Immad Akhund is the CEO and co-founder of Mercury, a digital banking platform that’s become the go-to financial infrastructure for startups. Before Mercury, Immad spent nearly two decades founding companies, learning the hard way what separates a good idea from a great business.

In this episode, Immad shares the hard-earned lessons from launching Mercury as his third startup. He unpacks how he recognized this was the right idea to pursue, what strong product-market fit feels like, and why trying to "iterate" your way to success often leads founders astray.

In this episode, we discuss:

Mercury’s unusual culture playbook – and why it works
How to hire with intention
The trap of weak product-market fit
Shipping under intense pressure during the SVB crisis
And much more…

References:

Airbnb: https://www.airbnb.com/
Andreessen Horowitz: https://a16z.com/
Apple: https://www.apple.com/
Block: https://block.xyz/
Brex: https://www.brex.com/
Chime: https://www.chime.com/
Gusto: https://gusto.com/
Mercury: https://mercury.com/
Paul Graham: https://x.com/paulg
Plaid: https://plaid.com/
Stripe: https://stripe.com/
SVB (Silicon Valley Bank): https://www.svb.com/
True Link Financial: https://www.truelinkfinancial.com/
Varo: https://www.varomoney.com/
Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/

Where to find Immad:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iakhund/

Where to find Brett:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson

Where to find First Round Capital:

Website: https://firstround.com/
First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

Timestamps:

(1:07) Hard-won lessons from serial entrepreneurship
(2:02) You shouldn’t copy-paste advice
(6:57) Why personality trumps culture playbooks
(8:48) How do you hire for cultural fit?
(12:38) The values that shaped Mercury’s DNA
(14:08) The drivers underpinning Mercury’s success
(15:50) The significance of product-market fit
(20:41) Don’t fall into the weak product-market fit trap
(25:49) How to evaluate startup ideas that scale
(30:14) Mercury’s unlikely origin story
(33:51) Breaking into the fintech space
(37:31) Mindset shift: From “This is hard” to long-term gains
(39:43) Building Mercury’s MVP
(44:25) Overcoming early obstacles to reach launch
(47:36) Navigating Mercury’s rapid growth phase
(51:18) Competition isn’t the reason you’re failing
(55:58) Crisis management during the SVB collapse

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