Business

Employee Appreciation Starts From Day One — How Cyberbacker Makes New Hire Onboarding Engaging

Published

2 years ago

March 10, 2023

The workplace has changed. With phenomena such as “quiet quitting” and “The Great Resignation” still shaping the modern working world and haunting CEOs, business leaders have made strides to appreciate their workforce better and improve retention.

Many businesses have prioritized employee appreciation initiatives from day one of their time with the company, integrating those initiatives into the onboarding process. According to experts, companies that employ a strategic approach towards experience and appreciation can expect up to 71% higher engagement from those employees.

“Being appreciated by your peers and your boss goes further than anyone could imagine,” says Harmony Nordgren, VP of US Operations at Cyberbacker, a company that supplies highly skilled virtual assistants. “Nobody wants to go to a job for 40 or more hours each week and not feel valued and appreciated.”

With appreciation making a noticeable difference in job satisfaction among staff and retention, Cyberbacker has put much thought and effort into its appreciation initiatives — all of which begin with the onboarding process.

From the word “hired”

From the first day that a new hire begins their position, it’s essential to let the company’s culture be known and felt. Appreciation and gratitude are part of a larger overall culture that makes up the backbone of the business’ approach to engagement.

Cyberbacker takes its role in training and onboarding new hires seriously, though they also like to inject a little fun into the process. This speaks to what it’s like to work at the company, and what new hires can expect going forward.

“We have a lot of fun with onboarding,” explains Nordgren. “It’s a long process, so we include interactive activities like ‘Embarrass the CEO’ where new team members can ask our CEO an embarrassing question.”

However, shaping their experience goes beyond having a little fun at the CEO’s expense. It needs to include deeper themes such as diversity and inclusion initiatives, technology and skill training, and the work/life balance that is at the top of most people’s wish lists.

Tokens of appreciation

To show its workforce how much they appreciate them, Cyberbacker focuses on several key areas of their talent pool’s life: wellness, team building, rest, and pay among them. “We offer HMO, we have a profit share program, paid time off, and we have a discounted loan program where we profit share the interest,” explains Nordgren. “We also do contests all the time to earn Cyberbacker merchandise, new tech, and cash rewards.”

The company also finds it imperative to work from a place of understanding that people do not quit their jobs, they quit their bosses. Cyberbacker’s leadership teams value a culture of appreciation as a cornerstone of their company, and it is a company-wide effort to keep that value sacred.

Employee appreciation goes beyond the basic elements. It is important to remember that their perspective is most important, not the CEO’s or the rest of the leadership team’s. The managers may believe a monthly pizza party is all that is needed to show their team that they care, but if they are never given paid time off or an opportunity to improve their skill sets, pizza just doesn’t cut it.

In today’s post-pandemic workplace, expectations may differ wildly from those even a few years ago. The balance of power has shifted in many ways, and what the new generation of workers want is to feel welcomed and appreciated at their place of work. This is an important factor in whether they decide to stay with that company — or move on. The days of employers simply counting ‘having a job’ as appreciation are over.

“With seemingly every company hiring everywhere they do business, you don’t want to lose an invaluable team member because you didn’t take the few extra minutes to ensure they felt appreciated,” says Nordgren, stressing a point that many businesses realize too late: currently, the market favors the talent out there. Jobs are plentiful, and many businesses — like Cyberbacker — are placing appreciation, experience and wellness as a top priority. This is leading to them attracting and retaining top talent.

Nordgren and other leaders at organizations are paving the way and showing that prioritizing the experience people have at work, only strengthens businesses. Employee experience and appreciation is not just a series of trending talking points but a new way of approaching business.

People expect to be acknowledged and appreciated for their talents and hard work. But it will be up to forward-thinking companies to step up to the plate and devise innovative and effective ways to show them that they matter.

Business

High Volume, High Value: The Business Logic Behind Black Banx’s Growth

Published

6 days ago

June 16, 2025

Matthew Wiles

In fintech, success no longer hinges on legacy prestige or brick-and-mortar branches—it’s about speed, scale, and precision. Black Banx, under the leadership of founder and CEO Michael Gastauer, has exemplified this model, turning its high-volume approach into high-value results.

The company’s Q1 2025 performance tells the story: $1.6 billion in pre-tax profit, $4.3 billion in revenue, and 9 million new customers added, bringing its total customer base to 78 million across 180+ countries.

