Gui Gomes and Joao Alves: Bleap is building a fintech completely on the blockchain

0:00Gui Gomes:Hello, welcome back to the Scanning Europe show presented by Deal. I am Seb Johnson. I'm joined today by two great founders, ex-Revoluters. They just announced a$6 million seed round led by Blossom Capital last week. Welcome to the show. Tell me, who are you? What are you building? What's going on?

0:15Joao Alves:Yeah, maybe I can start on this one. So my name is Jiao. And me and Guy, we are currently building Bleep. Bleep is an attempt to build a fintech completely on the blockchain. So what we fundamentally believe is that if we are able to replace the traditional ledger that we have in fintech by a blockchain-based ledger, where we are using a completely non-custodial technology, and we are able to connect that to the real world, we are able to provide customers with better outcomes when we are talking about things that they are doing every single day. So, for example, when they are doing payments, we believe we can process them more efficiently to provide them with a higher cashback.

0:54Joao Alves:When they are doing savings, we think we can leverage the DeFi protocols to provide them with higher saving yields. When they are trading, we think we are able to provide them with tokenized versions of trading stocks or any assets, to be fair, to provide them with lower spreads and all the assets they can train in the world. And when they are sending money abroad for remittances, we think we are able to provide or to help them send money faster, cheaper, and to more countries by leveraging blockchain to do the cross-border leg and then do local settlements to make sure that anyone can really use it.

1:28Joao Alves:And maybe, Guy, you can also do a quick intro on your side.

1:33Gui Gomes:I mean, yeah, thank you, Sed, for having us. we everything that john just described was basically us at revolute amazed at everything we were building when like a few years ago and just realizing that if you change the ui and ux of course it becomes better for people but there needs to be also like an infrastructural change and so our bet was that you're not going to be able to scale everything if you're not using the latest state-of-the-art technology. And we believe that blockchain is the latest state-of-the-art technology. And so all the benefits that Joan just described is, we've been able to prove a bunch of them.

2:20Gui Gomes:And that's what we're going to be talking about today, I guess. And I thought that was kind of my impression when I was doing the research and when I saw the analysis video last week, and I thought it was like traditional fintech from 10 years ago, but just with this whole new infrastructure that enables every upgrade that we saw in fintech to be upgraded even further so it's not just about the user experience it's not just about having everything on your phone and quick and easy to access it's like ripping out the infrastructure building it on chain and enabling all those real benefits to be kind of felt by users and it's going well right i mean i read that you've got 20 000 users you transacted over 30 million uh dollars last year um so i think things are going well is that how it feels do you feel like you've kind of got the wind in your sails that things are

3:05Joao Alves:going well uh i think when you're building honestly never feels like things are going well just because at the end of the day like when you are founding something you just end up having the worst problems to solve like if you if they were solvable by if they were easy to solve it would be solved by someone else so i guess when you are like on the cockpit it always feels like there's always another challenge that you need to solve. But yeah, like if we were to take a step back and look at where we started and where we are, I feel like we've made decent progress. The way I see it, or the way we see it here is we've made the first step of proving that the technology works, meaning exactly what you're saying.

3:48Joao Alves:We are trying to, I guess, fintech initially, or in the last 10 years, it has been built on top of traditional banking. We are trying to build a fintech on top of a blockchain. So there was really that leap of faith of assuming, OK, the blockchain technology is actually going to work for this high volume of transaction that you need to be able to do, to use it day to day, not just from a B2B point of view, but really a B2C point of view. So I think that we were able to prove that first part and we are able to prove that, you know, a normal retail customer is able to do. We are really big fans here of, you know, always trying to think of, is my mom going to be able to use this product?

