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Founder@ Interview
Interview with Paul Roach
Credits @Christina Kernohan Photography
“You always learn by doing, so if you have an idea you believe in, prepare as much as possible and then just get on and do it. Even if it fails you will learn something for the next one, or the one after that..” – Paul Roach
Today we feature Paul Roach, the founder at Zumo. We hear their story in their own words, their successes, their challenges and their insights.
Let’s start by getting to know you. Can you please tell us a little bit about you and what you do?
I’m Paul Roach, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Zumo. I’ve been working in and around tech development since 2001, from start-ups to global businesses. These days, I have my product hat on as co-founder of Zumo, which is our rapidly scaling start-up aiming to bring the benefits of cryptocurrencies and blockchain to people everywhere.
A great introduction and start to this interview. Can you please tell us, how did you start, from what age, and what made you decide to change direction and start?
My Co-Founder Nick and I have known each other for a long time now. In 2016, I was getting involved with blockchain technology and noticing just how inaccessible it still was to the mainstream consumer, and Nick was interested in cryptocurrency and looking around at the differences in generational wealth.
You’ve got two generations of younger people who will be worse off than their parents and we saw crypto as a potential solution to that. This sparked the idea for Zumo – a simple, fun and easy-to-use mobile app that would bring crypto into the mainstream while giving as many people as possible access to a fairer and more inclusive world.
Thank you for that insight. So can you tell us…What does your business do and where is your company based?
We founded Zumo in 2017 in Edinburgh, Zumo is a purpose-driven fintech business with transparency, accessibility and financial inclusion at its core. Zumo is a decentralised finance platform, and our mission is to bring the benefits of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies to people and businesses everywhere.
Zumo allows you to buy, send and store crypto simply and securely. With Zumo you can exchange crypto seamlessly with traditional currency and pay for goods and services anywhere with our Convertible Debit Card.
We’ve also offering the Zumo crypto-as-a-service platform to other businesses. ZumoKit allows fintechs and financial institutions to rapidly go to market and offer their users the capability to securely hold, buy and sell digital currencies.
Through our technology we provide a secure, yet simple way to engage with a new, digital and decentralised economy.
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What’s the story behind your success? What led to your aha moment? how did you get to where you are now?
I’ve been interested in blockchain as a technology and its various applications, including crypto, since around 2015/16. At that time, there was an incredibly high barrier to entry for consumers – even as someone who was technology literate, it was baffling how many complex and completely new concepts you had to learn.
We believed that there was a gap between the technology, it’s potential application(s) and how it was being presented to consumers and that is where Zumo came from. Our goal is to make crypto safe, accessible and easy to use.
Thank you for sharing that. What’s been your life’s biggest lesson so far?
There is a constant balance in startups between your goal (the thing you are trying to achieve), the team you are working with and the funding and resources that you have to get there. We have been fortunate that we were very clear on the goal (make crypto accessible for everyone, everywhere), we have a great team, many of whom have worked on Zumo since the beginning of the project, and investors that have supported our journey. Balancing all those things can be extremely challenging and at times you’ll need to focus on one area above the others.
Deciding when those times are and how you will still achieve goals when challenges arise (and they will) is something that’s tough to plan for, you have to learn through doing it.
Prior knowledge of the meteoric rise of Bitcoin would certainly have come in handy! In practical terms, I would say understanding how complex and time consuming becoming a regulated business in the crypto space is. We committed very early to becoming a regulated business and we’d still go through that process again but working with regulators in an emerging and technically complex sector comes with a lot of challenges, for both us and the regulators.
If you were to go back in time, what piece of advice would you give to your younger self?
The decisions we take make us the people we are – never regret that. You always learn by doing, so if you have an idea you believe in, prepare as much as possible and then just get on and do it. Even if it fails you will learn something for the next one, or the one after that.
We’re nearly halfway through our interview so it’s a great time to ask how does your business run. What three tools make your business run better?
AWS and Kubernetes help us to manage a complex infrastructure and scale efficiently as our userbase grows. Zendesk helps us manage customer interactions quickly and efficiently.
What do you know now that you wished you had known before?
Prior knowledge of the meteoric rise of Bitcoin would certainly have come in handy! In practical terms, I would say understanding how complex and time consuming becoming a regulated business in the crypto space is. We committed very early to becoming a regulated business and we’d still go through that process again but working with regulators in an emerging and technically complex sector comes with a lot of challenges, for both us and the regulators.
What has been your greatest or proudest achievement or moment?
My proudest achievement so far with Zumo was when we launched the exchange service on the Zumo app, allowing users to buy and sell crypto. It was fundamental to what we wanted to build with Zumo, technically challenging and was the culmination of the development work that we’d undertaken up to that point.
What future life goals do you want to achieve and why?
My focus right now is on continuing the successful trajectory we’ve been on since we launched Zumo together with my co-founder, Nick, and our team. The reward is seeing the positive impact on people’s lives as we realise our vision to bring the benefits of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to everyone, everywhere.
To finish our inspire questions…”We believe that sharing inspiring words can inspire others.” If there was one positive thing you would say to someone to inspire and empower them what would it be and why?
You always learn by doing, so if you have an idea you believe in, prepare as much as possible and then just get on and do it. Even if it fails you will learn something for the next one, or the one after that.
“Thank you it has been great learning more about your founder story and Zumo”
To learn more about Zumo Visit zumo.money
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