From Corporate to Running The Leading Global Crypto Compliance Solutions Provider w/ Simone Maini | Elliptic

Simone Maini : 0:00

I've made so many mistakes, I would say the first six months of my time at Elliptic were not great. It's actually lucky that I didn't really think about it that hard, because if I'd really thought about it I almost certainly wouldn't have done it. It's because the environment was so different from what I'd been used to. There was no structure and, as you say, it was very early stage and it was in crypto. At Elliptic, what we do is we're solving problems in the money laundering space in crypto. We get to go to work every day and stop bad things happening, literally identifying illicit activity happening in real time and working with our clients to stop it in its tracks. That is the kind of thing I think when you take a big step back from everything, you're just like OK, we did something good.

Amardeep Parmar: 0:51

Today's guest is Simone Maini, CEO of Elliptic. They provide the intelligence needed for crypto businesses, government and regulators to ensure a safe financial system. Simone's got a great story and in many ways, you wouldn't expect her to be where she is today. She followed that corporate path working in banking, made a transition to consulting, before seemingly making a big transition from that world into the much more nascent and much more innovative and fast-moving space in the blockchain. You'll learn why she did this, how she moved from COO and the operations role she had into that CEO position, and how that business is now thriving and growing and scaling massively. I really hope you enjoy this episode. I'm Amar from the BAE HQ and this podcast is powered by HSBC Innovation Banking. So great to have you here today and you've done so much incredible things in your career so far. But if we rewind right back to the beginning, what did you want to be when you were growing up? What was your ambition?

Simone Maini : 1:45

Well, thanks so much for having me. It's really great to be here and excited for this conversation. What did I want to be when I was growing up? It's a hard one. I don't know that. I had a super clear idea. I definitely didn't think I would be doing what I'm doing now, but I think probably I thought I wanted to be a teacher. I feel like I was really lucky. I had amazing teachers and that just felt like something that I wanted to be able to do as well. And then what did you study at university after I did, because it's what I enjoyed.

Simone Maini : 2:23

I think I was really lucky where my parents didn't push really hard on you know, sciences or math. So I think they were much more interested in do well, but do well at things that you enjoy rather than do well at very specific things. You know, obviously my grandparents would love, would have loved me to be a doctor more than anything, but that just was never going to be a path that I went down. Whereas languages, history those were the things, and again, I had this incredible history teacher who was like, looking back, really really important to me and, and that all of that played a lot into those decisions and I do feel really lucky that I was able to just do the things. That all of that played a lot into those decisions and I do feel really lucky that I was able to just do the things that kind of called to me and then see where they took me when you're studying history at university as well.

Amardeep Parmar: 3:13

Is it what you imagined it to be? Because I know sometimes people have this idea I want to study this and they go there and it's not quite how they expected it to work out?

Simone Maini : 3:21

Yeah, that, that's an interesting question. Actually, I honestly don't know what I expected it to be. Really. I went to Cambridge, which has a very specific way of teaching as well, so a lot of your learning time is spent in what's called a supervision, which is a one-on-one or a two-on-one session with one of the lecturers, and it's pretty intimidating, especially when you haven't necessarily come from a school background that's prepared you for that and you've been in a classroom of you know 30 people and you haven't sort of been drilled on how to debate ideas. And then suddenly you're thrown into this environment where you're one-on-one with an expert on you know soviet history between you know two specific years. Oh my god, I I don't know how to engage in this um, but you know you, you get the hang of it and actually it builds up confidence um, really quickly, because you're just thrown into that and you know a lot of it is intentional. You know they're really trying to build up how you learn, how you perform in those types of environments.

Amardeep Parmar: 4:37

And what made you, once you're at university, start to think actually, maybe teaching isn't the right path for me, or when did you start to explore other options?

