Mercury: Immad Akhund & His Mom

Everything about that startup was a disaster. We raised no money, even though we tried, no one used it. So everything about it was bad, but the feeling of just like building something was like such a great feeling that I was just like, wow, I just need to do this for the rest of my life.

Welcome to Leap Forward, a show about founders and the people who believed in them before anyone else did. I'm David Rusenko, and on today's show, we talked to Immad Akhund. Immad worked at startups for over 10 years with somewhat mixed success, and he seriously thought about giving up. Before he ended up creating Mercury, a banking platform for startups now valued at $3.5 billion. I talked to his mom, who at first wasn't so sure about any of it.

I said, bank? What is bank? Who does bank? How can anyone start a bank? Because for me, like it is quite an impossible job to do. But he said, I will do it. Then I was sure he will do it.

Today, how he tackled that impossible job? By getting entrepreneurs to trust him with the one thing that defines their startup's life or death, their money. Now, Immad Akhund. Why don't we start back at the beginning? Just kind of tell me where were you born and where did you grow up?

So I was born in Pakistan. We stayed there until the age of nine. So I have like a pretty good memory of it. And I I remember just having like a really good life. Because you know, my mom has like eight siblings, and my dad has like five direct siblings and like another eight or nine, like half siblings. So actually, I once counted it. I had like 45 first cousins. And like everything there is like family-oriented. So it's just like every day it was he would hang out with family and like I'd play cricket. And then my mum, who is a very brave woman, was like, hey, there's not enough opportunities for my kids here. So, you know, my mum really instigated us moving. So my sisters and me and my mom moved to the UK at the age of nine. Uh, I think actually the hardest part of moving to the UK is we had no family in the UK. So, like, to have that like taken away from me was like very jarring.

We do, we do have our first clip to play for you from your mom. This was when I asked her if she remembered the day you were born.

All right, this will be fun. I don't know if I've ever listened to that.

When Immad was born, like girls were born in such random days, but Immad born on the exact same day. I said, Oh, my one mathematician has born. So he was very like calm and quiet boy. I think because of three girls. My sister used to say, My mine are so low and naughty, but he's so calm, it is because of his sisters.

That's fun.

Do you remember the type of kid, like what kind of personality you had as a kid?

Yeah, I guess mathematical for day one. That's kind of interesting, I guess. When I think back and I was like relatively shy, you know, I wasn't great at like large groups or like making friends necessarily, but I was, I guess, competitive, fairly academic, at least when it came to math and math-related subjects. Like I just enjoyed them a lot and I would want to do really well in them. Uh, and then yeah, I had three sisters that were like very close to my age, so being like a brother to them, you know, as the as a youngest, like there's always like a somewhat like doting nature to a bunch of girls.

Do you think being the youngest kind of shaped your personality in some ways?

I mean, it's interesting because like I am the youngest, but especially after we moved to the UK, and I felt like I gained independence very quickly. Basically, since the age of 14, I've had a job and made money and never asked for any money from my parents from the age of 14. So it just felt like I had to become independent very, very early, which gave me like this like kind of strength. So yeah, it felt like even though I was the youngest, I quickly became a source of strength to my family. And I guess like I took that upon myself as well.

Do you remember when he was young what you hoped he would be or what you know what kind of dreams you had for him?

To be honest, I always used to think he's extraordinary, brilliant, because he used to get hundred out of hundred in maths. In maths, he was extraordinary. Whatever you tell him, he just memorized it. I don't know how. I said, You are billion. So he he used to be very angry with me. Don't call me brilliant. Many children are more brilliant than I am. I said they may be, but for me, you are the best. So I always called him the best, the best, the best bore him. Really bore him by calling him the best. But this type of Ihmad type of children are very few in the world, I think. I'm not saying because he's my son, because he's like unusual.

What do you think makes him especially unusual?

One is memory, which is God given. I can't make him unusual. I can make him a good boy, I can give him good manners. And I can make him honest, loyal, helpful, that I can teach him a little bit, little by little, but unusual and special and brilliant. No mother can make a child.

I remember like I never wanted to like disappoint my parents. I feel like that was like a actually a big drive for me when I was younger. That like I would like try to never be naughty, or at least in a way that I could be discovered.

