How ANNA Money Built a £30m ARR Business for Small Businesses

13:56Boris Diakonov:So, you know, not all people are, you know, cats. Some of them are dogs.

14:04Eduard Panteleev:We did dogs later, yes.

14:06Boris Diakonov:But we thought that, you know, it's going to be kind of in a world where everybody is serious. We wanted to smile. That's about it.

14:18Alex Chisnall:Excuse the pun, but has anybody come up with any copycat versions of what you've done?

14:23Boris Diakonov:Interestingly, it's funny, but we acquired a company in Australia later, which is called Cape. And the founder was, we didn't know that, and that was not the reason why. But interestingly enough, he liked the branding, and he actually created cape very much like uh resembling Anna slightly different but very much inspired by Anna tones and etc and that's in terms of the branding yeah in terms

15:00Eduard Panteleev:of the product I think there was a year where every week we would find somebody trying to copycat the client promises or kind of the products or the pricing at the time it's it wasn't even funny I mean literally there was every week either an SME business account coming to the market or somebody just copying the landing page or something like that but it's got better since then yeah I

15:35Alex Chisnall:I remember chatting to Richard Reid from Innocent Drinks and him saying, you know, so many people were then trying to copy the actual copy, you know, of the branding on the bottles and stuff like that. But in completely different products and how you actually have any IP on that, I don't know. Were there any mistakes that nearly derailed everything in those early days of the business for you guys?

16:00Boris Diakonov:Well, I don't know if it's a mistake, but we chose Wirecard to be our back-end partner in the early days. And when their operations were frozen by FCA for three days, we nearly lost it all.

16:15Eduard Panteleev:I mean, that backfired, I mean, full-blown backfired.

16:20Alex Chisnall:So what literally happened in those three days then? I mean, nothing. Nothing.

16:25Eduard Panteleev:I mean, in terms of our capacity to, I mean, in terms of Wirecard's capacity to process payments and cards, but then a lot of happened during these three days.

16:38Boris Diakonov:Yeah, well, we couldn't serve customers, as simple as that. And we had to go public about it. So that was our first podcast.

16:49Alex Chisnall:podcast yeah okay he jumped on and owned the narrative yeah and there were like 3 000 people on it and they were very very angry and pissed off and there was a they they were very very

17:07Boris Diakonov:rightfully angry and uh and they were grilling us for i don't know i don't remember like was it seems like two hours or three hours like we spend on that like answering their questions

17:19Eduard Panteleev:And it was in the middle of COVID, so no haircuts available.

17:27Eduard Panteleev:Pancy dress. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it wasn't the best appearance and not the one that was kind of pre-planned months in advance.

17:37Alex Chisnall:No, no, exactly. Would you say in hindsight that was like the lowest moment you've had on the journey so far?

17:44Boris Diakonov:No, I don't think it was the lowest. The lowest was probably when we were trying to buy out shareholders due to some risks of sanctioned connections, etc. That was probably the closest when we were thinking seriously of winding down the business.

18:04Alex Chisnall:How close did you come, do you think, really, to closing things down then?

18:09Boris Diakonov:was that um very close i uh we were like having uh discussions about you know excel tables of uh you know winding down uh plans and calculating you know cash spend and uh appointing administrators and you know and we were investigating like uh for how long uh we shall keep customer data and how much that would cost. So we were very, very close.

18:38Alex Chisnall:And how would that have affected you both like personally at the time? Have you got other businesses, other interests, or was this everything, that this was your baby?

18:48Boris Diakonov:This was everything.

18:50Alex Chisnall:Wow, so you could have lost everything. Pretty much. And where does Anna sit now compared to those days, three years ago?

18:58Eduard Panteleev:I mean, it's still our everything. Even more so.

19:02Alex Chisnall:Yeah.

19:04Boris Diakonov:Well, it's 50 ,000 customers, nearly 30 million in ARR in pounds, growing at 83-85 % a year. Wow. That's amazing. 82 % gross margin. So, you know. Congratulations. Doing well.

19:24Eduard Panteleev:It's healthy, baby. It's out of the incubator. Yeah, big time.

19:29Boris Diakonov:And with an indefinite runway, which is…

19:31Alex Chisnall:I love it. how did you stay aligned then like especially during those difficult times how do you stay aligned as co-founders through those like difficult decisions you obviously know each other pretty well by now right well we're still learning

19:49Boris Diakonov:i don't know uh we just try i think that we just try to listen to each other um even if we disagree uh we try to think about it okay what's the point that uh you know he's trying to make like where it's coming from. So it's just, you know, it's easy to get emotional. It's one thing. But you have to recognize that, you know, yours emotions and, you know, your partner emotions and, you know, and respect those. Like, even if they're negative, you know, like you still need to kind of be supportive of those. But emotions, one thing, but there's also, you know, different backgrounds, different experiences and different views.

