5 Go-to-Market Lessons from Rapyd’s Journey to Category Leadership

Simplifying complex ideas into digestible narratives can transform a struggling startup into a category leader. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Rapyd founder Arik Shtilman shared how an impromptu elevator conversation led to creating the “fintech-as-a-service” category. Here are five critical go-to-market lessons from their journey:

1. Find Your “AWS Moment” in Positioning The most powerful positioning often emerges from frustration with existing explanations. “Every single meeting we had was, ‘oh, we build this infrastructure for moving money in and money out. And it’s like an international network.’ And investors don’t like to hear this bullshit,” Arik recalls. The breakthrough came when they simplified their pitch: “It’s very simple. It’s like Amazon AWS. But for fintech.” This clear analogy transformed their fundraising trajectory and market understanding.
2. Build Your Brand Early, Not Later While many startups postpone brand building, Arik argues this is a critical early investment. “Invest money in brand awareness and building a brand as early as possible,” he advises. “A lot of times people think that the brand, they can invest in it later… But they don’t understand that the most complicated thing when you do a sale is to have brand awareness because it reduces the friction.”
3. Focus on Revenue Share, Not Just Customer Acquisition Understanding your share of customer wallet can reveal missed opportunities. As Arik explains, “We always got in and we sold, but we got 10% out of the 100%. And with that last piece, you can get to 50, 70%.” This realization led Rapyd to expand their services to include card acquiring, significantly increasing their revenue potential per customer.
4. Let Market Problems Guide Your Pivot Rapyd’s pivot from a consumer e-wallet to infrastructure provider came from recognizing a systemic market problem. “How can it be that there are no infrastructure players in financial services?” Arik remembers thinking. “Every company is around three components: an acquirer, an issuer, a KYC specialist, an FX specialist. Like, what the hell is this mess?” This observation led to identifying a much larger market opportunity.
5. Maintain Team Hunger Through Strategic Equity Management To keep teams motivated at scale, Arik emphasizes careful management of secondary sales: “Do not allow management team members to sell too much secondaries, because if they sell secondaries, they’re out. They cashed out. Like, if somebody has $50 million that is sold, it’s not going to work.” Instead, he suggests limiting secondary sales while ensuring people “enjoy what they do” to maintain motivation.

The story of Rapyd’s go-to-market evolution offers a blueprint for founders navigating their own category creation journeys. As Arik points out, their market still has massive growth potential: “Fintech as a service in 2023 is at the same stage that cloud computing was in 2010.” This perspective helps maintain focus on long-term opportunity while executing on immediate go-to-market strategies.

For founders building the next generation of B2B platforms, these lessons underscore a crucial truth: success often comes not from having the perfect product initially, but from the ability to recognize larger market opportunities and position solutions in ways that resonate deeply with both investors and customers. The key is maintaining the agility to pivot while building a brand and team culture that can support long-term growth.