We Raised $15M. Here’s What I’d Do Differently.

From Momentum to Missteps: A Founder’s Honest Retrospective

In 2020, I co-founded Kippa - a fintech platform to help small businesses manage their finances. We launched fast, gained traction, and eventually raised $15 million from some of the best investors on the continent.

But if I had the chance to do it all over again, I wouldn’t do it the same way.

The Highs

We grew fast. Four product lines. 85+ team members. Over 500,000 businesses onboarded. I led engineering from day zero: from writing the first lines of code to building distributed teams, designing infrastructure, and leading delivery through chaos.

But here’s what most people don’t see in those headline numbers: growth that outpaced clarity. Fundraising momentum that made it harder to say “no.” The quiet cost of trying to scale before the foundation was solid.

The Lessons

1. Too much money, too fast, is not always a blessing

Capital can accelerate, but it can also blur vision. When you haven’t fully found product-market clarity, the money creates noise. It feeds the instinct to build faster instead of deeper. I wish we had been slower to scale and quicker to focus.

2. Investor alignment matters more than you think

It’s easy to celebrate a “big round.” It’s harder to measure the pressure that comes with it, especially if the board is pushing in a direction that pulls you away from the core of what you’re trying to build. We felt that tension.

3. Product clarity should always outrank optics

We shipped a lot. We built well. But in hindsight, I see where we built things because they sounded impressive, not because they were essential. Especially in early-stage teams, clarity is currency. Without it, everyone runs but in different directions.

4. Not all disagreement is misalignment, but not all alignment is real either

As co-founders, we had different instincts about where the company should go. I tried to stay aligned for as long as I could, but over time, I stopped waking up excited. That matters. And I didn’t realize how much until I left.

It’s hard to walk away from something you built from scratch. Especially when you’re still emotionally invested. I didn’t cash out my equity. I stayed up shipping. I believed in the mission. But I also knew I couldn’t fake alignment, not for the team, not for myself.

We celebrate raising money, but we rarely talk about the weight that comes after, the trade-offs, the tensions, the responsibility to people, and the vision.

I don’t regret building Kippa. I gained more than I lost. But if I’m ever building again, I’ll obsess less about momentum and more about meaning.

Because capital is fuel. But without clarity, all it does is burn faster.