Thomas Plantenga on taking Vinted from near bankruptcy to a €5 billion valuation

21:22Jack Parsons:We see things. Somebody has an idea. We challenge the ideas. The things come up.

21:27Thomas Plantenga:Yeah. I mean, I think you're being very humble, but it also shows that you are the leader or the sort of person that can bring people into the room and take their ideas and bring them together to achieve what you've achieved.

21:36Jack Parsons:This is not humbleness. This is really reality. Like, also, if you look at the execution of internet and what we're doing, like many of the things that we're doing, I have no experience in. And it's mostly because we have the right people around us who understand what we're doing and then bring in specialized knowledge about payments, about shipping, about advertising. Like it's not humbleness. It's really reality.

21:58Thomas Plantenga:Yeah. Well, I mean, that's something we're going to come on to actually to talk about building green teams, because clearly you brought together some exceptional people to help you achieve the success that you have, which in itself is incredible. But I just wanted to touch upon, clearly, you sort of went from this difficult period and you obviously sort of saw the path and took it on this journey, became a CEO. I'd love to know what have been the biggest leadership lessons you've learned along that incredible growth journey. What are the things that stick out to you that you would want to share with our listeners, many of whom are founders looking to try and replicate and build the next version of Interdoors or similar scale?

22:36Jack Parsons:let's just take my recent lesson so i can sometimes lose my nerves like i can get angry and what i i learned over the last let's say and i think we had more of that in difficult moments over the last couple well not more and more of last of years i just had that and when you are a small company with very trusted people around you like they can take it from you and it's like okay, Thomas is getting a bit angry right now and we'll let him cool down and we'll come back and it will be okay. Mostly because they're able to deal with that in a good way. And what I've learned, I think, over the last period of time is that as the company becomes bigger, it's like at the beginning, it was kind of like people could live with it because it was a small team.

23:23Jack Parsons:But as you get bigger, your voice also becomes heavier and it becomes way more counterproductive. So sometimes I could still get angry. And my team told me like, Thomas, it really has to stop because people are just shaking and it's not working and it's counterproductive. It goes the other way. So I like this kind of moment that I really thought about it. Like, OK, I had my like yearly performance review, practically where I ask from my peers in my team, like, OK, what are you doing? And this was clearly one of the things I wanted to see changing. So I talked with several people about it. And I realized like, okay, what's happening is that in these moments, I take this, building this company, I take it very personally.

24:03Jack Parsons:Like over the last nine years, much of my personality blended over into this company. And if things go wrong, I take it personally and I take it emotionally. And then I have that. Yet, you know, I really need to be able to stay calm and not take it personally because this is nonsense. I don't think, you know, I can think more clearly if I don't do it. So I really need to pull my ego out of this company and pull my ego out of these situations when things are difficult or things are going wrong and I'm angry about that it's going wrong. And I should learn how to constrain that and how to pull myself, practically how to pull my ego and myself out of this company in those moments.

24:42Jack Parsons:And I think that has been a big lesson to me. And it's working better. I still get pissed sometimes, but I control it much better. and therefore I'm a much more reasonable person and therefore I'm a better boss, I think. So my team highlighted this to me and I have like great people on my team who are emotionally more mature than me, like Adam and Mauricio. These people are further in life. They have families. They have had many C-level roles in their lives and they're obviously more mature people than me and they help me with this. And then, so for me to go through that with them, get that clear for myself, you know, look at myself and think, okay, this is something that needs to change.

25:21Jack Parsons:It's pathetic. Let's fix it. That helped me, I think. And that's been one of my latest journeys. So I shared that with the company as one of my improvement points and I'm working on it. And I think it's going pretty well. Not perfect, but much better than two years ago.

25:37Thomas Plantenga:I really appreciate your candor. And I'm sure others listening to you will be able to resonate with that. It's really hard. When it's your baby, you do take things personally. And I think it's good to talk about these things, but also show you that that development and has helped you become a better boss and an even better company and culture.

25:52Jack Parsons:Exactly. And I think that you take things personally is not specifically bad. I think that's one of the reasons why I worked night and day for years to get this done and to work on this, which is very productive. It's also a bit pathetic because your life is suffering in many other ways. So it's not balanced at all. But for me, this worked out. I have a fantastic social life and family and everybody. So it's okay. I had a lot of elasticity on these relationships. So there are good things to it, But there are also dark elements on it. And I think these dark elements, the older you become, the better you're probably able to identify them.