Uh speaking of your parents, what what were your parents like and what did they do for a living?

So my dad's always been an entrepreneur of some sort. So he uh he still has a garage, uh like a car repair garage in Pakistan.

Do you have any memories of watching your dad's business? Kind of you're like, what are your impressions of what it was like for him to be a business owner and entrepreneur?

Yeah, I definitely went with him to the garage, and yeah, it's pretty grimy. It's like it's like it's not, it didn't appeal to me as like, oh wow, I'd love to do this. But uh he once said this to me. So, you know, when they moved to the UK, my dad had a really hard time like getting a job because he was like used to being an entrepreneur. And he once said this thing, and like I'm sure he said it in like an off-handed way, he was just like, I can't work for people, but it really stuck with me as like, oh like you know, when you're a kid, you're like kind of impressionable, and this idea that like someone could not work for someone, like just stuck with me. And like I have this like self-image as well now that I just can't work for people, like I can't I can't have someone manage me, and it's like to some extent like irrational, but I do think like I just picked that up from my dad. Uh, and then my mom has been a teacher mostly, so she was she was a teacher in Pakistan, and then when we moved to the UK, you know, she had to take whatever odd job, so she worked at a grocery store and that kind of thing.

So when I came here, I was asking for a job, nobody was giving me. They said you are too overqualified, and you don't have country experience, and then you have nothing to show. I have done masters in comparative religions. I wrote a big thesis. My teacher was so happy he said you do PhD. But I got married and I couldn't do I couldn't do PhD and I'm pretty sure. So when I came here, I had nothing really, to be honest. Nothing to show really, but I was doing odd jobs then.

And talking to your mom, it sounds like your move to London was a little challenging. You kind of talked about, you know, leaving family, kind of being in a new place. Like, talk a little about what that was like.

Yeah, I mean, I was really happy in Pakistan. And you know, moving to the UK was a yeah, no friends, no family. So like socially very different. Yeah, I had a strong kind of I could speak English, but you know, it wasn't like the best English. I had a very strong accent. So like I had this like yeah, self-image of being like a really good student and like excelling in classes, but especially in the first couple of years, it you know, it took a while to just like understand what the hell was going on and like catch up with things. And like I remember, you know, there's this idea of like placement sets where like if you're great at maths, you'd be in the top set, and then medium would be like you're okay. So they put me in the lowest set, which was like, you know, in Pakistan, I was like literally in like a pretty big school. I was like the top or second best math student. So but it just took a long time to adjust to like the new reality.

We actually have a story from your mom about this moment that I wanted to just play for you.

In the beginning, he used to cry sometimes. And I used to cry with him because when he cried, I cried. Because I I used to think I have like took him out of his roots or somewhere he was happy.

Oh man.

So I was sad too. So I I used to go and uh show his teacher his report cards. I used to come first in Pakistan, and here he he was a bit dwindling a little bit in the beginning. So I went to his teacher and said, I have brought him here. Now it will be my fault if he goes like down a bit. So the teacher said, What shall I do, Mrs. Ahun, to help him? I said, make him sit just in front of you and explain the questions. So she started doing that and she said, Mrs. Ahund, you are right. He's very good. I said, I know. But that doesn't know his son. Who will know?

That's a sweet lip. So I think what's really sweet about that story is just it sounds like she was a really strong advocate for you in a lot of ways when you removed. Do you do you remember that piece, or was that a little bit more stuff she was doing behind the scenes?

No, I definitely remember it, and she was very proactive about it. I mean, I think a lot of my early confidence comes from like her confidence in me. Because I think like when your mom's always like, you're amazing, and like you can do this, and like you're the smartest person I know, or whatever. It's like it makes you feel good because when you're young, you kind of look up to your parents to tell you that you've got something figured out. So so there was definitely that. Uh oh, I you know, the other thing was moving to the UK was relating to my sports self-image. Like, I you know, I played cricket and I swam or whatever, but everyone played soccer or football in in the UK, and like I literally never played this sport before. That's all everyone played. So, you know, even at the age of nine, like it just felt like I could not play the sport, right? So, yeah, it was just like this real like shattering of like self-image and self-confidence for me. Uh, but you know, I guess in hindsight, it maybe it was good for me. It was a difficult time, but like rebuilding that self-confidence and self-image was probably something that like helps me as an entrepreneur because it's like you know, this idea that like you know nothing about something and like you're starting from nothing is yeah, very close to like building a company, right? When I built Mercury, I knew nothing about fintech. And maybe if I hadn't been able to like have this image of like a full reset where I had to like rebuild every part of my life at the age of nine, maybe like I wouldn't be able to like do that as a as an entrepreneur. Uh I don't know, maybe this is like a post-justification of it or something like that. But it was a really difficult time, definitely like it felt traumatic, and I I wouldn't say like I really got out of feeling good about it all until maybe even until I moved to San Francisco, to be honest. Um because I never felt like I belonged in the UK.

Do you remember around that time, did did you have any sense for what you wanted to be when you grew up?

Uh no, not at all. I mean, especially at the age of nine, definitely not. It wasn't until I'd say like the age of 14 or 15 where you know I started making some websites. And this is like, you know, I was 14 in 1998, right? So like the internet was new and like we had a computer home. And my dad was like very into computers. Actually, we even had a Apple in Pakistan, which was like extremely rare for anyone to have a computer in 1987 or something or 88. So we always had I mean, we weren't rich or anything, we always had access to like computers. So I I don't think it was until then where I could like maybe see a path where I could see being good at something that I could do. But even then, I didn't think of myself as an entrepreneur. Like I actually had this like idea that eventually maybe I'd become an entrepreneur, but like I had no path to it. Uh, and I really fixated on like going to like Cambridge, Oxford, like that's like kind of the I don't know, Ivy League equivalent in the in the US. Uh I just had this idea that like yeah, it would be a big unlock to like future success to have like that badge behind me, which I think in the UK especially is is true. So I was like, okay, you know, how do I get there? And actually I was like kind of more interested in doing math, but I I kind of realized that I was good at math, but not like amazing at math. But I realized I like I was probably amazing at computer science. Uh obviously, it turned out to be like a great decision. And I I think back at like you know how that like was such an informative decision to me. Like I think when I became an entrepreneur, you know, I I kind of thought of coding as like not that valuable for a long time. It was like a thing I could do, and I kind of enjoyed doing it, but I didn't think it was like a valuable life skill. And like this is like 2002, right? Like, so it wasn't this is like after the dot-com boom. Kind of hangover. It wasn't like yeah. And I remember like skipping forward a little bit to when I realized like programming could be valuable. I became an entrepreneur in 2006. And you know, in in London, there was a lot of like people who wanted to be entrepreneurs but couldn't build anything. You know, all these people with ideas, and like they'd go to all these meetups and like I'd meet them all the time, and they were just like idea people, they would always be going, like, oh man, like I wish I could code something, or like, hey, can you help me make this thing? But it just like suddenly felt like actually, like the real bottleneck to like entrepreneurship, especially when you're just starting out, is like being able to build something. And I had this like unique skill set that I developed that was almost a surprise that I was like, Oh, actually, like I have like the most important skill set to be an entrepreneur because like everything else you can kind of pick up, but it's hard to like pick up coding, like it, especially like you know, I'd been doing it since the age of 14, so I'd built up that skill over eight, nine years by then.

Do you do you remember the starting that first company? Like, what was the idea? How did you come up with the idea? How did you decide to work on it? Versus, you know, at that point in time, presumably the default would be go out and get a job.

