Then, the dreaded phase of product-market fit. Instead of building the future of an entire industry, you find yourself forced to focus on a narrow use case and spend the first invaluable years proving that your idea can make money and scale. The grand vision gets put on pause. For most founders, this journey is the only one available. After all, investors are betting on someone who has never built a company before, so a small check and a narrow product limit what everyone stands to lose. But some ambitions need total commitment from the start, and having built a company before helps when taking them on. After selling my first venture, Tink, to Visa for '1.8 billion (about $1.9 billion USD) in 2022, I found myself in a new position ' and it wasn't horizontal on a sun lounger. My co-founder Fredrik Hedberg and I had a real war chest of our own, and a brand-new entrepreneurial bug. For the first time in our lives, we had the experience and the resources to undertake something truly...
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