26:26Jack Parsons:And it's more productive if you recognize those dark elements. It's better for the people around you.

26:32Thomas Plantenga:Yeah, and I think there's a leadership lesson there. Just for all of our listeners around the importance of being self-aware, or even if we're not self-aware, making sure you're asking people you trust and value for all your peers for their input to improve. I think it's a really important thing. It's a perfect segue to talking about culture and hiring. It's a particular topic of failure for me because I'm a headhunter and you obviously have 2 ,000 people spread across multiple European offices. So I'd love to hear a bit about your own approach to hiring and how that's evolved as Vinted has scaled over the years.

27:05Jack Parsons:Yeah, so hiring in this organization and there are many, we have a protocol that practically ensures that we vet people very strongly. And then we have, let's say, what we call a tryout period where we ask people to come and work with us. We're not doing this to get work out of you. We're checking if you're able to do something that could be useful to us. The problem that we're giving you, we're already solved it. So like it's not a very extracting work out of you. it is actually there to let you see how it is to work with us real life. So I think that setup that we've had for many years where like a group of people is assessing them on a tryout day if somebody's actually fit to do the job is incredibly valuable.

27:50Because then you feel really the dynamic

27:53Jack Parsons:in yourself when you're doing the work and we feel it to see to what extent you're able to do these things. So I think in hiring, you want to get as close to real life in assessing somebody's abilities to deal with the work than the problems that he needs to solve. That has worked well for us. Then secondly, I think what is important with hiring is that you identify, let's say, if somebody has the raw intelligence and capabilities to learn. And I think those are more important than the actual skill set. So it's kind of the attitude and the amplitude of intellect to learn things. Because many of the things that we're building have not been built by anybody before.

28:37Jack Parsons:And also how we work is quite different from many other companies. So your ability to learn, adapt, and to innovate is more important than the actual skills that you have. Obviously, this changes more, like skills become, maybe experience become more important at the top of our company. but in general at Vintage, I think that that is true. And then there's a lot of talk about, let's say people always use this world culture, which is like this huge umbrella for many things actually, so undefined. But I think one of the most important parts is that somebody is, let's say, honest and trustworthy about like what he's doing and feels safe to be honest about like what he's doing, how he's doing things and what's happening.

29:22Jack Parsons:So I think having an environment in which people are not afraid to hide things and speak freely is one of the most important things in culture.

29:32Thomas Plantenga:Yeah, that's psychological safety to be able to speak up.

29:36Jack Parsons:Yeah, exactly. And psychological safety often gets confused with being nice and being pampering. it's absolutely toxic if it becomes that because I want people to feel safe to say something that is wrong but I don't want people to feel safe that they can do whatever they want and they're safe to have this job for life so safe is a very big word as well but psychological safety is very broad so I think you need to be very specific with that is that you feel safe to make mistakes and learn, but like you do feel a certain level of tension, friction, anxiousness that if what we do is not good enough, then that has consequences.

30:24Jack Parsons:Because that is important. And there was a meeting where I got, and it was actually a board meeting where I got very angry. And then I got comments like, if you behave like this, we don't feel safe. I was like, yeah, but you shouldn't feel safe if I get three times the same question. because then people are not listening and then you should not feel safe. So I think it's psychological safety is a very broad word. So I want to be specific about that. I think it's important that you feel safe to make mistakes. You work hard because you don't feel safe that if you don't work hard, things will continue as it is.

30:57Jack Parsons:I think it's the downfall of any company if everybody feels safe, like as if future growth and future prosperity is kind of like given. No, it's not. Like we live in a world where if we don't deliver, somebody else will take it away from us. Like an American company, Chinese company will go and outwork us and outclass us. And we'll give users something that is better than what we have. So we shouldn't feel safe psychologically around that. We should feel anxious about that. We should feel safe that we are in an environment where we can make mistakes, learn, and then work hard to be not outclassed by another team.

31:35Thomas Plantenga:Yeah, I see that distinction. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. And I think that's the sort of environment where ambitious driven people can really thrive because they want to win, but they're also in a place where they can make mistakes as long as they learn from them. And that there's that kind of environment where you can speak up and have ideas. And I think it's something like a really strong culture.

31:55Jack Parsons:Yeah, so I think I believe in that. Obviously we're not perfect in that, but this is what I myself try to do.