But behind the numbers lies a carefully calibrated business model built for exponential growth. Here’s how Black Banx’s strategy of scale is redefining what profitable banking looks like in the digital age.

Scaling at Speed: Why Volume Matters

Unlike traditional banks, which often focus on deepening relationships with a limited set of customers, Black Banx thrives on breadth and transactional frequency. Its digital infrastructure supports onboarding millions of users instantly, with zero physical presence required. Customers can open accounts within minutes and transact across 28 fiat currencies and 2 cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin and Ethereum) from anywhere in the world.

Each customer interaction—whether it’s a cross-border transfer, crypto exchange, or FX transaction—feeds directly into Black Banx’s revenue engine. At scale, these micro-interactions yield macro results.

Real-Time, Global Payments at the Core

One of Black Banx’s most powerful value propositions is real-time cross-border payments. By enabling instant fund transfers across currencies and countries, the platform removes the frictions associated with SWIFT-based systems and legacy banking networks.

This service, used by individuals and businesses alike, generates:

Volume-based revenue from transaction fees
Exchange spreads on currency conversion
Premium service income from business clients managing international payroll or vendor payments

With operations in underserved regions like Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, Black Banx is not only increasing volume—it’s tapping into fast-growing financial ecosystems overlooked by legacy banks.

The Flywheel Effect of Crypto Integration

Crypto capabilities have added another dimension to the company’s high-volume model. As of Q1 2025, 20% of all Black Banx transactions involved cryptocurrency, including:

Crypto-to-fiat and fiat-to-crypto exchanges
Crypto deposits and withdrawals
Payments using Bitcoin or Ethereum

The crypto integration attracts both retail users and blockchain-native businesses, enabling them to:

Access traditional banking rails
Convert assets seamlessly
Operate with lower transaction fees than those found in standard financial systems

By being one of the few regulated platforms offering full banking and crypto support, Black Banx is monetizing the convergence of two financial worlds.

Optimized for Operational Efficiency

High volume is only profitable when costs are contained—and Black Banx has engineered its operations to be lean from day one. With a cost-to-income ratio of just 63% in Q1 2025, it operates significantly more efficiently than most global banks.

Key enablers of this cost efficiency include:

AI-driven compliance and customer support
Cloud-native architecture
Automated onboarding and KYC processes
Digital-only servicing without expensive physical infrastructure

The outcome is a platform that not only scales, but does so without sacrificing margin—each new customer contributes to profit rather than diluting it.

Business Clients: The Value Multiplier

While Black Banx’s massive customer base is largely consumer-driven, its business clients are high-value accelerators. From SMEs and startups to crypto firms and global freelancers, businesses use Black Banx for:

International transactions
Multi-currency payroll
Crypto-fiat settlements
Supplier payments and invoicing

These clients tend to:

Transact more frequently
Use a broader range of services
Generate significantly higher revenue per user

Moreover, Black Banx’s API integrations and tailored enterprise solutions lock in these clients for the long term, reinforcing predictable and scalable growth.

Monetizing the Ecosystem, Not Just the Account

The genius of Black Banx’s model is that it monetizes not just accounts, but entire customer journeys. A user might:

Onboard in minutes
Deposit funds from a crypto wallet
Exchange currencies
Pay an overseas vendor
Withdraw to a local bank account

Each of these actions touches a different monetization lever—FX spread, transaction fee, crypto conversion, or premium service charge. With 78 million customers doing variations of this at global scale, the cumulative financial impact becomes immense.

Strategic Expansion, Not Blind Growth

Unlike many fintechs that chase customer acquisition without a clear monetization path, Black Banx aligns its growth with strategic market opportunities. Its expansion into underbanked and high-demand markets ensures that:

Customer acquisition costs stay low
Services meet genuine needs (e.g., cross-border income, crypto access)
Revenue per user grows over time

It’s not just about acquiring more customers—it’s about acquiring the right customers, in the right markets, with the right needs.

The Future Belongs to Scalable Banking

Black Banx’s ability to transform high-volume engagement into high-value profitability is more than just a fintech success—it’s a signal of what the future of banking looks like. In a world where agility, efficiency, and inclusion define competitive advantage, Black Banx has created a blueprint for digital banking dominance.

With $1.6 billion in quarterly profit, nearly 80 million users, and services that span the globe and the blockchain, the company is no longer just scaling—it’s compounding. Each new user, each transaction, and each feature builds upon the last.

This is not the story of a bank growing.

This is the story of a bank accelerating.