Yeah, so I had a I had a job at Bloomberg. That was my first and only real job. It was actually quite hard to get because you know the default path for everyone back then, this is like I graduated in 2005, was like everyone was going to consulting or investment banking. But honestly, I didn't really want to do that. But I also applied for a few just like programming jobs. So I got this job at Bloomberg, and I liked the coding part, but I really I mean, it probably goes back to like me not wanting to be managed by people or whatever, but I really felt like a cog in the wheel. Like I would be given these like specs, like go do this thing, and I wouldn't even know why I'm doing the thing. And I just felt so like demoralized that one year I worked at Bloomberg. Yeah, I wouldn't even work that hard. I would like show up and do the thing pretty fast. So I would work like maybe two or three hours a day. Uh, but it was so draining not being motivated all day to do things. So I met a friend there who like joined Bloomberg at the same time, and you know, me and him would like look at Techrunch all the time, and this is 2006. Uh, you know, people would be like launching things, you know, like maybe Flickr was sold or something for like 30 million, and we'd be like, Whoa, that's insane that like this thing was sold. And we'd look at this stuff, and we're both programmers, and we'd be like, we could have built this, right? Like it would it didn't seem like that hard to build these things that were selling and making money, and it you know, it's like relatively basic websites. So that time as like young people that could like code, we were just like, we could do this ourselves. Uh so I was like, okay, you know, I'll quit this job. You know, my thinking at the time was like, hey, this will be fun. I kind of hate my job, and I had like a reasonable confidence at that point that I could get another job as a programmer. I had hardly any money saved up. I had like 6,000 pounds saved up, which like felt like a lot to me at the time. Obviously, it was like nothing, but I was like, you know, I could probably survive off like 6,000 pounds for a year, so yeah, we just like kind of quit.

Starting the company really was not my dream because in Pakistan they do either job or they have uh lands. There is no dream of companies or anything like that. So I never thought he will, I thought he will do a good job after doing a Cambridge degree. So when he did finished his degree, as soon as he finished, he got a job, good job in Bloomberg. So he he left a job. I did not know what his aims are, his dreams and aims. So I was so sad. I said, Oh, you left your good job. Now, what are you doing? You're not earning enough. This and that. I was not happy, really, to be honest. I have never seen anyone doing this. You know, if you have not seen anything like that, you can't just make up a story like that. My story was he will do a job and then he will do a better job, then he will do a better job. I never thought he will do a company, but he said, Ama, this is only a staircase. I'm climbing. Think as if I'm climbing, and I will go up, up, up. If I will not go up, I will do a job. I promise.

More after the break.

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And now, back to the episode.

The feeling of just like building something was like such a great feeling. Uh, and I got this like tiny, like the first office I had was like insanely small. Like it was a tiny one-bedroom, basically big enough for like two single beds, right? And we shoved two tables in there. So every day I'd sleep in this thing, and then he'd come over and we would work on the startup all day long in this like tiny bedroom. And that went on for like seven months. Um, it was called Revmap. Didn't go anywhere. We had like maybe 4,000 people that used it. Like everything about that startup was a disaster. We raised no money, even though we tried, no one used it. We didn't really have a strategy of how we'd get users. Uh so everything about it was bad, but like I just like enjoyed my day every day, which was like so different from Bloomberg. I don't know like how rational it is, but like, you know, even though everything was like bad, I was just like, wow, I just need to do this for the rest of my life. Because like I just felt so motivated. Because when you build something, you obviously end up meeting entrepreneurs that are also doing it. And I went to a bunch of meetups and like you know, I met other like really fun people building, like building things, and it just like opened up this whole world to me of like people building things, and and there was a few people that had done startups in the UK but moved to San Francisco because of Y Combinator. So it was kind of cool to see like, oh wow, like that you could move to the promised land of Silicon Valley and like raise money through Y Combinator. So I was like, okay, I just like I need to do Y Combinator.

So I just set my heart on that. Yeah, so let's talk about that. When when did you make that decision to move to the US? And was it to start a company, or were you just like, hey, I'm gonna move out to San Francisco and see where things go?

So I I networked really hard while I was doing this startup. Like I would go to every single event in London there was to go to. And the startup ecosystem was like just getting started. So there weren't that many people. And so I ended up like knowing every young entrepreneur in the UK, just because there weren't that many. And then every entrepreneur in the UK was looking for CTOs, like this was like the standard thing in the UK. Like, for whatever reason, like everyone who started companies was like not a programmer, and they all needed an engineering co-founder. So I knew both the companies that were moving to do Y Combinator from London, and they both needed an engineering co-founder. So I was and they'd already they'd already going to Y Combinator. So I was like, I basically just interviewed at both of them, and then I ended up choosing ClickPass. So that was my second company, ClickPass, which we did from like we did Y Combinator in 2007, and it went on for like almost two years.

Do you remember that first time moving out? Do you have any like early memories of moving and kind of what that was like compared to London or what you're used to?

