Alex Twigg On Cofounding A $1.5 Billion NeoBank Startup And Now Raising Millions To Simplify Website And App Building

In the fast-paced world of fintech, few individuals boast a journey as diverse and impactful as Alex Twigg’s. He shares his remarkable story, from his humble beginnings in the UK to his pivotal role in transforming the banking landscape.

Join us as we explore his experiences, challenges, and triumphs, ultimately leading to the creation of innovative ventures like Judo Bank and his latest venture, Appeggio.

Appeggio has attracted funding worth millions from top-tier investors like Tencent, Builders VC, TechU Ventures, and Khosla Ventures.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Alex Twigg’s journey from starting as a tea boy in a traditional UK bank to becoming a serial entrepreneur in the fintech industry.
• Alex played a pivotal role in launching neo-banks, challenging traditional banking norms, and embracing innovative, customer-centric approaches.
• Judo Bank’s success story reflects the fusion of personalized relationship banking with modern, digitized strategies, setting it apart in the financial landscape.
• Alex’s ability to adapt and thrive in diverse geographies, from UBank in Australia to Trust Bank in Singapore, showcases his global impact on the banking sector.
• Appeggio, https://www.appeggio.com Alex’s latest venture, marks a shift from banking to software, introducing a next-generation no-code platform to revolutionize software development.
• Lessons from Alex emphasize the resilience required for entrepreneurs, navigating uncertainties, near-death experiences, and challenges inherent in building businesses.
• Alex Twigg’s legacy stands as an inspiration, illustrating the transformative power of innovation and adaptability in shaping the future of fintech.

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About Alex Twigg:

Alex Twigg has held various positions in the financial services industry since 2016. In that year, he became Co-Founder and Chief Information Officer of Judo Bank.

In 2017, Alex joined Spriggy as an Advisory Board Member. In 2018, he became the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Appeggio.com, as well as the Non-Executive Director of eftpos Australia and the Member of the Board of Advisors for Douugh.

In 2019, Alex joined UQ Business School as an Advisory Board Member for the Service Innovation Alliance.

In 2020, Alex became the Founder & CEO of Shift Happens Group, Non-Executive Director of Alex Bank, and Chief Executive Officer of Trust Bank.

In 2022, Alex became the Non-Executive Chair of Cape. He has completed education programs with Finsia (Financial Services Institute of Australasia) and the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Connect with Alex Twigg:

• TheOrg
• LinkedIn
• Crunchbase
• FST Media

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Alrighty hello everyone and welcome to the dealmakerr show. So today. We have a really exciting founder. You know, joining us you know founder that has done it multiple times and now he’s on his a latest you know company the last one you know he was able to achieve a one point five billion valuation which he took public. So again, you know we’re going to be talking a lot about building scaling financing also turning page you know and and and going into a new chapter as well as you know learning how to differentiate around the skills. You know that you may need to build things. How to talk to? Um, you know how how to think about incremental change or how to think about innovation and then also how to keep going. You know as an entrepreneur because we all know that it’s not easy. It’s not a straight line so without further ado. Let’s welcome our guest to a Alex Twick welcome to the show. Thanks.

Alex Twigg: Thank you alexandre real pleasure to be here.

Alejandro Cremades: So originally born in the Uk you know, brought up in and raised in the midlands in the u k give us a walkth through memory lane. How was life growing up.

Alex Twigg: Oh it was great I mean I enjoyed life in the in the Uk. It was ah you know, almost a you know, but a really good childhood. Had you know a great great life. Great opportunity and you know, but it’s. A little place the midlands you know the Uk is a small place and you know I was keen to see the rest of the world.

Alejandro Cremades: So in your case you know it’s interesting because you decided to leave school at 18 and then work as a tea boy. So tell us about this decision.