Simone Maini : 4:44

I think I was completely open-minded. I didn't know where it was going to go. Um, I I really focused on the outcomes rather than the specific career path. What I mean by that is it was really important for me personally that I wanted to be in London like I'd never lived in a big city, kind of on my own, before, and I felt like that was just going to open up this big world of opportunities for me. I wanted to work for a big company again, partly because I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I wanted to work somewhere where I might have the opportunity to try out a bunch of different things, and I also wanted to work for a global company.

Simone Maini : 5:22

I didn't have like this explicit desire coming out of university that I want to work in America or Australia or wherever, but I did know that I probably would want to live abroad at some point if I could, and so I focused more on those criteria and then just sort of you know, explored in order to meet those, what are the types of companies and types of roles that I might do? So, yeah, I went about it from that perspective instead.

Amardeep Parmar: 5:51

I think it's one of those things where sometimes you hear the stories of I had lemonade stand when I was five and I always wanted to do this. But I think in reality, most people don't necessarily know. And when you get that idea of like these are the things that are important to me, rather than this is the job I have to have, I think that can be really helpful. And what was your first job and did it actually meet this criteria or was it different to what you imagined there?

Simone Maini : 6:11

So I think you mean first job after university, which I will talk about, but my first job, well, my job during university in the summers was at Legoland, Windsor. So I lived just outside Windsor and I worked there every summer and I worked in the retail stores and I loved that job. I really loved that job. It was really hard. You're dealing with so many people parents with kind of ratty children, and you know it's pouring with rain and they've spent all this money but it taught me a lot about how to interact with all types of people, how to you know work really, really hard, how to work in a team of like totally different people. Right, you'd have people coming from you know that were at universities all over the country coming to do their summer jobs, people that worked there all year round, kind of retirees that worked there a little bit, and so it was a really great sort of jumping off point to just learn how to work in in a very different environment and I did really enjoy that.

Amardeep Parmar: 7:13

I think it's also interesting there because you said at the university you had this very intense one-to-one situation and it's such a different environment at Legoland. But it's good because then you're able to adjust between these two different situations and I think a lot of people sometimes struggle because they're only used to one environment and once they're out of that they feel uncomfortable and they're not able to deal with it. So that probably has a massive effect on you.

Simone Maini : 7:32

It's a great point.Actually, it was a real contrast between the two and I think that's partly probably why I enjoyed it so much, because it was really stimulating and interactive. But when it came to, yeah, leaving university, I was really attracted by the deutsche bank graduate scheme and it really checked all those boxes that I was outlining a second ago in terms of having lots of variety, lots of options to try different things, live abroad, which I did do with Deutsche.

Amardeep Parmar: 8:04

Where did you go?

Simone Maini : 8:05

To New York, which you know in your mid-twenties.

Simone Maini : 8:08

You're kind of given a corporate apartment for a while and you find yourself in New York and you're just like, oh my God, this is just kind of mind-blowingly exciting and it was scary as well, but it was.

Simone Maini : 8:17

Yeah, that was fantastic. And I had an amazing eight-year experience or so from Deutsche Bank and I was really lucky to be able to move around tons of different parts of the bank, got to see the good times and then the really bad times. I was there through the kind of economic crisis and the Lehman crash in 2008 and was you know so, so went through that cycle which also ended in being able to start building the bank and the overall financial kind of ecosystem back up again. So I feel really grateful for just the learning opportunities that I was able to have there and in that kind of environment, which is very large and corporate, but it's also very structured and there's lots of resources, and so if you use your time well, you can just learn a ton, experiment with different things, learn about what you get energy from, and I think that those were the best takeaways for me from that experience.

Amardeep Parmar: 9:23

So it's interesting. Now we have AI disrupting so many different jobs and people being worried about their position right and I guess you had that back in 2008 where you're in the banking industry, you're doing well, but you're like is this industry going to exist? What's going to happen since entry? How did you think about things at that time? Were you thinking, okay, do I need to look at other career paths now? Or are you thinking, okay, the banking sector will work itself out and I'll be able to keep my job because there's so many redundancies at that point? How was that period for you there and dealing with that?

