Zevvle interview (part 1)
Zevvle is definitely an underdog but, for us, it’s one of the most exciting shake ups to the mobile network industry in a decade.
In just a few months they’ve managed to put together a brand new virtual network including a completely bespoke fully-featured app. We’ve been following since rumours and leaks started appearing online about a year ago and were excited to be one of the first 70 customers to sign up to test it out in the UK.
We’ve been trialling the service for a month now and you may have noticed that our full in-depth Zevvle review is now live on the site.
We got together with their co-founder, Nick Goodall, to ask a few questions about Zevvle. Nick is a bit of a prodigy starting a network form scratch on his own at the age of 23.
Nick, described as the “creative wacky one”, is a former Elmfield Steiner School and King Edward VI College pupil from Stourbridge in the West Midlands His vision for Zevvle is to provide fair and sensible pricing, useful support and features designed for customers
Nick, exciting times finally launching! First of all can you explain a little more about the genesis of the company and the ideas behind it?
It was late 2017 and I needed to talk with my mobile network after traveling. The experience was awful, and that coupled with watching the rise of fintech gave me the idea to do something in telecoms. “If those non-bankers can do well in banking, maybe I can start a mobile network.” I thought. Monzo was probably the biggest inspiration as I’ve been with them for 3+ years, and I wanted to found Zevvle on fairly similar principles: transparency, great service and modern tech (reasonable people may disagree).
The whole network is just run by you and your older brother Tim at the moment. Can you tell us about yourselves?
Tim started out as the first employee of a bicycle company, then worked over ~14 years to become the CEO of a 50+ person team.
Personally, I’ve done a bit of everything – studied engineering, managed a martini bar, worked as a chef, a cowboy, a software developer for a New York startup and then freelance, and now running a mobile network…
Could you describe the brand in three words?
Built for you.
To add some context, we’re building everything we can (& should..) from the ground-up. Our apps, billing software, etc.. We don’t yet route calls and such – our supplier does that – but we’ll take the same philosophy to that as well.
That’s cheating! Way more than three words! Okay, then who do you see as your closet competitor?
Friendly, fair, responsive.
Great! But who do you see as your closest competitor?
Probably Giffgaff, as that’s a question we get a lot – “How are you different from them?” Hint: pay only for what you use, multi-SIM accounts, native mobile apps & a near-realtime usage feed.
That makes sense. In many ways, there’s a lot of similarities between the origins of Giffgaff and fintech. What similarities do you see between Zevvle and new fintech banks looking to shake up finance?
These banks are partly why Zevvle exists! The industries are both massive with lots of inertia that haven’t fully taken advantage of what the internet has to offer, so the neo-banks started simple with a neat application, instant notifications, etc., and we’re not a million miles away — starting with a 3rd party, then slowly bringing the bigger infrastructure in-house.
The MVNO market is incredibly saturated and competitive, what’s your one USP?
Only pay for what you use.
It is saturated, but nobody’s trying to push the needle. As you ask below – why, in 2019, does it still cost to send an SMS? There’s work to be done.
Make sure you check back for the second part of our Zevvle interview with Nick which will be published here next week 🙂
Recent Comments