Alex Twigg: Yeah, so look I you know I went through I went through school like everybody does did my a levels as as the year that called in the u k. Um, didn’t do particularly well in them because I’ve discovered cars and girls along the way and that you know were distracted me quite considerably and and eventually my dad always told me go and work where the money is go and work in a bank and so. He was an electronic engineer and so had built our first ah computer on the dining room table when I was eight years old you know an Apple one. So I taught myself to code out a book when I was about 8 um, and then you know. I took his advice in the end and and went to work for the bank in those days, you know it was very traditional old uk bank um, you have to go you started at the very bottom and I literally made the tea twice a day for the whole office and used to take it round. Um. And you have to work your way up to get on to be onto the counter. You know that was that was like 3 jobs in when you got onto the counter but it was a great learning experience. It was the probably the best thing that ever happened to me because.

Alex Twigg: In those days. It was like a proper apprenticeship. You had to go through and do every single role in the bank. Everything from you know, printing checkbooks like you did when I first started all the way through to securities investments foreign exchange lending. Um, and they made you go through your um, your banking exams as well. So I had to study 3 nights a week at college to get those banking exams. Um.

Alejandro Cremades: So I was just going to ask because I mean incredible how you start as a Teboy and and then you go into you know launching you know your own companies. But I guess before even that you know it took you about you know, almost a decade to really be able. Around a decade to be able to really bump into the concept of neobank which kind of like started your journey you know to as an entrepreneur entrepreneur. So this was with egg so tell us about. What really captured. You know what what? What triggered that excitement that passion that interest you know around neobanking where you were involved with xbank.

Alex Twigg: Although an old colleague of mine. Um, introduced me to to edbank and said you know we’re going to do something really special Here. We’re going to you know change the way that banking is viewed in the U k. Um, and we’re going to do it all as a direct bank. Um, you know in the old days of having branches and everything else that I’d been used to um you know this was this was something that was um, a game changer. Um, so you know I. Sort of I’ve always liked to explore new things and try new things so you know it was always a bit of a gamble because you know it could have gone horribly wrong? Um, but the prudential who’s the biggest insurer in the in the Uk were sort of backing backing it. Um, and so ah I sort of you know. Ah, threw my chips in and went all in and joined the team there to help to help launch to launch egg and it was a fabulous experience for me. It really was something that opened my eyes to um. Ah, whole new way of doing things. You know the whole cultural experience a whole way of thinking differently around innovation. Um, a whole new way of ah creating customer propositions and actually.

Alex Twigg: You know, working from the customer experience back. You know working from customer outcomes back to you know what is what are you going to build. Um, you know when we first started you know it was in you know so dotcomboom you know, um, the infrastructure for this stuff. Didn’t exist. Um, you know so you know we were strapping together servers building data centers. Um creating you know, new technology propositions creating entire new customer propositions. Um and creating entirely new business culture. Um. Which I think was the thing that really ah, energized the whole organization. Most I mean you know as ah as ah as a as a banker you know I used to I used to get told off for undoing my top button on my shirt in the branch. Yeah, this was on some of the hotest day that if you have hot days and even neglect the hottest days in England yeah, that used to be frowned upon um, you know and and and you know you you were pretty much excommunicated if you rolled his sleeves up I mean that was like execution. Um. So to go to Ed where we you know it was completely casual dress you know and this was in the late 90 s and this this was not something that happened in any business.

Alex Twigg: Um, you know? ah but the executive team there liia team. There was so forward thinking and you know created an environment where people could really flourish and grow and actually do new things and that for me was um, the turning point and that’s how I got introduced to nearbank.

Alejandro Cremades: Well talking talking talking about the turning point here was because you had the opportunity of working in places like Boston or New York you know as part of this experience but there was a phone call that you got you know that changed the course of everything.

Alex Twigg: And that was my first.

Alex Twigg: Yeah, absolutely um I’d I’d left I’d left ah egg and gone over to work in Boston for a couple of years um and I got a phone call from a head hunter in Australia saying um. the national australia bank are thinking of launching a direct bank. They think you might know something about that have you ever thought living in Australia and I said no um, very long story short I’d never thought so I never thought my wife Alison would agree to moving to Australia but um. Turns out she was quite excited by the whole thing and twelve weeks later me Allison and the 3 children were coming on the plane for Australia for first time um to to help build what is now ubank which is the national australia bank stitched along.

