This content was created by Tim Draper. This content was uploaded by Tim Draper. This is a YouTube interview titled "The Culture and Future of BREX | Larissa Rocha, First Employee at BREX" (published May 25, 2020). The excerpt captures a conversation between Larissa Rocha (an early/first employee at Brex) and an interviewer about company culture, hiring values, weekly all‑hands and recognition practices across four offices, and how Brex has scaled from a few employees to hundreds. Larissa outlines her evolving roles (finance, recruiting, customer support, marketing/business development), the company’s customer‑first focus, expansion strategy into industry‑specific cards (startups, e‑commerce, life sciences), a cash management product to replace bank accounts, and competitive positioning versus legacy players like American Express. She also discusses early‑stage customer acquisition, community engagement, and reflects that earlier customer‑support experience would have helped accelerate product development.
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You can have the best brand, but if your product, you know, is not the best for the customer, that's when you have an issue. So our number one concern is always, are we the very best that we can for the customer? And so that's one thing that is on everyone's mind for sure. And that's how we intend to grow genuinely, to focus on the customer first.
One other question I keep thinking about, just because I'm fascinated by how quickly you guys grew, is, you know, you created these values that, you know, you knew you wanted, you wanted in the people that you hired. But as you've gone from, again, 4 people to 400 in a very short period, how have you maintained the culture and the focus on these same values?
One example, of course, we have, you know, the Our interview tests out for these values, et cetera. But one thing that is super cool and super important we do every week is on Wednesdays we have our all-hands meeting. And today we are in 4 different offices. We are in the Bay Area, which is the main office, in Vancouver, in Salt Lake City, and New York. So everyone at the same time connects on this meeting, and it's so important. And at the end of the first slide of every meeting is our 5 values, because we always have new people joining. And the last slide of every meeting is a highlight for a cultural point, which is, you know, the whole company is welcome to nominate people for this. And at the end of every week, every meeting, we celebrate someone who that week was outstanding in one of our values. So it's a way to celebrate our culture, to remind everyone of what it is, and to show new hires and everyone that value being applied to a real-life situation. And so that's, you know, we celebrate someone who spiked in one of the 5, and at the same time, we are reminding everyone of what we stand for.
That's fantastic. And you celebrate someone across these 4 offices? It can be anyone?
Yeah, anyone. And anyone can nominate as well.
That's beautiful. What's next for Brex? How has your role changed now compared to what you were doing when you first started? What do you focus your time on now?
So I started off doing some of that finance projection. Then I went on to a project in regulation we had at the time. Then I did some recruiting for front-end engineer. Then sales was sort of like— Enrique sold a lot and so did Michael, but I was sort of the first full-time salesperson. And as I said, right when I was figuring out how to do that, they put me in customer support and I stayed in support for 6 to 8 months building the team, training everyone, writing all the processes.
That's great.
and putting the tools in place. And from that, I went to marketing and more of like a business development role, which is what I am today. And I personally really, really enjoy the revenue side of things, like growing. So one of my main teams today go around the country. So we have 2 based in New York, one in Salt Lake City, and the rest in here, but they travel to all of the main startup hubs. around the US, and the idea is to partner with the accelerators there, with the main events, with the startup ecosystem, and some way, let's say South Lake City where nobody knew about Brex, then they suddenly become very familiar and really like the brand and engage in our events, etc. So that's one of the main focus today. Another one is community. It's like engaging the existing base through content, through events, And some other channels as well related to customer acquisition. But today my main role is early-stage customer acquisition.
Awesome. And so I started this question, went somewhere else, but like, what is next for Brex? What does Brex look like at the end of 2020 and what does Brex look like in 2025?
So it's a very hard question to ask, like end of 2025. Of course we have our big dream, but We just launched a, we were, you know, the credit card for startups, right? Then we launched a credit card for e-commerce companies. That is a little bit of a different model that works best for them, helps them finance their inventory and et cetera. Then we launched a card for life sciences. You know, and for example, the rewards today for startups are you get higher cash back on, You get higher cashback on software and travel and et cetera. With the life sciences, you get higher cashback on lab supplies and things like that. So we have been going vertical by vertical, building the very best card for that particular industry, and competing. Our biggest competitor today is American Express, competing for this market share, not through eyeballs, so not through just doing massive Super Bowl ad, but by going vertical by vertical and taking advantage of the fact that we are a system built from scratch because instead of using the legacy systems banks use, we built our own from scratch. So we can build the very best card for that particular industry and then move on to the next industry and kind of get a lot of the market through that. So that's definitely one way that we are expanding, looking at other underserved verticals as well to build an amazing card for. And we also launched very recently a cash management account, which is supposed to replace your bank account. So we are expanding to other verticals with the card, but also to other products within financial services.
Fantastic. What keeps you up at night?
Oh, it depends on the days. I think, you know, always competition. When you have a good idea, usually lots of people come after your launch, so kind of staying alert to how can you be the very, very best. Because at the end of the day, you can have all the billboards in the world, you can have the best brand, but if your product is not the best for the customer, that's when you have an issue. So our number one concern is always, are we the very best that we can for the customer? And so that's one thing that kind of Is on everyone's mind for sure. And that's how we intend to grow genuinely, to focus on the customer first.
That's why you're so successful. Okay, my last question, and after this I suppose we can open it up for questions. What did you wish you knew when you started that you didn't know but know now? Complex, freezing.
What I wish I knew When I started? I think that, you know, as I said, customer support was my 3rd or 4th role in the company and just opened my eyes so much to the problem, to the customer base, to what matters for startups. So I think that if I had had that knowledge prior, I would have moved faster and helped the company early on as we were developing our product, we would have moved even faster there. So I think that's one thing.
I feel like you're one of the fastest growing companies in the last decade, so I don't know how you could have grown faster, but I love that you think, you know, you're constantly thinking about like being better, and that's very inspiring.