4:25Joao Alves:So it's really not for a crypto user, but really for a traditional retail user. So I think we've felt like we've successfully proved like the proof of concept and we've successfully proved that there is a lot of interest from non-crypto users in this kind of product because of the higher savings, the higher cashback, the way that it's super easy to trade any assets. but I think now we are on that second step which is okay how do we go from here to 100 ,000 monthly active users right like how do we give that big step so that we are really able to go to the next stage which is what we are working right now

5:00Gui Gomes:And how are you thinking about that journey then how are you thinking about user acquisition getting people onboarded and then getting them transacting more and more

5:08Joao Alves:I think user acquisition in fintech is a very hard problem to solve because we are, of course, reinventing the backend, but you cannot communicate to the user that you are reinventing the backend, right? The user doesn't really care that instead of using like a P2P ledger or using a centralized ledger, we are using a decentralized, like we cannot communicate that. So that's not possible to do, which means that you need to try to get very creative on the marketing side. And the reality is a lot of things have already been done. by other super relevant fintechs, of course, like Revolut, Monzo, Wise, like all of these other guys, they've done super well there.

5:51Joao Alves:So for us, customer acquisition means just really trying to explore and leverage the things that a scrappy startup can that maybe other companies can't. I think, for example, like our announcement video is an example of, okay, we can still be serious, but we can still be a bit more playful. We can have this founder-led image for the company and actually show a bit of what's happening inside the company, interacting directly with a lot of our users. So, for example, we have this Telegram channel where we have around a thousand and something of our users there where we are providing them, like, not support, but like just guidance, just discussing crypto topics, discussing fintech topics.

6:37Joao Alves:So really trying to put this personal brand there, I think that's one of the things that definitely we are trying to leverage. But yeah. Amazing. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.

6:49Gui Gomes:Yeah. No, no, you go ahead, Guy. Go ahead. I think, like, generically speaking, finances are not a sexy topic. Like, people don't like to think about finances. They don't like... In their ideal world, everything is just taken care of, you know, like universal income and, you know, I don't have to work and everything is just taken care of. So you really have to find a way of showing people that that's actually what we're trying to do. Like we're trying to make you think less of finances. But how do you make them think less about finances and at the same time go like, use this finance app, you know?

7:27Gui Gomes:So yeah, we got to be really creative on how we market ourselves as sort of like a lifestyle thing and not like a new fintech or, you know, So we don't want people to look at us like, oh, we're just a new revolute. We want people to think like, oh, this is a completely new way of managing my money and my finances. And this is just going to change completely how I look at these things. And was that how you try to pitch it to investors? Or when you're speaking to investors, do you have to focus a lot more on the infrastructure versus just the user benefits?

7:59Joao Alves:I think so when you are pitching to investors, the way we see it is at the end of the day they care about the user benefit as well because how do you actually compete with the current fintechs, right? Given that there are so many of them that already have this size, you need to be able to bring to the table a better product. It doesn't really matter which technology you're using. At the end of the day, you need to have an advantage against the incumbents so that you are actually able to compete. Otherwise, you're just talking about, okay, how much money I'm going to spend on advertising and can I outspend my competitors if the product is not fundamentally better?

8:38Joao Alves:So a part of it, of course, it is how do we achieve that better outcome by using FinTech? Sorry, by using blockchain. But there's also a lot about how does the blockchain technology works and fundamentally how does that enable that better outcome? because in the outside in our first pre-seed when we raised 2.2 million dollars the investors that we were pitching were way more crypto so there there was a lot of focus on the technology just because this narrative of stable coins was not there i think we were a bit ahead of the narrative there because we were pitching this banking 2.0 when stable coin was just not a thing in 2023 now that stable coin were a thing a lot of these fintech fintech vcs were way more understanding of how the technology would enable this Banking 2.0 or FinTech 2.0 so we could focus way more also on the outcomes that necessarily on how the technology was working but there was always that deep dive into explaining what makes this different, why is this different than X, Y, Z.

9:45Gui Gomes:It's interesting that you're right in the last year 18 months there's been so much noise about stablecoins, it's become really hot again And it's become like a really investing topic. And you were obviously slightly above or ahead of the curve in that respect. How much did that play into the fundraising that you did? You know, the$6 million. How much did that help versus how much of it was traction that you've already seen?

