In today’s fast-paced, globally connected world, traditional financial services haven’t kept pace – especially for those who call more than one country home. The frustration of rebuilding credit from scratch every time you move is real and it’s one that founder Tim Chong knew all too well. So, alongside co-founders Theso Jivajirajah and Harry Jell, the trio set out to redefine the experience.
And this led to the creation of Yonder: a fintech trailblazer that’s breaking down borders and transforming financial services into something vibrant, experiential and genuinely rewarding. Backed by RTP Global in their Series A funding round in 2023, alongside Repeat and Latitude, Yonder is rewriting the rules with a blend of innovative credit and debit products, enriched by thoughtfully curated experiences.
In this Q&A, CEO and co-founder Tim gives a behind-the-scenes look into Yonder’s origin story, its bold positioning in a crowded market, proactive strategies against competition and ambitious vision for the future.
What initially sparked your idea for Yonder? Was it a personal pain point or a broader market gap you spotted?
It was a combination of two. One was my personal experience moving to London. I had moved around quite a lot – this is the fifth country I’ve lived in now. I always found it really frustrating that my credit score wouldn’t come with me.
But also, there was this huge wave of neobanks building great digital banking experiences, but no one had done anything around helping people explore the city and the world. We wanted to solve two related problems: creating a next-generation credit card with a great neobank experience and a rich reward system centered around discovery, becoming a tourist in your own city. This combination of personal experience and market opportunity became the seed of what Yonder is now.
Has the principle of ‘being a tourist in your own city’ stayed consistent, or has it evolved as you’ve developed the product?
The core tenet hasn’t changed, but how it looks on the product side has definitely evolved. We started with a credit card, now we have a debit card, which we launched a couple of weeks ago, and it’s growing incredibly fast. We now also see opportunities in helping you feel like a local when you travel, creating another dimension to our original idea.
The core hasn’t changed. I’d say it’s now evolved, and how it looks like in a product has definitely evolved a lot more as well.
You mention the debit card launch. How has the initial reception been?
It’s been incredible. We’ve more than doubled customer acquisition, and feedback has been so positive. It definitely feels like a natural extension of what we’ve always wanted to do, which is this belief that money itself isn’t the end goal. Rather, it’s how you use it and how you can use it to create incredibly vibrant experiences and memories.
So that’s not tied to a card, really. And it’s really not tied to whether it’s credit or debt. It’s tied to this idea of how you spend your money and how we can help you make the most of that experience as you use it.
What were the biggest operational hurdles in growing Yonder from scratch?
Initially, we adopted the Y Combinator approach of building something customers love and doing things that don’t scale. Everything was sticky-taped together. We could iterate very quickly. We changed direction. Every week, we were redesigning the value proposition. Every week, we were changing how we would position ourselves in the market. It meant we were moving super fast, we could innovate really quickly, and find product market fit.
I think in these early days, you want to be as flexible as possible. Your primary goal is just be in search of product market fit. You don’t build anything for scale, you build everything for flexibility.
Now, that becomes challenging when you start to get to the point where you have to start scaling because all the sticky tape starts to unravel. Customer support, initially manageable with one team member, became unsustainable with tens of thousands of customers. We had to implement proper processes and sustainable practices, marking a shift from flexibility to scalability.
And when you were looking for investors to join you on this journey, what qualities did you specifically seek?
We had two key things in mind from the beginning. First, we saw taking on investors like entering into a marriage. It’s at least a 10-year commitment – it’s not short-term, and you can’t just change your mind halfway through. It’s genuinely a mutual coming-together of two parties, so we always thought of it that way.
Secondly, I wanted to know what investors were like when things get hard and difficult. We spent a lot of time talking to other founders who had worked with our potential investors and said, “Tell us about when things went really badly. Don’t just tell us when things were good.” I also went directly to the funds and asked, “Tell us about the worst-performing company in your portfolio because I want to meet that founder.” You can then ask, “What was it like when things were tough? How did the investors behave towards the founder?”