The funny thing is I felt so rich because ClickPass, we'd raised like 300k. So I had like a 50k salary, but I'd just gone seven months with like no salary and like 6,000 pounds. So I was like felt like a real like freedom and opportunity, and and it was just like so fun. You know, the community back then and Y Combinator, like everyone was young. I think Y Combinator gave like $15,000 or something like that. And yeah, it was only like basically people like just out of college or like in this is a summer program as well. So, like, you know, some percentage of the people were. Literally in college and having like a summer break. Like literally half the companies were like, you know, if it doesn't go well, they're going back to college. Like this was like their summer holidays. And there were these like weekly dinners that like you'd meet these successful people, and like, you know, in London, like there were some successful people, but you'd never meet them. They were like, you know, on some pedestal. Like, there wasn't like a place you would meet them. Uh, whereas doing Y Combinator, you know, you'd like meet these like freaking billionaires who had like started tech companies, like a small crowd, like there'd be 20 of you uh speaking to this like extremely successful people, and like you know, it really made made it real for you. It's like you can do this too, kind of thing was like such a important part of the message, but it also felt like we were just kind of playing because like you know, it was like so little money, and it was hard to imagine that we could do it. I remember talking to Paul Graham once in that first batch, and he was like, you know, like one of you could build a unicorn, like a billion-dollar company. And I was like, what is Paul talking about? Like none of these kids are voting billion-dollar companies, it's just it just seems so far so hard to imagine because like Wycombe data had like no success at that point, right? Like the but obviously he was right, and Dropbox was in that batch.

You know, one of the things that a lot of kids go through, you know, you grew up in Pakistan. So I grew up in France, I was born in France, I grew up in Morocco. You know, a lot of people go through this. Some people struggle, some people don't, but this feeling of like having no attachment to any like specific culture, kind of feeling a little bit outside of the cultures. I mean, is that something you ever felt? You know, did you have to reinvent yourself moving back to the US like you did in the UK, or did it feel a little bit more natural?

You know, I never really settled into the UK. Like it always felt like a foreign place to me where I wasn't that welcome. I think there's a combination of things like A, maybe that first move was like so hard. B, I think culturally, like British culture is like quite reserved and it's like polite, a little cynical, and it was just very much not me. Whereas when I moved to, and obviously my experience in the US is like not a normal experience, but like you know, I fell in with like tech entrepreneurs that are like all the exact opposite of British culture and much closer to like my culture. So it really felt like a moment of saying, like, oh wow, I found my people after like not having any people for a long time. And then I moved to Crystal Towers, which was kind of the Y scraper at the time. Uh, and I guess we lived in the same building, but there was like, you know, it was literally like hours in one room with an entrepreneur. Next door was like Dropbox founders that lived in the next building, and then you know, you guys lived in the sixth floor, the fourth floor, or whatever. Was it 11th floor? I can't even remember what floor it was, but but it was like, yeah, yeah, I there wasn't any point where I could be lonely. I was just always surrounded with like people going through like this like similar experience, and it was it was like a really kind of a bonding environment, and like you know, I'm still friends with like a lot of the people that you know I met literally in the first few months of moving here.

So, yeah, how did the click pass story go? How long were you working there and how did that end?

We ended up having like relative success. So we were building basically like this developer tool to let people like log into websites, but there was like no one had like really come up with a way of making money, which is kind of funny. It's a classic kind of 2007 startup where where you're like, okay, now we have users, but we have no like thought on like how we make money, and it kind of like just kind of ran out of steam, and I started my third company. And what was your third company? Uh by this point, flash games was like kind of a thing in this is like 2008. So we had this idea to like develop a tool around like flash game distribution. I went and talked to Paul Grimm, and I was like, hey, this is the idea. And I just like I remember we just had this like walk, and and he was like, Oh, I have no idea about gaming, but you seem smart, so like you should do YC. And I was like, Okay, great, that's let's go. So that was that was my me getting into Y Combinator for the second company, and we ended up doing like four pivots. Uh, eventually became profitable, but it went on for like eight years. But we eventually sold it in 2016, and yeah, it was like kind of a grind, but you know, still fun.

