Mercury: Immad Akhund & His Mom

0:00Immad Akhund:Everything about that startup was a disaster. We raised no money, even though we tried. No one used it. So everything about it was bad, but the feeling of just like building something was like such a great feeling. That was just like, wow, I just need to do this for the rest of my life.

0:19Welcome to Leap Forward, a show about founders and the people who believed in them before anyone else did. I'm David Rusenko, and on today's show, we talk to Immad Akhund. Ahmad worked at startups for over 10 years with somewhat mixed success, and he seriously thought about giving up. Before he ended up creating Mercury, a banking platform for startups now valued at$3.5 billion. I talked to his mom, who at first wasn't so sure about any of it. I said, bank? What is bank? Who does bank? I said, how can anyone start a bank? Because for me, it is quite an impossible job to do. But he said, I will do it.

0:58Then I was sure he will do it. Today, how he tackled that impossible job? By getting entrepreneurs to trust him with the one thing that defines their startup's life or death. Their money. Now, Imara Kunt.

1:20Why don't we start back at the beginning? Just kind of tell me where were you born and where did you grow up?

1:25Immad Akhund:So I was born in Pakistan. on. We stayed there until the age of nine. So I have like a pretty good memory of it. And I, I remember just having like a really good life. Because my mom has like eight siblings, and my dad has like five direct siblings and like another eight or nine, like half siblings. Actually, I once counted there, I had like 45 first cousins. And everything there is like family oriented. So it's just like every day it was you would hang out with family and like I'd play cricket. And then my mom, who is a very brave woman, was like, hey, there's not enough opportunities for my kids here.

2:04Immad Akhund:So, you know, my mom really instigated us moving. So my sisters and me and my mom moved to the UK at the age of nine. I think actually the hardest part of moving to the UK is we had no family in the UK. So like to have that like taken away from me was like very jarring. We do have our first clip to play for you from your mom. This is when I asked if she remembered the day you were born. All right, this will be fun. I don't know if I've ever asked that. When Ahmad was born, like girls were born in such random days, but Ahmad born on the exact same day. I said, oh, one mathematician has born. So he was very like calm and quiet boy.

2:45I think because of three girls, my sister used to say, mine are so naughty, but he's so calm. It is because of his sisters. that's fun do you remember the type of kid like what kind of personality you had as a kid yeah i

3:00Immad Akhund:guess mathematical day one it's kind of interesting i guess when i think back and i was like relatively shy you know i wasn't great at like large groups or like making friends necessarily but i was i guess competitive fairly academic at least when it comes to math and math related subjects like i just enjoyed them a lot and I would want to do really well in them. And then, yeah, I had three sisters that were like very close to my age. So being like a brother to them, you know, as a youngest, like there's always like a somewhat like doting nature to a bunch of girls. Do you think being the youngest kind of shaped your personality in some ways?

3:39Immad Akhund:I mean, it's interesting because like I am the youngest, but especially after we moved to the UK and I felt like I gained independence very quickly. Basically, since the age of 14, I've had a job and made money and never asked for any money from my parents from the age of 14. So it just felt like I had to become independent very, very early, which gave me like this, like kind of strength. So yeah, it felt like even though I was the youngest, I quickly became a source of strength to my family. And I guess like I took that upon myself as well. Do you remember when he was young, what you hoped he would be or what, you know, what kind of dreams you had for him?

4:16To be honest, I always used to think he's extraordinary, brilliant, because he used to get 100 out of 100 in maths. In maths, he was extraordinary. Whatever you tell him, he just memorized it. I don't know how. I said, you are brilliant. So he used to be very angry with me. Don't call me brilliant. Many children are more brilliant than I am. I said, they may be. But for me, you are the best. So I always called him the best, the best, the best. Bore him, really bore him by calling him the best. But this type of imad type of children are very few in the world, I think. I'm not saying because he's my son, because he's like unusual.