Very few successful companies grow smoothly up and to the right. Almost all experience bumps along the way. If you look at successful companies – whether that’s Meta, Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA or Netflix – they’ve all had nonlinear trajectories, filled with ups and downs. We’re deeply interested in understanding how investors act when things are bumpy because inevitably, things won’t always go according to plan.
Hearing honest feedback from other founders was important for us, particularly in the recent period when money was relatively easy to raise. We had multiple term sheets and thought, “This is great, but the market could shift at any moment.” At that point, we wouldn’t have multiple offers and we’d really find out who believed in us for the long run versus those simply jumping on the next hot investment.
Great answer. So once you had the idea and the investors on board, what was one key early decision that significantly shaped Yonder’s trajectory?
It sounds a bit cliché, but we’ve always taken a really long-term approach to building and ignored a lot of market noise to focus on building a great business with a 10–20 year horizon.
Therefore, we should make decisions through the lens of that. I describe to the team this tension of being patient for results and yet impatient for progress. What I mean by that is you can’t grow a beautiful oak tree overnight. You can’t force that to grow quickly because that takes time.
At the same time, we should be making measurable progress every single day. We should be relentless in the pursuit of progress every single day. That’s something we’ve had since the very start of the company and we’ve continued to try and hold on to even as we scaled.
The fintech space is incredibly crowded. How do you position Yonder uniquely in a crowded fintech space against established players like Amex and Revolut?
With Amex, we typically see two or three distinct groups. One group already has an Amex card but has grown frustrated – they have points they can’t easily use, they’ve had a painful user experience, they’re tired of foreign transaction fees or acceptance issues. They understand the appeal of a rewards card, but they’re looking for a better experience… and that’s where Yonder comes in.
Then there’s another group who have always considered getting a rewards card but never went for Amex for various reasons: they don’t want to collect Avios points, struggle to use rewards or deal with acceptance issues. The rewards just aren’t relevant to their interests.
A third group has never considered a credit card at all and that’s actually where our debit card fits in nicely. They see Yonder and think, “Wow, this is genuinely relevant to me. It matches my lifestyle and captures exactly what I want to do.” There’s a strong sense of affinity. I think Amex resonated deeply with a different generation, but today’s generation expects something different.
Regarding newer players like Revolut, they’re good at doing many things but rarely exceptional at any single one. They have business banking, but so does Tide; point-of-sale acceptance, but Square and iZettle are still around; a crypto platform, but some still prefer Coinbase. Revolut offers a wide range of features decently well but there’s always a benefit in point solutions that go deeper and richer.
At Yonder, our approach is fundamentally different; we intentionally go deeper into curated rewards and experiences and this depth is built into our identity. Frankly, we’ve never had a customer say they prefer Revolut’s rewards over ours. Revolut’s offering is inherently more generic and mass-market. Ours, however, is carefully tailored to attract exactly the types of customers we want.
So how do you stay proactively ahead of competition? Are there particular trends and signals you’re monitoring closely?
We follow where the customer pool is and we also have a deep conviction on where consumer behaviors are going. We tend to focus more on consumer trends and less on reacting to competition directly.
We also have a strong thesis on how to create consumer behavior or influence consumer behavior in a really unique way – and one that is fun and brings joy. I think that’s actually the magic of this. It’s not a utility-type product per se, where you just want it faster or cheaper. I want people to feel something.
And your customers seem to love the experiences you offer. Can you give examples of ways you build that customer or community love?
We host exclusive member events, such as supper clubs and unique experiences where members influence menu choices at top restaurants. These initiatives foster community engagement and make our members feel genuinely involved and valued.
Your marketing approach is creative and unconventional. What’s the guiding philosophy behind it?
I guess there are two things we always wanted to do differently. If you look at fintech from the past few years – even down to their brand colors like blue or purple – the core value proposition was always “cheaper and faster.” That was certainly the mantra of that last generation of fintechs. But we’ve always been more interested in something aspirational. What is it you aspire to? What’s something that excites you – not because of the technology but because of the feeling you get?
That’s how I’ve always wanted our marketing to feel as well. Our content focuses on high-quality lifestyle experiences. Even our branding choices, such as our color palette, are very deliberate. I specifically said, “We’re not doing light blue, bright green, or bright purple.” Instead, we chose something more elegant, more aspirational – more of a ‘Soho House vibe’ rather than a ‘TK Maxx’.
