Meet Austria-Based Monkee — A Fintech With More Than 80% Women as Clients — Founder Interview
- Juan Diego Parra Castillo
- 2 days ago
- 27 min read
This blog post first appeared first on old medium publication (https://medium.com/startuprad-io), and was moved to this blog with the relaunch of our website in summer 2024.
This article is part of our coverage of Scaleup Founder Interviews from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Executive Summary
This blog post first appeared first on old medium publication (https://medium.
The best way to identify investors and cooperation partners for early-stage startups.
This is one of our interviews, covering a startup from Tirol, Austria, the fintech Monkee (https://monkee.
The startup Monkee is based in Tyrol, one of the states of Austria (https://en.
The Monkee-App also helps with (retail)-partners to save money with discounts to get your actual savings goals cheaper.
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Meet Austria-Based Monkee — A Fintech With More Than 80% Women as Clients — Founder Interview Startuprad.io brings you independent coverage of the key developments shaping the startup and venture capital landscape across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
This blog post first appeared first on old medium publication (https://medium.com/startuprad-io), and was moved to this blog with the relaunch of our website in summer 2024.
With Monkee I am combining my passions for finance and what I learned in the area of habit forming technologyMartin Granig, CEO and Co-Founder Monkee
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The Founder
This is one of our interviews, covering a startup from Tirol, Austria, the fintech Monkee (https://monkee.rocks/). We have Martin Granig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-granig-52775054/) in the interview, CEO and co-founder of the fintech. Martin is an engineer by training, having worked more than a decade at Swarovski, in his last position he was leading the global innovation department. He is also currently working on a Ph.D. in savings behavior. It may not surprise you now that Monkee is a startup helping you to save money and with vouchers on the spending as well. During his studies, he also attended 北大 BeiDa (Peking University), Fudan University 復旦大學, London Business School, SDA Bocconi, Ashridge Business School and many more.
Nudges are only slight tips in the right direction, if someone is already in the process of making the right decision to form habits.Martin Granig, CEO and Co-Founder Monkee
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The Startup
The startup Monkee is based in Tyrol, one of the states of Austria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrol). The goal of Monkee is to improve the financial well-being of its clients. The app works with small nodes in order to help you save money, either for your rainy-day fund or towards an actual goal like a vacation, a laptop or another large purchase.
The Monkee-App also helps with (retail)-partners to save money with discounts to get your actual savings goals cheaper. They are also in the process of getting partners for daily necessities.
What really differentiates Monkee from other fintechs is that they have 84% women as active clients. That turns the normal client base of fintechs upside down. On the other hand, their female clients also like to interact more frequently with the app.
The Monkee App
Money worries are already the No 1 worry for most people.Martin Granig, CEO and Co-Founder Monkee
Venture Capital Funding
Monkee is currently raising a new round of venture capital, they are currently planning to close the round end of 2021.
There are many things coming together for Monkee so we could attract more women as clients.Martin Granig, CEO and Co-Founder Monkee
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The Video Interview is set to go live on Thursday, September 16th, 2021, at 17.00 CET
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Further Readings / Additional Resources
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The Interviewer
This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:LinkedInTwitterEmail
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Automated Transcript
00:00:00.000 → 00:00:07.920Music.
00:00:07.762 → 00:00:13.725Startuprad.io podcast and YouTube blog covering the German startup scene.
00:00:14.127 → 00:00:19.486With News interviews and Live Events.
00:00:19.762 → 00:00:33.008Hello and welcome everybody this is Joe from startupradio your startup podcast and you to block from Germany as well as the world’s first internet radio station dedicated to startups and tech companies today
00:00:32.960 → 00:00:41.938it would not surprise you have another India guest here but this time the interview gets the special not only does he run
00:00:41.917 → 00:00:53.560fintech with more than 80% women ask clients but they are also from Austria therefore I would like to welcome Martin hey how you doing.
00:00:53.845 → 00:00:55.910Hi Joe thanks for having me
00:00:55.763 → 00:01:07.820it’s a total black sure to have you here and ask people can already see who are watching this on YouTube you already have your monkey sign here so for everybody who’s
00:01:07.664 → 00:01:13.536listening to the audio podcast that’s a monkey Mo n k,
00:01:13.668 → 00:01:20.567e ee with a double e and I really love your url monkey
00:01:20.447 → 00:01:30.667rocks he really cool stuff and we will totally get into with you guys making a differently what are you doing,
00:01:30.835 → 00:01:39.426different but first let’s talk a little bit about you because I realized you are an engineer.