32:03Thomas Plantenga:Yeah, I love that. Thank you for sharing so honestly. I guess linked to that, scaling a culture is really tricky from a few people in a room to thousands of people across geography. How do you ensure you keep that culture strong? And how do you ensure alignment and shared purpose when you are distributed? What is the kind of secret to success there?

32:24Jack Parsons:I think on the shared purpose, you should never oversell it. I think there have been many companies have overshared their purpose as in we're gonna democratize this and that and we're gonna save the world but then in the end okay you're just a taxi company or you're like renting out rooms so that's a big disappointment so I think you should be very honest about what the purpose of the company is and with Vinted it's quite simple we're helping people to sell second-end goods and that is quite useful so people can make some extra money and it's better than consuming only new goods so it's kind of useful for society in those ways and we're excited about that because we think can have a big impact so being very simple about what we do and also what we don't we're not like a charity organization that jumps up to support any good cause in this world because like we can't we're not we're like a bunch of people who sell second in clothing and all about that.

33:21Jack Parsons:So we have a specific purpose. We stick to that. I think that's important, first of all, to be honest about it. Don't oversell it about what you do. Be excited about it. And I think then about how you scale culture. It is very much, obviously, as a person, myself, as a CEO myself, I can speak at, let's say, all hands and I give, you know, on how I comment on work in public and stuff like that, that sets the tone. But as you become bigger, more and more importantly is how my team behaves and the team underneath that who manages a lot of people behave. And I think they're having at those levels the right behavior on how we're treating people, how we're focusing people, how we are firing people, how we're hiring people.

34:10Jack Parsons:That is, I think, in the end, what culture is. And much of it is about what do you reward and what do you punish, right? So when are you saying like, this is really bad. And like, when you say this is amazing, how all these people underneath are doing that within the organization. So I think that is important in scaling that there is a very similar message for me to three levels down, how all these people are taking decisions, like the harder decisions. So the hiring, firing, and decisions on where to allocate capital. I think that is actually the core of it. Like, how do they have a conversation with somebody who is underperforming?

34:48Jack Parsons:How do they have a conversation with somebody who is overperforming? How do they have a conversation about critiquing on a proposal that's not good enough? And how do they then decide now, we don't allocate capital here, but we do allocate it there? I think how your managers, how your team and those layers underneath take these decisions is actually what defines culture and how it scales. So that's, yeah, it's not about how we talk about things. It's actually how we do things.

35:13Thomas Plantenga:Do things, yeah. I really appreciate that. It does sound like a fantastic place to work. So you really got to be able to have a chance to learn a bit more about that. We do need to come on to talk about the latest headlines at Vinted, the launch of Vinted Ventures. So a super exciting time for the business. Can you tell us a bit more about how you decided to build an investment arm? What's the thesis behind it? And what are you looking for in potential businesses to invest in?

35:38Jack Parsons:Yeah. So how this came about is that we think it's even somewhere 2019 or something like that. So it's like five, six, six years ago. We hired Milda Saiten. And she came from a venture capital firm in Berlin. And she wanted to become a product manager. And then the product team rejected her. and Vidas, our CFO, said like, we had one of the most brilliant people I've met in the last year or so. And the product team rejected her. We need to, I'm going to make up a job in my team because we need to hire this person. I'm like, Vidas, like we're like really cost constrained. He said like, no, but Thomas, we really need to do this.

36:17Jack Parsons:And I know Vidas, knew Vidas very well. It's one person who is tight on cost, it's Vidas. So I thought, well, you must care a lot for this. So let's do it. and he made her OKR wizard, helping us to set up OKRs and run these processes. Pretty soon after she started, we saw that she was clearly great and we ran into a moment that we needed to, that we had an opportunity that we could buy a company. So we thought, well, obviously, Milda should then take the lead there. And from there on, she built out our organization. So we have built out an org with a bunch of people who are constantly assessing which companies we should buy.

36:54Jack Parsons:And we buy companies that are for consolidation, for certain skill sets and functionalities or to expand our footprint. So that went really well. So she built like an incredible team that was helping not only on M &A, but also on strategical matters. And at a certain point in time, that team consisted of a couple of people who worked in venture capital before. and they looked at our strategy around making second-hand first choice and how can we ensure that we do that in the best possible way and they said like look we have M &A and we have organically building ourselves but there are certain bets that we would never do with M &A because it's too risky it's too early and we're not going to execute on it as well so it's kind of open but those are things that could really help to make second-hand first choice in the future and thus they propose It's like, okay, if we start to write small checks to be early into those companies, we can help those companies scale with our expertise or with our network.

