Do you have any plans to reintroduce a referral scheme or something similar? The golden tickets were a great little trick and it seems a shame not to bring back something similar to supercharge viral customer acquisition
- refer a friend and get a free month of Monzo X
- refer a friend and get a free x
- refer a friend and unlock retail cashback
you get the idea
I get the idea. Refer a friend to get stuff, then the friend uses CASS to get a switching bonus elsewhere. Everyone is happy, except Monzo.
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It is possible to design a referral scheme that does not cost monzo anything (unlocking features as opposed to giving away cash for example). Furthermore viral marketing is a low COA channel and perfectly suited for Monzo. IMO it is a channel that should be leaned on a lot more.
Monzo is ranked amongst the highest out of all banks in the UK for customer support. There are always going to be teething issues but that should not be a show stopper
As an investor why are you so convinced that Monzo should pay for new users when they are getting them without paying?
(Ignoring normal advertising spend etc)
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We’ve been adding ~100,000 customers a month during the pandemic without any advertising spend. It’s organic growth and so, although this is completely out of my realm of expertise, I can’t see any scenario where we might bring a paid referral scheme back.
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I wasn’t aware that Monzo are prioritising profitability over growth. That seems strange to me given the competitive landscape but you guys seem more in the know than me.
I think you guys are slightly missing my point on a referral scheme. A cleverly designed scheme (eg ‘gate keeper’ type schemes that unlocks app features or something similar) does not have to cost Monzo anything. I would be very much against paying users to join.
Monzo is getting a good number of customers per day, but there is always room for improvement and a referral scheme seems like a high-impact low-cost way of doing so.
But when are you adding 100,000 customers a month (many of which lose you money as it is), you don’t need any form of referral scheme, paid or otherwise.
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I can see where you are coming from but most high growth tech companies operate at huge losses - explosive growth is more important in the early days as grabbing market share is the goal and those customers can become profitable further down the road.
Monzo has the potential to attract more customers without increasing spend. 100,000 customer per month is good of course, but there is potential for more without increasing spending.
Referral schemes are contentious but they can be valuable tools if designed properly. Revolut and Starling both have schemes.
I don’t disagree, but Monzo has already had its explosive growth phase. Now it has to generate more revenue to service that growth.
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Because they are millions and millions of users behind.
They are still in the key growth part, Monzo are not.
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That’s who’s joining. Probably only 2% of them used a referral
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I am curious as to why you think Revolut is millions of users behind?
I see Monzo as still being in an explosive growth phase until it is a top UK bank. So just another 10m customers to go
Blitzscale
Early stage tech companies who are grabbing market share. Profitability is the end goal or course, but the priority is growth (within reason)
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This is a model driven by the desire for VC funding, and it’s pretty demonstrably broken.
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Maybe I’m mixed up with numbers for Revolut but they aren’t a bank anyway.
Starling are millions behind.
You seem to be fixated on a referral scheme because you want one, rather than why Monzo need it. Was it a good money maker for you last time perhaps?
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Referral schemes aren’t needed one bit. Customer numbers aren’t an issue one bit.
Getting customers to do more with Monzo, upgrading etc is.
No need to introduce something that’s going to add limited value. Monzo obviously aren’t concerned about a referral scheme or they’d have done another by now.
haha I don’t know where you get this idea about me being a secret affiliate marketer from, but as a tech business owner I have seen this model work well in my industry
I am trying to think of the last time I used a referral scheme and I think it was either Clubhouse or Slack (back in the day). Both worked quite well
Revolut will be a bank and Starling are growing fast. IMO a Referral scheme is low hanging fruit, is the perfect marketing channel to lean on to greater effect
Do you have five million customers and adding 100k a month?
You could argue that the more friends/network using Monzo the more valuable it becomes to a customer and the more likely they are to use it as their main account.
Get customers into the app in the first place so that they can become profitable customers further down the line, before they go to competitors