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During college, I had some (business) ideas, but was always waiting for the right moment, the perfect idea and it never showed up When I moved to Brazil, I spent six months trying to open a bank account. I had to go to the bank branch at Faria Lima (street) five times go through the shielded revolving doors as if I were a criminal leave my cell phone and my wallet in a locker. I could not believe the terrible experience that I, as a customer, was having in Brazil. That triggered something in my mind… “Hey! There is a very interesting opportunity here” So I started looking for business partners On one hand, we wanted someone familiar with the local, Brazilian, industry; on the other hand, a partner who knew about technology I actually met David in Argentina in Nubank’s early days He told me “Let’s go to Brazil! Let’s build a bank!” And I was sold! David always says I was the easiest deal he has ever made. Initially, our name was EOS but I found it was already taken when we decided to register it Then, we changed it o EO2 but in a meeting with Doug Leone, one of our investors from Sequoia, in California he said that it was a horrible name Too nerd Then we partnered with a local agency and they helped us look at different concepts and we all liked (the name) Nubank very much Mostly, because the “Nu” part of the name reflected many of our values and (the values of) the company we wanted to build. On one hand (in portuguese) “nu” means without clothes basically, naked No preconceptions, judgements, simple, transparent… Also reminds us of “new” something new which was exactly what we were trying to build to our customers: something opposed to the old, the dinosaurs, the banks that old world that we wanted to disrupt and completely rethink. In the beginning, we did many things ourselves, put money out of our pockets to buy furniture and rent the house where we would start working I really wanted a house not a traditional office, because… Well, first of all it was very cheap and we didn’t want to spend a lot of money We looked at many options but then we found this house at California street and it felt very symbolic for us to start there. I remember the teams’ dedication in those early days like arriving early in the morning and finding Eric already there eating cereals and coding So people were really committed, they all wanted it to work. In those days, I was answering phone calls and our 0800 number rang on my phone. I replied to every chat and e-mail. So it was a very… hands-on, gutsy operation. That was the beginning. When we moved to the new office at Brigadeiro street there were only a few of us (on the team), and the building felt huge. There were 60 people, at most, working in that building I have been here from the start from the small house, to moving to a bigger building where we thought we would stay for quite some time But then, in a year, it was completely full. And now, in our current office, we are still growing a lot. We had that feeling that we were doing something big, but our environment didn’t show that. It was not about “today”, or about the infrastructure we had back then, but about the dream we are aiming for. And now, in this office, this feels a little more obvious. We were outraged we couldn’t accept paying the world’s highest bank rates and interests and be so poorly treated we were victims, hostages of the institutions This nonconformism was our drive the force for building everything that came after. We always say that we want to see our customers, people in Brazil or in other markets, calling their banks and saying “why can’t you guys be more like Nubank?” But not only that Call their insurance companies and ask them “why can’t you be more like Nubank?” Telecom companies “why can’t you be like Nubank?” Government: why can’t you be more like Nubank? We are starting to influence different industries, and we already are the benchmark for servic