Gabriele Musella of Coinrule: 5 Things You Need To Be An Effective Leader During Turbulent Times
As part of my series about the “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times,” I had the pleasure of interviewing Gabriele Musella, Founder and CEO of Coinrule — a smart assistant designed exclusively for cryptocurrency traders.
With over 15 years of experience in domains such as FINTECH, Telco, Science, Banking, he has has been able to seamlessly navigate through a range of innovation management roles around 5 countries — Finland, UK, USA, Hungary, Italy- working for UBS Bank, Nokia, NHS, Vodafone, IBM, WPP, Lloyds Bank, etc. Gabriele holds a BSc/MSc from the Polytechnic of Milan and has undertaken several executive business programmes at the L.S.E and Harvard University. He is a Lead Mentor at Google Launchpad, and a Mentor at StartupBootCamp, and Virgin Startups
- Thank you so much for your time. I know you’re a very busy person; our readers would love to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you got started?
My background is in UX. I worked in several innovation labs at different banks in London. Before that, I worked in the US at MIT in a research lab, and previous to that, I also worked in Finland, mostly on Nokia Siemens projects. I was taking care of complex data, user experience, product management, and analytics. That’s my background: a design path morphing into business/entrepreneurship
- None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful to words who helped you get to where you are today?
Yeah, Robin Bade. He is now one of our advisors in Coinrule. He was one of the first investors in Coinrule and one of the first to believe in us, as well as he was the person that inspired me to become an entrepreneur back in the days when I was working in Finland in 2009. It was an inspiration; we kept in touch and followed my journey across startups till the present day. He got to see first-hand all the lessons I learned over the years. Eventually, He was ready to invest when He saw that Coinrule was a future-looking venture and a potential profitable business built by a complementary team. On the other hand, I got inspired by him, by watching his work at Activeark WPP in Helsinki. We had big clients like Nokia, and the perseverance he showed in being able to start with a very small project within a big corporation and then expand to different capabilities and different units within Nokia, made me think a lot about how to develop a business
It was like seeing a business case applied in real-time in front of me. Something clicked in my mind, with that vendor strategy and with the leadership style he showed to the whole team. Within a few years, he became one of the leading suppliers of software, digital creatives, and marketing for Nokia. Anticipating customer’s demands, even if it would waste some resources and Robin’s pro-active, yet calm, sales process, was a key factor in that escalation. The way he built the team, with many specialised experts and amazing partners, like Kasper, Creative Director, made me really want to build an interdisciplinary organisation and add value to society through a scalable product. That was a big inspiration for me for starting my first company
-Extensive research suggests that purpose driven businesses are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision?
The vision was to allow ordinary people to be able to manage their investment in an active way. People work so hard to save money, to have them eventually controlled by some else, or be almost forced to deposit your savings into “black box” investment accounts giving a 3%-5% return every year is obsolete. Out there the market is managed by bots, hedge funds, and investment banks with access to tools that ordinary people cannot access. Coinrule’s vision is to level the playing field between these two groups. We believe in less inequality in society. If we can up-skill ordinary people to manage their finances and teach them how to do wealth management, we can create a better society even with small amounts. Everyone can join the game, and everyone can invest and even support good companies, resulting in less manipulation of markets
- Can you share with our readers a story from your own experience about how you lead your team during uncertain or difficult times?
That’s a very recent story about Covid in February. We were in the middle of a fundraise with a negotiated Term Sheet on the table. After having had several conversations with a prominent VC in London for the last few months, we finally had the round sorted. However, within two weeks from the Covid burst, the deal changed completely. The valuation of the company got cut by 60%. We found ourselves in a situation where we had to accept a terrible deal, a “shark deal”. Considering our valuation was now much lower and the new round was offered just with a 20% premium, I felt that the team was not being rewarded in the right way. My main goal was to preserve the team motivation and preserve the value of the work that was created so far. In parallel, the start of the financial crisis was a big challenge because, on one side, we had the opportunity to get the money straight away. However, it was a bad deal. The deal would compromise the company on the other side now could have also sorted and solved many problems that appeared in terms of Finance
- Ultimately, we made the right decision. We cut all founder salaries to almost zero, we put some staff members on Furlough and by doing so, we hoped for the best while preparing really for the worst. We reached out to tons and tons of investors, and, within three months, we were able to raise funds at a valuation we wanted. The valuation we wanted was at 4 million pounds, the round it’s almost close now, but it’s oversubscribed. Overall, we had a couple of months of uncertainty, mainly March, April, and May. But then we started having the first tickets in, and so we kept going, I must say one thing that also helped us a lot was the R&D claim back from the HMRC tax and the tax relief. That kept us going together with furlough, and then the first angels started investing. The COVID situation and the lack of funds made that phase a very challenging period
- Did you ever consider giving up?
Not really; the only time to give up is when it ends. We always take an optimistic view — there is still a solution to a problem. Although, there was no sleep for a few nights, I was reading, strategizing, and trying to find a solution because giving up is never the answer. In fact, my co-founders and I always repeat ourselves that if we aren’t doing the right thing, we should close the company. Difficult moments are more like conscious moments while we thrive to do the right thing for the company — for our people in the team — instead of just accepting the present moment
- Where did you get the motivation to continue through your challenges?
The motivation came from the vast community we have around Coinrule. Users write to us every day. Some of them hate us, some of them love us, it is a sign they want and need Coinrule. Our product adds value to their lives and that drives the whole team in persevering and looking into the future; our community is a only significant source of motivation
- What keeps you going?
What keeps me going is knowing that, bit by bit, we can improve society. So even if it’s a tiny part — our user using Coinrule’s product few minutes per day — I know we are contributing to solving inequality, worldwide
- What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during challenging times?
It is to push and follow through on an idea, even if sometimes everyone else think it is crazy. Having some calculated risk in place and being stubborn in exceptional times helps. At the same time, understand what the team and company can sustain in the long-term. Our team reacted very well to the ‘call to arms’; I gave a speech in March, and everyone was very conscious and responsible and took a small cut to move forward. None of the guys we had in March left because of Covid. I must say, connected that that, a period of crisis is the best time to start a company. Overall, being occasionally stubborn in your leadership style and understanding the needs to balance that with a smoother management approach is the most valuable skill to have
- Can you please give us your favourite life lesson quote?
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”- Winston Churchill
This quote was very relevant for me while beginning my entrepreneurial endeavours. Prior to Coinrule, I started two startups, which I consider a soldi learning experience. Eventually, you reach a point in the life of the organisation where you genuinely need to work very hard and push forward to attain long-lasting success. Once your company becomes sustainable, you must keep learning as the business is running. That is where I see myself now with Coinrule
- How can our readers further follow your work?
Connect to me on LinkedIn, check out our Seedrs campaign on http://Seedrs.com/Coinrule or our blog where we share our exciting stories about what’s happening in the company