20VC: $0-$260M in Revenue in Three Years: How We Did It | You Need to Work Weekends to Win — Most Founders Aren't Ambitious Enough | The Revolut Playbook: Speed, Urgency, Extreme Ownership, and Zero Excuses with Alan Chang @ Fuse Energy

**Alan Chang** (0:00)
If you have a gun pointed to your head today, would you have done more? If the answer is yes, that means you're not doing a good job. There's nothing wrong with wanting work-life balance, but I think the only way to build a generational company is like very, very strong work ethic. I just don't see any other way to do it. Excuses don't matter. If you're a leader of an area in the company, excuses don't matter. If you succeed, you get all the praise. If you fail, you get all the blame. And it does not matter why you failed. We increased our revenue 10x every year since inception.
The first year was 2 million pounds, second year was 20 pounds, and then this year we're going to end at over 200 pounds.

**Harry Stebbings** (0:37)
Simply put, I have interviewed a thousand of the best entrepreneurs over the last decade and two stand out above all others. Nik Storonsky, founder at Revolut, and then our guest today, Alan Chang. Alan is the co-founder and CEO of Fuse Energy, where, check this out, every single year, he has scaled revenue 10x. The first year, 2 million, the second year, 20 million, and the third year, 200 million. So, like Netflix beat incumbents to own media, Revolut beat incumbents to own banking, Fuse will beat incumbents to own energy, I think three of the most important categories that technology can own. Prior to founding Fuse, Alan was one of the first three hires at Revolut, where he played a crucial role, alongside Nik, in scaling the company to an over 75 billion dollar valuation. But before we dive into the show today, as an investor, I'm always on the lookout for tools that really transform how I work. Tools that don't just save time, but fundamentally change how I uncover insights. That's exactly what AlphaSense does. With the acquisition of Tegas, AlphaSense is now the ultimate research platform built for professionals who need insights they can trust, fast. I've used Tegas before for company deep dives right here on the podcast. It's been an incredible resource for expert insights. But now with AlphaSense leading the way, it combines those insights with premium content, top broker research and cutting edge generative AI. The result? A platform that works like a supercharged junior analyst, delivering trusted insights and analysis on demand. AlphaSense has completely reimagined fundamental research, helping you uncover opportunities from perspectives you didn't even know how they existed. It's faster, it's smarter, and it's built to give you the edge in every decision you make. Twenty VC listeners don't miss your chance to try AlphaSense for free. Visit alphasense.com/twozero to unlock your trial. That's alphasense.com/twozero. After AlphaSense shows you what the market is signaling, Nexus helps you turn those signals into deals. Is your team using ChatGPT? How about Gemini or Mid Journey? You probably don't know the full answer, and that's the danger of shadow AI. Every day your employees are feeding sensitive company data, code and customer lists into, let's face it, public AI tools, creating a massive security and compliance blind spot. But you can't just block AI, you will kill productivity. That's why we recommend Nexus AI. Nexus AI gives you complete visibility and control over all AI use in your company. It lets you see every tool, block the risky ones, and most importantly, it places AI guardrails to automatically redact sensitive data before it leaves your network. It's a unified platform for secure, company-wide AI adoption and productivity. Tech leaders set policies and oversee usage. Business teams get the models they actually need. It's not about stopping innovation, it's about enabling it safely. Try nexus.ai yourself with a 14-day free trial at nexus.ai/20vc. Our link is in the description. While nexus helps you run faster across revenue workflows, Vanta makes sure your security and compliance can keep up. Security and compliance done wrong is a giant headache. Security and compliance done right though? Well, that's Vanta. Vanta helps you earn trust and speed up growth. No spreadsheets required. For startups low on time and resources, Vanta becomes your first security hire, using AI and automation to get you compliant fast and unblock really big deals. And if you're big enterprises, Vanta is your AI-powered hub for compliance and risk, bringing together data from across your business and automating workflows so you can prove trust at any moment. Vanta scales with you at every stage. That's why top companies, from startups like Cursor to enterprises like Snowflake, choose Vanta. Do security and compliance right. My listeners can get $1,000 off Vanta by going to vanta.com/20vc.
That's vanta.com/20vc for $1,000 off Vanta.

**Alan Chang** (4:52)
You have now arrived at your destination.