Simone Maini : 9:50

I think that period definitely did make me think where do I want to be? What do I want to be doing? I was less troubled by, is this industry going to survive? And a bit like how I chose what degree to do. It was much more about where am I getting enjoyment? And so, again, I got to the point, you know, in my career at Deutsche Bank, where I felt like I've had a really great time here, but I'm not learning as much as I was. I also felt, um, that I wanted to. At Bank, I wasn't in a client facing role. I worked for the chief operating officer of the investment bank, so it was much more about building the bank, running the bank, rather than interacting with clients, and I really felt like I wanted to try that. And so that was the moment where I felt like, okay, this is a good opportunity to go and scratch that itch and go client side, and that's when I moved into consulting, basically.

Amardeep Parmar: 10:57

 So making that change, because, as many people who say eight years at a bank, you think, okay, obviously you're getting up the ranks and to shift into another career path. Was that scary or was that just like this is the right thing? Or how did you try to manage that? Because I guess I always see it now with my friends where when I left my job, for example, from consulting, then people like, oh, but then if you stayed another year, you get this promotion, we get this promotion. How is that transition?

Simone Maini : 11:22

I don't know why, but I have never really been that interested in promotions or titles which is kind of unusual when you work in a bank, because pretty much everything is run in cycles around promotions and titles but it's just not been that important to me. So I didn't feel like I was leaving that behind. I didn't feel like I was walking away from from a lot of time that I'd put in. I felt like I'd got out as much as I'd put in and that was a really good moment to step into something else. And I think not having that sort of vested interest in promotions and titles has allowed me to make choices that I might otherwise not have done, because, exactly as you say, my calculation probably would have been quite different and I might not have made that.

Simone Maini : 12:10

I mean, it wasn't even a sideways move, it was a backward move. Because I was moving into consulting alongside people that had done that for a really long time and I had never done it. So I totally was accepting of the fact that I was going to have to take a slightly backwards move, but I felt like I was also getting something for it, which was exposure into a totally new industry, and I was going to be able to go and test and develop those skills on the kind of client facing, like delivery of work side. So it's really just not something that troubled me. Probably the thing that troubled me the most was am I going to be any good at this? But I mean that's pretty normal for everyone, right?

Amardeep Parmar: 12:50

Yeah, and then when you started, do you feel like it was a difficult transition or do you think actually it was really quick learning and you're able to really get your feet on the ground quickly?

Simone Maini : 13:00

A bit of both probably. I was, uh, put into a really brilliant team and quite a few of us were new, and I think that made quite a big difference, where we really supported each other and it felt like there were no stupid questions and even if we were kind of discussing them down at the pub, it felt like you could kind of bring your insecurities to the table, which really helped. But it did take quite a lot of getting used to. You know, I'd just gone from a mega bank that had very specific ways of working and communicating and how you got access to opportunities, to a kind of medium sized consulting firm where the business drivers were quite different. Um, everyone sort of had their client relationships, and how are you going to build your own client relationships? And, yeah, so there was, there was, there was a lot of insecurity, a lot of learning, but I felt like it was manageable because I had I was lucky to be part of this peer group that was actually super supportive of each other.  

Amardeep Parmar: 14:05

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Amardeep Parmar: 14:40

And then, obviously, we now start to get to Elliptic right and it's such a huge change and I think this is one of the things which is difficult for many people in the corporate space to really comprehend about that logic of making those big shifts and changes.

Amardeep Parmar: 14:54

But you said I think there's so many people also listening who are in that position now where they do want to change careers, they do want to do something different, but they are more worried, to say, about the status and the prestige and the titles and the promotions. So you mentioned a bit there about how you got so much from that move to consulting. That for you that was worth it, right, and hopefully for some people who now think about this kind of move, so it does help them. But then going from a medium-sized consulting firm to a early stage startup in the crypto space is very different. If you imagine you listen to people listening, okay, you studied history at university and then now you're going to work at an early stage crypto company. Talk about that decision, about where did it come from, how did it even come on your radar, and then what made you decide, yes, this is it.