20:33Boris Diakonov:And sometimes it's just important to listen. And being able to communicate your point also in a way which you sometimes fail to communicate, and it's your failure. You have to acknowledge that, and you have to do it in a different way. Rinse and repeat. Yes. But being also respectful that you may be wrong.

20:58Alex Chisnall:Who's the best listener out of you two, would you say?

21:01Boris Diakonov:Boris. Boris? He's the savior. Savior.

21:09Eduard Panteleev:I love it. I just don't have a lot of opportunities to say something.

21:18Alex Chisnall:That's why you have to listen. Right. I get it.

21:21Eduard Panteleev:And now you know the reason why. I just better put my mouth shut.

21:26Alex Chisnall:Yeah, I get it. I get it.

21:28Eduard Panteleev:Knowing your weaknesses is another one. Yes.

21:30Alex Chisnall:true true very true what's your biggest weakness then edward my biggest wicked weakness uh i

21:39Boris Diakonov:probably can't be too confident uh in uh and i can be pushy uh and i can be um i mean uh when you think that you are right you just try to just get there

21:59Alex Chisnall:i'm gonna say boris is gonna agree with all of this i take it boris is listening you know boris is listening

22:12Alex Chisnall:okay changing tack slightly at what moment especially telling me like what the original iteration was like at what moment did you actually know that anna was working how you wanted it to work was there was there a moment was there a day was there a week was there a month where there was there was traction you're like right this is working now here we go

22:33Boris Diakonov:i i don't know how is it for you boris but for me it's never been like a one single moment it's been more like uh you know uh we were like testing different parts like you know the are we able to acquire customers? Are we able to retain them? Can we actually get them onto taxes? How we do this and what the experience is, et cetera. So it's all kind of this small bits which build upon each other. It's like a bit of a staircase. You do one step, the other step, et cetera. So it's more like a journey rather than a particular moment, I would say. And the thing is that with the progress, you start kind of seeing different horizons.

23:36Boris Diakonov:And you then see the other opportunities that you haven't seen before or thought of that differently. and you start testing that, et cetera. So, you know, Anna is, as a concept, is also evolving. And from where we started initially, where we are now, and, you know, even the progress the last year is quite big. So, you know, it's not like, you know, a very different vertical or different, you know, but the way we think about the potential of the business model and of the company is always changing and and from that perspective you know you kind of test what you kind of build conviction around whatever you thought like was a year ago two years ago and then it constantly moves and then it is something that is more like a journey rather than a one-off event yeah and for me it is like edward gains

24:40Eduard Panteleev:a lot of confidence in looking at Excel models. Kind of would see how things are kind of happening there. And for me, I gain confidence when I kind of, well, when I start seeing that clients are happy to pay for what we deliver, which in startup talk is called or startup speak is called product market fit or positive unit economy. And another big one for me is when I sense kind of an energy in the team that is larger than each individual there and the the teams are starting to surprise in a positive way i mean teams never are never short of surprising in a negative way but i mean when teams start to surprise in a positive way more than they start to surprise in a negative way with these two things i was like wow wow wow it's it's happening and then another one is customers genuinely happy or positively surprised with what we do and they are not shy of talking about it.

26:01It's like, wow.

26:02Alex Chisnall:If you're enjoying this conversation and thinking, I need to be around more people like this, then I've got the perfect solution for you. The Festival of Entrepreneurs is where 5 ,000 to 10 ,000 ambitious entrepreneurs come together to learn from the people who've actually done it. It's on October the 8th and 9th at the NEC in Birmingham and I'm giving my listeners free two-day passes. Real entrepreneurs, real stories, real strategies, exactly like what you're hearing right now, but live and in person. Go to festivalofentrepreneurs.co.uk and get your free two-day pass before they're gone. I was definitely positively surprised because, you know, you think I've been, what, had a bank account for, you know, decades and decades.

26:44Alex Chisnall:And you just get the same thing from the next bank that you move to. And of course, a lot of people stay with the same bank for a very long time, which is what I did, like 30 years since the bank I signed up with as a student. It's kind of standard journey, isn't it? How different then, like you talk about the journey, how different is the vision now then, especially as you said, things have accelerated, especially like the last 12 months. How different is the vision now compared to when you started? What are you looking to achieve now compared to what you were looking to achieve then?

