I believe Freetrade are applying to join NATO.
Since Ian left Freetrade has been moving incredibly slow, the lack of CTO has never been more evident.
@adam @KarlB could we get a comment on this, please?
How did we get from expecting to be in the whole Europe before the end of 2021 to unreleased Swedish app 5 months into 2022?
What explains the delay? Covid and Brexit was a known factor when the timeline above was shared with the crowd. As for the licence - it has been granted almost 3 months ago.
Have signed up for the Swedish wait list a couple of weeks ago to see if I get an invite to the beta, but havenât heard since.
Whatâs going on?
I think crypto was also the expectation at the time too.
What are they working on at the minute lol? They have like 100 staff, no new features recently. Donât wanna be a downer, just curious.
Big frustration. I was eyeing my move back to my Belgium and hoped that by then FT would be available already so I did not have to sell all my stocks and start again but that is what it has come to it seems. Luckily there are some good brokers in Belgium but I will miss FT.
Itâs not 100 staff. FT have 300 staff as per jobs posted on their careers page.
Thanks. So very rough numbers:
A tech company like Freetrade would look to make ÂŁ200k revenue per employee once theyâre established? (Or maybe more like ÂŁ500k)
That would be ÂŁ60m in revenue, based on current employees. Whatâs the average revenue per user, ÂŁ20-30?
That would mean they need 3m users, once established, which seems doable. Depending on how much cash they have to pay for the growth.
Just rough numbers to see if the actual potential users looks appropriate for the number of staff. 1 employee per 10,000 users. Robinhood is comparable, already fairly established and works out at about that: 31m users, 3,800 employees, 1 employee for every ~8,000 users.
Reading recent funding round announcement:
If swedish expansion will be at least âin the next few monthsâ, I donât want to imagine when expansion in other european countries will be.
I said the same on another thread! Doesnât fill you with much hope when theyâre only expanding the beta in the first country, not even fully launching it.
Iâm sure thereâs a lot involved, but I donât think this is the impression I got from reading pitch decks.
I joined the waiting list what feels like more than a year ago when I moved back home to Sweden. By inviting friends you increased your chances of being a beta tester and I believe I was placed 13 at the time. A few months later that number was removed and you could no longer tell where you were placed in the waiting list.
I still havenât received an invite so Iâm curious as to who these on oboarded âcustomersâ are. Iâm a R3 investor so rooting for Freetrade but Iâm concerned how they will compete in a saturated Swedish fintech market.
We already have two large digital brokers where trading is very cheap. You donât have to sign up to a contract, you just pay a very low comission per trade. They both offer apps and desktop versions, the Swedish version of an ISA, large stock offerings, analysis, and news feeds. Even as a Freetrade investor I would not move to FT with what they currently have to offer.
Nice post @Aliasm would be great to hear from @KarlB how you were missed off the beta list⊠sounds odd to me.
Hej @Aliasm !
Alltid lika roligt att se svenskar hÀr pÄ forumet.
The first wave of customers we are onboarding to the private beta are Swedish crowdfunders from the R7 round we did last year. After that, weâll begin inviting from the waitlist.
But if you are a Swedish tax resident and already an early Freetrade crowdfunding investor, I definitely think that makes you eligible for an invite. If you want, send me a DM with the email address you would like to use.
Are you receiving the Swedish newsletters? We always include a link where to check your place in the waitlist queue:
If not, you can DM me your email address and Iâll check your place in the waitlist for you and of course subscribe you to the Swedish newsletters as well, if you would like that.
/Daniel
Hi @szb
Weâve been carrying out a lot of internal testing since getting our Swedish licence (as well as building some essential features, like integrating with Swish, the go to payments system in Sweden).
Weâve reached a point where weâre comfortable to start onboarding the earliest people on our waitlist to start scaling testing. And weâre working as quickly as humanly possible to roll out more widely.
Weâll accelerate the pace at which invitations go out, inviting larger groups each time. If you refer one or two friends, you will move up the list and get an invite sooner - although to access the beta app you will need to be resident in Sweden for tax purposes.
In terms of our plans for a pan-European app, weâre working to a schedule that would see us launch in Q3 this year. Weâve received our passporting authorisation, so we can now offer our app across the EU.
/Daniel
Hej!
I signed up for newsletters but havenât received any. I assumed none were being sent out. As a shareholder I narurally want to know as much as possible about what is to be expected from FT Sweden.
Will DM you.
Thanks for bringing more transparency Daniel. This is the only thing we are asking for.
Iâm sure the team are all working hard, but there has been nothing quick about the rollout. Thereâs a clear lack of technology expertise at the top of the company.
Easy to make comments like that. Do you have inside knowledge of the situation or are you just trolling?
Itâs quite obvious really - Adam (Auditing) and Viktor (Marketing) have no background in tech.
Since Ian left the CTO role has been vacant, coincidentally Freetrade has been considerably slower building and releasing features.