In this episode of Cards Against Complexity, Jan speaks with Tuomas Toivonen, Co-Founder and CEO of Holvi, the digital banking platform built for freelancers and small businesses. Tuomas shares Holvi’s unique journey—starting as an early B2B neobank in Europe, selling the company to BBVA, and later leading a management buyout to bring it back to independence. He reflects on what it really takes to build sustainable financial services for entrepreneurs.

Key Takeaways:

• Building Financial Services by Entrepreneurs, for Entrepreneurs:
Holvi’s original founding team came directly from the small business world, giving them firsthand experience with the daily financial challenges of freelancers and SME owners. That perspective still drives product decisions today: combining payments, banking, and business management tools into one integrated platform.

• From Global Bank Ownership to Independent Growth:
After 5 years under BBVA ownership, Tuomas and his team bought Holvi back. He explains the shift from scaling with abundant resources to operating with a lean, sustainable model—where growth is customer-funded, not venture-driven, and efficiency is prioritized over scale at any cost.

• Entrepreneurship Means Constantly Managing Problems:
One of Tuomas’ biggest learnings: the challenges of running a company never fully disappear. Instead of expecting problems to end, successful founders accept that solving one issue simply clears the way for the next—and resilience, not ease, defines the entrepreneurial journey.

This episode offers a practical look into building financial services businesses that are sustainable, user-driven, and resilient through different phases of growth. Building a business doesn’t get easier—the problems just change, and resilience becomes the real skill.