My Start-up Story: How Vaidas Adomauskas’ start-up experience shaped Revolut Business

Vaidas Adomauskas, Head of Revolut Business, has quite a unique perspective on our Business product. You see, he was one of its very first beta customers. The insights from his time as a start-up co-founder and Revolut Business user help guide him in building a superior product, properly addressing and anticipating our customers’ needs. Today, he’s a unique character at Revolut - ask any Revoluter to describe Vaidas and they’d struggle to describe his larger-than-life personality. A leader who defies definition, his strong will has made a huge impact on Revolut Business, bringing it to ever new heights.

Saying hello to a stranger

His passion for start-ups has always been more focused on the business-to-business market than retail, evidenced by co-founding WoraPay in 2012, helping retailers increase sales by allowing customers to pay without queueing. Years later, as he worked on WoraPay in a Vilnius coworking space, he sat next to a Revoluter in the Business Development team. They’d go out to let off steam over a couple of beers, but also discussed a new development at Revolut: a game-changing business product.

The way SMEs and start-ups do business has evolved with a changing world, such as operating from coworking spaces as Vaidas was, or taking their business entirely online. Despite this, the available financial products hadn’t changed to match that evolution. Vaidas was painfully aware  that existing products were no longer fit for purpose, so he enthusiastically volunteered as a beta tester for Revolut Business. This attitude is widespread in the start-up world; wherever one can help another, whether that’s in contacts, advice, or as a tester, sharing is key to growth. Vaidas is a poster child for the start-up spirit, embodying it daily in his work

Lead from experience

In the summer of 2019, he took all the experience he’d built up as a customer and an SME owner and joined Revolut to head our Business product. Since then, he’s built a formidable financial tool that is fully integrated, enabling businesses to focus on their bottom line rather than wasting time figuring out how to run the business. The numbers speak for themselves: over 280,000 businesses have become customers since he joined, to bring our total to more than 400,000, processing over £1.5bn in transactions monthly.

Vaidas is modest about his impact, telling us that “growth is about bringing customers the best product, because the customer experience will always be the best form of marketing.” It’s been an exciting journey, “we were once seen as the underdog to the hero retail product, but we’ve proven ourselves to be indispensable.” For Vaidas, Revolut Business is like a start-up within a start-up. It’s earlier along in its journey than Revolut for personal customers, both in numbers and products, and that gives him a great opportunity to steer the ship with all the experience he gleans from his colleagues in Retail. He laughs as he tells us how he imagines Revolut Business as Revolut’s younger sibling, “we learn from all the Retail experimentation so that we can iterate twice as fast, bringing more great products to our customers.”

Proactive vs Reactive

When Revolut Business launched, it was a reaction to the lack of financial products on the market that actually addressed real SMEs’ financial needs. Since then, it’s rolled out more and more business products, from fully digital business accounts with low cost international payments, to invoicing and payroll management. Vaidas is now in the next phase of Revolut Business: anticipating customer needs before they experience the pain point. This is what is required to bring a truly next-generation product; proactive innovation. He’s coy about what’s coming, but hints at providing a full-service experience for business customers. We recall his earlier point of helping business focus on the bottom line instead of administration as he tells us about the forthcoming SME Toolkit that will allow customers to have full control of their business finances from one place.

If you’re excited about the idea of creating cutting-edge financial tech products that help businesses around the world increase efficiency and growth, then you might be just the right fit for Revolut Business. Explore open roles through our Careers page; your next career move might be just around the corner.