Simone Maini : 

 I think there are a few aspects to that answer.

Simone Maini : 15:41

If I look back on it now, I am a bit amazed that I made that decision, because I'm quite a risk averse person and, as you say, it was very early stage and it was in crypto, which at the time was just sort of so fringe technology and was generally seen as this, quite like negative. You know, in the media at least, everything was about crime and you know all the bad stuff. And I do think that it's actually lucky that I didn't really think about it that hard, because if I'd really thought about it I almost certainly wouldn't have done it, and I think if I was presented with that choice today I'm not sure that I would have made it. But then I think I found myself in a moment where I felt like I've had a great run at Deutsche. I've built up some new skills and credibility in the consulting space. If this doesn't work, I can always go back to those things, and so I did feel like I had a bit of a safety net, so that definitely made it easier. No-transcript seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. It was like someone else has had this incredible idea and they need my skills to be part of helping grow that, and it also really overlapped with the consulting work that I had done, which had been oriented around financial crime issues, and so it was like this just melting pot of kind of yeah, aspects that just felt like I just have to do this and I don't really have that much to lose. As I said, I kind of had that safety net.

Simone Maini : 17:40

And then another really important dynamic to it is that one of the founders of Elliptic is an incredibly good friend of mine which is risky in and of itself, right. Going into a very early stage company. There's only a few of you with a really good friend that definitely. You know that was probably the biggest risk for me was what if that doesn't work, and you know how does that end up. But actually it was also one of the biggest benefits, which was what if we, you know, do get to make this thing work together? And I also had a huge amount of faith in him and the other two founders just as human beings, just knowing their determination, their intellectual curiosity, their passion for Bitcoin.

Simone Maini : 18:27

Even if the first business idea didn't work out, those were three people who were going to make the next idea or the next idea work and so again that sort of put in a little bit more of that safety net that was just like okay, at that stage of business. It's not so much about the idea, it's about the people, right. Like in early stage. Investors say this all the time. They're basically investing in the people rather than the thing itself in the earliest stages, because you're backing people that can just push through to solve problems, pivot and solve slightly different problems and ultimately be successful about the thing they've set out to do.

Amardeep Parmar: 

So I'm smiling here as well.  Because so obviously the audience can't tell this.

Amardeep Parmar: 19:13

We've got Aish with us today, who is our founder associate. We obviously had to make the same, similar kind of decision like judging the founders, are these right fit or not?

Amardeep Parmar: 19:22

And it's really important what you just said, because for some people it's like you don't necessarily want to start your own company. It meant have an idea, but you can still work in the startup space and get exposure to all those exciting elements of it and have that different dynamic by joining an early stage startup at that point. But it can be so hard to decide what is the right fit for you, and you mentioned about one of the founders being a very good friend of yours. How has that dynamic changed over time? Do you feel like it has worked out how you hoped it would? And we can cut this out if it hasn't.

Simone Maini : 19:48

No, it's worked out incredibly well and I'm so happy that I did it, and you know, we have just got such a rich, like multifaceted relationship now and our like families are like you know. Our families have developed and grown as the business has grown, and so that has been an amazing journey to be on, but it has not been without its ups and downs. James was the CEO of Elliptic and one of the founders for, you know, the first period of the company's life, and then he and I sort of transitioned roles, actually in the very early months of the pandemic. So I became, I was the COO, became the CEO in May 2020.

Simone Maini : 20:35

And James stepped away from being the CEO so that he could focus much more on the reasons that he started the business in the first place, which was to get much closer to product and customers and being much more kind of hands-on and thoughtful about crypto and where's it going and how does our product need to evolve. And that's where his superpower is, that's where his passion is, and so it was all about how do we get James into a role where he's super happy? How do we get me into a different role? How do we put the company ultimately in the best place for the next phase of growth, and that was definitely a tricky period right for any two people to navigate, also, when you're in a pandemic situation where you can't actually see each other. I was also living in Singapore at the time because I had moved to Singapore literally on the 31st of December 2019 to go and open Elliptics in.

