$40M FinTech Founder on Raising Millions Before He Had a Business Idea | Shakeel Lala, Marloo

Shak quit his job, convinced a VC to back him with no business idea, and spent nine months running 800 conversations with financial advisors before building Marloo - the AI doing the actual work inside financial advice firms, now raised $10M and live across seven markets.For: founders still searching for the right idea, operators thinking about AI and vertical SaaS, anyone who's ever over-engineered their way through uncertainty, people building B2B tools who want to see what real customer discovery looks like.If this episode helped you, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or follow on Spotify so you never miss an episode. It takes 30 seconds and it's how the next founder finds us.CHAPTERS00:00 Intro01:18 Starting a company without a business idea02:56 3 lessons from 9 months of market discovery09:59 What is Marloo?12:38 The vibe-coded conference demo15:43 How they got VC-backed before finding the idea18:40 Pressure, mindset & momentum19:43 Building across Sydney, London & Wellington25:29 The mission: making financial advice accessible29:20 The $10M raise & vision32:38 Most valuable founder lessonFOLLOW US⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@FoundersInMotion⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/thea.yaps⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@foundersinmotion⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/theango/⁠⁠ABOUT FOUNDERS IN MOTIONHi, I'm Thea. I started this series because I wanted to find out how to build incredible companies from the ground up. I work in venture capital by weekday and act as an interrogator during the weekends. If you like this content, hit subscribe, that's the best way to support me and it means more than you know.Subscribe for the insider playbook on building companies, growth tactics, and founder stories.