Over the last many months, I’ve had the privilege of working on the creation of a payin product from the ground up. Unlike improving an existing system, building something entirely new is about carving a path where none exists. It is filled with decisions that can seem small in the moment but carry long-term consequences, and it demands a balance between vision and pragmatism, perseverance and flexibility.
When building a financial infrastructure product like this, the work is never just about code. It is about trust, regulation, client experience, and the ability to make money move in a way that is safe, transparent, and dependable. And it is also about navigating human dynamics—between banks, partners, regulators, internal teams, and clients—each of whom has a stake in the outcome.
The Reality of External Dependencies
One of the toughest realities of this journey was dealing with external dependencies, particularly bank partners who provide the underlying rails for virtual accounts. On paper, everything looks aligned. Promises are made about capabilities, timelines, and support. But reality often plays out differently. A bank may enthusiastically commit in the early stages, only to later walk back key features. They may introduce unexpected hurdles at the last minute, forcing weeks of replanning. Or their systems may simply not work as expected when tested in production-like environments.
These are not inconveniences; they are fundamental blockers that can derail entire designs. The challenge is to design with imperfection in mind. Assume dependencies will be fragile. Build layers of abstraction so that if one partner underdelivers, clients are shielded from the fallout. Diversify wherever possible, because no matter how strong the promise, single points of dependency create brittleness. And above all, cultivate the resilience to accept that the external environment will rarely line up neatly with your roadmap.
Navigating Without a Fixed Map
At the start, it is tempting to write multi-year plans with carefully sequenced features and milestones. But building zero-to-one rarely follows such neat timelines. We had to constantly adjust, sometimes accelerating to deliver something urgently needed by clients, sometimes slowing down to fix unseen issues or rethink assumptions.
Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Product building is not that different. The punches come in the form of partner delays, regulatory curveballs, or unexpected bugs. The measure of progress is not how perfectly you stick to the plan, but how effectively you adapt when the punches land.
Jeff Bezos expressed a related truth: “We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details.” That captures the essence of building something like a payin product. The vision of what the product should enable must remain firm. But the exact features, sequencing, and paths to get there must bend to the realities encountered along the way.
It was like having a vision of the city you want to reach, but leaving open the choice of streets, vehicles, and pit stops along the way. That adaptability—without losing sight of the destination—was what allowed us to keep moving even when the path was uncertain.
Aligning the Many Moving Pieces
Building a product like this requires alignment across engineering, compliance, legal, operations, and client-facing teams. Each group sees the world differently. Compliance pushes for caution. Engineering optimizes for scalability and resilience. Business teams push for speed and client flexibility.
It is not enough to tolerate these tensions; they must be harnessed. The product only becomes stronger when these perspectives collide constructively. But it takes effort—structured discussions, transparent communication, and at times, a willingness to absorb friction so that the broader mission does not get lost in internal debates.
Clients as Co-Creators and the Power of Iteration
Having an initial bench of clients who are willing to support and validate the initiative was invaluable. They served not just as early adopters, but as co-creators. Their feedback often forced us to revisit assumptions and prioritize features we might not have otherwise considered urgent. In many ways, they were the reality check—reminding us that a product is only as good as the problems it solves in the hands of real businesses.
And this is where a timeless truth comes in: “Show me a significant system, and I will show you a system that has gone through several iterations.”
The biggest mistake in product building is assuming you can anticipate everything upfront. The truth is that nothing works perfectly the first time. If you try to design away every possible edge case before launch, you’ll never launch. What matters is the ability to release something good enough, gather real-world feedback, and improve relentlessly.
It is okay to make mistakes. In fact, the earlier you make them, the faster you learn. If there are ten different ways something can go wrong, you should almost feel fortunate when those ten issues surface quickly after launch. Each failure exposes what needs fixing. Each messy outcome, once cleaned up, makes the product sturdier.
Iteration is not a compromise—it is the process by which great systems emerge. Flexibility, resilience, and the willingness to get your hands dirty with imperfect first attempts are what ultimately separate enduring products from the ones that never leave the drawing board.
Tenacity and Emotional Resilience
None of this was smooth. There were ordeals of varying magnitudes, from minor irritations to moments that threatened to undo months of work. Tenacity was often the only thing that carried the team through. Simply showing up every day, solving the problem in front of us, and keeping faith in the bigger vision was the difference between forward momentum and stagnation.
The emotional aspect cannot be understated either. Building a product from nothing is an emotional rollercoaster. There are highs when the system runs successfully for the first time, or when a client praises the experience. And there are lows when a partner suddenly pulls back support, or when an elegant workflow fails under real-world messiness.
Managing one’s own emotions through these cycles is as critical as managing the product itself. I learned not to burn bridges, to maintain professional dignity even under strain, and to find balance so that the ups and downs did not consume me.
Key Lessons from the Journey
Partnerships across the board
No single team can deliver a payin product on its own. Engineering brings the architecture, compliance ensures regulatory soundness, legal secures the framework, operations manage the day-to-day realities, and client-facing teams carry the voice of the customer. Success lies in weaving these perspectives together. Often, this meant slowing down to align or creating forums where friction could surface safely. The result was a product that was not only functional but also defensible, scalable, and trusted.
Clients as validators
The earliest clients were not simply users; they were co-creators. By sharing feedback on onboarding flows, testing API designs, and highlighting where reality diverged from intent, they sharpened our focus. Their involvement meant we could pivot in real time, rather than discovering issues months later. They helped ensure that what we built was not just elegant in theory but practical in the real world.
Iteration as inevitability
Perfection is a mirage. The first version of any product is just the starting point. What matters is the capacity to iterate—quickly, intelligently, and with humility. Each cycle of feedback and refinement made the system stronger. Iteration was not a mark of failure; it was the very process by which significance was achieved.
Resilience in the face of ordeals
Setbacks were inevitable, whether from external partners, shifting priorities, or unexpected bugs. What distinguished progress from paralysis was resilience—the willingness to absorb the shock and continue forward. Some days that resilience came from team camaraderie, other days from sheer grit. But without it, even the best plans would have collapsed under pressure.
Managing human dynamics
Building infrastructure touches not just technology, but people. Politics, egos, and organizational clashes surfaced often. Navigating these required empathy to understand motives, firmness to prevent derailment, and diplomacy to keep everyone aligned with the larger goal. This was not wasted energy—it was leadership in practice, and it made the end product possible.
Emotional steadiness
Finally, building zero-to-one required a calm center. The highs of launch days and client praise were energizing, but they could not erase the lows of partner setbacks or endless troubleshooting. The key was balance—maintaining dignity, avoiding burned bridges, and remembering that every challenge is temporary. Emotional steadiness was not just self-care; it was a professional necessity.
Looking Back
The craft of building a payin product is not only about technical architecture, but about human architecture—about orchestrating diverse teams, managing external dependencies, balancing long-term vision with tactical execution, and doing so in a way that consistently delivers value to clients.
A payin product is never truly finished. It must evolve with every new client use case, every regulatory change, and every market shift. But the zero-to-one moment—the moment when the first real flows of money run through a system you have designed, and when clients begin to rely on it for their business—is unforgettable. It is the reward for all the ambiguity, tension, setbacks, and perseverance. And it is a reminder of why building products, even in the most complex spaces, is worth the effort.