This might be more a critique on crowdfunding in general, but I think there’s a bit of a conflict between using crowdfunding as a marketing tool (which I think was probably what Monzo did) and the expectations of investors (many of whom came at it with the reasonable expectation that they were investing in a start-up and expected to be treated as an investor rather than a customer or a marketing tool).
There is a bunch of folk who have invested from a few quid through to thousands in Monzo through crowdfunding. Right now they’re on track for a great payday, but that’s never guaranteed. But companies taking money, of whatever value, and not treating investors properly doesn’t sit well with me.
More a comment on crowdfunding as a thing I think, rather than Monzo particularly.
Wow, great summary and appreciate you taking the time to write and share it. My posts were mostly emotional ranting rather than a more objective look at their journey so appreciate your perspective.
Also, my views are probably wrong and I suppose my main aim of posting was to create discussion and hopefully to learn something which I have done from posts like this, so thank you.
The background on why I started the thread is that my business account was threatened with closure 4 weeks ago because apparently my PSC register has a company on it, not real people. It has only 2 real people, no companies. I’ve chased with support a number of times and get bounced around to different people and then get no response, so I chase again.
Then today I got told our joint account is going to be closed unless I stop using it for business. I don’t use it for business so I’ve asked for clarification and am yet to receive any. 2 threatened account closures with no responses from support leave me struggling to trust and it seems to be quite different to the support of a few years ago - but appreciate that could also be a natural aspect of growth, though perhaps it doesn’t have to be.
However, ultimately it’s all about expectations. I felt super bought into the values I assumed they had when I joined and I was really passionate about it. Revolut on the other hand I see as fast and loose and your account is always a little bit at risk of being closed so if this happened to me on Revolut I probably wouldn’t complain about it. Perhaps just need to be more realistic and understand that these things happen and hopefully I’ll get a resolution soon.
Thanks for starting the topic. It’s a useful conversation to have from time to time, I think.
This does sound frustrating. I didn’t go into the whole support thing in my post, but I do think that Monzo has further to go in sorting out their inconsistent support performance.
Some advice: if you haven’t already, write to them in chat and be very specific that you’re making a complaint, then list everything that you think they’ve got wrong as bullet points. It might help to type that up as a letter then upload it. Hopefully by setting it out very clearly someone will pick it up and fix it.
What do you consider ‘treating investors properly’, out of interest?
I agree they should update investors, I don’t think there’s any need to give them a special voice - that wasn’t the terms of the investment (which if people read the terms they’d know).
The biggest and most important thing they can do of course is return investors a profit. Monzo actually started well on this front, allowing crowdfunding investors to buy in at the same prices as VCs, at reasonable valuations. They’ve focused on profitability which limits our dilution - the share price now looks good. Now their job is to float. If they’ve done all that, I think it’s fair to say investors have been treated well.
A few more emails would be a nicety, but as they do put a lot of info out there on how they are doing, for me it’s not a big issue.
This is a terrible customer experience, and chimes with my experience of support recently too. I agree it is worth a complaint for this.
Threatening to close a bank account is a massive deal for customers and really erodes trust, it should only happen after a fraud team has carefully reviewed evidence in person and come to a decision with pretty clear evidence. Instead it sounds like they have some automated processes run amok here. Having that happen then being ignored about it when you try to sort it out is just the nadir of customer service. They can and should do better than this.
Broader, non-Monzo, perspective: companies that don’t provide financials (even at the initial funding stages) and seek investment from their customers create mixed incentives. Then, quite often after funding, there will be no reporting of note: no financial/strategic performance, no current valuation, no update on plans for exit etc. It can be quite cynical: charm the crowd for money then go quiet / turn inwards.
Different companies are better at doing this, of course. But I think that there needs to be some regulation or similar about the mixed incentives of asking people you’re hoping to have as your customer base (ie the ones you want to make a margin from) for funding to keep the business going. It makes it difficult to be honest for a company to be honest about financial performance etc to their shareholders if those shareholders are also the customers.
For Monzo, I’d like a bit more than what they provide. I understand why they don’t, but I kinda think that the power dynamic is a bit off. By a bit more, I’m talking a side of A4, their strategic priorities for the year, update on the financial situation, runway, any plans for exit. My view is that there should probably be a minimum standard on what is required. Firms can then work out if they want to crowdfund or not by balancing how much disclosure they want to offer in the future.
It does, although I feel like most of that is covered in the annual report and what they post publicly. Their strategic priority is profitability, the financial situation is generally positive, runway looks indefinite as they plan to hit profitability this year, and there’s no immediate plan to exit.
I definitely agree on crowdfunding in general. I think it’s a good way for people to support small businesses, but many of the things on there are just sharks - ludicrous valuations, very little info on what you are investing in, and then after you invest they go silent, possibly because there was no chance of returning a positive investment anyway.
But Monzo, I feel like I know very well where it is, what it’s short and long term goals are, what it’s values still are, and importantly, that I’m going to get some money back
Ties in a lot with my earlier reply, and I would note that in some cases, this lack of sharing of details is deliberate. Whether it’s not releasing a pitch deck until after a campaign launches - while also hyping it to make you think if you don’t get in quick you’ll miss out (so you ‘invest’ before doing your due diligence - or not keeping investors updated, it’s all part and parcel of the company knowing their numbers aren’t convincing and deliberately keeping that information hidden as much as possible.
It’s from hoping the best will happen so you can hide the news until you can report good; it’s inexperience and not knowing better; and it some cases, it’s grift a d deliberately hoodwinking people to take their money.
Personally I think it’s a lot down to Crowdcube and similar platforms not doing enough to create an environment where better is expected. They have the power to say “we won’t host your campaign” if conditions aren’t met. But, unsurprisingly, the fact they get a cut of the money must have an effect on their decision making.
Can I just say on TS and the submarine stuff, he doesn’t have to be out and public as Tom, as he’s not the founder or the face of the brand. He’s a hired employee doing a job, very different in my eyes
Was the current account event in July? (Or was it September?) - I know I went to the office a number of years ago and set up my account there, I’m sure it was the at the current account launch event.
Not quite sure why you didn’t create the topic about that issue instead
We are in the middle of the seemingly annual wave of “whatever happened to Monzo?” topics, so it has ended up with some eye rolling (including from myself) on reading the first comment, whereas the other issue is certainly worthy of discussion
I thought this OP was worthy of discussion. So I posted in it.
If you didn’t feel it was something you wanted to discuss, mute and move on. There is no value in coming into a thread and saying ‘this isn’t something I don’t like to discuss or am bored of discussing’ really. It doesn’t contribute anything to the conversation.
TS has established banking experience. Tom was ‘startup’ with a vision. Both have what it takes to get a platform to where it needs to be within their respective & incredible outlooks - TS could have never started this without Tom’s initial thrust and Tom could have never grown it beyond that thrust to what it is now without TS’s experience. It’s a bit chicken-and-egg scenario - but not in a bad way.
My personal opinion only.And I use ‘Tom’ and ‘TS’ like I know them. But I don’t.