10:09Joao Alves:Definitely was a mix of both. As it always is, like at the end of the day, fundraising can be done. I think fundraising, if you have a solid product you offer, you have a solid idea and you are willing to take a lot of pain, at the end of the day, you're always going to be able to fundraise. In my point of view, it's just a question of how many no's can you survive, right? And then what I think the narrative helps is how it reduces a lot the number of no's that you are going to get before your first term sheet. So, yeah, I would say it's 50-50, but obviously like the second time, it was easier to raise because we already had a proof of concept, We already had quite a nice traction on the product and really the graphic doing that hockey stick.

10:58Joao Alves:And at the same time, the narrative was completely on our side because we had, I could say we got lucky or we could say we were able to anticipate the trend. And we were on the narrative completely because we were selling for two years exactly what the narrative was about now. let me just let me just correct you on there there was no luck involved all right there was nothing but luck involved in any of the things we've done yeah you guys uh yeah you read the

11:31Gui Gomes:market and you jumped on it um i know you raised six million dollars you're gonna have to you know do a lot i imagine as you kind of mentioned you know when you raise money the stakes get higher there's more pressure to achieve more you've got to you've got to almost like grow into the valuation that you've now got have you got targets in mind you know 20 000 users 30 million of uh 30 million dollars transactions last year do you have numbers in mind that you need to get to either by the end of this year or by the next fundraise that shows you okay we're scaling things are going well. Yes.

12:06Joao Alves:So from our point of view, what we need to prove now is retention and user acquisition. That's really the combination of the two that is going to enable the next round. So right now our goal is until the end of the year to 10x where we are from right now. So we need to onboard around 180 ,000 customers. That's the goal. by the end of the year, and really to 10x the number of transactions, the number of monthly active users. That's how we are thinking. And to 10x, we see it as having to work on two main levers, right? So from a distribution point of view, you need to increase distribution. That could be organically.

12:47Joao Alves:It can be paid. It could be through partnerships. And then on the product point of view, you need to be able to have both a very high stickiness on the product, which you can achieve by launching new products, new verticals, which is what we are doing, and also having a lot of product lab growth. So making the product, being able to generate viral loops so that customers are getting more customers and more customers are getting more customers. So those are the main things that we are working on at the moment with the money that we've raised and we are hoping until the end of the year to get there.

13:20Gui Gomes:Amazing. How are you thinking about talent, hiring, growing the team now that you've got this cash? Have you massively expanded the team? Are you looking to grow? What's going on there?

13:31Joao Alves:We're not looking to massively expand the team at the moment. I think we've always done it in a linear sort of way, just because it's really hard to get new people. To get really good people, it's extremely hard. So we are sort of always trying to hire, even when we know, OK, we are still growing, but we never stop hiring, basically. we are trying to add a person every two or three months I don't think that from where we are we need that much more people like we're talking about maybe 20-30 % increase at this stage we are currently a team of nine so for us like that would be around two to three people adding there but what we are trying to focus on right now is just adding really the right talent at this stage so we are spending I would say we are hiring we are interviewing doing around 150 candidates for each person that we hire at this stage.

14:30Joao Alves:So we can really never stop just because it's just super hard to find the great people.

14:38Gui Gomes:And is that you two doing it? Yeah. Yeah. Is that you're doing 150 interviews? Yes. So basically. Yeah, no worries. Yeah. And it's not because people are not good or like there's a lot of talent out there. But for a startup like ours where like volume is going to be king, like we really need to grow and like we really need to be aggressive. The profile needs to be really specific. You cannot only be great, you have to be great and have the mindset and have the dedication. And like you need to check so many boxes that it really like, yeah, there's no other way other than the conversion that Jerome talked about.

15:20Gui Gomes:yeah and it's interesting there's there's always traits that you hear from especially ex-Revolute founders and there's there's bits around execution being close to your customer which you you've obviously mentioned about the telegram group being very data savvy and also having an incredibly high bar for talent these are things that are quite consistent whenever i speak to Revolute founders talent execution data customer obsession is there anything else that you think i'm missing that you've learned from your Revolute days and that is really guiding the way that you're building this business?

