Head of Growth Vlad has to make sure that the Flow-app gets into the hands of the right users, who can actually use it. Vlad is from Romania, fell in love with The Hague, has a tendency to vomit when eating raisins and loves Dutch straightforwardness.
Head of Growth
"Flow has a great product, but not everyone knows about it yet. It is therefore my job as Head of Growth to make sure that the app gets into the hands of users who really appreciate and use it. I work closely with colleagues from marketing and with the product team. For example, I work with them to optimize the onboarding process. We reduce it to small steps and try to make them as simple and clear as possible for our future users. That way we make sure they don't get stuck during that process, don't get bored and follow the steps until the end, when they are Flow's customers."
Fall in love
"In May this year, my girlfriend and I visited friends of ours from Romania who live in The Hague. I had been to the Netherlands before, but only in Amsterdam for work. My image was that it is touristy and crowded here, but in The Hague I saw how beautiful the beach and the rest of the area is. I fell in love instantly and wanted to move there. My girlfriend didn't think so, so I kept telling her about the benefits of living in the Netherlands, and preferably The Hague: how easy it is to travel from point A to B by public transport, how well all the administrative tasks are taken care of, and what a great place it is to raise your children. That helped: after talking to her for a long time, she was convinced!
Good click
"When my girlfriend and I had decided that we wanted to move to the Netherlands, we made a list of things to do: sell our apartment in Romania, learn the Dutch language, research where we wanted to live, and - not unimportantly - find a job. The day after we tied the knot, I read about Flow on a startup news website. Immediately my interest was piqued, and after some research I became even more enthusiastic. Finance and automation have been a big passion of mine for years. I always try to accomplish as much as possible in as little time as possible. Flow, of course, optimizes your money matters, and I think that's super cool. When I spoke to Niels, we immediately had a good click and we were on the same page when it came to the future of personal finance. The conversation we had afterwards with Daan and Ronald was also very pleasant. And now I've been working for Flow for almost two months."
Straightforward
"I have limited experience with the Dutch, but so far I find everyone very friendly. In Romania people are too, but what I like about the Dutch is that everyone is so direct. In Romania we give socially desirable answers, here people just say what they think. Straightforward, I find that much more valuable, to be honest."
3D printing
"I love learning new things. Every few months I have a new hobby that I can get lost in for a while. But then I soon get bored, and focus on something else again. For a while now, I've been busy with 3D printing. I have 2 3D printers and the cool thing is that you can print new parts to expand your printer yourself. I am also interested in history, politics and technology and as far as sports are concerned I like running, cycling and in winter snowboarding. That's one of the few disadvantages of the Netherlands: you don't have any mountains."
Breakdowns
"I eat everything, with one important exception: raisins. Just looking at those things makes me vomit. It's mainly the texture that I hate; they're soft and spongy but hard at the same time. You often get surprised by them, then suddenly they are in a cake or a salad. The worst is when they are in the yogurt, then you literally don't see it coming. If I accidentally eat a raisin, my day is just ruined. Rationally speaking, I know that raisins are really not that bad, but I just can't stand them. Other than that, I'm perfectly normal, haha!"
Engagement
"At the beginning of this year, with Saint Nicolas - a Romanian holiday that most resembles a kind of mini Christmas - I asked my girlfriend to marry me. We have a tradition together of making a list of different kinds of gifts, for example: something in the color green. And then we both have to give each other that as a gift. One of the topics I had put on the list was: something you have been pestering me about for a long time. So that was: getting married. When I asked her she was wearing a onesie, one of the gifts I had given her earlier that night. So in all the photos with her engagement ring, she was in a unicorn outfit."
Clear vision
"Everyone who works at Flow is super smart and driven, I'm really impressed by that. As well as how well organized everything is. It may not seem like it on the outside, but I really notice that there is a clear vision and that we are all working together towards a higher goal: making financial peace possible for everyone. Everything is also well documented at Flow. I've seen several startups up close and Flow really differs from them, in a positive way."