5:11What do you think makes him especially unusual? One, his memory, which is God-given. I can't make him unusual. I can make him a good boy. I can give him good manners. And I can make him honest, loyal, helpful. That I can teach him a little bit, little by little. But unusual and special and brilliant. No mother can make a child.

5:44Immad Akhund:I remember like I never wanted to like disappoint my parents. I feel like that was like actually a big drive for me when I was younger that like I would like try to never be naughty or at least in a way that I could be discovered. Speaking of your parents, what were your parents like and what did they do for a living? So my dad's always been an entrepreneur of some sort. So he still has a garage, like a car repair garage in Pakistan. Do you have any memories of watching your dad's business? What are your impressions of what it was like for him to be a business owner and entrepreneur? Yeah, I definitely went with him to the garage.

6:20Immad Akhund:And it's pretty grimy. It didn't appeal to me. It's like, oh, wow, I'd love to do this. But he once said this to me. So when they moved to the UK, my dad had a really hard time getting a job because he was used to being an entrepreneur. And he once said this thing. I'm sure he said it in an offhanded way. He was just like, I can't work for people. but it really stuck with me. It's like, oh, like, you know, when you're a kid, you're like kind of impressionable. And this idea that like someone could not work for someone like just stuck with me. And like, I have this like self-image as well now that I just can't work for people.

6:52Immad Akhund:Like I can't, I can't have someone manage me. And it's like, to some extent, like irrational, but I do think like I just picked that up from my dad. And then my mom has been a teacher mostly. So she was a teacher in Pakistan. And then when we moved to the UK, you know, she had to take whatever odd jobs. So she worked at a grocery store and that kind of thing. So when I came here, I was asking for a job. Nobody was giving me. They said, you are too overqualified and you don't have country experience and you have nothing to show. I have done masters in comparative religions. I wrote a big thesis.

7:30My teacher was so happy. He said, you do PhD. But I got married and I couldn't do. I couldn't do PhD in empathy. So when I came here, I had nothing really, to be honest. Nothing to show really, but I was doing odd jobs then. And talking to your mom, it sounds like your move to London was a little challenging. You kind of talked about, you know, leaving family, kind of being in a new place. Like, talk a little about what that was like.

7:59Immad Akhund:Yeah, I mean, I was really happy in Pakistan. and you know moving to the uk was a yeah no friends no family so like socially very different yeah i had a strong kind of i could speak english but you know it wasn't like the best english i had a very strong accent so like i had this like you know self-image of being like a really good student and like excelling in classes but especially in the first couple of years it you know it took a while to just like understand what the hell was going on like catch up with things and like i remember you know there's this idea of like placement sets where like if you're great at maths you'd be in the top set and then medium would be like you're okay so they put me in the lowest set which was like you know in pakistan i was like literally in like a pretty big school i was like the top or second best math student so but it just took a long time to adjust to like the new reality we actually have a story from your mom about this moment that i wanted to just play for you?

8:54In the beginning, he used to cry sometimes. And I used to cry with him. Because when he cried, I cried. Because I used to think I have like, took him out of his roots or somewhere he was happy.

9:10Immad Akhund:Oh, man. So I was sad too. So I used to go and show his teacher his report cards. He used to come first in Pakistan and here he was a bit dwindling a little bit in the beginning. So I went to his teacher and said, I have brought him here. Now it will be my fault if he goes down a bit. So teacher said, what shall I do, Mrs. Ahun, to help him? I said, make him sit just in front of you and explain the questions. So she started doing that and she said, Mrs. Ahun, you were right he's very good I know if my mother doesn't know his son who will know that's a sweet clip so I think what's really sweet about that story is just it sounds like she was a really strong advocate for you in a lot of ways when you removed do you remember that piece or was that a little bit more stuff she was doing behind the scenes no I definitely remember it and she was very proactive about it I mean I think a lot of my early confidence comes from like her confidence in me because i think like when your mom's always like you're amazing and like you can do this and like you're the smartest person i know or whatever it's like it makes you feel good because when you're young you kind of look up to your parents to tell you that you've got something figured out so so there's definitely that uh oh i you know the other thing was moving to the uk was relating to my sports self-image like i you know i played cricket and I swam or whatever.

