How a Solo Founder is Reshaping Global Finance (Parth Garg, CEO of Aspora)

Speaker A: You wake up one morning in Bangalore and discover that your co-founder has left the company, left the country, and you're suddenly having to deal with this all yourself. Speaker B: He's not in his room. His room is all packed up. 4 m. He left. He went to the airport, took a flight to SF, and from the airport he'd message our investors. It says, we're deciding to shut the company down and we'll return the capital. Speaker A: I think a lot of the times folks from the outside see these incredible company stories and they don't realize that almost all of them have at least one moment or two like this where things can go the other way so easily.

I'm curious how you think about are you built to be a solo founder? Was that actually the right path for you? Speaker B: I don't think anyone should be a solo founder. It's just easier when you have people around you that are in the same boat as you, because as the company scales, your employees start taking up functions, you hire over them, and the company grows, and there's no one next to you. It becomes quite lonely. Speaker C: In the summer of 2022, Parth Garg woke up in Bangalore to discover that his co-founder had fled the country.

And emailed their investors to tell them that their company was dead. A little over 3 years later, and Espora is now one of fintech's fastest-growing startups. The company, which makes it faster and cheaper for India's diaspora to send money home and access banking services, is now processing over half a billion dollars every month and has earned a $500 million valuation with backing from elite investors like Hummingbird, Sequoia, and Greylock. Today, Parth and I discuss how stablecoins have revolutionized the financial system, why India's diaspora is such a valuable market to target, and what it really takes to survive the dark moments of building a transformative company.