Alejandro Cremades: Which is an incredible because I mean obviously see that that that that you bank that you’re alluding to I mean now you know if it could be worth you know, put a valuation or a price like you know we’re talking about multiple billions which is remarkable. How was the the experience of. Building something you know for the first time you know and obviously you had the the big umbrella you know above you so it was you know it was more like you had a parachute right? if things were not to work. Well not like doing anything without the backing you know or the resources and or the capital. But. How was it like you know this first entrepreneurial or entrepreneurial type of journey.

Alex Twigg: Ah, it was um, you know everybody everybody talks about entrepreneurial activity and um, it is very different and very the same as entrepreneurial activity. The differences are um.

Alex Twigg: Particularly inside a very large organization is politics. Um, you have to deal with the internal politics of an organization. Um, much more than you have to do when you do in an entrepreneurial business and what I mean by that is you know we were trying to create a new bank. Um, inside a bank Now. There’s lots of people that work inside that bank that think their bank’s actually quite good. Thank you very much and why do we need a new one and and you know why? Why should I help you take my customers away right? Um, Why should I help you take the investment that you’re that throw away from me. Um, that you know I you know I can prove I need because I’ve got customers. You know, but you’re going to spend a lot of money on building something new for no customers right? So It’s a very very different experience. But the the challenges of actually. Building trying to decide what to build creating a brand creating a customer proposition innovating around that proposition and actually um, taking a product to market are pretty much exactly the same. Um, you know there are things that aren’t the same. You know you don’t you don’t have to go through. Ah, you know, ah raising venture Capital That’s ah you know that’s a huge difference. Um, and but it also is a huge problem because most folk that work in large organizations are used to this.

Alex Twigg: Very familiar process of you know and I’m going to start a new project I need some money for the project I’m going to go to some internal committee to get that money for the project if I run out of money I’ll go back to the committee and generally speaking. It’s a um.

Alex Twigg: Ah, fairly easy process certainly in comparison to raising Vc Capital and the consequences of getting it wrong are significantly if better easier. Um, now that generally makes people inside large organizations. Who are trying to do things differently. It makes it really hard because the processes inside large organizations for for for spending money aren’t there for doing things differently. They’re only there for doing things the way they’ve always been done and so creating and. An environment in which you can actually drive through those processes and create a way that you can create value for that organization. Avoid what I call the antibodies in in large organizations. Yeah yeah, everybody is there to help right until they’re not. And you know that you know that’s when it it becomes it. That’s when it becomes an issue now you convert that to um, you know the entrepreneurial side of things. Um, you’re starting from a um, ah much lower base. You don’t have the support mechanisms available to you but the. The ideation the creation process the drive the tenacity that you still need or you need in both those is pretty much the same.

Alejandro Cremades: So then in this case for you I mean you you did that for quite a bit. You know we’re talking about 5 years and eventually you decide to turn page. You know, obviously it was a really good exposure here into how the whole you know building and scaling. You know could look like.

Alex Twigg: Dip.

Alejandro Cremades: But then you did a couple of years you know incorporate until you receive a um, kind of like ah like ah like ah like a call of some sorts from these friends that you were working with that were taking a look at the way that things were unfolding. With Uk banking licenses. So 1 thing led to the next and then all of a sudden you decide to mortgage everything. so so what? what what was that conviction. You know, walk us through that thought process that led to the launch of eudobank.

