Vlad Tenev

They had like processes that were legacy that they hadn't automated.

Yeah, and the benefit is we could kind of like start with a blank slate and it wasn't only the electronic trading stuff, it was mobile.

We could ask ourselves, well, if we could design just for the mobile device, we probably don't have to do everything because in fact, people expect a simpler experience on mobile.

What's like the most valuable kernel of a thing that we could start with that could strike out a little niche for us?

How much regulation did you have to

figure out and get through.

Well, and that was actually one of the big constraints that we had at first.

We had to

raise money so so you had to get a license before even marketing that you're a broker and then you can offer commission-free trades which is what we wanted to do that was our big idea like take the cost cut it so before you were building the technology for that to happen but you weren't the trader you were selling the technology to traders yeah exactly now you're becoming the trader first we became the trader ourselves yes

Second, we sold the technology to other institutions.

And third, we kind of started from scratch.

It turned out we could use the ideas, but the technology had to fundamentally change to support millions of customers.

The third step was not just empowering companies to use us, sophisticated companies, but like mass market individual.

We could just sign up.

open an account as quickly as possible, five minutes or less, which was a huge innovation.

Before we came along,

you'd almost, you would have to like print out a form and fax it to your brokerage.

And then they'd get back to you a couple of days later, your account would be open.

They were moving papers back in the background.

And then, you know, you'd have to wire money there.