10:43Immad Akhund:But everyone played soccer or football in the UK. And like, I literally never played the sport before. That's all everyone played. So, you know, even at the age of nine, like, it just felt like I could not play the sport, right? So yeah, it was just like this real, like, shattering of like, self-image and self-confidence for me. But, you know, I guess in hindsight, it maybe it was good for me. It was a difficult time, but like rebuilding that self-confidence and self-image was probably something that like helps me as an entrepreneur because it's like you know this idea that like you know nothing about something and like you're starting from nothing is you know very close to like building a company all right when i built mercury i knew nothing about fintech and maybe if i hadn't been able to like have this image of like a full reset where i had to like rebuild every part of my life at the age of nine maybe like i wouldn't be able to like do that as a as entrepreneur uh i don't know maybe this is like a post-justification of it or something like that it was a really difficult time definitely like it felt traumatic and i i wouldn't say like i really got out of feeling good about it all until maybe even until i moved to san francisco to be honest because i never felt like i belonged in the uk do you remember around that time did you have any sense for what you wanted to be when you grew up uh no not at all i mean especially at the age of nine definitely not it wasn't until i'd say like the age of 14 or 15 where you know i started making some websites and this is like you know i was 14 in 1998 right so like the internet was new and like we had a computer and my dad was like very into computers actually we even had a apple inbox on which was like extremely rare if anyone to have a computer 1987 or something or 88 so we always had, I mean, we weren't rich or anything, we always had access to like computers.

12:33Immad Akhund:So I don't think it was until then where I could like maybe see a path where I could see being good at something that I could do. But even then, I didn't think of myself as an entrepreneur. Like, I actually had this like idea that eventually maybe I'd become an entrepreneur, but like I had no path to it. And I really fixated on like going to like Cambridge, Oxford, like that's like kind of the Ivy League equivalent in the US. I just had this idea that it would be a big unlock to future success to have that badge behind me, which I think in the UK especially is true. So I was like, how do I get there?

13:09Immad Akhund:And actually, I was more interested in doing math, but I realized that I was good at math, but not amazing at math. But I realized I was probably amazing at computer science. Obviously, it turned out to be like a great decision. And I think back at like, you know, how that like, was such an informative decision to me. Like, I think when I became an entrepreneur, you know, I kind of thought of coding as like not that valuable for a long time. It was like a thing I could do. And I kind of enjoyed doing it. But I didn't think it was like a valuable life skill. And this is like 2002, right? Like, so it was, you know, this is like after the dot-com boom it wasn't like yeah and i remember like skipping forward a little bit to when i realized like programming could be valuable i became an entrepreneur in 2006 and you know in london there was a lot of like people who wanted to be entrepreneurs but couldn't build anything you know all these people with ideas and like they'd go to all these meetups and like i'd meet them all the time and they were just like idea people they would always be going like oh man And like, I wish I could code something or like, hey, can you help me make this thing?

14:15Immad Akhund:But it just like suddenly felt like actually like the real bottleneck to like entrepreneurship, especially when you're just starting out, is like being able to build something. And I had this like unique skill set that I developed that was almost a surprise. I was like, oh, actually, like I have like the most important skill set to be an entrepreneur because like everything else you can kind of pick up. But it's hard to like pick up coding, like especially like, you know, I'd been doing it since the age of 14. So I'd built up that skill over eight, nine years by then. Do you remember starting that first company?

14:43Like, what was the idea? How did you come up with the idea? How did you decide to work on it versus, you know, at that point in time, presumably the default would be go out and get a job?

14:52Immad Akhund:Yeah, so I had a job at Bloomberg. That was my first and only real job. It was actually quite hard to get because, you know, the default path for everyone back then, this is like I graduated in 2005, it was like everyone was going to consulting or investment banking. But honestly, I didn't really want to do that. But I also applied for a few just like programming jobs. So I got this job at Bloomberg. And I like the coding part, but I've really, I mean, it probably goes back to like me not wanting to be managed by people or whatever. But I really felt like a cog in the wheel. Like I would be given these like specs, I go do this thing.