Alex Twigg: Yeah, so Joseph he and David Hornerry were looking at what was going on in apra which is the Uk regulator just past the gfc about them list. Ah sorry that um the pra are are issuing licenses to new banks. And particularly al themore in shorterbrook which were the smme focused banks and in the Uk. Um, and ah we had an inkling that the apra who’s the Australian regulator would do would follow suit and start to. Start to do the same thing start to issue new viences so yet. So um, the thinking was well. There is very little banking competition in Australia. There’s 4 major banks which own 90% of the market in retail and commercial banking. Um, they have gone through a process of and descalling and taking out costs from their organizations because you know they’re they’re all pretty much x-g growth. So the only way that they can drive The bottom line is to deliver. Cost savings. Um, we’d had a huge royal commission into the ethical behavior of the banks here in Australia. Um, so the timing was perfect for a new enrant. The timing was perfect for somebody that could actually get in. Um.

Alex Twigg: Yeah, really provide what customers wanted which was face-to-face relationship banking business banking. Um, ah, helping customers with their businesses and helping them create. You know the the capital structures that would enable them to grow. Um. Which all of the big banks had ah pulled back from you know unless you wanted to borrow $2000000 from a big bank in australia you had to ring cork center um now what we wanted to do was provide that high quality service bank to customers which is what they actually wanted. Um. But also to be able to do that you needed to take the cost out of the business you needed to be able to put the costs where the customers wanted it which was in the frontline bankers and so what we tried to do from there was and digitize everything behind the banker. So rather than rather than digitizing the banker. And having all the back office manual processes. We wanted to swap the thing around. Um and that’s where the strategy the technology strategy for dudo came in which was um has kept being come to be known as everything as a service but we managed to create.

Alex Twigg: The world’s first born in the cloud bank um didn’t own a single server didn’t employ a single developer both together over 50 software as a service platforms to create an end-toend banking proposition in less than 18 months what that meant was it gave you ah, an incredible cost structure. Um. Run the business. Um, and it’s always a bit of a stretch. Um you know, but the original. The original vision was that um you know a banker could go out to a customs premises could look around the factory look at the books agree a deal and go back. Their car in the car park complete all the documentation on their iphone and send it to the customer before they left. That was the that was their original vision now. We didn’t quite get exactly there but we got pretty close right? So to be able to create that and that process so empowered bankers that could make real decisions. Um, and actually ah interact with customers in the way they wanted um with ah with a business bank that had the cost structure of a you know a digital business that was that was the model that was the the opportunity. Um, and you know it it went. It went very well. You know we took that business from powerpoint to um, a one and a half billion dollar usd ipo so that was ah that was ah was a fantastic journey.

Alejandro Cremades: And before the ipo What was the um, what was the total amount that you guys had raised.

Alex Twigg: Um, ah in usd it would be about um, half five hundred million

Alejandro Cremades: So what was the yeah, what was that journey like to of racing money because that was a new a new thing for you.

Alex Twigg: Oh look that was a very big eye open all round for the whole team. Um, you know there was ah it was a tremendous effort. Raise that amount of money and trying to get it out of Australia was almost impossible the vc community in Australia is is nowhere near as advanced as it is in the us or the Uk. Um, and you know we’re raising money for a bank. Right? So it’s not like we’re raising money for you know, a small tech startup. Um, you have to have you know liquidity capital for the regulators you have to you know you have to have capital to actually be able to lend to customers. So there’s a huge um. Ongoing need a bank is a very capital hungry business. There’s a huge ongoing need to raise capital. Um, so you know the you know the amount of capital we need to read to build the business in the first place was relatively small in comparison to the amount of capital we needed to raise to actually run the business and drive it forward. Um. What that meant was that you know, um, ah particularly David Horry was you know he was on a plane going to the Uk the us the Middle East virtually every week um you know and trying to build relationships with with the vcs.