27:15Eduard Panteleev:in a way we're looking at the same direction but with the better optics okay you know you know this sense when you put your glasses on and there's suddenly more detail and more color and you can see a bit further yeah yeah yeah that makes sense but also uh there's uh uh the way we

27:37Boris Diakonov:look at the business model right now is, or maybe potential future, not as it is right now, but something, the direction of travel is, you know, we started off as a business account, we now added tech functionality, and we want to emphasize it more and more, and then being able to onboard people just on tech services rather than on the business account and taxes. But then we think that we can actually be more supportive in other areas of the business, especially when we understand our customers much better and we understand the business much better and that we do through the data that we process uh of what they actually do and you know their cycles and their sales and their kind of uh supplies etc then we are in a much better position to be more useful to them and by adding this functionality and service uh to them we are kind of making this relationship even stickier and more valuable to customers.

28:57Boris Diakonov:But on the other hand, not all of these products may not necessarily be, you know, ours, but maybe those will be kind of by other service providers. And that evolves into a different kind of solution than, you know, you have a name for even at the moment. But that's a grand kind of future, which is not something that I can point to right now. But this is something that would be interesting to explore.

29:29Alex Chisnall:And do you see, again, you know, business owners always looking to save costs, obviously looking to trim costs. Do you see what you're building as replacing bookkeepers and accountants or how do you see that relation? Yeah.

29:44Boris Diakonov:Essentially, for many, many small businesses, for all of them, honestly, like those which don't involve in very complex transactions, et cetera, you don't need an account. And an accountant is, I mean, even optimized, even, I mean, with all this kind of things and efficiencies, et cetera, you know, it's just unnecessary cost. And also with all the optimization and business models around it, etc., still human dealing with, I don't know, 300, 400 clients, it's messy. And it's expensive. It's not good quality. It's frustrating sometimes. And we think it's totally unnecessary. and with the current level of technologies etc you can just do much better more predictable asynchronous a lot you know on the and it's time consuming right you know as a small business

30:49Alex Chisnall:owner to go back and forth with your accountant and your bookkeeper and it usually comes right at the busiest end of the quarter or ever when you have no time to deal with questions i've just

30:57Boris Diakonov:gone through it myself literally now so end of year yes exactly so uh and it's totally unnecessary And we think that it's cost, it's frustration, and it's time, which we can save to people. And AI is pretty much capable of dealing with that much more efficient, better, and save a lot of cost and time.

31:27Alex Chisnall:If you were to do anything again, would there be anything you would do differently?

31:33Boris Diakonov:Probably, I don't know.

31:36Alex Chisnall:way faster yeah yeah it's a good it's wishful thinking yeah it is that you can't change it you can't change it um what do you wish someone had told you this is like to both of you what do you wish someone had told you when you were starting out on the idea with anna i don't know

31:56Boris Diakonov:i uh i i am of the opinion that uh you know you hear what you're prepared to hear and if don't hear somebody there's always telling there's always someone telling something which may be relevant to you and useful you just don't hear it for some reason you just ignore to hear it so if i've ignored to hear it for some reason maybe there was a reason for that i don't know yeah yeah

32:19Alex Chisnall:you're so dialed into where you're trying to get to you don't necessarily hear it uh what about you

32:26Eduard Panteleev:boris oh i mean bunch of small things but philosophically i would totally uh i agree with that but because in the hindsight i mean the signs were there there were people politely in the british way asking well have you carefully considered your contract with wirecard which now i understand should have read run yeah you run uh and one of the things we were not i guess ready In our dreams, we had our first meetings in shortage. At least in my dreams, the typical British small business would be shortage-based. It turned out not to be. It turned out to be that a lot of small businesses that we see starting in the country are actually being started by immigrants.

33:29Eduard Panteleev:A lot of them not with the greatest comment of the language, not fully understanding how kind of the whole system works. They just want to make a living somehow. and a bunch of other things.

33:49Alex Chisnall:Would you say now, do you have like one ideal customer or do you have like a bunch of different avatars that you're kind of focused on?

33:56Boris Diakonov:I think it's a bunch of different avatars. And one of the complexities we face is that we need to be good to very different personas. And that is challenging in a way, because if you're good to someone, you may not necessarily be good for that reason. to the other one. And that's one of the challenges because we want to be the broadest service possible for this smaller end of the market, like for the micro, nano, solo entrepreneurs. And they're very, very different sectors, personas, education, background, needs, you know, expectations, language. I mean, very different. And we discovered that some of the things that we sometimes do are appealing to some groups, which we never realized we actually did.

