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

DescriptionTate 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 Tate and his co-founders 4 years to get to their first million of ARR. And as soon as they felt they had it,  revenue crashed 60% in a quarter. The team got things back on track and since then has grown from 20 to 200 employees—  revenue is now closer to $100M than $10M. Here’s the story.Why you should listen:Why you need to be all-in at the early stagesHow to arm channel patterns to sell your productHow to re-position your product so it’s clear you solve customer problemsWhy it can take years for a new category to take offKeywordsentrepreneurship, 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 engagementTimestamps:(00:00:00) Intro(00:01:25) Lending Money on Craigslist in Highschool(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) Fundraising(00:34:11) Making the Product Easy to use (00:45:32) Hitting a Million Dollars(00:48:53) Why timing matters(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!