Inside Mercuryo’s Strategy to Grow Fast Without Losing Focus
In Brief
Mercuryo, ranked #79 on the Sifted 100 list, is rapidly expanding, but has made significant changes to scale, including shifting from self-managed operations to long-lasting systems.
Landing at #79 on the Sifted 100 list, Mercuryo is growing fast, but that growth hasn’t come without big changes behind the scenes. Greg Waisman, Co-Founder & COO at Mercuryo, talks about what it really takes to scale: shifting from doing everything yourself to building systems that last. He shares lessons from tough markets, global expansion, and launching the Spend card with Ledger and Mastercard — all while keeping the company’s core mission front and center.
You’ve emphasized the importance of changing your mindset for scaling. What does that mental shift look like in practical terms for early-stage founders?
Of course, our mindset has changed as we grow rapidly. Today Mercuryo achieved a position of 79 on the Sifted 100: France & Southern Europe Leaderboard, recognising the 100 fastest-growing startups in 2025. This recognition is, of course, a testament to the incredible work of our team and partners as our business continues to evolve.
This achievement also makes you reflect on just how far you’ve come. For early-stage founders, the shift is about moving from a scrappy, do-everything-yourself mentality to a more structured perspective characterized by a long-term mindset. In practical terms, this means prioritizing systems over chaos: building repeatable processes for hiring, product development, and customer acquisition.
You’re still allowed to move fast, but you can no longer break stuff. In other words, the challenge is to maintain the agility and creativity that’s carried you this far, but to combine it with a level of maturity and planning that befits a more mature company.
You stop improvising and start asking yourself, “Does this align with our core mission?” This phase of a startup’s life cycle also calls for embracing data over gut instinct, which means tracking metrics like customer retention or unit economics early, even if they’re rough. At Mercuryo, we learned to focus on what we could control, like operational efficiency, with the goal of extending our runway so that even if we failed to close another round, we could still get from zero to one.
In today’s economic climate, what are the key traits a startup leader must cultivate to maintain confidence and discipline in uncertain times?
Two things: resilience and the power to say no. The former is self-explanatory: when you’ve been working 18-hour days and have partners, investors, and a growing army of users to placate, only resilience will carry you through. It’s important to remember in these times that the you of three years ago would have killed to be where you are right now. So be grateful, grit your teeth, and carry on.
Discipline, meanwhile, means sticking to a plan, even when panic tempts you to pivot wildly. This is where the ability to utter those two simple letters will save you months of toil from getting embroiled in ventures you let yourself get talked into against your better judgment. Never be afraid to say “No.” You can’t do everything, fix everything, and please everyone. So stick to your core mission and don’t get distracted by sideshows.
This laser focus is a quality that will filter down into the rest of your team. Staying disciplined doesn’t just make your life easier: it makes it easier for staff to follow your lead and remain attentive to the task at hand.
How do you personally define a “clear and coherent strategy,” and how should a founder go about developing one?
To me, a clear and coherent strategy is a roadmap that ties your vision to actionable steps: everyone on the team should understand the “why” and the “how.” So no wishy-washy goals or unqualifiable statements like “We’re gonna 2x annual revenue for the next three years.”
Instead, strategizing means outlining specific goals, like “increase active users by 20% in Europe this quarter,” backed by a detailed breakdown of how this is going to happen. That way, you’re not making predictions: you’re making plans.
To zoom out a little, when it comes to strategy, founders should always start by nailing down their unique edge: what problem do you solve better than anyone? Then, talk to customers, study the market, and test assumptions. Involve your team; they’ll spot blind spots. At Mercuryo, we mapped our crypto-fiat bridge to customer pain points and iterated based on feedback.
There’s an assumption that since you know your product better than anyone, only you and your team are qualified to appraise it. Actually, by the second or third year of business, there’ll be a group of super-users who know the product even better than you because they’re not just tinkering with it: they’re using it every day in their lives to solve specific problems. They’re the people you need to talk to.
Can you share how your long-term vision helped you navigate through the challenges of 2023’s funding downturn?
It feels like a lifetime ago now, but it’s easy to forget, now we’re in more favorable market conditions, just how tough 2023 was. Global startup funding dropped by something like 38%, and everyone felt the squeeze. Our long-term vision at Mercuryo – bridging crypto and fiat for seamless global payments – kept us grounded. We knew that whatever happened in the future, whatever price Bitcoin was trading at, this was a need that wasn’t gonna go away.
We didn’t chase quick fixes or trendy pivots. Instead, we doubled down on efficiency: trimming costs and focusing on profitable products like our on-ramp and off-ramp solutions. That vision gave us clarity since every decision had to support scalable, sustainable growth. We leaned on existing partnerships and built trust with clients, which carried us through. It wasn’t glamorous, but sticking to our North Star paid off.