34:55Boris Diakonov:And then sometimes, in hindsight, we are very happy that we've discovered that, especially for people like some neurodiverse people on the app quite supportive. And we were positively surprised and we decided that we need to invest more time in understanding the needs of this particular kind of audience. Because, I don't know, it just fills you with positive emotions when you see that, you know, people otherwise maybe struggling, they find you useful and you think, okay, good.

35:38Alex Chisnall:Exactly. yeah yeah um there's a lot of facets to your business clearly what what keeps each of you up at night like what are you warriors do you do you have not warriors warriors do you wake up at you know early hours of the morning and it's always the same kind of things that that are coming up because i know what it's like boris is a warrior go on on fridays frantic fridays

36:04Eduard Panteleev:all kinds of stuff it's um sometimes the process is broken sometimes uh i'm worrying whether finances are okay sometimes i'm worrying whether our controls are robust enough sometimes i've i'm worrying because somebody in the team said something to somebody in the team and they both might not be happy and what do we do with that and and oh sometimes i'm worrying because i'm not happy sometimes i'm worried because that word is not happy and no no

36:41Boris Diakonov:yeah but uh i think that uh one uh like one thing which uh uh you know for me which i find uh not necessarily driving myself but where i find a kind of satisfaction if when i um see that you know how sometimes a difficult idea or concept or, you know, product or, you know, user journey, whatever, starts with something which is usually, well, we don't have the resources, like, how do we play, like, blah, blah, blah, all these kind of conversations. And then somehow gets traction, gets people excited and being realized and then getting, you know, launched and then having people using it and you know and commenting on it positively that reinforces this energy in the team that is very um it's a good feeling like you know like uh like you know you did something uh like a cycle and then you see the results of that uh and that makes uh feel good

37:54Alex Chisnall:kind of finishing finishing up now guys i've got like a quick fire round to finish up on with uh with some questions for you but um numbers you're doing fantastic that growth like year on year what what kind of what do you attribute that to like how you've managed to scale the business are there any like key factors that you could point out that you think people listening would would be interested in uh thinking about when it comes to their own business like what have you kind of focused on to to get that kind of scale that you're nearly doubling year on year well uh

38:23Eduard Panteleev:It all starts with the funnel. Like we said, this conversation, I just feel the funnel's broken, the funnel's broken, the funnel's broken. And as he shared in the beginning, when he's really convinced, he makes sure everybody else is convinced. So, and it took a while, but then we like paid really close attention to the funnel. And that helped a lot. We were losing clients here and there just in the first seconds or minutes of life. And then, yeah, another thing is just eliminating stupidity. Because we started with a mission of being no-nonsense, but just by human nature, we keep doing and then replicating some stupid things that we never planned to do, but they just kind of happen.

39:24Eduard Panteleev:I mean, nobody like, how did you plan to do this stupid things? How did you plan to ask the client the same question three times in a row? How did you plan just to lose that bit of information? Nobody would say, I've planned it. We just kind of do it. So just ruthlessly looking at that, eliminating that, and then just being funny. Yeah.

39:51Alex Chisnall:Yeah, being funny. We're definitely both funny. I'll give you that. And a funny, funny user experience as well, which is good. Last question before the quickfire round. What would you say to somebody who is, they have their idea for their business, but for whatever reason, they're not taking action. They're procrastinating. They're sitting on it. They're sitting on it. They're not doing the thing that they need to do. What advice would either of you give to somebody who's listening in that situation?

40:22Boris Diakonov:I don't know. One of the things, and it depends, like maybe it shouldn't, maybe they shouldn't do anything about it. Yeah, yeah, it's a fair call. But one thing which helps to decide whether to drop an idea, which you should drop or to proceed with it and take it to the next level, is talk to people around you and get them enthusiastic about it. Not politely agreeing with you, but just, you know, really enthusiastic. Because if you can't build conviction around it, just don't, I don't think that anybody should be pressed to do something just because there was an idea and just because it was long procrastinated over.

41:11Boris Diakonov:It's not a good reason to do. It's probably a good reason to stop. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. but one thing to you know to help is just maybe build conviction but not just force yourself into this but just you know allow this to to happen but that that is going through interaction with

41:36Eduard Panteleev:other people is the right answer like screw it do it or something like that there you go pay them

41:43Alex Chisnall:We pay the man. We pay the man.

41:45Eduard Panteleev:But like weirdly, nothing happens with great energy, but then great energy never happens until there is some action taken. So it's kind of this chicken and egg dilemma because conviction needs to be there, but conviction gets reinforced when you kind of start playing with it. and then but there is a great saying if you really want to do some work just sit on the sofa long enough till the desire to do this work disappears so that would be anti-advice just sitting on the couch long enough probably I'm going to get you there

42:34Alex Chisnall:yeah yeah um okay guys well look just gonna um coming up to our hour so thank you very much indeed for your time um quick fire question so um maybe do one each take it in turns and uh whatever the first thing comes into your head um let's go edward first uh what is an entrepreneur for you

42:57Boris Diakonov:uh somebody who creates resources out of nothing somebody who you know is actually being able to put different things together which already are in existence but you just create a value or whatever something out of which was non-existent but seemingly non-existent it's exist but you just pull these different bits together and then something appears perfect Boris what is a scale-up business for you a business that scales oh my god never had that answer no one's

43:33Alex Chisnall:No one said the answer before. Nobody. Simple, right?

43:39Eduard Panteleev:But I mean, a business that has a reason to scale, both economically and because the product is in demand. And you can be scaling eternal losses, and that's not really a scale up. It's a pyramid upon it.

44:00Alex Chisnall:either for investors or whatever.

44:04Boris Diakonov:Yeah.

44:05Alex Chisnall:Edward, back to you. Why do you think the USA is better at producing scale-up businesses than the UK, for example?

44:11Boris Diakonov:It's not better.

44:17Boris Diakonov:Look, I don't want to go into all this, but the UK will be better.

44:24Alex Chisnall:That's a better answer. Yeah. Boris, what can entrepreneurs look forward to when hearing you speak at the Festival of Entrepreneurs?

44:34Eduard Panteleev:I'll try to memorize a couple of jokes. But I can also promise to be vulnerable and honest. Perfect.

44:47Alex Chisnall:And this one will go to both of you then. What founder do you admire the most? and that can be somebody now or that could be just somebody in the past that's always been an inspiration to you. So maybe Edward first and then Boris. What fan did you admire the most? Wow.

45:05Boris Diakonov:I thought you were looking at Boris and you were going to go Boris

45:07Alex Chisnall:because he just looked straight at the side and I thought he was just going to point and go, I admire Boris.

45:14Boris Diakonov:Boris? No, I don't know. uh i i don't i don't know uh the way i look at it is that um i i don't know uh there's a lot of great people who have uh done you know great businesses and founded this great businesses but um honestly if you ask me like who i admire i admire the this class of people and but you know and they i don't know this uh this group of people but individually there's they're very different and i like them all but do i admire them um i don't know uh it's it's probably not the the thing that i would call it like admiration i respect them yeah you respect

46:11Eduard Panteleev:And my take on that, that is a bit of a kind of dangerous question. I mean, people who admire Elon, then they will not admire Elon, then they might start admiring Elon again. I mean, yeah, true, true. And in a way, if you dig with every founder and there are some things they did great, then they often had some horrible personality traits. some people didn't have horrible personality traits but failed miserably. Some made it out of pure luck. Some didn't make it out of pure luck. But, yeah, I would share the sentiment. But it's incredibly encouraging to see people envision something and then just put all of their best to try to make it happen, whether it actually happened or not?

47:12Boris Diakonov:I have a better answer. I may admire a person. Better than mine or better than yours? Better than mine.

47:18Eduard Panteleev:Okay.

47:20Boris Diakonov:Better than mine. I can admire, the way I relate to this is I can admire a person, but not for the fact that they are an entrepreneur or not. Like it's just a person. You can admire a personal, you know, you can admire a character, but be it a politician or an entrepreneur, It's a different thing. But I cannot admire someone for just being an entrepreneur. I mean, I respect them and I like this, you know, kind of journey. And I respect and admire all of them for this. But personality is something that I attribute more to personal traits rather than to what they do. and how much money they went

48:07Eduard Panteleev:because that sometimes might not be related to anything at all.

48:13Alex Chisnall:Well, look, guys, thank you so much. Looking forward to you at the Festival of Entrepreneurs. Thank you for your support as well. Much appreciated indeed. And yeah, thank you very much and good luck with the business in the future.

48:28Boris Diakonov:Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

48:31Alex Chisnall:That conversation just proved something. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So here's my challenge. Upgrade your network. The Festival of Entrepreneurs is happening October the 8th and 9th, and I'm giving my listeners free two-day passes to get in the room with 5 ,000 to 10 ,000 entrepreneurs who are actually building something. This is where the risk-takers, the game-changers, and the people who've decided to screw it and just do it come for inspiration, education, and connection. Don't just listen to their success stories. go meet the people living them. Grab your free pass now because the biggest risk isn't taking a chance, it's missing the opportunity entirely.

49:09Alex Chisnall:If this conversation resonated with you, don't just sit there, act on it. Make sure you follow or subscribe for more game-changing conversations and remember, the only thing standing between you and your business breakthrough is the decision to screw it and just do it.