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:
Where to find Immad:
Where to find Brett:
Where to find First Round Capital:
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
