I think bunq’s culture is very unique, especially to the Netherlands. It is a performance culture”

00:42:33 – Ali | “I think bunq is different. We don’t care if you’re imperfect, if you’re really good at what you do, you can just do that.”

00:43:48 – Ali | “But I think once you get the best people in who know what they’re good at and also know what they’re not good at, they will organize themselves into a functional team.”

00:52:35 – Ali | “The easiest way to go to sh*t is by not focusing.”