15:49Joao Alves:I think the only thing that you might be missing there that definitely you learn at Revolut is you, like, there's not really a super nice way to say this, but you just got to assume that what other people are saying might be wrong. and this constant challenge, constant trust, but you verify is really what makes a difference and it's how you're able to push so many things because a lot of times you are speaking with vendors, you're speaking with lawyers, accountants, it doesn't really matter. You're speaking with someone that maybe you are not an expert on the topic and they are trying to convince you of something as is being done in such a way just because it's the only way that it can be done and most of the time that's actually not the case.

16:42Joao Alves:It's being done like that because that's the way they've learned how to do it and in reality there's a 10x better way to do that exact same thing and it's something you learn at Revolut that they were always super good at it which is like an acceptable answer can never be oh because XYZ does it like that like that would be the definition of an unacceptable answer just because you really need to be able to prove that given everything like you've pushed all of the boundaries uh that's really like the best path forward and that's super helpful in way of thinking on when you're just constantly challenging

17:18Gui Gomes:all the assumptions it's almost oh sorry i keep interrupting you no no you please go ahead it's like almost considering everything is a negotiation you know like uh somebody says like oh yeah we can do this in two weeks it's like oh you you can do it in one and it's like okay we can do it in one and a half okay all right let's do it in one and a half like treating everything as a challenge as a negotiation yes and i think that's such a powerful um character trait is like being able to be challenging in every circumstance you know one of the best bosses i worked with when i was a deal she had this amazing ability to to just like really get more out of people than they were initially willing to give and it's just like if you just push and you just ask most people will just do it you know that there's like if you just like use your will and sort of overpower their will which again sounds a bit uh unreasonable people will just be like yeah okay to your point we probably could do it closer to a week than two weeks um which i think is super interesting and there's there's definitely something in the water at revolute you know it's obviously an amazing company it's absolutely killing it but i i think there's a disproportionate amount of high achievement founders that are coming out of revolute i'm also curious like is there any investment syndicate in revolute you know one of the things that you know i remember i think i saw how many was it harry stebbings was talking about it on x like if you were just invested as a portfolio of sort of like an index fund of every revolute founder you'd be absolutely crushing it right so does that exist is there a network of people in revolute who you've brought in on the journey who have invested is there this sort of like x revolute mafia thing going on we cannot comment on that

18:56Joao Alves:Yes and no. Definitely, of course, we have angels that are ex-Revolute in our cup table. I think there's definitely an aspect to Revolute Mafia that is actually true from a mindset point of view, but also from a connections point of view. I, it's really helpful. This is the reality. I have so many people and so many times that this has happened where I'm struggling with a problem that I know some other founder ex-Revolute already solved. Sometimes I have a very close relationship with them from my days at Revolute and I will reach out directly. But it also has happened where I don't and I just ask someone for an intro and I'm able to jump on a call with an ex-Revolute founder in, you know, one or two hours and he's giving me this advice and I think that's priceless.

19:49Joao Alves:It saves you countless days just being able to do that. So I think that support network ends up existing. And then I think of course everyone was ex-Revolute so when you are fundraising, I think what tends to happen a lot is your first fundraise you rely a lot on your ex-Revolute colleagues that have already fundraised from before to sort of help you getting things going with introductions as well. And I think that part definitely exists of the, some VCs even say, you know, the Revolut, especially the pre-seeds, you know, the Revolut Film Grudge, where, you know, you start with, like, there's a set of VCs that basically they get introduced to all of the Revolut founders just because they've invested in so many of the Revolut companies that you just end up going through a lot of the same ones.

20:42Joao Alves:So it's quite interesting to see that part. But it works super well as a brand because, indeed, they work with other founders. They've seen what the mindset is, what the working relationship is, and it seems to be something that they enjoy quite a lot.

20:59Gui Gomes:Yeah, it makes total sense. I mean, there's such a – the bar for talent at Revolut is so high and the reputation among Revolut founders is also so high that it's becoming an easy investment for a lot of investors, right? They want to meet the Revolut founders. Well, look, Guy Jiao, thank you so much for joining me. You guys are absolutely crushing it. I think you're building a super interesting business. I can't wait to see how you guys do in 2026 and 10x everything that you've already done. So thank you both so much for joining me.

21:26Joao Alves:Thank you, Seb. Thank you, Seb, for having us. Have a nice one.