Simone Maini : 21:32

Singapore and Southeast Asia. So I was on the other side of the world from the rest of the company and you're all isolated. You're all living in this deep moment of uncertainty around what is this thing? How long is it going to last? What does it mean for the business? Uncertainty around what is this thing? How long is it going to last? What does it mean for the business? Um, so yeah, it was. There were definitely some very tricky months, but I think, because we had that kind of very strong underlying relationship, we were really committed to navigating through that and, um, it's probably a bit cheesy, but one of our values at elliptic is openness, and sometimes that can be most powerful in the moments where you don't want to be open, you just want to kind of hunker down and not talk about the difficult thing, but I think it helps remind us that it's a really powerful force if you make yourself do it.

Simone Maini : 22:20

And so, yeah, we did talk about the hard things and I think that got us now to an incredibly, um, yeah, really really positive place.

Amardeep Parmar: 22:29

I think it's also you're storing up problems in the future if you aren't open, because if there's things that aren't working, everyone just gets resentful of each other, and then eventually, when you say it, it sounds so much worse totally as if it's like oh, you mentioned it as a normal thing, whereas once, like for the last six months, you've done this and it's like. It's like oh, so the last six months, it's just always that thing of communication transparency.

Simone Maini : 22:50

Going to the dentist, right like if you store up going to dentists every year or two years, you could have probably a painful visit. But if you're going regularly, um, then it's going to be a lot less painful.

Amardeep Parmar:

Yeah, and you mentioned how initially you joined as a ceo as well.

Amardeep Parmar: 23:05

How is that? How did you work out that positioning as well, because you came up something so differently. What made you decide? Okay, that's the role.

Amardeep Parmar

That's right for me at this point in time.

Simone Maini : 23:11

Well, in a super early stage company, what that means is basically everything that's not writing code, like it's kind of just a grand title for you know organizing office space, writing employment contracts, making sure we've got a bank account, um, ordering coffee, like things that are crucial to making the business run, but that can be, you know, pretty basic all the way to quite complex, and and you know and that for me is where I love to be which is being involved in loads of different aspects of the business that's when I'm at my most energetic and satisfied, and so, yeah, being in that role in the early stage of a business was just a total thrill because you're, you've got your hands in everything. I mean literally, I have never and should never attempt to write a line of code, but other than that, I've been involved in every aspect of it. You know I was sort of the first and only marketing person.

Simone Maini : 24:17

I say it like this because I'm not a marketing person, but someone had to have a go at marketing in the early days and sales and customer success, and you're sort of figuring all of that out just as you go along, before you're then ready to hire your first dedicated customer success person or your first marketeer or um for whatever it might be. Um and so, yeah, for me that was an amazing experience. Just get, I kind of had permission to dabble, yeah, and that was that was brilliant for me.

Amardeep Parmar: 

Was anything that surprised you about that transition.

Amardeep Parmar: 24:50

Where so, if you worked in larger companies and to that point, and I think often people when they've met startup world, sometimes you only hear the glorifications out of it right and you mentioned how you really love the dabbling side. Was anything not necessarily because it could be a positive surprise as well where, once you're actually working the environment that really surprised you about that world?

Amardeep Parmar: 

Because I guess there's no structure like deutschbanker, an early stage startup?

Simone Maini : 25:09

It is a really important question and it is really important that we talk about the full rounded experience and I do feel like, really lucky and privileged and happy that I got to have that experience. But at the same time I would say the first six months of my time at Elliptic were not great. I was questioning a lot, what have I done? And it's because the environment was so different from what I'd been used to. There was no structure, there was very little kind of communication, at least not in the way that I'd been used to. There was quite little collaboration because people sort of heads down on like we're building this communication and I started to try to bring some of that in and it was just like total organ rejection.

