What happens after a fintech finds product-market fit and suddenly has to process thousands of transactions, earn customer trust, manage fraud, comply with regulation and build a team capable of keeping up?

In this special edition of Ideas to Scale, Alejandra Slatapolsky sits down with Sami Start, Co-Founder and CEO of Transak, and Stephano Maciel, Founder and CEO of ATTRUS, for an honest conversation about building and operating fintech companies in some of the industry’s most demanding markets.

They share how they identified the customers who truly needed their products, the decisions that allowed their companies to grow, and the operational pressure that arrives once an idea becomes a real business.

The conversation explores:

• Finding product-market fit and recognizing the right ideal customer profile

• Scaling fintech infrastructure from early adoption to high transaction volumes

• Building trust across payments, crypto, digital assets and international money movement

• Why obtaining a license is only the beginning of fintech compliance

• Operating KYC, AML, fraud monitoring and risk systems at scale

• Building profitable products instead of chasing vanity metrics

• Hiring and developing the people a growing company needs

• How stablecoins are changing cross-border payments

• The role of blockchain as the financial infrastructure users may never see

• How AI and automation could reshape payments and financial operations

• Predictions for the future of fintech, banking and on-chain financial services

Sami and Stefano also share the advice they would give any founder starting a fintech today—from building for long-term profitability and hiring the strongest people possible to developing the resilience required to operate for the next 10 or 20 years.

For fintech founders, financial-services executives, investors and operators, this episode offers a direct look at the decisions, systems and leadership challenges behind companies that must work every day.

Ideas to Scale is a Scalto series featuring founders and executives building companies, navigating growth and shaping the future of their industries.

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