Alex Twigg: Um, the key thing there was though was about creating ah long-term trusted relationships with those vcs so you know you know I think David tells a great story. You know when you turn up for the first time you know they sit there with their notebook. And ah, you know, write down everything you say um and the second time you go back. They get their old notebook out and they go oh you told us this last time and oh we look you telling us the same thing again. That’s good and and then you go back the third time and the fourth time and you know you have to keep doing what you said you would do um. You know to be able to ah get confidence in that that you’re not you know, just flitting from idea to idea and you’re moving around that you’re showing a level of consistency and reliability. And that you can deliver on the execution of what you wanted to do and that was I think the thing that opened the gate for us eventually? Um, but like every good startup you know we came twice ah to you know, be 24 hours away from bankruptcy you know. Once one of our major investors dropped out literally on Christmas Eve and just disappeared never to be seen again. Um, which which meant our whole round.

Alex Twigg: Um, collapsed because we had to find somebody to replace that. Luckily we did it took it took six weeks to get that back and into running but that was you know luck literally was a ah near death experience know earlier and that you know we’d literally got down to the last. Dollars that we had left in the bank to pay the team when we when we eventually found a group of family offices down here in in Australia that would support us and if it wasn’t for them. Dudo wouldn’t exist. Um you know and and that’s you know I think every founder has these stories right? Every founder has. Ah, you know similar near-death experiences and but you know you you have to keep pushing forward and have to keep driving the driving the business. Um, and you know the the once you get through that capital raising process. Um. Once you get on the on the you know the first rung of the ladder of that capital raising process. You know it’s not it doesn’t aim there. Um, even for a non-hungry bank. Yeah, a non-hungry business capital business that isn’t a bank. You know.

Alex Twigg: A rounds B Rounds C rounds you know trying to keep through that process keeping relationships with those investors keeping um you know everybody moving forward with the organization in the way that you want is is vital. You know you could almost you Know. You could almost say capital raising for a founder is a full time job. Um, and and then you got to build the business in in your yeah in your ah in your spare time.

Alejandro Cremades: It really is it really is it really is you don’t want to leave the business hanging. Obviously you know the investors are expecting you to keep pushing now. Obviously the company ended up going public as you were alluding to a one point five billion valuation at the peak. But then eventually for you. You know you like buildings things. So at what point do you realize hey I think maybe you know it’s time to turn the page here.

Alex Twigg: Ah, look on. Ah as I said you can hear from my sort of career history I’m ah I’m a serial builder of things and I um I just you know once you get to the point where ah, you’re into that. Let’s not call it business as usual, but where you’re now in incremental growth as opposed to. Exponential growth. Um, you know that’s when I yeah like to find new challenges. Um, and so I I left Judo just before the Ipo. Um and went up to.

Alex Twigg: Singapore to help the the standard charter bank get a digital licence from the the regulator there. So the first is new digital licence to be issued in Singapore um, that was right in the middle of covid. Um. So that was a that was an incredible experience. So um, you know I was due to head up to Singapore and go to live up there for a couple of years and help them with that and couldn’t go because everything shut down. Um, and so I ended up having to ah build a team um create a platform. Um, and get a banking license from a regulator without ever leaving my home office in Sydney in a different country. Um, and that you know through the middle of a pandemic that was. A very different experience and puts a whole new level of of sort of complexity into things. Um, yeah that that bank now is is is is well and truly launched. It’s called trust bank. Ah, incredible you know incredible uptake there you know I think they’ve got a million customers in their first six weeks. Um, you know it’s absolutely going again. Gangbusters um.

Alex Twigg: As a joint venture with the fair price group which is a supermarket chain in the the leading supermarket chain in in Singapore in you know, another great learning experience for me, you know, trying to deal with yet another geography another set of cultures another way of building a proposition. Through a different market segment. Um and the different sort of cultural aspect of that market segment. Um, you know I was very lucky to understand the the supermarket side of things through my time at woolworths and but you know I love building things and that that was ah another great experience which um. You know, ah you know is leads me on to my next my next step adventure.

Alejandro Cremades: But let’s talk about the next one. What’s the next one? okay.

Alex Twigg: Um, well the next one is a noco platform. So It’s a software business as opposed to a bank this time So um, sort of it as say of my previous life I’ve sort of always lived in this gray area between you know, hardcore banker and and and and technologies. Um, and so this time I’m flipping to the other side of the equation. Um, but if you if you think back to what we did at Judo and building. Um a banking platform by bolting together 50 software as a service applications. Um.

