Growing with Marshmallow

What a difference a year (and a bit) makes

In some professions, you don’t see that much of a significant change within just one year. In the start-up world however, a business, and a person’s role within it, can completely transform.

I joined Marshmallow in May 2019 as their fifteenth employee, leading a fraud team that was made up of just me and one investigator. Our fraud-prevention measures were piecemeal and not yet part of a wider strategy and we did everything manually without any automated decision engines. It was a completely blank page, with the unique opportunity to build something amazing from scratch.

Growing a team

As Marshmallow’s volumes rapidly grew, so did my role. Within a month, I was looking to hire more investigators, as it very quickly became clear that the size of our team needed to reflect the burgeoning customer base. By the end of the summer, I had onboarded four new investigators, with a diverse range of experience. Fast-forward to spring 2020, and we had grown to a team of nine.

In less than a year, I had gone from managing one person, to managing a new manager who led their own team of investigators. The most exciting part of this is that it was only the start. Now, in autumn 2020, the Fraud team is made up of 13 dedicated investigators.

Unique opportunities

With rapid growth comes significant change and, as other areas of Marshmallow continued to grow, my day-to-day role evolved even further. The addition of our first data scientist in summer 2019 allowed for a collaboration to build v.1 of our Fraud engine — this AI model makes risk decisions for us, helping us to prioritise and reduce our workload. This led to the creation of our Fraud Tech Team at the start of 2020 — this team of engineers is dedicated to fraud prevention and making investigations more efficient.

Again, this means my role has adapted. I now work directly with product managers, data scientists, developers and designers to ensure fraud risks are mitigated as effectively as possible through continuously improving our tools, integrations and modelling.

When I first joined Marshmallow, there was no fraud prevention strategy to speak of. Creating one has been a long-term project that has drawn on lots of people’s experience, reading, insights learnt from attending industry events, and continuous trial and error. Within the space of a year, we’d moved from reactive investigating, to systematic, data-led prioritisation. It’s been quite the journey!

Change means progress

Marshmallow’s significant changes within the last year have guided the development of my role. I’ve achieved things at Marshmallow that I never dreamed I’d be doing so early in my career. I’ve had the opportunity to grow a team and lead their development, create a strategy from scratch and collaborate with incredibly talented people from all areas of the business.

Start-ups are constantly evolving — adapting within one means that personal, professional progression is inevitable. I can confidently say it’s been the most exciting year (and a bit!) of my career so far, and I’m excited for the opportunities that are to come.