At that point, you'd been working on startups for what 10 10 years or so? Yeah. So you've been doing it for 10 years. You know, you sell the company. Did you ever have this minute where you might think to yourself, like, hey, maybe maybe I'm done with startups, like that was pretty cool. I've done that for 10 years, it's been hard, I had this kind of you know, success. Or were you immediately like, I'm gonna do another startup?

I did seriously consider becoming an investor. Um, and actually, when I sold the company in 2016, I invested like very quickly. I was like, okay, you know, what is it like being an investor? So I ended up investing in about 20 companies in the next year. So that was something that I seriously explored. So it was like, it's gonna be either I'm a tech entrepreneur or I'm an investor, but there wasn't like another serious path I considered. We'll be right back.

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And we're back. Okay, so you decide you're gonna start another company, and then you decide, hey, why don't I start a bank? Is that like talk me through how that process? Why the bank doesn't seem like the easiest company to decide to start?

So, you know, I don't know if you do this, but I always have like some ideas in the back of my head that I'm like, oh, this is a cool idea. This is a cool idea. So I had this like idea in 2013. Actually, there's like there was this meta idea that like every single tool we use as an entrepreneur will get better. So, you know, in 2006, like everything kind of sucked as an entrepreneur. Like, there was there was no Slack, there was no Stripe, there was no Gusto. I literally had a list of like, here's all the tools that every single startup needs, and like which ones are not good and which ones are good kind of thing. But you know, by 2013, a lot of them had improved, right? I think Gusto had launched in 2011, I want to say, and obviously Stripe and Slack or the precursor to Sack was live. But banking was just one of the last things left on there that like still obviously sucked. So this idea I had in 2013, and really it wasn't even like my idea, it was like more like here's the list of things that every entrepreneur uses, and obviously they're all gonna get better, right? So it was on my list, and I just I never thought in 2013 like I will be the one doing it. And then 2017 came along and I'd sold my company and I decided I didn't want to be an investor. So I had my list of ideas, and this was the top idea, and uh like I had like a reasonable amount of confidence by 2017, like that this would work. I had no confidence that I could build it though. But you know, I really like learning new things, uh, and I wanted something that was like, you know, this is after like 10 years of being an entrepreneur, and like I'd finally had like enough money that I didn't need a job straight away and I could like spend some time thinking about something hard. So I wanted to do something hard, and this was like the hardest thing at the top of my pile. And I actually kind of liked that I had this idea for such a long time because it like it really, most ideas I have, you know, normally you have an idea and you kind of get bored of it, but I felt like the fact that I hadn't got bored of this idea meant that I would probably be willing to do this for another 10 years of my life or 20 years of my life, right? Given that I'd already thought about it for like four or five years by that point. So at that phase, I really went through this like kind of learning exercise. Okay, like what does it take to really do this? And yeah, I didn't realize this in 2017, but like this was like very early in fintech. Uh like no one really knew how to build a new bank. Like, literally no one really knew. Maybe like two or three people who had like kind of done it. Uh I mean there was a few consumer neo banks where you know we wanted like very specific features or choirs and things like that. So, you know, at that time, like I just spent like five months going like really deep and like deciding like, is this something I could do and how would I do it? Like the thing I wanted, which was like a startup banking platform. You know, what if a bank could build great software? Like, what would that mean? And like I spoke to every fintech investor, I could find fintech entrepreneur, I could find every lawyer. I had 90 different meetings in that like five months to like figure out like what is the plan for doing this. And it was like, you know, over time you kind of coalesce on like, okay, this is what might work. And that was like the process. Over that time, I built confidence. Like when I first had my first meeting, I was like, I have no idea what these people are talking about. And then eventually you get to the point where you're like, because you've had 89 meetings before, you probably even know more than the 90th person you're talking to because you've like accumulated all this like fairly specific knowledge and like, but yeah, eventually it became real.

Do you remember the first time you told your mom about the startup idea? Or sort of that you were actually doing this again? Huh.

Yeah, I don't, I don't think so. She's always been like very much like, you know, whatever you do is gonna be successful in math kind of thing, which like I appreciate about her.

