00:11:43 · Joubin Mirzadegan, Immad Akhund
[00:11:43] S1: In your experience, does the disappointment harder... Hardship get harder or easier as time goes on? [00:11:49] S0: I I definitely think there's a switch between, like, how existential the startup is? Sorry, let me be precise. When you are not profitable, and like, your hard things can kill you as a startup, I think it's much harder. Like, we've been profitable for four years now. It's it's rare [00:12:09] S1: these days. [00:12:10] S0: And I think... And in my previous company, we were not profitable for six years. In the last two years, we were profitable. I think it's a very different mindset between the two. Like, when you're waking up every morning and like, you're like, what's my runway? Like, the number's, like, shrinking, right, every day. Yeah. And you feel like... Even when you're doing well, I've... It's... There's just this kinda level of existential dread that you get from, like, a bank account going to zero that you don't don't feel afterwards. So I think that's definitely a turning point in my experience. But it never goes away. I mean, I think even if you're profitable, you're trying to push harder, you're trying to grow faster. So yeah, I think it's always there, but it definitely gets less work. I think the main way I've changed is I've got better at handling it for sure. Mhmm. [00:13:01] S1: Earlier when we started talking and you're asking me about Roadrunner and I said, you know, we're... We've grown out of two offices now and Yeah. So it must be working. You know, that's like one of the things that scares me right now
00:13:01 · Joubin Mirzadegan, Immad Akhund
[00:13:01] S1: Earlier when we started talking and you're asking me about Roadrunner and I said, you know, we're... We've grown out of two offices now and Yeah. So it must be working. You know, that's like one of the things that scares me right now [00:13:16] S0: Mhmm. [00:13:17] S1: And not just my company, but like generally in companies, is that we are using yardsticks like people growth. Sure. It's like the easiest proxy to explain to somebody if you don't want to share like revenue. Yeah. But it's like kind of the, I don't know, maybe like, it feels like the fake game on the field. Yeah. It's like all, it's like a little bit better than like how much have you raised, but but not as satisfying as like how much money have you made. [00:13:52] S0: Mhmm. You know? Like it's so... [00:13:54] S1: I'm curious what you think of that.
00:13:57 · Immad Akhund
[00:13:57] S0: Honestly, used to be worse. It used to be all about number of employees. Now, I think it's actually changed a little bit where, you know, teams are much more nimble. You you don't necessarily learn as much as you used to from number of employees. I mean, I think it's... I don't think it's all negative. I think... At least, when I'm talking to an like, I kinda wanna be helpful. Yeah. And like, it's just a... You know, if you're just starting out with two people, it's just like a different conversation. Like, I don't have enough context. So I don't think it's bad to like, try to like, gauge the person. Yeah. Honestly, I feel like people are a lot more honest than used to be. Like, people... Obviously, we're in a podcast, you know, but outside these situations, people share revenue numbers quite a lot. Yeah. And I find that the whole startup ecosystem has become a lot more open with metrics and things like that, in a way. And maybe it's like the conversations I have or something, but you know, I feel like ten years ago, no one used to ever talk about revenue. Was almost like a not safe thing to talk about. Now, you know, we see people talking about revenue online all the time. It's become a lot more common thing. And I think there's maybe a separate element to this, is like, you know, there is this kind of one side of the Silicon Valley ecosystem that's about like, hey, we're doing big things that change the world and improve the world, etcetera. And then this other side of it, it's just like, I'm trying to build a big company and go sell it and make... You know, become like a millionaire, billionaire, whatever it is. So I think there is like some tension there, and it swings, you know, just... I don't know if you're at the top of the bubble or whatever, but we're we're definitely in the hype cycle. Mhmm. And the swing in the hype cycle is much more towards, like, money and people who care about money and, like, those elements. And then, you know, when it when it will change, and it will change probably at some point, it will be once again a little bit more about, like, what are we doing to improve lives? I personally like the other cycle a little bit more than this cycle. I like it when we're doing things. It kinda goes back to Grit as well.
00:16:02 · Immad Akhund, Joubin Mirzadegan
It's like, if you're doing something because you really wanted to succeed because you think it'll be better for the world, I think that's like a motivation that can outlast. Whereas if the motivation is like, how do I make the most money? Then when you hit like a, you know, a hard patch, it's hard to like, kinda fight through it. You immigrated from where to England? Pakistan. And how old were you when you... That was my parents that immigrated. [00:16:26] S1: I was nine. You were nine. And then how old were [00:16:29] S0: you when you left England? 23, and now I'm 42. [00:16:34] S1: Wow. Yeah. And you came straight to The Bay?
00:16:36 · Immad Akhund
[00:16:36] S0: Yeah. I did one start up in London, and I decided I need to be in Silicon Valley to do start ups. Then I did my second, third, and now fourth here. Is this it? Is this the last one? I mean, as long as I have energy, I will probably still be doing startups. Yeah. I'm really enjoying Mercury. I mean, one of the fun things about Mercury, and why I started Mercury is, I feel like some companies get interesting at scale, and you can do more at scale. Whereas other companies kinda converge, if that makes sense. Yeah. It does. It's like, most companies tend to do one thing, and then, you know, they improve that for the rest of their life. Whereas, I think banking is this, like, really interesting thing where it's like, it's got all your money, it's the first thing you set up, it's a universal product, there's not that many universal products for businesses. It's like every single business needs a bank account. So it's just this platform where you can build a lot. Like, we just launched Mercury Books three weeks ago. But, you know, it's like, it just fits so well into banking. It's like, you know, You already sign up for a bank account before you sign up for an accounting system. The bank account has most of your data. It's such an easy expansion, and it's such an Azure expansion for our customers as well. But there's so many of those in banking that it's just kind of a fun thing that you can like keep building and building. Mhmm. I think if it was... If Mercury got to a stage where there was like not that much new stuff, and it was mostly like kinda incremental optimization, I would be kinda a bit more bored, and probably not the best leader for that. But I think Mercury has like almost infinite, you know, we just launched in Mercury personal, which is like our personal product. There's just so much like forms of expansion that it just makes it like a really fun startup to work on.
00:18:28 · Joubin Mirzadegan, Immad Akhund
[00:18:28] S1: I am so impressed that this is the fourth. Like, just... I don't know. Like, I'm obviously just far behind you. [00:18:39] S0: Mhmm. [00:18:40] S1: But... And I'm maybe like, let's just say a little over a year in, but I've never... And I would consider myself like a uniquely energetic person. Like I have a lot of energy. [00:18:50] S0: Sure. I have to work out every [00:18:52] S1: day to like release energy because there's like too much pent up, you know? And I've never, I've never given anything this much energy Yeah. In my life, like every day. Just like a consistent application of force every single day. And I was just talking to my co founders about this like, man, can you imagine like doing it again from zero to one? Like, cause that that's when it takes the most energy. It's like get off the ground. Yeah. All to say, like, I'm really impressed that you have that in you. Like that is unbelievably