Simone Maini : 26:11

And so, yeah, my first thought was I don't know if this is for me, I don't know if I'm for them, and I sort of promised myself to stick with it for like nine months just to see if it was a question of I had to get used to it or, as we grew a little bit, things would change. And obviously I'm really happy that I did. And I think a lot of it was me getting used to it, them getting used to me as well, like I was not the first, but one of the first, you know, non um software engineers, um, essentially, and so I think we, we were finding our way as a company. How do we move from being pure kind of tech to being commercial, operational, all of those things right, and that I think that journey has kind of repeated itself many times over the eight years that I've been in Elliptic now.

Amardeep Parmar: 27:15

And for people who are listening as well, can we actually explain what Elliptic does

and how that works?

Amardeep Parmar: 27:20

Because I'm sure there's some people who aren't fully sure and it's obviously. It's a complex area that you're working in right. 

Simone Maini :

Yes, we should talk about that definitely, um.

Simone Maini : 27:27

So, at elliptic, what we do is provide and build the data intelligence. Um about crypto. What does that really mean? Um, today we're solving problems in the money laundering space in crypto by helping build the identity layer of who is who.

Simone Maini : 27:46

Now, the common preconception is that everything in crypto is anonymous. We don't know who anyone is, and that's why there's so many bad actors. That actually couldn't be further from the truth. What is amazing about the blockchain is that, while we don't know it's you specifically, we can see patterns of activity and we can see wallet addresses and things like that. And so, Elliptic, what we're trying to do is associate wallet addresses and activity patterns with certain actors, and we're not trying to associate them with individuals like you or Aish or me. We're trying to associate them with either large services like Coinbase or PayPal or Revolut, and bad actors like dark marketplaces or scammers. And so we're building this enormous identity graph of who is who in crypto and we're labeling them. You know, this is a dark marketplace. It's high risk. This is a licensed, regulated crypto exchange, low risk. And so we're building up, you know, as big and reliable, comprehensive a graph as possible.

Simone Maini : 29:02

And then our customers, essentially what they're doing is, they're querying that graph to ask us one of our customers wants to deposit Bitcoin in this wallet. Is that a safe wallet? Or one of our customers is transferring some Solana from this wallet into our wallet. Should we accept it? Is it actually the proceeds of crime? And so, fundamentally, that is what we're doing. So we work with all kinds of financial institutions, from, like crypto, pure crypto financial institutions like Coinbase, crypto.com, people like that, to more fintech, so Paypal, Revolut, Square, that type of business that have you know, offering crypto services um, all the way to your very traditional financial institutions like Seutsche, Santander, Wells Fargo, it's. It's quite a broad spectrum of clients, um, and it's really about how do we help protect them from a money laundering, illicit finance perspective, as they are trying to build wealth. You know, safe, secure, compliant businesses in the crypto ecosystem.

Amardeep Parmar: 30:20

And like, obviously a huge part of that is gonna be the trust you have with these customers, right, and as ceo, that's gonna be a huge part of your role too. So how do you make sure all these different players trust you, because it's so important what that work is doing? How have you gone about that? So, especially as you transition from CEO to CEO, to showcase like the company and make sure that people trust in what you're doing and build those relationships as well?

Simone Maini : 30:42

That trust is critical, right. We're not just a software provider. They are buying into a partner that they believe is going to keep them safe, that will keep their word, and we take that super, super, super seriously. Ultimately, what we're trying to do at Elliptic is grow the crypto ecosystem. We believe really passionately in the power of crypto to transform financial services, financial inclusion, and the way we do that specifically is by providing solutions, data that will help people feel safe and that they know how to protect their perimeter from bad stuff happening inside it. And so, fundamentally, the way to build trust is to deliver on the promise, right? Don't let your customers down. If this is what you say you're going to do, you have to deliver on it, and so a lot of that is about building the right culture inside the company, really getting people energised about the mission, but also getting them helping people understand this is what the customer cares about, this is what they're trying to solve for, so I try to spend quite a lot of time talking about that, so that everyone is bought into.