She um, yeah, she told us to kind of paraphrase a little bit, but she told us basically when you told her that you were gonna start a bank that you know, basically she didn't even realize that was an option. She was like, Well, that seems really hard.

Um Yeah, she probably did believe I'd do it. Uh I mean I'd had a lot of failures until then as well. So even though she has confidence in me, she probably didn't like necessarily think I'd manage to actually succeed out of.

Do you remember the day that he first told you he was gonna start a bank?

Oh yes, I was very shocked. Bank? I said, bank? What does bank? How can you do bank? Who does bank? Never saw anyone doing bank. I said, how can anyone start a bank? Because for me, like it is quite an impossible job to do. But he said, I will do it. Um look, I have proved myself. I said, yes, of course you have. But he said, I will do better. So I was sure he will.

So she also said, I mean, one of the things I thought was really kind of insightful is that starting a bank, you need people to trust you, right? We asked her your kind of about your biggest strengths. So I want to play this and then I wanna I want to ask you about that.

The thing is that he from childhood he's so honest and he's so like clear about everything that you can't feel that something dodgy is going on under the carpet. You talk to him, you straight away find out he's so clear-cut. He's like a clear-cut diamond. He's my son, so I can say that's good.

You know, I thought that was really interesting because trust is so important, especially for a bank. And you know, I wonder if you have a philosophy on how you build that trust and how you go about that.

Yeah, I mean, I quickly realized when I started Mercury, actually, the hard part is trust. Like it's not that hard to build the best product, but in some ways, if you compare us to like JPMC or whatever, there's no like question on like who's got the better product, right? Like it's not they're not even competing against us in product, but what they have is trust. And like banking is almost the hardest trust barrier that you could build as a company. Like there must be some other one that's harder, but I guess like Tesla or something is kind of hard because they're driving you around and they could break. But like banking, like you know, when someone uses us as a bank, they're like putting all the money in Mercury. I I realize very early on it's probably our biggest challenge, and I would still say it's like probably one of the bigger things that we have to like continue to invest in. So a few things we did deliberately for it to try to build trust, and a few things that like we did accidentally early on. On the deliberate side, I think the main way you get initial trust is through association. So, you know, we raised from Andries and Horowitz, and we had actually like 60 investors in our seed round. Many of them were like well-known entrepreneurs and well-known fintech people, and actually the original founder of Silicon Valley Bank invested in Mercury. And I th I definitely think that helped. Um, I think secondly, I think the way you talk and the way you like do pricing and like just being like very open and transparent about it, I think helps build trust, right? Like, I think if you use a lot of buzzwords and like you have a lot of hidden pricing and like all of these things, like it can feel like a low trust kind of environment. And then number three on the deliberate side was I think it's much easier to trust a person that you can see versus a brand. And I tried to tweet a lot, I went on a lot of podcasts. Like, I feel like people see me. Oh, also like if anyone complains on the internet, I'm there saying, like, oh yeah, what's wrong? I'm sorry about that. Like, let me try to get a fix. So like people feel like I'm accessible and like I'm on their side. I mean, I can't always fix the problem, obviously, but at least I'm like, I'm there. You know, if someone wants to shout at someone, they can shout at me, kind of thing. Uh, so I think that helps world trust. I think on the accidental side, we spent a ton of time on the onboarding process, like the literal steps to like, you know, what do you need to do to apply for a bank account? And we ended up doing it almost accidentally. We had to do like a lot of back-end work because we switched between like two partner banks. So our front-end team and our designer just had like a lot of extra time, and we we ended up like redoing the onboarding process, which is like you know, something like very unsexy that most startups wouldn't have like optimized as much as we did before we launched, but we realized that's a very strong first impression, and it's also something where like most people have like a very negative impression of signing up for financial services. Like, you know, you you assume you're gonna go through like kind of this like annoying, awful process when you're signing up for a uh financial service. Like when we started Mercury, we signed up for like 12 banks, all of them are painful, right? You'd be like, walk to the bank branch, wait for three hours to get the bank account live, and then go home, and then realize oh, the bank account doesn't have wires enabled because that's like a separate thing. You have to go back to the bank branch to enable wires. It was like insane how, or like maybe you'd go there and you wouldn't have all the documents that they need, and you'd have to go back and get the documents. So whereas like Mercury was just like a really delightful kind of onboarding experience, and that really set like uh I think people felt like, oh wow, they've done so much to make this better that it's probably something I can trust for like the rest of the process. So it set this like really strong first impression, and that was like it's kind of accidental. I didn't expect it to matter that much. We just did it because like we had time. I didn't think like, wow, this is gonna be like a great trust building exercise, but it definitely helps. So, you know, like one of the things I've wanted to do basically is from the start is like go like, you know, what if a bank could build great software? Like, what would that mean? And I think this is what it would mean. Uh yeah, we made we're making about 650 million a year, we have 200,000 plus customers, uh, we have a thousand employees growing at like 40% plus yearly. And I guess in terms of product, we initially started with just like a core banking features for startups. Now we have kind of built, you know, what I think of as like the core kind of money movements outside the bank account features. So we have a corporate credit card, a bill pay solution, an invoicing solution, uh, kind of accounting integrations on top of that.

