How Do You Know if You Want a New Credit Card?

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We had underwritten thousands of college students based on like a personal loan product. And we could just see that they were getting inquiries for a credit card and a lot of people were actually getting rejected. These were folks who had jobs at Goldman Sachs and they would apply for an American Express card right after graduation or during like a count that time and they would get rejected. They all had to take these very low tier cards with really small limits. We knew there was a huge opportunity here.

Todd Jackson is back on the mic to guest host another product-market fit focused episode this week. He chats with Deepak Rao, co-founder and CEO of X1, a consumer fintech startup that’s building a credit card for a new generation.

Just last week, X1 announced a $15 million funding round. But we’re here to rewind the clock and unpack how the startup got to this point. As you’ll hear in today’s conversation, the path required a dramatic pivot. Here’s a preview of what Deepak shares:

The emotional journey of how the pandemic forced them to abandon the initial idea for a personal loan product.
How the team validated demand for the new idea by focusing on the launch announcement and getting all of the branding exactly right — before building anything.
The launch strategy that crashed X1’s website and built up a 600K long waitlist. .
Why finding product-market fit is different for consumer companies, plus advice on fundraising in tough times.

Whether you’re in the early innings of starting a company, going through a tough pivot yourself, or planning out your product’s launch there are tons of helpful tactics here.

You can follow Deepak on Twitter at @drao1. You can email us questions directly at review@firstround.com or follow us on Twitter @firstround and @tjack.