Ned had a chance to run Robinhood Asia but he turned it down. Instead, he launched a competitive product. He decided to go B2B and sell to banks and other financial institutions. He locked down a $400K revenue sale before writing a line of code. It seemed easy at first. Overtime, he grew to $3.5M in revenue, billions in assets under management and hundreds of thousands of users. He raised $20M in venture capital.
But then the problems started. Enterprises that paid for large contracts didn't push the product—many had no marketing budgets. In some cases, they shelved the product altogether. The one-time revenue never turned into ARR. Running out of money, he was forced to raise a small bridge and lay off more than half his staff.
He came close—but ultimately, he just wasn't able to recover. He sold off the company for parts and went through a wind down.
This is his story—and the lessons he learned.
Why you should listen:
- Why the difference between success and failure can be minimal.
- How to balance custom contracts with building scalable product.
- Why enterprises might not push the product they've paid $100K+ for.
- How to build a strong company culture.
- Why layoffs are the hardest thing a founder will go through.
- When things go south, "the days are long, but the months are short".
Keywords
startup, FinTech, B2B2C, customization, revenue models, marketing, client engagement, leadership, company culture, lessons learned, B2B sales, startup challenges, emotional toll, liquidation, lessons learned
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