It sounds like he shared both the ups and the downs. And you know, with with any company, there's there's a lot of struggle. What has it felt like for you to see his success at Mercury and just how that journey is played out today?

When he was little, he used to tell me, I will buy you a Mercedes. So when he got a little bit of money, he said, I will buy you a black Mercedes. But I said, But I don't need Mercedes because everything is near my house. I said, I don't want a Mercedes. But now when he got enough money, he said, now I will buy you a house. So I'm so happy.

I know one thing that's been important to you is just it can be extra work, but really working to help service immigrant founders. And you know, I love just to hear your perspective on that.

I mean, I think there's like a business case for it. Like when we started with serving, like, you know, I kind of looked at myself as like, hey, I moved from the UK to the US and it was hard to get access to financial services. And I was like, you know, we have to support these entrepreneurs, and like I think there's some stat out that like 50% of like unicorn companies are like started with an immigrant founder. So from a practical business perspective, you know, this was like a valuable set of people to like go after, especially if we're serving startups. And then from a personal perspective, I wanted to feel like I was like serving myself.

One of the things that that I know he places a lot of importance in is just catering to founders that are either immigrant founders or outside the US. Where where do you think that passion comes from for him?

I think that is the reason the passion has come from because he thinks how hard life can be. If you have gone through certain things, then you can help out better. I think you understand better. But if you have not gone through these things, this is hard for you to understand.

So I think we got our last question here. This is kind of one thing that you know, I asked your mom what she's most proud of about you, and this is what she had to say about it.

I'm most proud of that people are really talking nice about him. I'm really proud of that. So if people are not talking nice about you, what is the use of life really? Life is worth living when uh people are talking nicely about you behind your back. That's what I want for myself as well. If I will die, somebody will talk nicely about me.

That's sweet. Uh yeah, I feel like before you have kids yourself, you don't really appreciate like the things that parents do. Uh and you know, I think there's definitely like she's a very brave woman to like move countries, have four young kids, and you know, how hard she worked has always been like a strong example for me. I think she's just like she's just got this like real need to help people, and it's always set like a good example for us to like it's uh it's actually kind of hard to live up to uh example of like how how good a person she is. So I I definitely think I was I was very lucky to have her as a mother.

Well, Amar, this has been awesome. Thanks for coming on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me, David. This was fun. This podcast is brought to you by Leap Forward Ventures, an investor in early stage startups. If you like the show, the number one thing you'll want to do is sign up to get notified when we release new episodes that includes transcripts and key takeaways from each story. Head to leapforward.fm to sign up. I'd also love to hear your feedback on the episode and who you want to hear from next. Just shoot us a text at 415-915-3050 to get in touch. This episode was produced by Theo Balcom and Kim Naderfane Petersa. Craig Ellie is our engineer. Reese Laudano made our cover art. Music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. I'm David Rusenko, and this is the Leap Forward Podcast. See you next episode.

He's an amazing son. I love him so much. I want to see him every day. Sometimes I'm looking at him and he's doing all kinds of brushing his teeth, making food for his children because he's such a good father. Make food for his children, take them to school, and I'm so proud of him if he's doing things like that. He said, Now don't start praising me so much now, Omar. I said, Look, I have got the chance now to praise you, I will.