00:01:39.676 → 00:01:48.501By training and I found it totally fascinating that you attended to universities in China beta the,
00:01:48.624 → 00:01:59.691Peking University Beijing University one of the usually it’s said to be the Harvard of China and food and Asia Fudan University
00:01:59.517 → 00:02:03.733and he did a lot of courses Executive Education
00:02:03.640 → 00:02:12.744and you’re working on a PhD in savings behavior Can you take us through this journey and what do you learned there.
00:02:13.344 → 00:02:24.879Yeah sure so by as you mentioned by background I’m a mechanical engineer and after after that I started working at a company called Swarovski its austin-based jury company.
00:02:25.083 → 00:02:32.018And because for me it was always clear that after kind of doing some kind of engineer I need to earn some money.
00:02:32.204 → 00:02:42.280And while working there I realized that I would really love to dig a little bit little bit more deeper into the topics of Business Administration and marketing and then I studied.
00:02:42.728 → 00:02:46.880Studying two University degrees parallel to my job.
00:02:47.067 → 00:02:54.136Was a very busy time studying in lunch time in the evenings on the weekends and.
00:02:54.421 → 00:03:00.834During my work at Swarovski I was traveling quite a lot to you to Asia and in particular China,
00:03:00.930 → 00:03:09.152and I really love China and the Chinese culture Chinese food and this is where I decided that I also would like to do kind of a,
00:03:09.185 → 00:03:16.912Executive Education course for three or four months in China where I had the chance to study the beta and the feud I’m University.
00:03:18.142 → 00:03:22.070You love China what’s your favorite dish,
00:03:22.202 → 00:03:36.897there’s so many because there’s not these giant Chinese food like we know it here there’s so many different Cuisines there yeah so but I love picking duck which is something you would never get here in Austria.
00:03:37.560 → 00:03:47.268Yes exactly the roast duck yeah I like the whole ingredients those dumplings yeah the dumplings will they won’t they
00:03:47.085 → 00:04:00.600jokes about some Mmm Yeah the hot and sour soup he get in Beijing I also like that I even got used to it for breakfast when I was living there really really cool and we may have for all.
00:04:00.939 → 00:04:02.824Let’s say for the men
00:04:02.758 → 00:04:15.904not in a committed relationship yet we may tell them what’s rawski is everybody who has a girlfriend already knows I’m here in Germany and I do believe all over Europe you found you find them
00:04:15.829 → 00:04:25.554in the city centers basically they are making jewelry out of very special very klitzy glass,
00:04:25.677 → 00:04:35.196Chris told something like that eh you you can totally correct me there and they make very nice jewelry.
00:04:35.454 → 00:04:41.479And most of the women I love this but guys to be sure,
00:04:41.548 → 00:04:51.553ask them before I have the personal experience that it can really split women between their love them and they hate them so
00:04:51.478 → 00:04:59.709so if you don’t like sparkled and Swarovski the brand for you yes and if she loves Sparkle or if you love sparkling.
00:05:00.192 → 00:05:14.437You’re all set no problem at all and what did he do there and what did you learn it because I realized you’ve spent there and wanted to decade like 16 years at 12 ski what do you do there and what did he learn there.
00:05:14.902 → 00:05:16.417Me I had,
00:05:16.576 → 00:05:28.498the chance to every two to three years to something different there so I entered the company as being a project manager within the product development area so I was developing jewelry and other products.
00:05:28.909 → 00:05:36.564And after then I finished my University degree of Business Administration I switched to the marketing side of the business,
00:05:36.723 → 00:05:46.845we’re after some reorganization that had the chance to to lead a very large product group as director product management being responsible for the overall product group,
00:05:47.013 → 00:05:56.009and after the next reorganization had the chance to lead the global traits marketing organizations are being responsible for B2B marketing basically.
00:05:56.249 → 00:06:07.352And my last carrier step it’s rough ski was being responsible for the global Innovation management department and there had the chance to decide the more,
00:06:07.457 → 00:06:16.633let’s a traditional type of innovation projects to also work for a lot of explorative projects for in particular one of these rawski family members.
00:06:16.819 → 00:06:25.564And it was all a lot about digital mute digital business models in the area of activity tracking emotions tracking so,
00:06:25.588 → 00:06:31.982how could we use the real estate on the body of the consumer in order to build new business models basically.
00:06:32.375 → 00:06:41.390And this is where also dick quite deep into the topic of gamification Behavioral design and how to use data in order to help people improve their habits.
00:06:41.783 → 00:06:48.321And read a lot about notching had the chance to talk with a lot of very interesting people in this area.
00:06:48.660 → 00:06:56.972And as I also I was always very passionate about the topic of Finance so since I’m very young I am very actively trading so.
00:06:57.294 → 00:07:02.644With monkey I’m basically combining my passion for finance and what I learned in the area of.
00:07:03.235 → 00:07:08.765Habit forming technology so to say and started building together with my friends.
