#48 — Immad Akhund — The Unlikely Banker

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder, and NYTimes bestselling author

Today's episode is with Immad Akhund who is a serial entrepreneur and serial investor. He has been through Y Combinator a couple times, and his current business, Mercury, is a bank built for startups. But really, it's a bank built for all businesses and full disclosure, I am fortunate enough to be an investor (but there’s a side to this that I still kick myself for — more details in the episode).

Immad shares with us the “below the line” version of being acquired, the toll the founder life can take on a person and their family, as well as the reasons behind starting Mercury. He also shares why he persisted through many negative conversations, and why he still decided to build his current (and now very hip startup) even though there are many people who weren’t fans of the idea in the beginning — myself included.

We talk about all of these things and more — and I really loved the candor and the simplicity in which he's able to articulate just what he was going through, what matters (and what doesn’t), and what decisions he would have made differently.

You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.