Visual summary of operating lessons from Alan Chang.

Lessons from Alan Chang

Alan Chang joined Revolut early and later served as chief revenue officer. He and Charles Orr founded Fuse Energy after deciding that energy presented a larger, less solved challenge. These lessons focus on his directly documented approach to execution, hiring, and building an integrated energy company. — BILLIONS Podcast.

Part 1: The Intensity of Hyper-Growth

  1. Work ethic: Chang argues that building a generational company requires an unusually strong work ethic, while acknowledging that a balanced job is a legitimate choice for others. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  2. Self-directed teams: He prefers people who can identify and hit their own targets, or at least execute well against clear targets. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  3. An urgent pace: Chang says he carried Revolut’s get-it-done culture to Fuse and intensified its emphasis on execution. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  4. Metrics and incentives: Chang values useful performance measures but cautions that tying rewards to a KPI can encourage teams to game it. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  5. Care as a hiring criterion: After overvaluing intelligence in past hires, Chang says he now looks for people who care deeply about the company and its mission. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  6. Ambition and execution: Looking back at Revolut’s early competition, Chang credits the team’s ambition and execution speed more than a distinctive product roadmap. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.

Part 2: Talent and Performance Standards

  1. Pay for exceptional skill: Fuse grades candidates on specific skills and may offer exceptional performers substantially higher compensation without fixed pay bands. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  2. The candidate’s response: When Chang describes Fuse’s difficult ambition, he watches whether a candidate leans toward the challenge or away from it. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  3. Direct performance feedback: Chang says Fuse gives an underperforming hire a verbal warning and a chance to improve rather than relying on a formal performance-improvement plan. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  4. Small independent teams: Chang favors small teams with clear goals and room to execute, while leadership monitors their results. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  5. Assess transferable skills: Fuse tests coding, system design, problem-solving and fit; Chang says a backend candidate need not already know Python. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  6. Feedback while work is live: Chang describes direct negative feedback as useful when strong performers can use it to improve. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  7. Mission fit: Chang tells candidates how demanding Fuse will be and asks why they personally want to take on that work. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  8. A named owner for workplace performance: Chang says Fuse is creating a Human Performance team and hiring a Workplace Performance Manager to own conditions that affect employees’ work. — Chang on Workplace Performance.

Part 3: Speed as a Defensive Strategy

  1. Execution as an advantage: Chang believed Revolut’s ambition and speed mattered even when its competitors had broadly similar roadmaps. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  2. Avoid committee decisions: In a later interview, Chang criticizes running a startup by committee and favors clear decision ownership. — BILLIONS Podcast.
  3. A fast customer-feedback loop: Chang says Fuse’s local support team passes customer feedback to founders and engineers daily, sometimes enabling app changes the next day. — Chang on Fuse Customer Support.
  4. Engineering hiring bottleneck: Asked what might prevent Fuse from reaching its next revenue goal, Chang names the speed of hiring quality engineers rather than access to capital. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  5. Tools for support agents: Chang says Fuse built internal tools that give its support agents the same account context the customer sees in the app. — Chang on Fuse Customer Support.
  6. Keep raising the execution bar: Chang says he pushes the team to examine what it could have done better rather than treating current speed as sufficient. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.

Part 4: Solving Unsolved Problems

  1. Why leave fintech: Chang says he and Charles Orr viewed the remaining fintech challenge as more about customer distribution, and wanted to tackle another important problem. — BILLIONS Podcast.
  2. Choosing energy: Chang says he and Orr sought an important problem they believed would otherwise remain unsolved, then spent about a year researching energy. — BILLIONS Podcast.
  3. Applying the Revolut playbook: Fuse carried an emphasis on speed, ambition and hard execution from Chang’s Revolut experience into energy. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  4. More than an app: Chang describes Fuse as a full-stack energy company, combining supply, generation, trading skills and software rather than only an interface. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  5. A large market: Chang argues that energy is a very large market in which a company could keep growing for decades; this is his ambition, not a forecasted result. — BILLIONS Podcast.
  6. Physical infrastructure: Fuse’s first full-stack experiment included a single wind turbine, a supplier licence and a qualified trader. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.