00:07:08.997 → 00:07:16.138Monkee which is at the end of product that should help people improve their financial habits and save more money for what’s really important to them
00:07:16.036 → 00:07:25.690you’ve been talking about not trying here and we may add for everybody who’s not familiar with the term basically it’s when you have
00:07:25.606 → 00:07:27.040a consumer,
00:07:27.181 → 00:07:36.862and he’s about to make a decision or somebody who’s about to make a right decision in terms of like healthy healthy food or stuff like this you just
00:07:36.724 → 00:07:45.486not stem a tiny bit in the right direction so basically you’re not trying to completely influence this but you try to snatch them,
00:07:45.510 → 00:07:49.177in the right direction so it’s basically nothing.
00:07:49.444 → 00:07:59.079I totally don’t want to do it it’s like they are very close to decision and they just need one one more tip into into the right direction is this approximately right,
00:07:59.112 → 00:08:05.390yeah so notches are basically soft pushes into bringing people into the right habits where.
00:08:05.774 → 00:08:13.366The people always have to change to do differently so it’s not kind of manipulating it’s not giving them no other chances,
00:08:13.525 → 00:08:16.309and usually notching is used a lot in the areas of.
00:08:17.108 → 00:08:26.554And happiness so those are kind of the three big areas where in the United States there are already a lot of cases of we’re not Shin matching is very
.00:08:27.325 → 00:08:32.766Successfully implemented and just taking activity trackers for example so.
00:08:33.060 → 00:08:41.543If you have this daily Target of walking 10,000 steps and you’re receiving a push notification hecho today you just walk 9000 steps,
00:08:41.702 → 00:08:52.048that’s already a notch because that shows you that you are a little bit behind Target you can’t decide to stay on your couch and watch the next Netflix episode but,
00:08:52.199 → 00:09:01.915you might say Okay I want to reach this target stand up and walk Fred not a thousand steps so that’s already a natural example and we’re using that a lot within our app as well.
00:09:02.299 → 00:09:10.233We already talking about the a bad guy just missing one piece here.
00:09:10.734 → 00:09:23.817When did she decide after 16 years at 12 ski when and why did you decide to leave and how did you get started with the idea of monkey.
00:09:24.148 → 00:09:25.744Yeah I mean.
00:09:25.966 → 00:09:37.861Since I’m very young and always a very restless person so there’s hardly an evening where I’m sitting on the couch doing nothing so I always had project beside my corporate job that’s russki.
00:09:38.137 → 00:09:47.421Um but then I think it started and I always plan to do something myself work on my own project but I never really had this one idea where I said okay.
00:09:47.752 → 00:09:57.693I’m quitting a really a job that I like which is which has a good salary I mean I’m married I’m having a kid which makes it makes it a lot easier to quit your job right.
00:09:57.897 → 00:10:07.064But then in 2017 16 I was able to quite successfully build my own rainy day fund with.
00:10:07.431 → 00:10:15.427You sometimes call it fuck you money so a part of money which gives you the space to say the room to say okay I’m doing something differently,
00:10:15.605 → 00:10:25.591and then I mean I mentioned already that within the corporate world that was every two to three years really large reorganization within the within the company,
00:10:25.714 → 00:10:33.432and after many re organizations at one point I decided that I don’t want to be at the front for the next few organizations.
00:10:33.861 → 00:10:44.397And so on the one hand side I was building up my pot of money which give me enough room to also that’s a promise to my wife and my kit that.
00:10:44.736 → 00:10:56.874I’m not going all-in but I’m we have the room to work on my own project and there is still some money left and if everything goes wrong which gives us enough space to work on Plan B and on the other hand side.
00:10:57.096 → 00:11:07.542I was a little bit let’s exhausted with regards to running the next reorganization and I started having more and more conversations with my with my friend who was also
00:11:07.413 → 00:11:16.886at this time working at Swarovski but in Switzerland and and we were talking more and more about different ideas.
00:11:17.099 → 00:11:27.482And at one point we said okay besides a chop which consumes us for more than one hundred percent we’re never going to be able to work really.
00:11:27.659 → 00:11:39.122On a new thing and we just decided to quit our jobs we had three different ideas we gave ourselves three months to go in all three different ideas a little bit more in detail and then we decided to.
00:11:39.443 → 00:11:46.026Go to Berlin for two weeks going to different startup Hap’s get a little bit let’s say.
00:11:46.329 → 00:11:53.561From inspired by what’s happening there and I’ll plan was that at the end of those two weeks we’re deciding for which of the three ideas we are going.
00:11:54.233 → 00:12:00.781To run and at the end we decided on date number one already that what’s today called monkey that this is going to be the idea.
00:12:01.066 → 00:12:04.931And started prepare ourself within those two weeks in Berlin.
