Mercury

The cosmic photo on the cover of our latest issue of Meridian, Cycles, is NGC 281, the Pacman Nebula—a stellar nursery (with a great nickname) tucked within the Cassiopeia constellation. 🌌 The image comes from Kyle Hovey, one of Mercury's full stack engineers who has been a landscape and nature photographer for over ten years, and recently took up astrophotography. Using a 6" Newtonian reflector telescope and a cooled astronomy camera, Kyle captures exposures spanning over ten minutes. Their multiple long-exposure shots are then carefully averaged and edited to reveal the nebula's subtle structural intricacies. We’re honored to share Kyle’s work with you. For a chance to receive a copy of the issue and see the photo yourself, subscribe to our community newsletter at the link in our comments.

Balancing friendship and business in co-founder relationships isn't always easy. Here's what Julian Weisser, co-founder and CEO of ODF had to say: “You need to have a friendship that allows you to have hard conversations with your co-founder. Good friendships allow you to be honest and open with each other so you can cut through the noise.” What advice would you share with others starting a business with a close friend?👇

Let's talk about managing VC relationships. 💬 We talked to Mike Preuss, CEO and founder of Visible.vc, for answers to questions like "how many investors should founders target when fundraising?" and "what are some effective ways to get introductions to investors?" Swipe ➡️ to read what Mike shared.

While there are plenty of highs to the founder journey, there are also sleepless nights, difficult choices, and moments of doubt. Creating something new takes a lot of courage — as does asking for advice from those that have been there before. Here are a few midweek tips from other founders and operators to keep you going: “You have to be willing to take risks if you want to achieve something great” - Purti Hardikar, cove.tool “Lean on your support system, don’t go it alone” - @Michelle Oh, Roll “Don’t just build a startup, build what is meant to be the mission of your life” - Daniel Lozano, KindWorks.AI “Sleep is the best performance enhancer” - Rick Gibson, Yuzu Labs What's one piece of advice that's gotten you through your toughest founder moments? Share it below👇

Let's talk about building with AI. Building AI-driven products comes with unique challenges: managing vendor relationships, navigating compliance, and ensuring data security, to name just a few. In this Q&A, Umesh Kumar, Product Lead at Dropbox AI, answers questions like "what skills do you expect in the founding team of an AI startup?" and "how can startups mitigate risk when building products that rely on AI partners?" Swipe to hear some advice from Umesh.

Check out our latest episode of The Room Podcast with Immad Akhund, co-founder and CEO of Mercury! Before founding Mercury, Immad was the CEO and co-founder at Heyzap (Acquired by Fyber), where he built innovative tools for mobile developers. Now, Mercury is transforming how startups approach banking—removing obstacles and designing tools that truly support growth. In this episode, Immad shares the inspiration behind Mercury, how they set out to make banking work for startups, and why they’re passionate about creating a banking experience that empowers founders. Don’t miss this deep dive into building for impact in fintech! 🎧 https://lnkd.in/g_dkfEuk #TheRoomPodcast #Fintech #StartupBanking #Entrepreneurship #Innovation

I sat down with Immad Akhund, Co-Founder & CEO of Mercury for October’s Between Two Founders event. tl;dr — here are 4 key lessons he learned while scaling Mercury 1/ Do things that you actually enjoy doing.  2/ Finding out what I enjoy and how do I prioritize that.  3/ What are the processes that I should setup for that?  4/ It’s important to do the things you’re good at, that’s why you’re there. #startups #founders #betweentwofounders

You may know Nate Williams as the founder of Union Labs Ventures, a VC firm investing in climate and deeptech tech pre-seed and seed founders. But he's also an avid outdoor cyclist—a passion he rekindled during his recovery from a knee injury in grad school. For Nate, cycling isn’t just a hobby—it’s a way to connect with the industry on a more personal level. He hosts a quarterly Taco Tuesday Ride (TTR), where over a hundred climate and deeptech founders, funders, and innovators come together. We spoke to Nate about how he’s bridged his passion for cycling with his deeptech community in Cycles, the latest print edition of Meridian.

And that's a wrap on TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. 💫 The last few days were nothing short of inspiring, and we loved getting the chance to meet different entrepreneurs and builders in our community. Here are a few moments that will stick with us: - Hearing experts like Julian Weisser, Emily Kramer, Sheel Mohnot and more share their insights at the booth each day - Sharing the first copies of Cycles — the latest print issue of Meridian — with folks in the wild - Seeing entrepreneurs of all stripes connect over delicious bites at our Founders & Innovators Happy Hour, hosted in partnership with Notion for Startups and Gusto If you came by our booth, we hope you came away inspired and equipped to make your ambitions real. See you next year! 👋

"If you're building an app, get your MVP, get your most essential features in there, get it out to market and keep building it out." - Andy Sworyk, co-founder of JAM Digital Solutions. Our social team was live on the floor of TechCrunch Disrupt asking founders to share their lessons learned from building their companies. Andy and his brother spent months building multiple features before launch – now he advises founders to get their core product to users faster. Stay tuned for more founder insights from #TCDisrupt over the coming weeks.