Welcome to the second edition of TSL’s community-sourced newsletter. 💜 Enjoy the read!

This week, we’re putting the spotlight on Marta Krupinska’s bold move from fintech founder to operator to leading the charge on carbon removal at CUR8. If you’re passionate about sustainability and startup culture, this episode is a must-listen!

Have you tuned in to our latest episode with Sabrina Del Prete of KORE Labs yet? She’s done the remarkable job of building a fintech serving 120m people with zero VC funding!

Lastly, we’ve pulled together resources referenced by our podcast guests to help you take that Leap!

Episode Spotlight ✨: Ex-Googler, Building For the $1 trillion Climate Challenge - Marta Krupinska, Co-Founder of CUR8

In this episode, we speak with Marta Krupinska, a founder with a passion for tackling inequality, who has launched two impactful businesses and is now focused on climate change with Cur8, a carbon removal platform.

Marta shares her passion for solving global challenges as she discusses building trust in the carbon removal space and highlights the importance of aligning values with investors when raising VC funding. She also delves into team culture and the importance of creating an environment where everyone can succeed. She highlights the urgency of removing 10 gigatons of carbon by 2050, with Maria noting how climate change disproportionately affects regions like Africa, even though they contribute far less to emissions.‪

In this episode, we cover:

00:05:01 – The beginnings of Marta’s first ‘entrepreneurial itch’

00:09:17 – Moving from Poland to London and challenges in building a business

00:10:01 – Co-founding Azimo at 24, a money transfer company

00:15:42 – How she met her co-founders

00:21:45 – Exiting Azimo and lessons learned

00:29:00 – Climate change and carbon removal

00:37:24 – Building CUR8 and its role in carbon removal projects

00:46:20 – Building the culture at CUR8

00:54:00 – Advice for founders who want to take VC funding

01:02:00 – Solving issues without having all the pieces to the puzzle

Key takeaways:

💡 Optimizing for profitability: While scaling Azimo, Marta focused on recovering customer acquisition costs within 6-12 months by ensuring strong customer retention. This strategy maximized lifetime value, as customers stayed loyal for 3-5 years, helping the company achieve profitability through reduced marketing costs and organic referrals.

🎯 Refining Focus: Marta reflects on Azimo's early wide-scale expansion across multiple remittance corridors, from Turkey to Nigeria. While this boosted reach, it also led to operational issues and firefighting small problems in less profitable regions. Her takeaway? Instead of scaling too broadly, focus on core markets that drive the majority of revenue (the 80/20 rule), ensuring you’re maximising growth in areas where trust and financial impact are strongest.

📚 Importance of Upskilling: Marta highlights the importance of self-education when entering a new field. For those interested in building a climate tech company, Marta references courses like Air Miners, a free accelerator that offers a comprehensive reading list and a community for those wanting to dive deeper into carbon removal.

Watch or Listen to the episode on your next commute to get in-depth insights!

Have you listened to our latest episode? ✨ Built Fintech Startup Serving 120m People With Zero VC Funding - KORE Labs

We sat down with Sabrina Del Prete, founder of KORE Labs—she built a fintech startup at age 50, and has received zero funding to date!🚀 

Sabrina shares her journey from senior roles in banking to launching KORE Labs, highlighting how she turned her innovative idea into a thriving fintech startup. She discusses the challenges of building compliant, customer-centric digital products and offers key advice for founders on resilience and maintaining focus.

Founders who don’t “fit the mould”, with deep sector experience building in the B2B or fintech industry will find this packed with actionable advice!

Resources to help you take the Leap📚

💼Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer recommended by Richard Robinson, founder of Robin AI 

📘Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup hailed by Tayo Bamiduro, founder of Max

🌍Climate Brick: a manual for building and scaling climate tech companies sourced by yours truly💜

Thanks for reading 💜

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TSL Team 💜