COVID - How Did You Do It?

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When COVID struck, how much money was in the bank and how many employees did you have? Yeah. We still had about $3 million in the bank at that point,. But our bond rate was really high. We were burning about $250,000 every month. So we offered everyone in the company an ability to get more equity in the company if they would lower their salaries. Every single employee in whatever they could afford from like going lower in salary, some people went like crazy down in order to get more Equity in the company.

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.