Just wanted to say that I’m loving the transparency on here with new updates.
At present, the new UI and new Monzo Plus threads are full of comments and feedback. I’m not gonna guess at the positive/negative split but I sincerely hope that the people at Monzo who are reading them take it all in their stride as the ‘cost’ of trying new things, releasing early for feedback, and getting us all along on the journey.
I’m sure it can’t be easy when the second something you’ve been working on is released, and the forums explode with feedback, to keep it all in check.
So, thank you! Keep it up! This is so far removed from any legacy bank I’m loving it all (even the stuff I don’t like!).
This has just been shared in our internal Slack — thank you. It means a lot.
It’s one of the significant downsides of transparency and often scares Monzo employees off. We need to work out how best to solve that, so that individuals within Monzo feel empowered and excited to share things that are in progress here.
I’d love to hear suggestions/thoughts from all of you on this!
I have been with Monzo since it’s beta prepaid days and will still support its development. It has helped me in many ways etc pots, round ups and many other small features.
Maybe bear in mind that even a lot of negative response means that you have passionate people who want to contribute? Also worth considering how you communicate, I think it sometimes needs restated that you are still relatively ‘new’ and don’t have a legacy set of functionality to fall back on, the Plus accounts as an example here. I think they could/will be good but it’ll be hard to get the numbers (think back on when you were starting up?!) until you get more products, and can then be more competitive etc… if there is some thinking about the longer term goals of the Plus account, maybe give us that high level roadmap? “In 3 years time we hope to… but we aren’t sure how to get there yet but that’s the direction we are taking…” so people at least have a sense of things in the future? Not easy!!
Above all, don’t be scared to keep on with the transparency, for all the negatives I’m sure it brings, in the longer run it’ll bear out.
I think you’re right here. The critical feedback we get from our community is just as important as the praise, and it’s coming from the same place - a belief that Monzo can (and should!) succeed. We’re lucky to have such a passionate community, who’ll stick with us even when they disagree with what we’re doing.
And yes, sharing our vision is key. That’s something we missed with Monzo Plus, but something we’ve been good at in the past. We’re on this journey together and if we don’t tell you where we’re headed the path we’re taking might not make sense. A key learning from the past week - for me at least - is that transparency is still vitally important.
I know I’m generally one of the more negative voices on here but, ultimately, if I didn’t actually love and care about the product I wouldn’t be wasting my time having a moan about the things I don’t like.
I’m happy to give praise where I think it’s due but I’d hope that (constructive) criticism is 100x more useful than some of the (IMHO) near sycophancy which gets posted here.
I want monzo to do very well, which is why I have been quite critical as of late, I know that I can come of direct and blunt on many occasions. Yesterday I noticed that my posts may come across as if I am directing a criticism at a particular employee just in the way it is worded. Using you instead of monzo for example though when I say you what I mean is ‘you, the company monzo’.
Written word can lose some context and emotion and can be difficult to see in what way someone is reacting.
I’m critical because I want monzo to succeed and see areas where I believe monzo are going backwards, doing wrong, or aren’t offering value. If I didn’t care I wouldn’t even bother posting. I think that’s something worth remembering that people are taking their time to post their thoughts regardless of there positivity or negativity.
Everyone gets things wrong and, for the most part, Monzo put their hands up and say “you know what you’re right” which is something I love.
Having an overall idea of what it is Monzo are eyeing up, even if you can’t give us everything I think means more than the “typical” transparency we get from Monzo (sounds mad to even say that because no other financial institution is like Monzo).
Sometimes it just feels like the community are left “out of the loop” right until the last minute where we are then peppered with information. Now that isn’t a bad thing, but having an idea of what/how the ball is rolling into is sometimes more important than seeing the ball just before its finally ready.
Also, to the rest of the guys at Monzo, you’re bloody brilliant, being able to interact with you guys both on a personal and company centric focus is amazing - you should never stop what you’re doing because of criticism. It will always come from a good place!