Alex Twigg: That has some great benefits which we’ve already talked about but it also in the long term has some downsides now for Dudo. Those downsides weren’t particularly significant because when you think about software as a service. Um, the reason why you can get the cost benefits out of it is um. Because somebody else has made the investments in the platform somebody else is paying for that and you’re spreading those costs around all of their customers As soon as you try and change the platform though the software platform. Um, you end up.

Alex Twigg: Basically getting the worst of both worlds. You get a platform that you don’t own and you get a platform and you get all the costs associated with building and maintaining a platform so you’ve got to stay really vanilla to the platform now. This is great from a judo perspective because customer interactions were driven by the bankers. Um, but in most other organizations. Um your customer interactions now are primarily driven by the digital interactions whether they be web phone app. Whatever it may be and what you’re seeing is the the saas software landscape change and it changed. In the time we did udo so when they first started it was you know you’ve got the customer experience that you got but now most saas platforms are turning to you know Headless Saas platforms they will offer a a digital customer experience but they’re saying to you. Um, here’s our Api catalog. And build your own digital experience on top of that now. Um, that’s fine. Um, and you know if you’ve got an ecosystem of those saas platforms. You’ve now got an ecosystem of apis to deal with and then what you have to do is then you have to create a um, ah. A technology team that’s capable of ah building a digital experience on top of those Apis now. So now you’re getting the worst of both worlds again now you’ve got all those development costs. You’ve got all the risks and everything associated with it. So what we started to think about with my my cofounder James lad is how do we create.

Alex Twigg: Um, a saas experience as a service platform so that enables um, non-technical folk to create digital experiences for customers and orchestrate over the apis of headless saas platforms so that you now you you get back to actually the benefits the original benefits that you were talking about and we started to look into this and and um, you know we wanted to you know that that that puts it in the framework of a no-code platform. Um now. When you look at the the ecosystem of no coats out there today and there’s lots of them and I I talk about a continuum at one end of the spectrum you you have the big end of town. You uncorked mendics appian etc. Um, and they are really lowcode platforms. They’re not nocopl platforms. Um, they produce high quality code they were working inside. Ah an enterprise software delivery lifecycle model and you know, but you need to be a highly skilled engineer to use them so you know that um makes sure existing engineering teams highly productive. But it doesn’t really solve the problem that you’re talking about at the other end of the spectrum. You’ve got what are called the citizen developer platforms so bubble airtable ah make etc those are the ones that sort of sit to the other end of the spectrum now. They’re brilliant at democratizing software development. Um.

Alex Twigg: You know they allow almost anybody to learn to use them and you can create websites and apps and stuff. Their biggest challenge is that they’re generally being designed for um or being have a challenge with non-functional components of of things. So. Don’t scale particularly well they’re not particularly secure reliability etc of the issue so they’re great for small and mvps. They’re great for you know building small businesses and and stuff but they don’t really live in the in the enterprise world. The problem that both ends of the spectrum share is that. Which actually they share with traditional software development is that you have to build things 3 times once for the web once for Android once for ios maybe once for salesforce maybe once forap and so you end up with this. You know that’s a multiplier effect. You know you have 3 teams. But free lots of support 3 lots of different processes all the stuff that goes on so what we tried to do with with apeggio in a nutshell is create an enterprise grade citizen developer platform that enables you to design once. And deploy to all of those platforms for the same effort. So. That’s really the the 1 sentence helicopter pitch for for apeggio. Um, and ah you know James and I have built banks for the last thirty years right so we only know how to build enterprise.

Alex Twigg: Bank Grade platforms.

Alejandro Cremades: So 1 one of the things that that that you also have as ah as a builder as an entrepreneur is to really understand to um what it makes sense to keep going right and they how to keep going and I’m sure that this is something that many of the people that are listening right now are wondering. So. What are your thoughts on this.