Part 5: First-Principles Thinking

  1. An ageing grid: In his Balderton interview, Chang argues that the UK grid needs a rebuild joining hardware and software to lower costs. — Balderton What’s Next Podcast.
  2. Savings from integration: Fuse’s investor describes a model intended to pass savings from renewable generation through to retail customers. — Lowercarbon — Fuse.
  3. Lowering the cost of energy: Chang argues that high and unstable power costs affect the economics of businesses far beyond the energy sector. — The City Is Paying the Price for Britain’s Energy Failure.
  4. Regulation and delivery: Chang says he wants planning rules reviewed for their usefulness and made simpler, not all regulation removed. — City A.M. Interview.
  5. Hiring beyond energy: In a direct interview, Chang says the challenge is hiring world-class engineers who can learn the energy problem, rather than relying only on industry veterans. — BILLIONS Podcast.
  6. Learn the problem first: Chang and Orr spent roughly a year researching energy before committing to build Fuse. — BILLIONS Podcast.
  7. Affordable, abundant power: Chang argues that lower-cost, lower-carbon power need not require a general reduction in energy use; this is his policy view. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.

Part 6: Vertical Integration and The Full-Stack Approach

  1. Owning renewable assets: Fuse develops and owns renewable generation assets as part of its supply model. — City A.M. Interview.
  2. Forecasting demand: Fuse uses software models, weather and consumption patterns to forecast demand and manage energy purchasing. — City A.M. Interview.
  3. A future virtual power plant: Fuse describes virtual power plants as a future opportunity for customer solar and batteries, while explicitly saying it does not yet offer a direct VPP service. — Fuse Energy — Virtual Power Plant Guide.
  4. A reinvestment flywheel: Fuse’s investor describes a proposed cycle in which demand for lower-cost clean energy funds additional renewable capacity. — Lowercarbon — Fuse.
  5. Cost advantage as a company claim: Chang says Fuse has removed roughly 17% of operating costs compared with a median UK energy company; the figure is his claim, not independently audited here. — City A.M. Interview.
  6. Complexity behind a simple offer: Balderton’s interview describes Fuse handling complexity in-house so customers can receive a simpler, lower-cost product. — Balderton What’s Next Podcast.
  7. A global ambition: Chang describes Fuse’s goal as becoming the world’s leading energy company, which would require international expansion. — BILLIONS Podcast.

Part 7: Regulation and Industry Incumbents

  1. Competing on costs: Chang presents lower energy costs, a better product and customer experience as Fuse’s route to winning customers from incumbents. — Balderton What’s Next Podcast.
  2. International expansion: Chang says Fuse intends to expand internationally; later company plans include Ireland and the US. — BILLIONS Podcast.
  3. Policy and energy capacity: Chang argues that Britain needs faster grid connections and more reliable domestic capacity, not just targets. — The City Is Paying the Price for Britain’s Energy Failure.
  4. Planning as a bottleneck: Chang says capital is available for energy projects but slow planning and grid connections can prevent projects from being built. — The City Is Paying the Price for Britain’s Energy Failure.

Part 8: Founder Mindset and Extreme Ownership

  1. Looking forward: In the Riding Unicorns interview, Chang says he rarely dwells on past milestones and focuses on the next energy problem to solve. — Riding Unicorns Podcast.
  2. Founder accountability: Chang describes the transition from operator to founder as taking full responsibility for decisions and outcomes. — Scaling Europe Interview.
  3. Stacked constraints: Chang describes building a full-stack energy business as difficult because infrastructure, licences, trading and engineering must be assembled together. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  4. Never settle: Of Revolut’s cultural values, Chang says the one he carried most strongly to Fuse was “never settle,” particularly on important roles. — 20VC — Alan Chang Interview.
  5. A long-term ambition: Chang says the energy market is large enough that Fuse could, in his view, keep growing beyond its founders’ lifetimes. — BILLIONS Podcast.