# Ignoring Silicon Valley advice to build a $3B fintech unicorn | Immad Akhund (Co-founder and CEO of Mercury)

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-depth-1318680/ignoring-silicon-valley-advice-to-build-a-3b-fintech-unicorn-immad-akhund-co-founder-and-ceo-of-mercury
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-depth-1318680/ignoring-silicon-valley-advice-to-build-a-3b-fintech-unicorn-immad-akhund-co-founder-and-ceo-of-mercury.md
Podcast: [In Depth](https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-depth-1318680)
Published: 2025-08-06T13:56:00+00:00
Episode link: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/FRCH5277096503.mp3
Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/FRCH5277096503.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/in-depth-1318680/episodes/ignoring-silicon-valley-advice-to-build-a-3b-fintech-unicorn-immad-akhund-co-founder-and-ceo-of-mercury
Duration seconds: 3712

## Resource

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: Airbnb: https://www.airbnb.com/ Andreessen Horowitz: https://a16z.com/ Apple: https://www.apple.com/ Block: https://block.xyz/ Brex: https://www.brex.com/ Chime: https://www.chime.com/ Gusto: https://gusto.com/ Mercury: https://mercury.com/ Paul Graham: https://x.com/paulg Plaid: https://plaid.com/ Stripe: https://stripe.com/ SVB (Silicon Valley Bank): https://www.svb.com/ True Link Financial: https://www.truelinkfinancial.com/ Varo: https://www.varomoney.com/ Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/ Where to find Immad: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iakhund/ Where to find Brett: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson Where to find First Round Capital: Website: https://firstround.com/ First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast Timestamps: (1:07) Hard-won…

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