00:12:05.720 → 00:12:14.816And this was beginning of throughout the 18th and since then we are working full-time on monkey I would be curious.
00:12:15.389 → 00:12:17.678What was the,
00:12:17.729 → 00:12:32.550point that notched you and your co-founder towards monkey and the second one of course would have been the other business ideas I mean it had been three completely different ideas I mean it was.
00:12:33.258 → 00:12:37.672End of 2017 it was the really hot time of regards,
00:12:37.831 → 00:12:48.196chainsaw there has been one idea in the blockchain area one idea more in the food delivery area and then this idea kind of this feedback idea and.
00:12:48.490 → 00:12:58.567As already mentioned we are both always have been very passionate about Finance we have been looking a lot to the United States what’s going on there with regards to finance and we saw that there is this,
00:12:58.744 → 00:13:02.203emerging Financial well-being Financial Health trend.
00:13:02.516 → 00:13:11.908Which in the United States already created huge organizations huge startups with millions of customers and we realized that Europe.
00:13:12.139 → 00:13:23.359Like with many things it’s a few years behind and there was these PST to on the horizon and we realized that as soon as PSD to really hits the ground.
00:13:23.572 → 00:13:31.164There might be kind of this this might be a really hot topic within the startup world and we might have a window of opportunity to start working now on monkey,
00:13:31.260 → 00:13:40.553to until peace T2 is really there and thanks have to implement that we are set up and can leverage those new opportunities and,
00:13:40.694 → 00:13:48.943during the time in Berlin and also before we had the chance to talk to a few friends in the startup World talk to a few.
00:13:49.219 → 00:14:00.025People will know in the Venture Capital Area reflected a little bit on those three ideas and at the end I mean we like the idea we thought it’s really something that.
00:14:00.328 → 00:14:03.563Could potentially deliver.
00:14:03.884 → 00:14:16.904Part of the solution for a large social Challenge and I mean after 15 years in the corporate world after building up your own kind of rainy day fund we really wanted to do something that has an impact.
00:14:17.333 → 00:14:24.835And not just anything and those have been reasons why at the end we decided to go for what’s called monkey today.
00:14:25.129 → 00:14:31.209I would be curious because monkey is a savings app,
00:14:31.341 → 00:14:38.753and you talked a lot about raising a or saving for a rainy day fund,
00:14:38.795 → 00:14:50.978is there like a connection to your also offer tools or reward behaviors of your clients that you did as well in building up your rainy day fund.
00:14:51.272 → 00:14:59.269Yes I mean so with monkey we have the vision to help millions of people improve their financial well-being because why Financial well-being.
00:14:59.572 → 00:15:08.280Because we know that and studies show that very clearly that money worries are already the number one factor for stress money worries are negatively impacting,
00:15:08.439 → 00:15:17.535physical health mental health relationships work performance so many worries they are really a thing and when looking into what’s really stressing people.
00:15:17.883 → 00:15:26.573It is not how much money they are going to have when they are retiring its the money for the next 12 to 18 months and there we are really talking about.
00:15:26.849 → 00:15:40.382Rainy day fund we’re talking about expenses that might come up over the next 12 to 18 month it we’re talking about what’s going to happen if my kid comes into school and needs a laptop and this is why we decided that.
00:15:40.622 → 00:15:47.683In the first step monkeys really going to be about helping them saving money for the short to mid-term.
00:15:48.031 → 00:15:52.661I’ll come of perspective and then only in The Next Step kind of.
00:15:53.019 → 00:16:01.160Adding new products which might help to then also improve Financial Health for the longer-term perspective but we thought that,
00:16:01.265 → 00:16:11.242as being a start-up in the german-speaking world where there is where consumers are anyhow a little bit more conservative we assist start-up we first need to build up Trust.
00:16:11.518 → 00:16:20.451And before someone is going to trust us with their retirement money we need to build our trust with more shorter-term smallest setting targets.
00:16:20.728 → 00:16:22.288And what,
00:16:22.357 → 00:16:31.605basically we’re doing this the whole the whole list app is circled around concrete saving Target so people go into the app they enter what you want to say for,
00:16:31.701 → 00:16:39.986monkee already here start snatching what other people’s are saving for so it’s a little bit like the Amazon people who buy this also bought that kind of approach so,
00:16:40.019 → 00:16:49.538by getting inspired what other people are saving for it’s not us telling you it’s a lot of people are doing this you also getting some inspiration for what,
00:16:49.688 → 00:17:04.238what makes might make sense for me to save as well then we are taking those longer-term saving targets and breaking them down into more motivating weekly challenges so because we as people humans we tend to procrastinate so everything that’s more in the future.
