Fintech Brainfood

Mercury CEO Why Fintech is more complex than software businesses

Episode Summary

Mercury hit 8 Quarters of profit and has more cash on its balance sheet than it has raised. Immad believes the account is the wedge to build a financial platform. In this episode How the account becomes a platform you can build much more from How Fintech is much more complex than a software business Why learning all of the non software stuff (like compliance) is critical to long term viability The importance of owning UX Why customer support tickets should drive your UX roadmap The founder-led Go-To-Market What it will take for Mercury to win

Episode Notes

Unlike Ramp or Brex, Mercury started with the account and built the ultimate dashboard for early-stage and growth companies.

Immad is the founder’s founder, serial entrepreneur, and angel investor, with over 300+ angel investments in his name (including Airtable, Substack, and Rappi).

If anyone got the challenges growth companies have trying to operate a business while relying on traditional banking solutions, Immad is that founder.

Where once startups could get an account, they had to pick between a specialist bank with a poor digital experience (like Silicon Valley Bank or First Republic) or a large one-size-fits-nobody larger bank.  

The choice was between the stability of a big bank or the expertise of a local specialist, and regardless of your choice, the digital user experience was horrendous.

Mercury flipped the model and pioneered an entirely different Go To Market. Taking the best of what SVB and FRB did - like access to debt capital markets, VCs, and partners and helping balance that with more FDIC coverage and a single dashboard to manage and automate everything.

Today Mercury is a BEAST. Recently announcing, 8 quarters of profitability with more money on the balance sheet than ever raised (>$163m), 200k customers and 640 staff.

Despite some challenges like the banking crisis and now the BaaS crisis, Mercury continues shipping new products like financial workflows powered by the bank account and personal accounts for founders.

So what makes Mercury special?

And what’s under the hood of one of Fintech’s fastest-growing companies?

Find out in this Fintech Brainfood Interview.