7 Go-to-Market Lessons from Building a B2B Blockchain Payments Platform

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Patrick Mollard, CEO and Co-Founder of Fipto, shared hard-won insights from building blockchain payment infrastructure for corporate clients. His journey from founding to first revenue reveals tactical lessons that apply far beyond crypto—especially for founders building complex B2B products in regulated industries.

Lesson 1: Build What You Can Actually Sell (Not Just What’s Technically Elegant)

Fipto started with API-first conviction. They built three elegant APIs—one for wallet and IBAN account management, one for currency conversion, and one for sending and receiving funds. The architecture was sound. The problem? “We realized that actually selling an API is very difficult,” Patrick admits.

The solution wasn’t to abandon the API strategy but to create a platform that became “the first client of our APIs.” This wasn’t just about having a reference implementation. It was about revenue and proof points. “We are convinced that in the end, our ideal go to market strategy is to be able to integrate our APIs into third party systems and softwares that are actually used by corporate clients,” Patrick explains. The platform gives them something to sell while they prove integration value to larger partners like Kyriba.

The principle: your distribution strategy needs to generate revenue while enabling your long-term platform play. Pure API businesses require customers who already know they need your specific solution and have engineering resources to integrate. If you don’t have that, you need a product layer that can sell itself.

Lesson 2: Regulation and Core Infrastructure Aren’t Optional—Budget Time Accordingly

When Patrick describes the path to first revenue, he’s blunt: “Actually quite a bit of time.” This wasn’t slow execution—it was the nature of the problem. “Building the platform required us to build a whole core banking system,” he explains. That’s why two-thirds of their 30-person team focuses on product and tech.

Then add regulation. Fipto obtained registration as a virtual asset service provider with the AMF in France in March 2023, followed by Luxembourg registration. Only then could they “launch a real first version of the platform and the solution early this year. And we got our first paying customers in Q one of this year.”

Two years from founding to first revenue in regulated fintech isn’t a warning sign—it’s table stakes. Founders need to calibrate investor expectations and runway accordingly. The companies that fail in this space often aren’t building bad products; they’re running out of money before clearing regulatory hurdles.

Lesson 3: Geographic Assumptions Will Mislead You—Let Usage Data Decide

Patrick’s most tactical insight concerns ICP definition and geography. “I think from our experience, we didn’t focus enough on our ICPS and defining our ICPS quickly enough,” he reflects. Being based in France created natural assumptions about European focus.

The data revealed something different. “We see that the corridors where blockchain payments make the most sense are corridors where the existing technology are maybe less relevant. So it’s on countries in Latin America, in Africa, in Asia, and also between those geographies. So performing payments between Latin America and Asia.”

This realization only came from watching where actual usage emerged. Blockchain’s value proposition is strongest where legacy payment rails are weakest. For founders building infrastructure, proximity to your first market matters less than where the pain point is most acute. Don’t let your location dictate your geography—let the problem density guide you.

Lesson 4: Market Education Follows a Predictable Pattern (Map Your Strategy to It)

Patrick segments blockchain adoption into three clear categories that inform different go-to-market motions. First are companies “exposed to web three and the blockchain from the activity they are actually doing.” These early adopters need no education—target them for fast initial revenue and case studies.

Second are payment service providers. “They are the ones that see the advantages of the blockchain in terms of speed, transparency, cost, predictability,” Patrick notes. “That’s a very large market with a lot of volume.” These sophisticated payment experts understand the technical advantages immediately.

The third segment—larger corporates—presents a different challenge. “The discussions we have today are quite different from the ones we had two years ago. They are all convinced of what blockchain can bring to them and they also see very specific use cases,” Patrick explains. The barrier isn’t conviction but organizational readiness: “They can convince their legal departments, compliance departments that they can go for it.”

The lesson: don’t use the same sales motion for all three segments. Early adopters buy quickly but represent limited volume. PSPs require technical proof but convert predictably. Enterprises need regulatory air cover and institutional legitimization before they can move—time your enterprise push accordingly.

Lesson 5: Survive Market Volatility by Building on Infrastructure, Not Sentiment

When asked about blockchain’s volatility, Patrick’s answer reveals positioning sophistication: “For us, the volatility, when it’s a bear market, we say we’re not too impacted because we’re building on the technology behind it. So the blockchain and we at Fipto are totally agnostic of the tokens that our clients want to use to perform their payments.”

This isn’t just messaging—it’s product architecture. By remaining token-agnostic, Fipto benefits from bull market enthusiasm without being destroyed by bear market crashes. Patrick acknowledges that institutional adoption matters: “In a bull market, I must be honest and also say that we are not that much impacted, although, and I will come back to that later. I think for us, what the critical point is adoption.”

For founders in volatile emerging tech categories, the principle applies broadly: build the infrastructure layer that persists regardless of which specific implementation wins. Don’t couple your revenue model to the most volatile layer of the stack.

Lesson 6: Lead Investor Unlock is Fundraising Strategy

Patrick’s fundraising advice cuts through tactical noise: “What makes a huge difference is your ability to convince a lead investor, whether it’s for your pre seed round or your seed round or even in later series.”

The mechanism is specific: “Make sure that you have that relationship with an investor and that will actually make you around and your life a lot easier.” Once terms are on paper from a credible lead, filling the round becomes tractable. Before that, you’re pushing water uphill with every conversation.

This suggests clear sequencing: focus fundraising effort on securing one strong lead rather than having 20 warm conversations. The lead creates downstream momentum. The 20 warm conversations without a lead creates burnout.

Lesson 7: Concentrated Marketing Beats Dispersed Activity in Complex B2B

Fipto’s marketing strategy reflects clear prioritization. “We are convinced that we need to be seen as reference actor in our field. So we are focusing very much on content and creating useful context for our clients,” Patrick explains. The tactical focus? “Content and LinkedIn ads are probably the two focus areas today for us.”

Additionally: “We also see that a lot of our business is done through events, so a lot of marketing efforts around these type of things.” This isn’t a massive budget spread across ten channels—it’s concentrated investment in content authority, targeted ads, and in-person relationship building.

For complex B2B products selling to sophisticated buyers, distribution matters more than channel diversity. Being known as the expert in your niche generates more pipeline than broad awareness campaigns. Patrick’s approach validates this: build authority through content, amplify with targeted ads, convert through events where relationships deepen.

Patrick’s journey building Fipto offers a framework for technical founders entering complex, regulated markets. Success requires correctly sequencing product development with regulatory clearance, letting usage patterns dictate geography, matching sales motion to buyer sophistication, and concentrating marketing investment where your ICP actually makes decisions. Most importantly, it requires patience—building infrastructure in regulated industries means accepting longer timelines to revenue while ensuring you have runway to reach it.