Simone Maini : 31:56

Why is it so important that we're delivering on all that?

Simone Maini : 32:00

Like in everyone's job, we all have a part to play in making sure we deliver on the promise.

Simone Maini : 32:06

Then the other aspect and one of the things that I love most about my job is like building the client relationship.

Simone Maini : 32:12

Um, so I really love being out there with customers and will spend as much time acknowledging that I have a three-year-old at home and that can make that tricky sometimes, but I get tons of energy and satisfaction from talking to customers about their problems, about how we can solve their problems, about how we're not solving their problems but we could, you know, based on how we work together, and I think that does also build a lot of trust with them.

Simone Maini : 32:44

When they see, whether it's me or James, our founder or other, you know, any other member of the team is like super invested in solving their problem. Like ultimately, I think if you focus on that, then the revenue will come, whereas if you start just with the revenue, I think the person on the other side of the table feels that, and I think, you know, one of the things I'm really proud of at Elliptic is we do get really great feedback from our customers, which is that we just love the way you guys do business, and I think it is about like really kind of focusing in on the purpose of the business why we're here and the customer's problem.

Amardeep Parmar: 

And obviously, since you've been CEO as well, the company's scaled significantly and I think sometimes people in the early stages, they think about the early problems but don't realize when you're scaling that fast.

Amardeep Parmar: 33:39

That's a huge challenge in itself and growing the team and all these different elements that come in to be able to deliver on the promise. And on your side, what's been the biggest challenge of that and how have you gone about it to make sure that you can continue growing healthily?

Simone Maini : 33:54

I mean, I've made so many mistakes, right, like it has not been just like that, like it's definitely been a real roller coaster, um, and yeah. So anyone at the early stage that is looking at it, you know, kind of imagining that it is just up and to the right, like it never is. It hasn't been for us and I know for sure that it never is anywhere, even if it might look like that from the outside. I think there are definitely moments where we scaled a bit too fast, other moments where we scaled too slowly, and I think we've sort of learned to.

Simone Maini : 34:33

While you're always trying to optimize for timing, right, I think we've also learned not to be too hard on ourselves, because that's tough. That's tough. You've got to do the work to understand your market and, um, get that right as much as you can, but it's, um, it's an art, not a science. I think it's also, then, about how do I make decisions to reverse something or change something quickly. I think, ultimately, as I'm always in my mind, as now, as we think about scaling, I'm always thinking about, okay, what conditions need to exist for me to undo this decision, and I sort of that's the thing. I wish. Maybe I'd had that mental model a bit earlier.

Amardeep Parmar: 35:29

You mentioned before as well how you're really proud about the customer feedback, about people loving the way you do business. Could you share what other wins you've had I guess this time elliptic that you're really proud of and you think that obviously the team's done really well as well?

Simone Maini : 35:42

Yeah, I think probably two main ones. One is around the mission right, like we are in an incredibly privileged position that we get to go to work every day and stop bad things happening, literally. So I don't get to do that personally, but but the team is identifying illicit activity happening in real time and working with our clients to stop it in its tracks. Like that is the kind of thing I think when you take a big step back from everything, you're just like, okay, we did something good and I feel really, really proud of that. And then I think the second thing is just around the team. You know, my goal is always to create an environment where someone feels, however long or short a time they had with us, that they can leave Elliptic and go. That was an amazing place to spend three years of my career, I think.

Simone Maini : 36:45

For some time I definitely was much more about, oh, how do we retain everyone?

Simone Maini : 36:51

But that can't be the goal.

Simone Maini : 36:53

People and I have done it myself right you want to move around, you want to get different experiences, you want to figure out what you want to do, figure out what type of company you do best in, and I think now so now I'm much more about how do we just make sure that we create an environment where people feel really happy that they spent some really critical years of their career, and we've again, we've made tons of mistakes around that along the way, but I do feel like we put tons of work into that, and I know for sure that there are some people in the company, or that have been in the company, where we've helped them either build a better sense for them about what they want to do, what they want to achieve, that we've helped them build their confidence, um, and they've gone on to do amazing things elsewhere, and that that, like on a personal level, is also something I'm really proud about so going on to amazing things in the future as well there, so obviously there's a lot more to go for elliptic.

