BUKAYO 😍

He should’ve been a wizard💔💔

My conversation with @immad, CEO and co-founder of @mercury. Immad's story is so unique yet largely underdiscussed. His father owned a mechanic shop and his mom was a teacher. After immigrating to the US, he spent nearly a decade pivoting before finally selling his first company for 45M. We dug into the sheer pain tolerance required to pivot constantly and still find sources of motivation, something many early-stage founders don't hear about enough. From there, Mercury got off the ground — but with a unique twist. Immad generally doesn't work weekends and has still built one of the most successful fintechs. This goes entirely against Twitter hype that promotes working every waking hour, and Immad's clarity on this topic was refreshing. He feels like he's "playing the bonus levels" and is still just getting started. Mercury is now worth multiple billions of dollars with 500M in recurring revenue, 10 consecutive quarters of profitability, and still growing 40% YoY. I hope you enjoy this conversation, Immad's clarity on company building, and learning about his life. PS. As quite the ending, Immad & I tried Habanero hot sauce off his conference room table! Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 2:11 Growing Up in Pakistan And Moving to London 6:37 "Yelp For London" and Early Entrepreneurial Endeavors 10:45 Pivoting From Flash Games to Mobile Ad Networks 12:15 Selling a Company After 8 Years of Pivoting 16:42 Thank You to Macroscope and Timeless Partners 17:56 Meeting His Wife Through Facebook 19:09 Finding Your Life’s Work 22:35 The Origins of Mercury 26:44 The Importance of Design at Mercury 27:37 How Mercury Landed Its Initial Customers 29:12 Raising Mercury's Seed Round 31:09 The Choice to Not Work Weekends 34:58 Immad's Best Startup Ideas 36:15 Are There Moats with AI? 38:05 Mercury’s 10-year vision 39:50 From Angel Investing to Formalizing a New Fund 42:13 Paul Graham's Influence 44:33 Parenting Philosophy 46:01 Sources of Happiness 46:52 Immad & I Taste Hot Sauce Off a Conference Table!

My conversation with @kayvz, co-founder of Macroscope and Periscope. We talk about selling for $120M pre-launch to @dickc at Twitter, turning down @elonmusk, getting trolled by Kobe Bryant and much more. His family immigrated to the Bay Area from Iran and he grew up an aspiring filmmaker. With a push from his mom, however, he toured and eventually got admitted to Stanford. This led to a series of software startups with his best friends and eventual acquisitions from Blackboard and Twitter. He led product there and eventually (graciously) turned down Elon to co-found Macroscope. Kayvon is an incredible storyteller, family man, & product mind. And while his accomplishments are many, he's an even better person. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did! Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 1:54 Fleeing the Iranian Revolution to California 4:32 How Gaming Sparked a Career in Tech 8:28 Growing Up With 12 Kids 12:32 Pissing Off an Apple Exec with a Jailbroken iPhone 4:29 From a Cardboard Sign to Winning Emmys 19:20 Building Software While Skipping Class 20:53 Selling $100k Apps to Best Buy & HP 22:32 Getting Acquired Over a Spam Call 27:03 The Importance of Passion 34:21 The Origins of Periscope 39:20 Scott Belsky Invented "Teleportation" 43:20 Six Months of Failed Designs 47:33 Selling to Twitter Before Launching 54:07 Trolled by Kobe Bryant 57:41 Turning Down Elon Musk 01:01:54 Founding Macroscope 01:10:21 His Two Most Consequential Life Decisions