Alex Twigg: Um, ah for for an entrepreneur I think the the resilience and the ability to keep going are the number one skill that you need, um, you know the amount of things that go wrong rejections. Um, you know. Outweigh the the things that go right? 99 to 1 um, you know it is. It’s not a straight road. Um I always remember an old mentor of mine in egg told me once he said I asked him so what are we going to do and he said I don’t know.

Alex Twigg: Um, and I said well what do you mean you don’t know surely you must know what we’re going to do and he said no um, the analogy I’ve got for you is this which is I know we’re going to I know we’re going to America and we’re traveling west but I don’t know what the journey is going to look like and for me. That is the perfect example of how every founder gets through this process. Um, knowing what the destination is knowing what your goal is and how it’s you know how great it’s going to be when you get there. But. Having very little clue of the journey that you’re going to go on and the twists and turns that are going to come along the way the roadblocks you know the near-death experiences the you know the the sales that you thought were bolted on disappear. You know the the funding that that disappears. Um. And yeah, it’s very much ah you know and I always talk about this when it comes to the difference between people that live in the corporate world and how well they can um migrate to being an entrepreneur. Um. You know the level of uncertainty and ambiguity that you face as ah as an entrepreneur is enormous where the levels of ambiguity uncertainty in a large corporate recognition up relatively pretty small and you know i’ve.

Alex Twigg: I’ve got a probably now I’ve probably got my success rate up to 50% of people that I can pick in large organizations that can make the leap into into startups I was at 20% when I first started this? Um, but. You know most you know I’ve had people. You know that have had fantastic corporate careers that have joined startups and you know run screaming from the building after a month going you lot are mad I can’t deal with this like this this is just too hard. It doesn’t from you. Um, and so. You know you’ve got to be able to be cope with that level of of uncertainty and ambiguity and be able to create within it be able to consistently think on your feet and turn negatives into positives. Um and not have to look for. Um. You know affirmation that you’re making the right decision all the time you’ve got to really be reliant completely reliant on yourself.

Alejandro Cremades: So then so then in that case you know imagine if I was to put you into a time machine and I bring you back in time maybe to that moment where you know your your your friends. You know we’re calling you you know to perhaps you know start one that up becoming Judo a bank.

Alex Twigg: Um, is it.

Alejandro Cremades: And let’s say you had an opportunity to go there and and give yourself 1 piece of advice before launching you know any type of company but would that be and why given what you know now.

Alex Twigg: Um, the one piece of advice and that you might think this is odd but 1 piece of advice I give myself is um, make sure that you have had really.

Alex Twigg: Open conversations with your partner and your family about the amount of time effort distraction. Um risk and ah and general stress that comes with. Building any sort of business. It outstrips anything in the corporate world. Um, and you have to have really supportive family group around you I mean I’m incredibly lucky to to have Allison and my family you know they’ve supported me in every silly adventure I’ve ever taken on. Um. And they know that you know I do crazy stuff and you know you know I’ve worked twenty four seven sometimes and you know yeah and that I’ll be on planes getting off to stupid places different places but that’s for that’s the The biggest thing for me and you know, um, you can cope with most other stuff. But if you’re if you haven’t got that support at home if you haven’t got a partner and a family to understand why you’re doing this stuff. It’s it’s if it’s impossible.

Alejandro Cremades: I I.

Alex Twigg: And I’ve seen I’ve seen many of my friends go through an awful lot of pain because of it.

Alejandro Cremades: I can totally see that I can totally see that Alex so for the people that are listening that will love to reach out and say hi. What is the best way for them to do so.

Alex Twigg: Um, email alex at apeggio.com is a double p e double g I o patio dot com.

Alejandro Cremades: You say enough? Well hey Alex thank you so much for being on the deal maker show today. It has been an honor to have you with us.

Alex Twigg: Um, it’s been a real pleasure. Thank you very much indeed for having me on.

*****

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