98 - Behind the $5B Fintech: Ivan Vasylchenko on Trade Republic’s Rise
In Episode 98 of The Product and Growth Show, I sat down with Ivan Vasylchenko, tech entrepreneur and former COO of Trade Republic. Ivan joined the company when it was still called Neon Trading and helped scale it to over 10 million customers across 17 European countries with a $5B valuation. We talked about conviction in early-stage startups, scaling under extreme pressure during COVID, and what founders often get wrong about fintech growth stories.
What did we talk about?
- How Ivan went from finance consulting and hackathons to joining Trade Republic in its earliest days
- The dodgy beginnings of “Neon Trading” and why conviction mattered more than optics
- Building product-market fit through stock market games and waiting lists
- Foundational decisions that shaped Trade Republic: licensing, building tech in-house, and compliance
- Scaling from 10 to nearly 200 people during COVID and surviving explosive customer demand
- Why fintech growth isn’t just “breaking things fast” but about stamina and regulation
- Ivan’s current projects at the intersection of AI and fintech
Ivan's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-vasylchenko/
19 May 2025TRANSCRIPT
97 – From Babbel to MyTutor: Building Edtech That Works, with Geoff Stead (Former CPO, Babbel & MyTutor)
Geoff Stead, former CPO, discusses balancing product promises with growth in consumer apps and building product organizations in marketing-led businesses in an interview.
23 Feb 2025TRANSCRIPT
96 - From Google to Mate Academy, VC-Backed Expansion for EdTechs with Roman Apostol
Last week, we sat down with Roman Apostol, co-founder of Mate Academy, to talk about business expansion, transitioning from a big corporation to a startup, and staying resilient.
Here’s what we covered:
- How did you transition from working at Google and Preply to joining Mate Academy?
- What is the Income Share Agreement (ISA) model, and how does it work at Mate Academy?
- Why did you decide to leave Google and move to Kyiv to work on Mate Academy?
- How did you scale Mate Academy from a small offline bootcamp to a global online platform?
- What were the biggest challenges in raising venture capital, and what objections did investors have?
- How do you balance operational scalability with maintaining quality in EdTech?
- What was the strategy behind expanding into new markets like Poland and Brazil?
- How do you differentiate Mate Academy from other coding bootcamps and online education platforms?
- What impact has the war in Ukraine had on running a business, and how do you maintain resilience?
- What books, podcasts, or insights have influenced your approach to leadership and scaling a startup?
Inside a recent episode
98 - Behind the $5B Fintech: Ivan Vasylchenko on Trade Republic’s Rise
Published 29 Sept 2025 · Transcript excerpt
[…] I think it depends overall on type of persons. Maybe let's zoom out. they think they would like to build startup, right? Or at least, at some point, it became kind of more of a trendy thing, if you can say it like this, and people are like, hey, you know, I want to leave my company, and I want to build something myself. But they don't even know if they, as a person, fit into this or not, because it's also a very much different type of work that you do in any kind of startup, comparing to, you know, rather big corporation or some kind of established business um the the level of urgency and sometimes attention and um yeah the level of energy energy that you need to invest is is is different um they're definitely really demanding also roles and and in other areas um but still it's something that you know some people just don't don't reflect um correctly and then if you nail down to um to FinTech. […]
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