The FinTech That Replaced Its Team With AI (cut 60% - grew 90%)

Diego Mogollon's tech team is 60% smaller than it was two years ago. Marketing went from six people to one. Business output is running 90% faster.

He runs a regulated FinTech platform VentureCrowd - with two financial services licences and $440 million raised through it.

Nobody got fired. His team kept getting poached because they were good. Every time someone left, Diego did something most won't do. He didn't open a job req. He mapped every task that person owned and asked three questions:

1. What can an agent handle?
2. Who can upskill into this?
3. What can we redesign entirely?

He calls it the Vacancy Strategy. The results speak for themselves.

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A $90K backfill costs closer to $160K in year one once you count recruitment, super, onboarding, and ramp time. The Australian HR Institute (AHRI) puts total replacement cost at 1.5x annual salary.

Three things from this conversation worth 40 minutes of your time:

1. The team got smaller and output went up. Diego's marketing team went from six to one. They used to cap at 4-5 deals. Now they handle unlimited. He didn't hire cheaper people. He built a crew of specialised agents that handle the repetitive work while one person runs the strategy.
2. Months became days. Projects that used to take months are out the door in two weeks. Agents that took weeks to build are done in a day. His team approves 15-20 code changes daily across six people.
3. Everyone became a builder. Designers are pushing code to production. Product managers are making architecture decisions. Juniors are proposing strategy. The gap between "I know what needs to be built" and "I can build it" has collapsed. Traditional job descriptions are dead at VentureCrowd.

Your 48-hour action: Next time a role opens on your team, hold the job req. Map every task that person did. Find one an agent can handle. You'll find it.

Find the framework and how you can apply it on the latest episode of Applied AI Australia.

Forward this to your CFO: are we spending $160K to replace a role an agent could fill for $12K/year?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​