Aron Alexander's entrepreneurial journey, including his resilience, military lessons applied to startups, and the strategic growth of his company.
Aron Alexander's entrepreneurial journey, including his resilience, military lessons applied to startups, and the strategic growth of his company Runa. It emphasizes how Runa's mission to revolutionize global money mobility through innovative infrastructure, defying traditional payment systems and even turning down acquisition offers, captivated customers and investors alike.
unfortunately had to go through about 20 operations you know before I was 19 uh which really kind of taught me a lot about keeping going when there's no finish line in sight trying to stay the course when things are difficult and definitely as a founder you go through a lot of pain in the journey but I think that was a good preparation I think for for building a [Music] business hello everyone and welcome to the Deal Maker Show. So, today we have a really fantastic founder. You know, we're going to be talking about the uh the good stuff that we like to hear, the building, the scaling, the financing, you know, really amazing stories of turning down, uh acquisition offers also of Perseverance, uh as well as, you know, taking a look at the at at rebranding and positioning. You know, that that's not easy at all. Uh but again, I think that the story of our founder today is going to be quite
inspiring. So, brace yourself for a very powerful conversation. So, without further ado, let's welcome our guest today, Aaron Alexander. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. So, originally born in London. Uh, give us a walk through memory lane. How was life growing up for you? Um, interesting times. So, I was born, as you said, in London. Um, I grew up in a family who owned independent retail stores. So I guess part of my journey in building Runa was really some of the experiences there kind of growing up working in a grocery store or a bakery or a clothing store kind of with a pricing gun in my hand. Um seeing the kind of the grit, determination, the effort of like building something from from scratch and the kind of day-to-day grind or attention to detail I should say uh and customer care. Um so that that was really quite an informative
experience. um had a lot of other I guess experiences growing up uh which taught me a lot about building a business. Um don't need to go into all of them but like some of them might be interesting in terms of the resilience and and perseverance. Um I uh unfortunately had to go through about 20 operations um you know before I was 19 uh which really kind of taught me a lot about you know keeping going when there's no finish line in sight and um you know trying to to stay the course when things are difficult and definitely as a founder you go through a lot of pain in in the journey but um I think that was a good preparation I think for for building a business um rolling forward I I started the company when I was 17 and before that before before that too I mean I think that that's so powerful what you mentioned there because you know being a founder too is all about being with uncertainty.
Uh being okay with you know not knowing what the future is going to have for you. You know in the morning everything is great at night things are falling apart and it's just like the cycles that you have to go through. I guess in your case too uh as you were saying you know dealing with 20 operations um you know health-wise I mean that that's very difficult. you know it's it's ultimately dealing with the uncertainty but doing so at a very early you know stage in your life I guess how do you think that shape who that shaped who you are today Aaron I think the the things to think about there are we all go through difficult things like everyone has their challenges um you know we don't all start from the same position and you know the learning for me at least was you got to you got to find a way of like holding on to what's important to you to keep going and then using those experience
experiences, I guess, to try and build something for yourself and achieve whatever it is you want to achieve in life. Cuz if you can go through something difficult in one part of your life, instead of it being maybe something that holds you back or or you know is only a um I guess a period of trauma that that you find difficult to process, you can actually use it as fuel to try and go and do something that that is meaningful to you and you know, not just be something that that things happen to you, but be someone that makes things happen. Um, so I think, you know, we don't always choose the things that we go through. Um, but it's about just making the most out of it. Uh, and and doing what you can to to take the things that you can control and and create something that matters to you. Now, for you, obviously, you know, you you you were going to go through the schooling and, you know, the
education, all that stuff, but you decided to drop out and and go into the military. You know, that's quite the course of actions here. Well, I had a, as I mentioned, there kind of health issues going on. So, I I couldn't really finish school with with all the A levels that I that I probably wanted to. Um, and then like I had to take a step back and I wanted to, you know, do things that maybe rewarded the other skills that I had in life. Um, that kind of determination and that focus maybe. Um, you know, you can use an academia, but I didn't I didn't really have the opportunities to to maybe go to the the best institutions at that stage of my life. But going to the military like really taught me a lot about excellence and if you persevere, there are paths for you to to really go and achieve things that you know you didn't maybe think were possible. Not to mention all the teamwork and
planning and and you know other areas of resilience and grit that you need to to operate in in an infantry unit. Uh which all kind of map to building a company as well. Um but I was fortunate after that to um to be able to teach myself you know my outstanding remaining A levels while while working and um get myself a place uh at Cambridge University um because of I think the experiences that inspired me in the military were like if you do work hard there are opportunities to excel and that doesn't just apply in that you know in the military part of life but actually in any part of life and again it's about just taking what you have and making the most of um and seeing how far you can go. And I think that's something that I lacked in school but learned in the military and really has allowed me to um take myself forward I guess in other parts of my life. How do you think Cambridge changed
the you know things for you professionally as well? That was a real experience in in multitude of ways. Um it was a culture shock for me personally having kind of not come from that background. First person in my my family to go to university. Um I think I think I'm the first to finish high school. Um, and then I think there was some really amazing, you know, experiences there that doubled down on what I was saying before because you think of University of Cambridge as a center of academic excellence. It's actually a center of excellence across a multitude of different fields, whether it's the rowing team or the foot lightss and comedy or um, you know, other activities. You see a lot of high achievers coming out there naturally, but not just in academia. And so I think that I I I was really fortunate to get a great grounding in analytical thinking there. You know, I was pushed to my
limit. Um I I acquired new skills that I use to this day in terms of like first principal thinking and being able to do good research, you know, around the market, around customers, around documentation and thinking about how to disperse and disseminate information in a way that lands with people. So that's the academic side. But um it was a real kind of eye openener again taking that same idea of if you focus and you master your craft at one area of your life you can excel there and that doesn't have to be limited to one thing you know it doesn't have to be limited to the military or just academia if you put your mind to something you can go and achieve great things in whichever field that you're passionate about um so I think like that shaped my thinking and and and the way I kind of approach things um from that experience at university now in this case you you ended up going into a
payments company, then a family office, and then you find yourself into the world of entrepreneurship. So, work walk us through those sequences of events that needed to happen for you to become an entrepreneur. Yeah. So, you know, I was fortunate to grow up in a family of entrepreneurs and um you know, get exposure to that early on. So, I guess from a a kind of um familiarity perspective, it felt something that that I'd seen a lot before. Um I'm I started my first business at 17 at school. I actually started my second while I was um you know um in university um again like uh in the same kind of investment area. Um the family office was actually while I was teaching myself level. So that's a little bit before but I think the point was that um you know having had those experiences you know growing up uh and you know while at at in education at school or university um I always felt like I I
had a drive to solve…