Building Nubank, The World’s Largest Neobank with Co-founder Cristina Junqueira
Cristina Junqueira is the Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of Nubank, the largest neobank in Latin America - and in the world - with more than 80 million customers. She is also the second self-made female billionaire in Brazil.
Cristina and her co-founders David Vélez and Edward Wible launched Nubank in 2013, essentially building the fintech category in a market where it was nonexistent, and went on to release a no-fee credit card, app, and other banking products across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia.
Cristina takes us through the rise of Nubank, from the scrappiest days building in a house in Sao Paulo to being backed by investors like Sequoia, Founders Fund, DST, TCV, Tiger Global, and Warren Buffett, and then on to their IPO in December 2021. We also touch on the impact of Nubank’s distinctive brand choices, how they navigated government regulations that nearly shut them down, and how they were able to spend $0 on marketing throughout most of their history.
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TIMESTAMPS:
(00:00) Preview
(02:38) Fintech and the preconditions for disrupting financial services in LatAm
(05:38) Educating investors on the opportunity for fintech in LatAm
(07:35) The scale of unbanked and underbanked populations in Brazil, Mexico, and other countries; and why expanding access to these products increases NuBank's market share
(08:21) Expanding the pie and just how profitable banks can be in LatAm
(15:37) Starting NuBank and the lessons Cristina learned from incumbent banks
(18:11) The biggest hurdle to starting NuBank
(19:33) Navigating Nubank’s first product from inception to successful credit card
(21:08) Spending $0 CAC in an industry with hugely expensive marketing pushes
(22:32) $0 on marketing and scrappy ethics
(26:40) The crazy circumstances around Nubank’s Series A fundraise
(36:54) Cristina’s reflections on the IPO in December 2021
(39:31) How Nubank navigates a changing macro environment
(40:40) The importance of Nubank’s distinctive brand
(42:57) Surviving an existential threat from Brazil’s government
(46:28) Scaling from a small scrappy team to a multinational global publicly traded company
(49:02) Personal growth and maintaining strong co-founder relationships
Referenced:
Nubank: nubank.com.br/
Nubank's IPO mints Cristina as a billionaire: www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauf...
Where to find Cristina:
Twitter: / junqueira_cris
LinkedIn: / crisjunqueira
Where to find Turner:
Newsletter: www.thespl.it
Twitter: / turnernovak
Banana Capital: bananacapital.vc
Пікірлер: 26
Excellent interview. In Brazil, Nubank has indeed made and has made a huge impact on the lives of millions of people. I learn a lot from Cris.
@ThePeelPod
6 ай бұрын
Thank you! Learned a lot as well.
Sensacional, uma mulher incrível a Cristina!👏
@ThePeelPod
14 күн бұрын
🙏 🙏 🙏
@frankwrkt
14 күн бұрын
@@ThePeelPod 🙏🏼
Great interview! Great questions. Thank you!
@ThePeelPod
2 ай бұрын
Thank you!
Great interview, awesome company. Very glad to be a shareholder.
@ThePeelPod
3 ай бұрын
Thanks for listening 😊
She is great 😍❤️👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
@ThePeelPod
6 ай бұрын
🙌 🙌
She's just admirable
Wow! I am surprised that such a small KZread channel could get an interview with Cristina Junqueira! Do you guys know who you are talking to?!?
@ThePeelPod
3 ай бұрын
Yes, she’s a legend!
Love her!
Amazing talk
@ThePeelPod
4 ай бұрын
Thank you! 🙏 😊
❤❤❤
I wanna marry this woman
tbh, she seems cheesy. like she watched a TV show and tried to imitate a startup. Film first transaction, sign documents in hospital, put a lot of thought into choosing color purple, white label credit cards were everywhere. I don't care about that crap, lol. Idk feels like a gimmick that got lucky. maybe theres a mini steve wazniak behind the scenes doing a lot and she's just a company spokesperson saying generic stuff I didnt learn anything from. Maybe I'm way off. whatever. I feel like founders offer better insight for these podcasts but still Turner does a good job of getting new people on.
@ThePeelPod
6 ай бұрын
Thank you for the feedback!
@jeffcfbr
3 ай бұрын
“I feel like founders offer better insight for these podcasts”. She is a founder of NuBank’s, so I don’t quite get what you mean.
@HouteNyloc
6 күн бұрын
Yes I think you're way off.
@alwayzsmarter
5 күн бұрын
@@jeffcfbr I think u know what I mean. A hands on actual builder not manager that does zoom meetings and delegates to others
@jeffcfbr
5 күн бұрын
@@alwayzsmarter She is a hands-on builder. She was part of the small group that written down what the company would be. She was there when the first version of the app was being written by a few software engineers in the first floor of a borrowed 2-floor house. She was there when they had to answer customer emails and she helped responding them. She participated in the hiring process of most of the employees before the company reached 100 employees. She “became” a CEO (more of a public face of the company), but she was a founder and an entrepreneur altogether *before* the company reached any success. I really don’t know what you mean.