37:52Jack Parsons:So then that actually made complete sense. Like we looked at the full spectrum on how can we develop, let's say, the secondhand industry. We're operating and building. We are buying as well. And there is a gap in between. Okay, so then, you know, we have a team who has skills to do this and they build a plan. And we were convinced about the plan. So we said, okay, let's start small. And we start with a 10 million commitment. You write small tickets and show us that you can make this work and we'll see if it goes. So we had a very strong leader who hired good people underneath her that had that experience, that proved themselves in M &A, became like this very good team that then wrote a proposal for an opportunity in another direction.

38:33Jack Parsons:And then we built it. So it was, yeah, that's it. So again, you see how this is not somewhere that the board makes a strategic decision or that I have some like fantastic vision. It's like Milda and her team puzzling and seeing an opportunity and then writing a proposal, discussing this with the CFO and with our investors and getting to a point that everybody says like, actually, it makes total sense.

38:56Thomas Plantenga:Yeah, I love that. And I'd love to hear your thoughts as someone that's seen a lot of talent, probably a lot of founders along the way. What are the green flags that you're looking for in founders that will be pitching for investment from Binted Ventures? And on the flip side, And what are the sorts of red flags that kind of put you off?

39:12Jack Parsons:Yeah. So it's quite personal, I think. So we have different people in our organization, in my team that have different strengths, right? And so if I assess somebody, then I mostly look at if this person in detail understands his business. If he really understands, let's say, the fundamental truths, the dynamics behind it, why certain things are working or why certain things are not working. that he can very, in a very detailed way, analytical way, can explain himself. Because that, I find that very important. And if it becomes a story that is very subjective, very fuzzy, then to me, that's a red flag, let's say.

39:49Jack Parsons:So I'm putting my own, I'm measuring it against my own strengths because I'm quite analytical and quite precise on strategic analytical elements. So I would want to see some of that muscle in somebody who is leading and building something. And it doesn't usually, it doesn't have to be this one person, right? But it's mostly the team who's running it in which you want to see it because not everybody has to be like that. So, and then, but we have other people are looking at the rest of the team. So we're looking at the team. We're not looking at the founder because the team is a reflection of the guy who was building the company.

40:22Jack Parsons:So it's mostly about the team. And then did this person attract somebody with excellent technical skills? So then somebody from Minogos' team, our CTO's team will look into that. Somebody from Allard's team will look at, let's say, how the analytical setup is. Somebody from more marketing background will look at how their marketing is organized. And then you want to see on some of these elements, you want to see excellence. And if not, then that's a red flag in terms of team. So first of all, I'm very interested in the team, not so much specifically the founder, because it's actually the quality of the founder is determined by what kind of team he's able to put on the ground that is executing and that has success.

41:02Jack Parsons:We look at those things like, well, there's the output of the product, the results of it, the team that's there. And then it can even be that the founder is actually the weakest link that is not necessary in the future. And that's fine. And you can have an honest conversation about that. Obviously, that's with M &A, obviously, right? So because if you look at venture, then the founder needs to be there. He's going to run it. But then still, his team is the best reflection of his own qualities.

41:26Thomas Plantenga:That's great. Thank you. We're sadly close to an end and we've got two final wrap up questions. But before then, I know you see a lot of potential in the e-commerce sector. And so we'd love just to hear quickly a bit about that opportunity and where you see the sector going in the years ahead.

41:41Jack Parsons:I think that over the last, let's say, two decades, the e-commerce sector has developed very well. And we've seen companies doing an incredible job like Mercado Libre, Amazon, but also the cost cause of this world in making, let's say, new products and any type of products being available for very low prices with high service levels and ease of use to be able to purchase it. So we've all these infrastructures that are optimized for that process, which is from a business to a consumer. Over the last nine years, we started to build the first parts of building the infrastructure to enable people to trade peer-to-peer, C2C, so from consumer to consumer.