00:17:04.596 → 00:17:11.890We just postpone that for as long as possible and just the near future that’s more important to us the problem with.
00:17:12.482 → 00:17:20.929Tart with goals that are in the future is that we have a lot of time and possibilities to procrastinate and this is something we learned from,
00:17:20.989 → 00:17:31.560activity trackers basically that by implementing those 10,000 steps a day they are making something that’s very very let’s say saddle something that’s not,
00:17:31.683 → 00:17:38.258would you can’t grab that making it very concrete to say if you’re walking 10,000 every steps every day you’re my healthier.
00:17:38.579 → 00:17:45.919And that’s why we are breaking down those long-term targets into weekly challenges with makes numbers smaller so instead of.
00:17:46.312 → 00:17:53.301600 Euro for the laptop for your kid it is eight euro per week for a certain period of time you can then also,
00:17:53.451 → 00:18:00.836compare those weekly targets with opportunity costs so for what are you spending money on a daily basis because those.
00:18:01.058 → 00:18:09.622Eight years they’re suddenly I mean when you’re going into the shop you’re just spending them without thinking a lot about that but this could this money those eight years could be.
00:18:10.573 → 00:18:14.798Contributor to your long-term sitting Target and,
00:18:14.966 → 00:18:23.828and then in the next step you can kind of you can put your setting Targets on autopilot which is basically than a standing order you can go into the app and with just two clicks,
00:18:23.951 → 00:18:31.615you say Okay I want to save now seven euros and an algorithm split up to seven years across your different saving targets based on a certain logic.
00:18:32.044 → 00:18:36.665You can enter certain setting rules so for example if you are a passionate.
00:18:37.076 → 00:18:48.674Amazon buyer you can set up a rule and say okay every time I am spending money with M Asam I I commit to save 10% or 5% and then that saves automatically.
00:18:49.031 → 00:18:57.910And monkey starts with digital notches in our case those are push notifications Hey Joe what about saving 12 euros for your vacation next year,
00:18:58.051 → 00:19:12.098and then you just press yes and if you press yes the 12-year get transferred to your savings account and in the background and algorithm starts learning when and how we need to send you those notifications so more on Monday or on Saturday in the morning or evening
00:19:11.951 → 00:19:19.831what type of message should we use what should be the call-to-action should it be six Euro 12 euros and over time it starts learning,
00:19:19.936 → 00:19:27.636where it has been most successful with you with regards to triggering saving impulses and then it’s kind of.
00:19:28.434 → 00:19:39.429Duplicating that so this is the way of how we are say translating Natchez into helping people saving more money for the future and this is something which we realize is kind of.
00:19:40.524 → 00:19:41.148There’s,
00:19:41.199 → 00:19:55.984a lot of people and specifically female users who really love this gamified approach of savings who are reacting a lot on those push notifications so on average our users are opening up the app more than four times a week.
00:19:56.395 → 00:20:05.535Which we consider as being really good and coming close to your online banking app yeah and what we also learned is that.
00:20:05.820 → 00:20:13.853A lot of our users are saving money for very concrete things so there is on the one hand side there is the rainy day fund the note caution in Germany.
00:20:14.057 → 00:20:18.921On the other hand side it is the vacation ebike their laptop.
00:20:19.360 → 00:20:32.947Kitchen equipment and we thought about how else could we help them to better reach those targets and at the same time we have always been confronted with the fact that for savings you’re not really getting interest.
00:20:33.394 → 00:20:34.748And.
00:20:35.339 → 00:20:48.863As coming from the consumer goods industry we learned that knowing what people are saving for that’s an asset and we started building up partners with your partner’s first in the area of the saving bolso in the,
00:20:49.022 → 00:20:57.631travel area I’m trainings product in sports equipment product and so on and at one point in time when you’re saving for example for your vacation.
00:20:57.925 → 00:21:04.815We let you know that there is Partners from booking.com to L2 and if you’re booking a vacation with one of your other partners.
00:21:05.271 → 00:21:13.745You were getting money back into your same wallet as a contribution to your other savings goals and we are positioning it,
00:21:13.859 → 00:21:21.226it’s called future boost and we are positioning it as kind of a smart alternative to interest rate so bye
00:21:21.178 → 00:21:30.688smart shopping kind of we always say smart shopping is the future saving so by smart shopping you’re contributing to your saving targets and it’s all started with,
00:21:30.721 → 00:21:34.054Partners in the area of the setting goals and then.
00:21:34.574 → 00:21:41.157Just before covid we started also onboarding Partners in a category that we call Daily necessities.
00:21:41.343 → 00:21:45.865So product that you anyhow neat and wants to buy some groceries.
00:21:46.961 → 00:21:52.428Pharmacy products and so on and there we have a really nice couple of really nice Partners there.
