How failure and a near-death experience set neobank Up’s Dom Pym up for success

Dom Pym didn’t have a TV when he was growing up in the ‘90s, let alone a computer. But his mates did, so he’d hang out at their houses… a lot. A few of the dads were into computers, and he soaked up their knowledge like a sponge. “I’d just sit there fascinated. It really inspired me. I was right into learning how the computer works, why it works that way, how to pull it apart, how to fix it, and then how to write code,” Pym recalls.

His tinkering quickly expanded into a more physical realm. Pym pulled apart and put back together everything from Donkey Kong games to tennis rackets and an old Mitsubishi Colt car. He and his friends even built a motorbike from scratch… and then turned it into a billycart.

This sense of curiosity and experimentation helped Pym become something of a Doogie Howser of the software world. He’s now a leading fintech entrepreneur and the co-founder of Australia’s first mobile-only bank, Up.

“I call it the 20-year overnight success. You can’t have had Up without 20 years of hard work, blood, sweat and tears,” Pym says.

Here’s how Dom Pym went from billycart builder to an innovative banking boss.

Life is short, and precious

As the internet exploded in the 90s, Pym was the right person in the right place at the right time. At just 19 he was working for software giant SAP, getting flown around the world to work with Fortune 500 companies. But a freak event jolted him out of the buzz of the tech boom.

In 1999 he and his wife were flying to Bangkok. Their plane was just about to land. The weather was awful.

“All of a sudden everything went slow-mo. There were panels falling out of the ceiling. There were people screaming. It was just absolute chaos.”

After a while, there was nothing but silence. Pym wondered if he might be dead. But when the flight attendants rushed into the aisles shouting for everyone to stay in their seats, he realised there’d been a plane crash.

It gave Pym a sense that life is short. It taught him that things won’t always go to plan, or unfold the way you think they will.

“People say your life flashes before your eyes. I mostly was worried about myself and the people around me. I was concerned as to what was really happening, trying to understand what’s going on, and why it is different than what [I] expected.”

Failure hurts, but it also helps you grow

By the late 2000s, Pym’s first few businesses had catapulted him to the top of a fairly exclusive world of high-profile investors looking for the next big tech innovation.

He had an idea for the world’s first online grain exchange.

Just 18 months later, Clear Grain was sold to the New Zealand Stock Exchange for a motser. But the international deal came unstuck.

It was dragged through the courts. To say it got messy is an understatement.

“We don’t talk a lot about it, because it was a harrowing experience. But it was also an experience I’m proud to have come through. The sale was one of the biggest failures of our lives, but also one of the biggest learning experiences of our lives.”

He puts it down to a “cultural mismatch” between his “little startup out of Melbourne” and a very traditional company.

“It didn’t seem dumb at the time, it seemed like it was a great match-up. But there was just such a cultural mismatch that I don’t think there was any way it was going to work. We just never had that meeting of the minds,” Dom says.

You make your own luck

Pym went on to co-found neobank Up, which launched in 2018, backed by Bendigo Bank. But it may never have happened at all if it wasn’t for Clear Grain.

Pym only met Mike Hirst, the managing director of Bendigo Bank, because he was trying to raise capital for the doomed venture. But he was smart enough — or audacious enough — to also use the time to put forward his ideas on making banking better. He even prepped a presentation.

“That was around the time iPhones came out. They’d just launched the app store. We were thinking about what the future might look like. And we thought the future might look mobile, might look digital.”

Pym’s software company Ferocia ended up developing Bendigo Bank’s mobile and internet banking systems.

“The first six years, that’s where we developed the relationship, the trust,” Pym says.

From there, Bendigo invested in Up, giving Pym free rein to reimagine what a banking app could be; to pull it all apart and put it back together in a different way.

“Bendigo were extraordinarily brave to back two blokes, which became a proof of concept with six people. That became 15 to 20, 25, then 30 people, which then ended up launching potentially one of the greatest banks of this generation,” Pym says.

“We’re specifically building it for the people that … are living on the edge of the future.”

Up was recently acquired by Bendigo Bank, giving Pym the dream exit. He says: “We always thought it was going to work, but we also knew it could fail. I think having permission to fail, and having failed before, gives you a good foundation for success.”

This article was first published on LinkedIn. 

Curveball is a production of podcast consultancy and production company Deadset Studios. Curveball’s host Kellie Riordan is a leading podcast strategist and former head of podcasts at the ABC.