Aiming To Take Out The Pain Of Everyday Payments: Twisto

Describe Twisto in 50 words or less.

Twisto pays for you – without using your own money; without any connection to your bank account. Over the course of an entire month, Twisto finances all your purchases, takes care of your bills and tracks all payments in a simple to use account. Twisto provides you with an easy and consistent way to stay on top of your daily finances.

How did you discover the need for Twisto? What problem are you solving?

Todays banking and financial products are not fit for mobile customers. Customers want to buy products/services now, without delay or complication, they don’t want to fill out forms, stay in lines or be marginalised by rigid processes. At Twisto we simplify daily payments while giving customers instant credit/financing for everyday purchases and control over their finances.

• Case 1: Every payment you make through a bank today takes up to 2 days to show on your bank statement. With Twisto, you get instant notifications for every purchase and get a clear dashboard of your monthly spending.
• Case 2: If you want to take out a loan for an online purchase from a bank, you need to fill-in forms, upload documents and then wait 2 days for approval. At Twisto we reduced this complexity of purchasing on credit into 1 click operation with approval rate in milliseconds.

Twisto is the central payments hub for daily payments, which gives customers instant credit for their purchases and provides a transparent way to track spending. The Twisto account aggregates all of a customer’s monthly spending into a single invoice, which customers can either settle in full within the 45 day interest free period or spread the payments into easy instalments. We give customers full flexibility!

You won the last Wolves Summit in Poland and delivered a convincing pitch. What happened after that? In what ways did Twisto benefit from this event?

We met with several prospective investors and connected with technology providers that will help us deliver better services to our customers. We plan to expand outside of the Czech market and Poland is definitely on top of our list – winning the Wolves Summit competition brought more visibility to our vision of the bank of the future in the Polish market.

In your pitch you mentioned that your main market is your home market: The Czech Republic. What other markets are interesting for you?

Our ambition is to become the leading bank challenger across Eastern Europe. Since our solution is based on “credit” (regionally specific) we see ourselves as a local player, with strong expertise in the region. Today we are focusing on launching new offline payments products in the Czech Republic, in 2017 we will actively look at new markets, with Poland being the top priority.

Over the past 2 1/2 years you raised over 3mln in funding. Apart from your 4 core investors: are you currently looking for funding?

We look for strategic partners in the region with the next funding round expected in Q1-Q2 2017. Currently we don’t need more capital to finance the company’s operations or growth, but will seek capital to expand across the region. We are not looking for cash investors, but strategic investors who will fall in love with our vision and will help us reach it.

With ferocious competition and a booming trend to build new companies: How do you make sure you don’t get lost in the shuffle?

We have the benefit of first mover advantage in the region – especially on the online credit risk side. We have developed a unique algorithm (we call it NIKITA) which is able to assess credit risk of each client & transaction. We have been building our algorithms for the past 3 years and created a huge barrier to enter the market – we are the fastest instant credit provider in the region.

Also many of international competitors do not see the big potential of the Eastern Europe (small, fragmented markets with diverse regulation) and rather focus on the “big markets” (Germany, UK, US). This gives us a great window of opportunity to win new markets.

We also don’t see a direct competition as we have a different view on the bank of the future to other players. Many companies focus on improving the “design” of banking and payments, but are not changing the fundamentals – all solutions are “debit” based. We believe in maximum simplicity and completing payments on behalf of customers, without the need to take customers money. We use “credit” to deliver simplicity to everyday payments, while giving customers an extra layer of security – through Twisto we deliver complete separation between a customer’s money and daily payments. This also reduces the regulatory complexity, as we don’t require customers funds (deposits) to complete payments on their behalf.

In what ways do you measure your success and how do you make sure you don’t lose track?

Customer feedback is the most important component of our success. We collect and closely monitor customer feedback following every transaction with Twisto. Today we have a 97%+ satisfaction rate with our service and the remaining 3% of “OK experiences” we actively follow-up on and resolve. Our business is build on frequent and repeated transactions with the client – any loss in traction is a big expense to the company. The other metric which we monitor is the number of interactions the clients has with us – especially how many payments are made per month as well as log-ins into his/her Twisto account.

What were the biggest challenges you faced building your startup?

We have evolved from an online point of sale credit provider into a fully fledged payment solution for online and offline transactions. This has led to several changes within the core IT architecture, which we did not foresee at the beginning. It also required a lot of flexibility from our investors, as the initial scope our service changed fairly dramatically. Since the launch it took some time to build market awareness and trust – gaining traction with a large number of customers takes time and perfect communication.

What was your most memorable moment so far?

Launching our product beta after only three months of the initial meeting with my team members. Seeing the first customers using our product and giving us great feedback gave us confirmation that we are going the right way.

You started out in 2013 and have come a long way since then – what are your plans for the near future?

We have launched 2 out of 3 payment products: (1) one click online checkout and (2) payment of invoices & bills with just an email or a photo. The key new product in the coming months will be the Twisto payment card. We are cooperating with a German bank and will be launching in Q1 2017. This will complete the circle for Twisto in becoming a fully fledged instant credit payments hub for online & offline and domestic & international transactions. The next challenge is to take our solution beyond the boarders of the Czech Republic.

7 years from now: How did your startup change the world?

In 7 years we want Twisto to replace banks in daily transactions, with customers using banks only as safe deposit boxes for their monthly paycheques. We will take out completely the pain out of everyday payments across Eastern Europe.

What advice would you give fellow founders for their startup?

Never give up! We have come through many turbulences with the team when expanding our product range and perfecting customer communication. It all came down to really listening what customers want and defining a clear gap in the market which our solution is fixing. Startups are about people and teams, always find people who have a great drive, motivation and don’t only look at what university he/she came from … sometimes the smartest people without motivation are the worst people to build your business with. Teams are like families as they will be stuck with you for a long while, so pick the best people who share your passion.

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