15:27Immad Akhund:And I wouldn't even know why I'm doing the thing. And I just felt so like demoralized that one year I worked at Bloomberg. Yeah, I wouldn't even work that hard. I would like show up and do the thing pretty fast. So it worked like maybe two or three hours a day. But it was so draining not being motivated all day to do things. So I met a friend there who like joined Bloomberg at the same time. And me and him would like look at TechCrunch all the time. And this is 2006. You know, people would be like launching things, you know, like maybe Flickr was sold or something for like 30 million. And we'd be like, whoa, that's insane that like This thing was sold.

16:02Immad Akhund:And we'd look at this stuff and we were both programmers and we'd be like, we could have built this, right? Like it didn't seem like that hard to build these things that were selling and making money. And, you know, it was like relatively basic websites. So that time was like young people that could like code. We were just like, we could do this ourselves. So I was like, okay, you know, I'll quit this job. You know, my thinking at the time was like, hey, this will be fun. I kind of hate my job. and I had like a reasonable confidence at that point that I could get another job as a programmer. I had hardly any money saved up.

16:34Immad Akhund:I had like 6 ,000 pounds saved up, which like felt like a lot to me at the time. Obviously it was like nothing, but I was like, you know, I could probably survive off like 6 ,000 pounds for a year. So yeah, we just like kind of quit. Starting the company really was not my dream. Because in Pakistan, they do either job or they have lands. There is no dream of companies or anything like that. So I never thought he will, I thought he will do a good job after doing Cambridge degree. So when he finished his degree, as soon as he finished, he got a job, good job in Bloomberg. So he left his job I did not know what is his aims, his dreams and aims.

17:25So I was so sad. I said, oh, you left your good job. Now what are you doing? You're not earning enough, this and that. I was not happy really, to be honest. I have never seen anyone doing this. You know, if you have not seen anything like that, you can't just make up a story like that. My story was he will do a job and then he will do a better job, then he will do a better job. I never thought he will do a company, but he said, Amman, this is only a staircase. I am climbing. Think as if I am climbing. And I will go up, up, up. If I will not go up, I will do a job. I promise. More after the break.

18:18Keeping up with this economy matters. And in a world full of hot takes and noise, Marketplace does things differently. I'm Kyle Rizdahl, the host of Marketplace, a daily podcast that delivers independent, award-winning journalism dedicated to making you smarter about this economy. You can listen to Marketplace on Spotify.

18:43And now, back to the episode.

18:48Immad Akhund:The feeling of just like building something was like such a great feeling. I got this like tiny, like the first office I had was like insanely small. Like it was a tiny one bedroom, basically big enough for like two single beds, right? And we shoved two tables in there. So every day I'd sleep in this thing and then he'd come over and we would work on the startup all day long in this like tiny bedroom. And that went on for like seven months. It was called RevMap. Didn't go anywhere. We had like maybe 4 ,000 people that used it. Everything about that startup was a disaster. We raised no money, even though we tried.

19:23Immad Akhund:No one used it. We didn't really have a strategy of how we'd get users. So everything about it was bad, but I just enjoyed my day every day, which was so different from Bloomberg. I don't know how rational it is, but even though everything was bad, I was just like, wow, I just need to do this for the rest of my life because I just felt so motivated because when you build something you obviously end up meeting entrepreneurs that are also doing it and i went to a bunch of meetups and like you know i met other like really fun people building like building things and it just like opened up this whole world to me of like people building things and and there was a few people that had done startups in the uk but moved to san francisco because of y combinator so it was kind of cool to see like oh wow like you could move to the promised land of silicon valley and like raise money through y combinator so it's like, okay, I just like, I need to do Y Combinator.

20:13Immad Akhund:So I just set my heart on that. Yeah. So let's talk about that. When did you make that decision to move to the US? And was it to start a company or were you just like, hey, I'm going to move out to San Francisco and see where things go? So I networked really hard while I was doing this startup. Like I would go to every single event in London there was to go to. And the startup ecosystem was like just getting started. So there weren't that many people. And so I ended up like knowing every young entrepreneur in the UK, just because there weren't that many. And then every entrepreneur in the UK was looking for CTOs.

20:46Immad Akhund:This was the standard thing in the UK. For whatever reason, everyone who started companies was not a programmer, and they all needed an engineering co-founder. So I knew both the companies that were moving to do Y Combinator from London, and they both needed an engineering co-founder. And they're already going to Y Combinator. So I basically just interviewed at both of them and then i ended up choosing click pass so that was my second company click pass which we did from like we did wicom in 2007 and it went on for like almost two years do you remember that first time moving out do you have any like early memories of moving and kind of what that was like compared to london or what you're used to the funny thing is i felt so rich because click pass we'd raised like 300k so i had like 50k salary but i'd just gone seven months with like no salary and like 6 ,000 pounds.

21:38Immad Akhund:So I was like, felt like a real like freedom and opportunity. And it was just like so fun. You know, the community back then and Y Combinator, like everyone was young. I think Y Combinator gave like$15 ,000 or something like that. And yeah, it was only like basically people like just out of college or like in this is a summer program as well. So like, you know, some percentage of the people were literally in college and having like a summer break. Like literally half the companies were like, you know, if it doesn't go well they're going back to college like this was like their summer holidays and there was these like weekly dinners that like you'd meet these successful people and like you know in london like there were some successful people but you'd never meet them they were like you know on some pedestal like there wasn't like a place you would meet them uh whereas doing y-combinator you know you'd like meet these like freaking billionaires who'd like started tech companies like a small crowd like there'd be 20 of you speaking to this like extremely successful people and like yeah it really made made it real for you it's like you can do this too kind of thing was like such a important part of the message but also felt like we were just kind of playing because like you know it's like so little money and it was hard to imagine that we could do it I remember talking to Paul Graham once in that first batch and he was like you know like one of you could build a unicorn like a billion dollar company and I was like what is Paul talking about like none of these kids are voting million dollar companies.

23:02Immad Akhund:It just seems so hard to imagine because like Y Combinator had no success at that point, right? But obviously he was right and Dropbox was in that batch. You know, one of the things that a lot of kids go through, you know, you grew up in Pakistan. So I grew up in France. I was born in France. I grew up in Morocco. You know, a lot of people go through this. Some people struggle, some people don't. But this feeling of like having no attachment to any like specific culture, kind of feeling a little bit outside of the cultures. I mean, is that something you ever felt? You know, did you have to reinvent yourself moving back to the US like you did in the UK?

23:33Or did it feel a little bit more natural?

23:35Immad Akhund:You know, I never really settled into the UK. Like it always felt like a foreign place to me where I wasn't that welcome. I think there's a combination of things like a maybe that first move was like so hard. B, I think, culturally, like British culture is like quite reserved. And it's like polite, a little cynical, and it was just very much not me. Whereas when I moved to, and obviously my experience in the US is like not a normal experience, but like, you know, I fell in with like tech entrepreneurs that are like all the exact opposite of British culture and much closer to like my culture. So it really felt like a moment of saying like, oh wow, I found my people after like not having any people for a long time.

24:23Immad Akhund:And then I moved to Crystal Towers, which was kind of the white scraper at the time. and I guess we lived in the same building but there was like you know it was literally like I was in one room with an entrepreneur next door was like Dropbox founders that lived in the next building and then you know you guys lived in the sixth floor the fourth floor whatever was the 11th floor I can't even remember what floor it was but but it was like yeah there wasn't any point where I could be lonely I was just always surrounded with like people going through like this like similar experience and it was it was like a really kind of a bonding environment and And I'm still friends with a lot of the people that I met literally in the first few months of moving here.

25:02So yeah, how did the ClickPass story go? How long were you working there? And how did that end?