Why do founders start businesses?

There is this niggling feeling that just eats at you for just so long that you're like, "I can't not do it." It actually got to the point where it was like, "I can't not do it." That's actually honestly the conclusion I came to. I got into fintech in 2016, not through the classical fintech. I was living in Kenya and I met with the team who started in M-Pesa, which is a mobile payments product and completely revolutionized how the country moved money and spent. At one point half the GDP of Kenya flowed through M-Pesa. I honestly felt like I was on the road to Damascus, I was like, "Holy cow, this is incredible. I want to do something in this space."

That was actually the reason why we moved to London. That was a big factor of moving to London, one of the best places to build a fintech. It's this niggling feeling of, "I can't not do it now. I can't." It's just there and it's niggling there. A lot of people say, "I just grew up knowing I wanted to start this company." I would say that was not true for me. I didn't wake up out of my mother's womb being like, "I want to start a company doing X." It was definitely a gradual thing over many years being like, "I see this problem. I see this problem. I see this problem. I see this problem. Why hasn't anyone fixed it? Why hasn't anyone done anything about it?"

That realization: "Why don't you go do it?" Like, “Tim, why don't you go do it? This is a niggling feeling you've had for so many years now. Go and solve that problem." It does sound a bit cliche, but it's genuinely true.