Amardeep Parmar: 37:53

What are're excited about for the future?

Simone Maini : 37:56

Yeah, I think we're a really important moment in crypto generally. Um, and I think at Elliptic, we've always been about this narrative that we're here to help enable crypto's growth rather than just stop bad things happening. But I think the wider kind of community has been a little bit more about like, how do we stop the bad things happening. But I think we're at a tipping point now where the conversation does feel so much more positive. It's much more about where can crypto take us. We're in a really exciting moment specifically for stable coins. We're also in a really exciting moment, hopefully, around crypto regulation. So we've got really good.

Simone Maini : 38:41

Well, we've got clear regulation in the EU now. We don't have it in the UK yet, we don't have it in the US broadly yet, but we're almost certainly on the cusp of having it, and so from that perspective, I just think the opportunity landscape is about to kind of explode wide open. Exactly how long that will take, who knows. But that's what I feel really optimistic about and I think all the work, the hard work and grind we've put in over the last few years to get the product where it is, to get our kind of proposition to where it is, I just think we're like right at the moment where we can grab that opportunity and deliver what people really need if they want to participate in the crypto economy.  

Amardeep Parmar: 39:28

So I've loved listening to your story today. We're gonna have to go to a quick five questions now. So first one is who are three British Asians you think are doing incredible work and you'd love to shout them out today?

Simone Maini : 39:37

Yes, okay. So I'm going to start with Amir Nooriala, who is the CEO of a company called Saepio. He was, has also been at Callsign, and and various other british startups. He's also prolific angel investor. So, um, I love Amir. He's always been super supportive. He's, you know, makes himself really available, so I definitely think people don't know him. Um, you should check him out.

Simone Maini : 39:58

I also have to shout out Neil Shah, who I know you've had on the podcast, but Neil has again been so generous with making connections and giving advice and I think he's a real, really amazing resource for all of us. And then the final person I would shout out is actually not in the kind of startup or like business building space at all, but I think she really deserves a shout out and that's someone called Anushka Astana and she's the um deputy, deputy political editor of itv and she like co-host the Peston show. She's just written a book about the rise of labor and I think it's just great to see someone like her like so prominent on the kind of political journalism stage as well.

Amardeep Parmar:

Awesome and then if you want to find out more about you and Elliptic, where should they go to?

Simone Maini : 40:48

Definitely, Linkedin is where I do most of my like social activity, um. So, yeah, please come and find me on there. And uh, Elliptic, you can find us at elliptic.co and also on Linkedin as well. So, yeah, please come and find us

Amardeep Parmar: 40:59

And is there  anything that you need help with right now Elliptic needs help with that somebody listening could reach out and help you with? 

Simone Maini : 41:04

Yeah, I think, look, we, as I said, we are at this moment in like building the crypto economy where there are like very few people, certainly in the financial ecosystem, who won't need to understand crypto risk and so, yeah, if that's you or you know someone, um, like we sometimes can be a bit unknown because people have this misconception that crypto is all about anonymity and crime and actually, you know, helping us get our story out there that actually it's not at all and we can. It's more transparent than traditional finance. So, yeah, anything people can do to help us get that story out there would be great.

Amardeep Parmar: 41:45

So again, thanks so much for coming on today. Really loved your story. Have you got any final words?

Simone Maini : 41:50

Well, I think you guys are honestly just doing such incredible work. So I'm really really happy to be here today. We're so happy to be connected with you and learn more about your mission and so, yeah, I'm really excited about hopefully having an opportunity to kind of be part of this community going forward. So thanks very much for having me.

Amardeep Parmar: 42:08

Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. See you next time.

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