00:21:52.668 → 00:22:00.584By buying your groceries at the label for example you’re getting money that feeds your rainy day fund or that feature your vacation Target.
00:22:01.743 → 00:22:08.596Hmm I see I see I see you we’ve been already talking about you have a lot of
00:22:08.548 → 00:22:21.199women ask clients that’s kind of the Holy Grail because usually when I talk through fintech entrepreneurs especially Alpha line they admitted with a lot of luck we have like,
00:22:21.223 → 00:22:30.67910% 20% sometimes up to third female client how did he manage to get the.
00:22:30.955 → 00:22:37.601To get really the the fintech world turned upside down how did he do that,
00:22:37.779 → 00:22:48.521I mean honestly speaking we didn’t plan it this way so if the very the very beginning we had a quite broad approach because we first needed to find out kind of.
00:22:48.725 → 00:22:57.235What’s the type of users where our product really sticky and we did a lot of experiments there and at one point we realized that,
00:22:57.377 → 00:23:10.208first of all we managed to onboard a really large number of women and secondly they are really the realistic to the product they really love using that and when it comes to the interaction with the product,
00:23:10.349 → 00:23:12.044they’re much more active.
00:23:12.275 → 00:23:20.920Engaging with the app then mail user so for example and of course that’s a little bit black and white I mentioned that there is this weekly challenge right.
00:23:21.170 → 00:23:28.059Um mail users they tend to go into the app on Monday and save for the weekly challenge and are not opening the app.
00:23:28.470 → 00:23:34.154For the rest of the week so they just want to have this challenge accomplished,
00:23:34.313 → 00:23:42.922while female users they are interacting very often with the app they love those notches they love kind of digital high five when they saved,
00:23:43.081 → 00:23:51.564kind of when the respond positively to our saving call to actions and so and over time we realized that kind of.
00:23:52.921 → 00:23:55.129We at one point we had then
00:23:55.099 → 00:24:04.284suddenly 85% Eighty-Four percent of our users where female users so all of our active users and we started then to also,
00:24:04.290 → 00:24:07.543change the way how we are communicating to
00:24:07.477 → 00:24:20.461Target more the female uses which then at the end was kind of a more closed reinforcing spiral that we got more and more female users into the app and I think it’s it’s really about,
00:24:20.584 → 00:24:31.525this gamified way of saving money for something where we think we hit more the taste of the female users than 40 mil users which are more I mean,
00:24:31.567 → 00:24:35.153and again that’s black or white I mean the mail I think.
00:24:35.348 → 00:24:44.308Male the more tank to you experiment now with trade Republic and with cryptocurrencies and so on so they always a little bit more.
00:24:45.080 → 00:24:50.592Sometimes even overconfident they don’t have to read about investment they’re just doing that so we’re,
00:24:50.652 → 00:24:57.938the female users they may be a little bit more conservative to start now with savings than read about investment and then go,
00:24:57.980 → 00:25:06.733into investment product so I think there’s a few things coming together why monkey at the end was very successful with the female users.
00:25:07.522 → 00:25:11.603Mmm-hmm I see see see.
00:25:11.807 → 00:25:26.448And lesson learned for many of the fintechs if you want to have more women you have to tailor your app to them and as he said they love to interact they love interaction and not just,
00:25:26.607 → 00:25:27.510being there
00:25:27.462 → 00:25:39.663and of course I mean we are we are we are acquiring a large part of our users with content marketing so it’s materials about the topic of finance and saving money
00:25:39.579 → 00:25:43.678downloadable contents checklist sent to one which we see that.
00:25:44.630 → 00:25:56.480Kind of they are downloaded this type of materials they’re downloaded a lot by the female users so they want to inform themselves before they are doing something they want to plan a little bit ahead yeah.
00:25:58.133 → 00:26:07.624I see you’ve been talking about PhD to in in the beginning of the interview our frequent
00:26:07.558 → 00:26:12.098listeners and watch viewers who watching this
00:26:12.042 → 00:26:20.651will already know that but it’s a regulation by the European Union that the banks have to open up and basically,
00:26:20.666 → 00:26:33.272your clients punch into for example your app their online identification their ID their email the PIN code and so basically you can get access only to there.
00:26:33.467 → 00:26:43.156Banking data that’s kind of the the the goal of Peace D2 but what I was referring to in.
00:26:43.658 → 00:26:50.223One of our fin tech reviews look our family would get pentas at once that it is the equivalent.
00:26:50.427 → 00:27:00.062Opening the app store by Apple which enabled companies like uber Airbnb and many many others do you see this
00:26:59.943 → 00:27:09.344as well and also an important question do you think it’s already here it’s already in action do you think the potential is already completely understood.