That feeling flows through all our marketing efforts. Everything we do has to feel distinctly on-brand. For example, one of the marketing stunts we did recently involved the team going out to Wimbledon to create some really fun content. We always ensure everything ties back to Yonder’s core brand identity.
As you plan your expansion across Europe, how are you adapting your product and your marketing to resonate with those new markets?
We’re really focused on making sure we know exactly who we are and who we aren’t. We’re great for people who love adventure, love exploring and love trying new things. The word ‘yonder’ itself means ‘over there, in the distance’. And the idea is that Yonder customers spend more time thinking about the future, about things on the horizon, rather than things in the past.
We’re very deliberate about where we want to go and which markets we want to serve really well. It all ties back to our core premise: we want customers who are explorers at heart. We’re ideal for those kinds of customers and we aren’t trying to be everything to everyone. For instance, we’re not positioned well for small villages. But we’re perfectly positioned for major cities or people who travel frequently to major cities, who really crave that sense of adventure and exploration.
And brand identity is, of course, tightly aligned with company culture. How do you build culture at Yonder and maintain it as the company scales?
Maintaining culture is a continuous battle. I believe culture always slips, it always degrades – and you have to keep fighting for it every day. There’s this idea that culture is ultimately what you accept, so one of the things I’ve worked really hard on is making sure that if I see our culture slipping, we immediately reinforce it.
One of the biggest challenges is that people forget and typically revert to what’s comfortable. Creating a strong culture almost means fighting against natural human behavior. Naturally, people don’t want to work hard; we’d rather relax. But that’s not what I want. I want us to have a sense of urgency, to always be hustling. You have to intentionally create and sustain that mindset.
Another tricky aspect is finding the right balance. We don’t want to create a culture of assholes, yet we still want a culture of high performance. It’s challenging because at one extreme, we see companies known for exceptional results that are often toxic environments. On the other extreme, we have places that are lovely to work but, honestly, don’t deliver results. At Yonder, we’re exploring how you achieve insane results without relying on fear, pressure or external stress.
Part of our solution is ensuring we bring on people intrinsically motivated to do great work and push boundaries. Equally important is quickly exiting those who aren’t aligned or don’t thrive in this environment. It’s something we continue to wrestle with but, ultimately, culture will always slip unless you actively fight for it. One of my primary jobs is constantly fighting for the culture we want. And importantly, we regularly call it out. We’ve created a culture where everyone feels comfortable holding each other accountable.
What’s one cool thing about Yonder and its culture that you don’t normally get to talk about?
We have something we call “VP-ship.” It started off as a bit of a joke but, basically, I wanted to create a culture where everyone acts like an owner. That means we all pick up the trash, clean the kitchen and take accountability for the small things around the office, rather than just relying on cleaners.
It evolved into a fun tradition where everyone who joins gets their own unique VP title: VP of Pets, VP of Board Games, VP of Breakfast, VP of Stacking the Fridge, even VP of “Name and Shame” for leaving dirty dishes in the kitchen. It might sound trivial but it’s about establishing a culture where we’re all custodians of the little things and genuinely responsible for creating an environment we want to be in.
We’ve kept that tradition going. I think, today, we have about 55 VPs handling all sorts of random but important office roles!
Love that! Thanks, Tim. So final question, what next for Yonder?
For us, it’s all about going deeper and wider with our experiences. There’s just so much more we want to do. We want to expand our offerings, particularly in entertainment and travel. We’re looking to integrate AI much more deeply into our product recommendations and explore features like agentic travel booking. International expansion is a big priority too: over the next 6-12 months, we’re aiming to launch across Europe.
Ultimately, we want to continue delivering exceptional experiences for our members. Whether that means a richer card experience, a richer spending experience or richer rewards. Our theme, moving forward, is simply “wider, deeper, broader” – expanding geographically, broadening our product range and deepening the quality of everything we offer.
If you want to learn more about Yonder and what they’re building, check out their website here.
