20Product: Revolut Business $1BN Revenue: Five of the Biggest Product Lessons | How Revolut Structures Product and Design Teams | How Revolut Experiments and Invests in New Product Bets | How Revolut Ships Product So Fast with James Gibson
Timestamps are as accurate as they can be but may be slightly off. We encourage you to listen to the full context.
Podcast Summary
In this episode, James Gibson, Head of Revolut Business, shares insights from his journey building one of the fastest-growing business banking products on the planet. Under his leadership, Revolut Business processes over $33 billion in monthly transaction volumes and generates more than $1 billion in annualized revenue. (00:17) The conversation explores Revolut's unique approach to product development, hiring, and maintaining velocity at scale.
- Main themes: Product velocity, hiring excellence, team structure, goal-setting frameworks, and scaling product organizations while maintaining quality and speed.
Speakers
James Gibson
Head of Revolut Business with over seven years at the company. Started his career as a consultant before transitioning into product management at Revolut. Under his leadership, Revolut Business has grown to process over $33 billion in monthly transactions and generates more than $1 billion in annualized revenue, making it one of the fastest-growing business banking products globally.
Harry Stebbings
Host of 20 Product and 20VC podcasts. Venture capitalist and entrepreneur focused on interviewing leading product leaders and founders to share insights on building exceptional products and teams.
Key Takeaways
Hire for Raw Problem-Solving Skills Over Frameworks
Gibson emphasizes that Revolut prioritizes candidates with strong foundational problem-solving abilities rather than those who have memorized product management frameworks. (10:50) He believes great product people can ask the right questions, structure problems effectively, and balance multiple solutions mentally. This approach has proven successful in building high-performing teams that can adapt to Revolut's fast-paced environment and deliver exceptional results without being constrained by rigid methodologies.
Focus on Few Goals to Drive Velocity
Successful product teams should limit themselves to 3-5 goals maximum to maintain focus and avoid optimization in too many directions. (18:51) Gibson explains that Revolut cascades company-level goals down to individual teams, ensuring alignment while preventing teams from pursuing random objectives. This focused approach enables teams to make clear trade-off decisions and maintain the rapid execution velocity that has made Revolut successful in launching products faster than competitors.
Product Owners, Not Product Managers
Revolut uses "product owners" instead of product managers, with a key distinction: product owners truly own their team and outcomes rather than trying to influence across the organization. (20:15) These product owners stay with their teams for months or years, creating stability and deep domain knowledge. Each leads a cross-functional team of 10-12 people including engineers, designers, and operations, reporting directly up the hierarchy. This structure enables faster decision-making and clearer accountability.
Weekly Product Reviews Drive Execution
Gibson has moved away from traditional one-on-ones in favor of weekly product review meetings that include product owners, designers, engineers, and operations managers. (22:39) These sessions review metrics, roadmap progress, and examine designs screen-by-screen in Figma. This format ensures the right people are involved in decisions that typically affect multiple team members, creating more efficient decision-making and maintaining momentum across all product initiatives.
Simplicity Improves All Product Metrics
Gibson shares that Revolut has conducted major app redesigns focused on simplification, and each time they see immediate improvements across all core product metrics. (33:33) He notes that customers never request more complex interfaces - simplification consistently enhances user experience. The lesson is that addressing known product complexity issues shouldn't be delayed for other priorities, as the impact of simplification often exceeds expectations and drives meaningful business results.
Statistics & Facts
- Revolut Business processes over $33 billion in monthly transaction volumes and generates more than $1 billion in annualized revenue. (00:17) This demonstrates the massive scale the platform has achieved under Gibson's leadership.
- The company aims for teams to hit approximately 80% of their goals on average as the optimal success rate. (19:13) Gibson explains this indicates goals are appropriately challenging - consistently hitting 100% suggests goals are too easy, while only hitting 5% indicates either poor team performance or unrealistic goal-setting.
- Product teams at Revolut are kept deliberately small at 10-12 people per team, including engineers, designers, and operations staff. (20:15) This size maintains efficiency while ensuring cross-functional collaboration without becoming unwieldy.