42:21Jack Parsons:And I think over the next decade, we have to work really hard to build the value chains and the technology to make peer-to-peer transactional services as easy as, let's say, the B2C service that have been built before. And I think that by itself will bring an enormous shift in consumption within society, where we can unlock all the value of things that are not used. And obviously, this is unlocked already in high-value products like cars and houses. You don't use a house and throw it away, obviously same with a car but in all kinds of smaller products whatever it is this is not the case and much of it just goes to waste and just lays idle in houses doing nothing that volume of value that is just laying around and is wasted is huge and i think that's a huge consumption shift that will bring over the next decade into how we consume so that's what i see so that's like the most high level always true statements you can make that's not that insightful but i think is interesting what we really are focused on is to then really build these rails for c2c commerce and i think that's what we're mostly focused on right now to do all the hard stuff that is needed to do that whether that shipping payments trust and safety security whatever it is all the difficulty around liquidity there's a lot to do and i think if we do that well then this type of service can become like completely obvious like and what i mean with that is that if you look at for example how you consider electricity out of a socket or water out of the tap it's like completely obvious everybody's using it it's kind of this network you can depend on it's always there it's always working and i would love that we build let's say the rails to globally enable people to transact just so easily c2c that it's like this thing you can always depend on as much as a utility as what's right next to you.

44:14Thomas Plantenga:Yeah, sounds incredible. Well, we wish you nothing but the best of luck with making that a reality. With Sadia and Thomas, I've got two final very quick wrap-up questions. I've loved this conversation, but I'm sure our audience would love to know, this is 40 Minute Mental, so if you could be a mental by anyone, dead or alive, who would it be and why?

44:32Jack Parsons:Yeah, I knew this question was coming and I didn't really have a good answer to it. Look, I think there are so many, in general, I like biographies, So I read biographies time to time. And I think there are always very cool lessons in what many things many people did. The biography that I really liked was the one of Rockefeller, where you really see how he goes into logistics infrastructure to build something much bigger than what anybody else can build, which was non-obvious then, but like very cool. Also, the Henry Ford story is incredible. So I think those kind of stories are amazing. so I think those kind of people would be very cool to meet but it's actually I don't really have this kind of thing that I look up to these big names that I think I learned so much from them I actually I find the most inspiration and learning from actually the people around me so the people in my team and the people on the teams underneath me in the company where I think actually it is wrong to kind of like look at big business leaders and expect that there will be the biggest lessons because these people have built so much.

45:39Jack Parsons:I think much of the reflection that you can have and can learn from is actually from people who are next to you, underneath you, in your company, who are willing to give you honest reflection on yourself, but also on what's happening in the world. Because it's not the arrived leaders that has built something that probably are going to have the insights about the next thing that is going to happen. Because the guy who invented the radio didn't invent the television and the guy who invented television didn't invent the internet, right? So I find just a lot of learning and inspiration from the people, younger people and the people around me.

46:10Like, I think if you look for mentorship,

46:12Jack Parsons:don't go for like the big successful people, go for smart, sharp people that are around you and in other places.

46:19Thomas Plantenga:Yeah, I love that. That's a really refreshing way to look at it. Thank you. And finally, Thomas, what's the last piece of career advice that you would like to leave our listeners with today?

46:28Jack Parsons:I think my advice, like what works for me is that you help other people around you. Like I was quickly excited to help other people solve problems. That helped me a lot. So based on my own small experience, that worked out for me. So just be nice, help others out and it will work out for you as well.

46:45Thomas Plantenga:It's a wonderful mantra. And to finish a wonderful conversation, Thomas, thank you so much for joining us on 40 Minute Mentor. Loved what you built and been to it and really excited for the years ahead and all you can achieve. So thank you for sharing the story today.

46:59Jack Parsons:Thank you very much, James. Have a nice day. see you so much for tuning into today's episode i really hope that you found it useful and

47:12Thomas Plantenga:inspiring if we have left any questions unanswered or if you have any feedback or guest recommendations for future series then please make sure you get in touch on info at jbmc.co.uk i often get asked by listeners how you can help us spread the word about 40 minute mentor there are two simple ways you can help. Firstly, share this episode on your preferred social media platform and LinkedIn is probably where I'm most likely to see it. And you can also leave us a review on either Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Every share on social media and review left on the podcast platforms really helps us to get 40 Minute Mental in front of new audiences and share the power of mentorship even further.

47:52Thomas Plantenga:Thank you so much for your ongoing support and I look forward to seeing you again next Wednesday for even more Pocket Size Mentorship.

48:02We'll see you next time.