00:27:10.304 → 00:27:14.538I mean answering your first question I would say read,
00:27:14.634 → 00:27:25.170very clear yes so I mean there’s hardly something that could give you a better picture of other person than seeing what where they are getting the money from how they’re spending their money so bye
00:27:25.086 → 00:27:33.362I think having those transactional data on your bank accounts that’s really very helpful to better understand what’s this,
00:27:33.404 → 00:27:37.710who is this person and with PST to there is now.
00:27:38.238 → 00:27:44.984Let’s start this way and I think banks they haven’t leveraged that a lot
00:27:44.936 → 00:27:55.210in the past because they had their established business models was running for them for many many years and decades and they didn’t really leverage that a lot and now suddenly.
00:27:55.442 → 00:28:00.000European Union forces them to open it up and there’s now
00:27:59.961 → 00:28:07.400a large number of organizations and startups like us were thinking a lot about how can we use this data in order to
00:28:07.379 → 00:28:16.357create a win-win situation and are very creative in the way of using that and maybe much more creative than the bank’s itself.
00:28:16.552 → 00:28:25.854And yes you’re right so there’s there’s hundreds or thousands of organizations working on different ideas on how to build
00:28:25.743 → 00:28:35.208cool product on top of this banking data that creates value for the customer that is them at the moment not leveraged by better Banks.
00:28:36.690 → 00:28:39.402And is it already there.
00:28:40.237 → 00:28:52.870I mean at the very beginning I think banks they had been very let’s say pushing back a lot because of course they had to invest millions of Euros in order to create apis,
00:28:53.020 → 00:29:02.295that opens up banking data of which has been their assets so I mean they were sitting on this data it’s their asset opening that up for,
00:29:02.400 → 00:29:11.748third parties like us and there have been some tanks who started very early to kind of understand that they can’t.
00:29:12.582 → 00:29:20.012I mean the conscious push back there is no way around that the European Union forces them to do that and they had a more proactive approach to that.
00:29:20.522 → 00:29:35.514And there have been Banks which for very long tried to just neglect that and they start now maybe thinking about how to build their own product or how to collaborate with startups that are already leveraging that but I would still say that there is,
00:29:35.673 → 00:29:41.410still potential to better understand what else you could do with this data.
00:29:42.569 → 00:29:53.356You’ve been already talking about banks in your pitch that you are also referring to your Banks Banks like revolute and 26,
00:29:53.479 → 00:29:54.635I was wondering
00:29:54.542 → 00:30:05.059do you think your success so far would have been possible without prior success of an 26 of the trait Republic of a revolution UK.
00:30:05.740 → 00:30:13.980I mean we see those Challenger pangs of kind of they paved the way for Solutions like monkey that,
00:30:14.131 → 00:30:18.094suddenly I mean a few years ago it was Unthinkable that.
00:30:18.344 → 00:30:29.617Financial Service can only exist as being an AB without kind of physical stores where you can talk to someone and I’m 26 and revolute and so on your name them with
00:30:29.524 → 00:30:33.542the amount of money that they received from the venture capital,
00:30:33.548 → 00:30:43.283there it is they really prepared the mass market now for products that only exist as an app in a digital form and I think.
00:30:43.820 → 00:30:47.496The way how they were doing that opened up the mass Market.
00:30:47.997 → 00:30:55.634For Solutions like us so could we could we do it without there or wouldn’t we be able to do it without them.
00:30:55.838 → 00:31:04.240Only I think if we would have had the money like they had in order to prepare the markets yeah.
00:31:05.227 → 00:31:17.734Hmm so basically it’s also something I had with the just published interview with auto Nova if there’s a competitor if there’s somebody.
00:31:18.317 → 00:31:26.485Paving the way for you it’s easier I was wondering you guys earn money which way.
00:31:27.121 → 00:31:34.091With this future boost feature so we consciously decided that the app should be free for the end users.
00:31:34.494 → 00:31:43.715And we are earning money with this future boost whenever one of our users is buying these things that they need or that they want with one of our partners,
00:31:43.874 → 00:31:48.351we are getting a commission and we give back a part of this commission to our users.
00:31:48.555 → 00:31:55.643As a contribution as an alternative to interest rates and the interesting thing is that if you would take those future boosts.
00:31:55.856 → 00:32:03.475In as a relation to how much money our users are saving the return is even more than ten percent so,
00:32:03.553 → 00:32:10.560it’s a really good alternative to interest rate so by smart spending your money you’re really getting,
00:32:10.566 → 00:32:19.247having a chance to grow your kind of savings because you anyhow need to spend the money on buying groceries on buying certain products,
00:32:19.352 → 00:32:26.719and you’d already decided if you want to go on vacation so this is maybe also something interesting which has a lot to do with matching that.
