A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders

He grew to $90M ARR, was about to exit for $1.5B—and then, it all fell apart. | Yanni Giannaros, Co-Founder of Wyre

Dec 9, 2024

Yanni Giannaros, Co-founder of Wyre, a platform that simplified crypto transactions, shares his incredible journey from nearly selling for $1.5B to facing a market crash. He reminisces about betting Bitcoin while building innovative payment solutions. Yanni reflects on the emotional rollercoaster of entrepreneurship, the necessity of resilience, and the unpredictable nature of startup success. His insights on navigating pivots and the tough lessons learned from nearly achieving a massive exit are compelling for any aspiring founder.

55:58

Episode guests

Yanni Giannaros

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Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Yanni's entrepreneurial journey illustrates the necessity of resilience, as startups may hinge on pivotal moments that drastically change outcomes.

The evolution of Yanni's startups emphasizes the importance of adaptability and market awareness in navigating shifting landscapes within the crypto industry.

The abrupt cancellation of a significant acquisition highlights the inherent unpredictability in startup trajectories and the need for strategic financial planning.

Deep dives

The Journey into Bitcoin

The speaker shares their early experiences with Bitcoin and how they were introduced to the cryptocurrency through a previous job. They stumbled upon the Bitcoin white paper while working at a data encryption company, which sparked their curiosity. After reading the paper, they found the online Bitcoin community captivating, leading to a partnership with a co-founder who shared similar interests. This partnership eventually led them to launch various startup ideas, the first notable one being a quirky laundry service disguised as superheroes, highlighting their creative approach to entrepreneurship.

Intro

2min

Foundations of Innovation: A Bitcoin Odyssey

6min

Revolutionizing E-Commerce with Bitcoin

6min

Navigating Bitcoin's Early Business Landscape

14min

Navigating the Crypto Startup Rollercoaster

20min

Emotional Resilience in the Startup Journey

3min

Reflections on Startup Resilience and Entrepreneurial Identity

5min

Yanni started building in crypto back in 2013, when you could buy one Bitcoin for $20. At one point, he was playing poker games and betting 1 bitcoin each round!

He built an extension that let people use bitcoin to buy anything, anywhere on the internet. Then he pivoted to building the first on ramp for bitcoin. And finally, pivoted into Wyre, which was like Stripe for Crypto, a platform to let developers build Web3 apps.

In a couple of years he scaled it from nothing to a $90M run rate. In late 2021, he started working on an exit with Bolt. By mid 2022 the deal was signed. The company was to be sold for $1.5B.

Yanni would make hundreds of millions of dollars himself.

And then, at the absolute last minute, the world changed. Stocks fell, crypto plummeted— and the deal fell apart.

Startups are often one call, one customer or, in this case, one day away from complete success—or total failure. That’s the game you’re playing.

And there are few stories better than the one you’re about to hear.

Why you should listen
- Why if you want to be a founder you can't avoid taking punches to the face

- How Yanni found Bitcoin just a couple of years after it was started

- Why it often takes multiple twists and pivots to find real PMF

- How acquisitions tend to happen and why they can always fall apart

Keywords
startup, acquisition, Bitcoin, Web3, entrepreneurship, crypto, payment processing, innovation, technology, business, crypto, infrastructure, product-market fit, Web3, acquisition, startup challenges, fintech, business growth, developer support, market downturn

Timestamps
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:50) Buying Bitcoin in 2013
(00:04:48) Creating a Hacker House in San Francisco
(00:19:08) Creating Crypto Wallets
(00:26:41) Becoming Wyre
(00:33:56) Making the Decision to Go All In on Crypto
(00:41:18) The Acquisition that Didn't Happen
(00:47:33) Learning from All the Mistakes
(00:52:03) Some People are Builders

Send me a message to let me know what you think!

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