Hey! Justin here. Welcome to Just Go Grind, a newsletter that shares the lessons, tactics, and stories of world-class founders! Today we’ve got an episode on the Just Go Grind Podcast with Yacine Sibous, co-founder of Parker, the financial stack for scaling your e⁠-⁠commerce brand faster and more profitably. Enjoy!

📅 Upcoming Events

I’m co-hosting two comedy shows with Avenue Z for SF and LA TechWeeks which are happening VERY soon!

Our SF show already has 275+ attendees signed up while our LA show has 140+ attendees so far. We have great venues for both and space is limited, so sign up soon!

All upcoming events I’m hosting or co-hosting:

• October 7th - Artificially Un-Intelligent: A Tech Comedy Show @ #SFTechWeek

• October 12th - LA Startup Community Basketball

• October 14th - Pitch and Run LA: Run Club for Startup Community #LATechWeek

• October 15th - #LATechWeek Coffee Meetup

• October 16th - Artificially Un-Intelligent: A Tech Comedy Show @ #LATechWeek

All events will be posted in their respective calendars below: 

🌴 LA Event Calendar

🌉 SF Event Calendar

Yacine Sibous, Co-Founder of Parker

Yacine Sibous is the Co-Founder of Parker, the financial stack for scaling your e⁠-⁠commerce brand faster and more profitably.

After studying Physics and Computer Science at McGill University, Yacine left to attend 42, a unique software engineering school in France. It’s there that he met his co-founder Milan Ray.

Yacine and Milan went on to participate in Y Combinator in 2019. They have since raised $157 million from investors and have processed more than $550 million on their platform, with customers that include brands like Caraway, Venus et Fleur, and Dolls Kill.

I interviewed Yacine for an episode of the Just Go Grind podcast, which you can find below:

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Watch on YouTube

Topics Covered by Yacine Sibous in this Episode

• 0:00 Parker: A digital banking platform for internet-based companies

• 1:05 How a friend’s business selling phone cases on Instagram in college led to the inception of Parker

• 5:36 Attending Y Combinator and how COVID led Yacine and Milan to return to their original idea after many pivots

• 8:50 How Yacine met his co-founder, Milan Ray and decided to work together

• 10:08 Attending the unique school 42 in France

• 10:59 Early feedback on Parker that led Yacine and Milan to stick to their original idea

• 12:01 Understanding the fundraising game and raising their first round from YC

• 13:35 The mistake of under-utilizing funds and burning too little

• 15:09 What fueled Parker’s growth

• 17:19 Leveraging events for growth post-COVID

• 18:09 What differentiates Parker from its competitors

• 21:45 How customer feedback enabled them to build a credit model unique to e-commerce

• 23:58 The key to raising debt

• 24:49 Yacine’s best fundraising advice

• 27:03 Tips for building hiring both junior and executive team members

• 31:12 How a focus on growth has enabled Parker’s success

• 33:30 How Yacine invests in himself

• 35:21 What’s next for Parker

• 36:52 Parker’s target customer

• 37:10 Where to connect with Yacine

Connect with Parker and Yacine

Website: Parker
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yacine-sibous/
Twitter: @YacineSibous
Email: [email protected]

📚 Recent Founder Deep Dives

In the past year and a half, I’ve written dozens of deep dives on world-class founders, sharing how they built their companies. These typically take 20-30 hours to research and write. The most recent ones are below:

🌲 Issy Sharp of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts

🚗 Chung Ju-yung: Founder of Hyundai

🥃 Fawn Weaver's $1.1 Billion Whiskey Empire

🧥 The Adventurous Ambition of Yvon Chouinard

👩 The Mission-Driven Ambition of Carolyn Childers

Best,

Justin

Founder of Just Go Grind and Village Lane

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