00:32:27.139 → 00:32:32.138We decided that we don’t want to be paternalistic in a sense telling our users.
00:32:32.639 → 00:32:39.700That they should not say for certain products so if one of our users decides that they want to save money for a new iPhone.
00:32:40.246 → 00:32:49.855Of course we could do them as it has to be such an expensive phone doesn’t kind of you know what I mean that we don’t want to be paternalistic so if they want to save for an iPhone.
00:32:50.131 → 00:32:56.480Um we helped them to save the money for that so that instead of buying the iPhone
00:32:56.342 → 00:33:10.470what kind of lending the money or buy now pay later kind of in a pineapple either approach we just want to make sure that they have the money before they spend it and it’s not up to us to tell them that they should not be saving for this or that product.
00:33:10.737 → 00:33:20.705Hmm I see what this would this way we couldn’t be successful so people don’t like organizations that tell them what they not should do so.
00:33:20.982 → 00:33:23.523Icct.
00:33:24.339 → 00:33:36.504Where are you guys actually right now available because when we were talking about found it interesting and it actually downloaded in parallel your app I’ll try it out personally
00:33:36.393 → 00:33:41.212so you work in Germany you work in Austria where which other countries.
00:33:41.426 → 00:33:49.378So at the moment we are available in Germany and Austria technically and legally we could already offer it in within the whole European Union,
00:33:49.447 → 00:34:01.044um just at the moment we still see enough growth potential in Germany and Austria and then just with the club after the next fundraising round we plan to start now with more International expansion.
00:34:01.924 → 00:34:09.057Talk about Fanta raising round when when is the next one do we plan to close it by the end of this year.
00:34:09.891 → 00:34:21.894End of this year which may or may not be delayed due to Corona or whatever else comes around right yeah so I mean we have our puffers plant into the timeline.
00:34:23.016 → 00:34:27.124The plant closing date is the end of the year and we always know that things are taking.
00:34:27.445 → 00:34:35.613Always taking a little bit longer as soon as I started kind of negotiating term sheets and everything it always takes a little bit longer so but that’s the plan.
00:34:36.043 → 00:34:43.868Great and everybody would like to learn more they can go down here in the show notes they will be linked not only
00:34:43.847 → 00:34:55.391to the monkey website to the download options in the iTunes Store and the Google Play Store but also to your personal LinkedIn profile so investors can directly
00:34:55.307 → 00:34:58.920reach out to you yeah cool for sure,
00:34:59.061 → 00:35:06.374everybody would like to learn more good down here in the show notes wherever you watching this and listening to this there should be a link.
00:35:07.533 → 00:35:13.738Wherever you watching this or listening to this if you go down here in the show notes they should be a link
00:35:13.645 → 00:35:24.046to our website or look on our website for the interview of monkey and you’ll find all the links once again terribly sorry that they don’t work on every device
00:35:23.917 → 00:35:29.402we are trying as hard as we can but if the app doesn’t allow to have active links in the show notes.
00:35:29.615 → 00:35:39.034Whiskey would not heed thank you very much was just a pleasure having you here best of luck and keep us up-to-date,
00:35:39.211 → 00:35:47.677thanks Jill pleasure wasn’t my site and looking forward to talking to you soon yeah that would be great thank you bye bye bye.
00:35:48.079 → 00:35:55.445If you are a professional looking at the European startup scene Germany is a place you cannot miss.
00:35:55.440 → 00:36:05.840Music.
00:36:05.975 → 00:36:16.988Most likely you have never heard or read anything only startups before in English but you will in the future be ahead of the curve And subscribe to start up rad Dottie oh.
00:36:16.880 → 00:36:27.242Music.
Key Takeaways
What really differentiates Monkee from other fintechs is that they have 84% women as active clients.
This article covers a significant development in the DACH startup and venture capital ecosystem.
The DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) continues to be one of Europe's most dynamic startup markets.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the key facts about Meet Austria-Based Monkee Fintech With?
This blog post first appeared first on old medium publication (https://medium.com/startuprad-io), and was moved to this blog with the relaunch of our website in summer 2024.
How does this affect the German startup ecosystem?
00:02:32.204 → 00:02:42.280And while working there I realized that I would really love to dig a little bit little bit more deeper into the topics of Business Administration and marketing and then I studied.
What are the latest startup funding trends in the DACH region?
Startuprad.io tracks venture capital and startup funding across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Explore our pillar coverage pages for the latest data.
About the Host
Joern "Joe" Menninger is the host of the Startuprad.io podcast and covers founders, investors, and policy developments across the DACH startup ecosystem. Through more than 1,300 interviews and nearly a decade of reporting, he documents the evolution of the European startup landscape. Follow Joern on LinkedIn.
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