Description

Tate started doing commercial fishing at 16. He took that money and started lending it— on Craigslist! By 23 years old, he’d lent out $250,000. Then he found out about cash advances, and decided to start ZayZoon, a platform to help employers pay their employees faster.

Tate was one of the early pioneers of the entire Earned Wage Access space. By partnering with payroll companies and employers, ZayZoon lets employees access their earned wages faster.

It took him 4 years to get to his first million of ARR. And as soon as he felt he had, his revenue crashed 60% in a quarter. He got things back on track and since then has grown from 20 to 200 employees— his revenue is now closer to $100M than $10M.

Here’s his story.

Why you should listen:

Why you need to be all-in at the early stages
How to arm channel patterns to sell your product
How to re-position your product so it’s clear you solve customer problems
Why it can take years for a new category to take off

Keywords

entrepreneurship, lending, FinTech, earned wage access, startup journey, mentorship, risk management, payroll integration, business challenges, market challenges, growth strategies, employer empowerment, product-market fit, exponential growth, timing, customer engagement

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:25) Lending Money on Craigslist in Highschool
(00:05:33) Trusting People you Lend to
(00:09:09) Going to University
(00:13:06) The Origin of Zayzoon
(00:19:18) The Next Step After the Aha Moment
(00:24:44) Problems Starting Off
(00:29:08) Launching First Payroll
(00:30:58) Raising
(00:34:11) Making the Product Easy for Employers
(00:39:04) Getting Payroll Integration for Visibility
(00:45:32) Hitting a Million Dollars
(00:48:53) Timing of EWA
(00:53:34) Finding Product Market Fit
(00:54:27) One Piece of Advice
(00:56:29) How all in were you?

Send me a message to let me know what you think!

He made his first loan at 16. Now his fintech startup does $50M+ ARR—here’s how. | Tate Hackert, Co-Founder of ZayZoon

A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders