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I’m an entrepreneur of HR and FinTech technology, and in 2015 I transformed the way employees gain access to their salary. Through my first entrepreneurial undertaking, Dailypay, I invented and introduced access to remuneration (Ewa) to help hundreds of thousands of hourly employees in access to obtaining remuneration if needed or pay the bill on time.
Today, there are a whole lot of Ewa suppliers around the world It is forecasted that the Ewa market will increase From USD 30.83 billion in 2025 to USD 242.46 billion to 2034, I ran Dailypay as the president and general director until 2022, when the company was valued at USD 2 billion.
I founded my second company, Salt Labs, in 2022 with a deep desire to further help first -line employees to achieve financial progress. Salt, the first of its kind, loyalty and employees’ prizes, collected USD 18 million for seeds for seeds, and I sold Chime Financial in July 2024.
After the takeover of Chime Salt Labs in 2024 I became the head of Chime Enterprise, a company dealing with modern, focused on employees of economic biological renewal. My mission to strengthen the position of economic progress employees is still changing the financial landscape in the workplace.
Here are some beneficial information about the establishment, scaling and leaving the company (well, actually two corporations!), Whom I learned along the way.
On the product
Do one thing rather well. When you do one thing rather well, you’ll have the opportunity to land and expand. Startups often die of indigestion, not hunger. They do too many things insufficiently, unlike doing one thing thoroughly.
Always position your company to the next stage of growth, no matter whether it is a capital event, takeover or something else. In Salt Labs I have never been looking for when we were, but it is difficult to say “no” to offer our clients more great products from connected entities, providing returns to our investors and employees.
On the boards
Traditional wisdom again says that the management is small and give investors only a place. You want to add independent to the board as soon as possible and select your personal independent to exceed the collusion of investors. Importantly, you do not want to be independently nominated by board members, because it produces the Quasi-Investor-Control mechanism. It is difficult because when you are busy building a company and dealing with every thing that is associated with it, you may not have the opportunity to think about finding a great independent board member. But you should.
On investors
Unless you are lucky (bad luck
While traditional wisdom tells us “less”, I completely disagree. I think there are more. You may not consider that there is a lot of constructing a check of USD 500,000 from a small investor, but you have no idea. In the startup you have no idea where your help comes from and who is with whom. Investors in the startup are like your arms. They let you reach to the outside world, and as a founder at an early stage you all the time want more coverage.
Some of my most significant potential clients and financial partners come from my smallest investors. So having a wide range is higher because you never know where your help comes from.
In the choice of an executive team
The selection of executive syndrome depends on how quickly you scale. If you scale at a moderate pace, spend some time to recruit someone who can transfer you to a higher level. It’s all time. If you employ the right person, you can already be at the next level at which this person is now not appropriate. Sometimes it is enough to connect the hole, not build a latest ship.
If you have to take someone to the place, employing someone to fill your position is positive so long as you plan to cross them when the time is right.
About growing staff
I employ a specific hierarchy of skill rating while employing at various stages of the company’s cultivation.
At the starting it is:
- Commitment
- Intellect
- Experience
On the middle stage it is:
- Intellect
- Commitment
- Experience
And in the third stage: it’s:
- Experience
- Commitment
- Intellect
Although all three of them are very vital, if I had to argue them at various stages of the company, that is how I do it.
During the exit
(*7*) of the rate of interest, I all the time think “cash is a king.” It is difficult to leave a private company for money, but if you ever have such an opportunity, you won’t ever regret selling. This applies to your private actions and the company, and I did each.
On yourself
You should only do things you can only. As a founder, there are things that only you can do, so do it and let others do what they’ll only do.