You’ve moved away from the “growth at all costs” model. How can startups find the balance between ambition and financial responsibility?
The old “growth at all costs” mindset burned a lot of startups: spending cash you don’t have only works until the well runs dry. Balance comes from aligning ambition with reality. Set bold goals, sure, but tie them to cash flow and profitability. Start by knowing your burn rate and runway – don’t guess, calculate. Prioritize revenue-generating moves over vanity metrics like user count. At Mercuryo, we shifted to focus on margins and customer lifetime value, not just transaction volume. Test small, scale what works, and cut what doesn’t. Ambition drives you, but financial discipline is what keeps you alive.
What metrics should startups now focus on to ensure sustainable growth, and how did Mercuryo shift those metrics internally?
Startups need to track metrics that show real health, not just hype. Focus on revenue growth, gross margins, and customer acquisition cost versus lifetime value. Those tell you if your model works. Burn rate and runway are critical too; you can’t grow if you’re broke. At Mercuryo, we moved away from just tracking transaction volume, which looked good but hid inefficiencies. We zeroed in on unit economics – profit per transaction – and churn rate, to keep customers longer. We built dashboards, reviewed weekly, and adjusted fast. It’s not sexy, but it’s how you grow without imploding.
In expanding Mercuryo’s footprint beyond Europe, what lessons have you learned about navigating different regional markets?
Every region’s a puzzle since regulations, customer habits, and infrastructure vary wildly. In Europe, compliance was key; we got licenses and built trust with banks. In Brazil, we saw huge fintech adoption, so we tailored our crypto-fiat solutions to local needs, like fast payouts. Lesson one: do your homework – study local laws and payment preferences. Lesson two: partners matter – find reliable ones who know the turf. Lesson three: Be patient; building trust takes time, especially in crypto. We stumbled early, underestimating cultural nuances, but listening to local teams and adapting got us traction in LatAm and beyond.
How has leadership coaching shaped your role and decision-making as Mercuryo has scaled?
Leadership coaching was a game-changer. It taught me to step back, delegate, and trust my team, which doesn’t come naturally to a founder who’s used to doing it all. I learned to listen better and become better at delegating decision-making instead of micromanaging. It also helped me handle stress: scaling’s intense, and coaching gave me tools to stay clear-headed. As a result of this, I now prioritize data and team input over snap judgments or gut instinct. It’s humbling to admit you don’t have all the answers, but it’s made me a better COO and, more importantly, it’s made our company stronger.
At what point should a founder seriously consider transitioning away from operational roles into a strategic leadership position?
It’s time when the business outgrows your bandwidth. If you’re still fixing bugs and answering emails, then you can’t see the forest for the trees. For me, it was when Mercuryo hit 200 team members and multiple markets. You know it’s time when processes break or your team’s waiting on you too often. Transition by hiring specialists such as engineers and regional managers, and then shift to strategy: partnerships, growth, and all the other big picture stuff. It’s tough to let go, but founders add most value marshalling the firefighters, not fighting the fires.
What does the recent launch of the Spend card with Ledger and Mastercard represent for Mercuryo’s broader vision in fintech?
Spend, a Mastercard crypto debit card, has been a big step in realizing our vision of making crypto and fiat seamless for everyone. This means that users can spend crypto like cash anywhere Mastercard’s accepted. It aligns with our mission to simplify payments and to blur the lines between blockchain and traditional finance. Spend is also tangible proof that Mercuryo is more than just middleware for crypto-native businesses: we’re equally adept at B2C, which is a vertical that we’re looking to grow further.
How do you see Spend shifting consumer behavior around crypto adoption and everyday usability?
Spend makes crypto practical and demystifies the act of using your ETH to buy coffee or groceries. Millions of Ledger users have developed a HODL mentality that has enabled them to build up a valuable digital portfolio over time. The Spend Mastercard crypto debit card shows that it’s okay to relax that grip and occasionally treat yourself, without forsaking the discipline that’s brought you to this point in the first place.
The card will shift behavior by removing friction since people won’t fear volatility or complexity if they can spend easily. Adoption grows when crypto is as simple as a debit card. I expect Spend to accelerate a trend that will see more folks hold crypto for spending, not just trading, nudging it toward mainstream use.
From a leadership perspective, what challenges did your team face in getting the Spend card from idea to market, and how were they overcome?
Launching Spend was intense since coordinating with giants such as Ledger and Mastercard meant aligning on compliance, tech, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Regulatory hurdles were big; every region had different rules, and thus, our respective legal teams were kept busy. Integration, in comparison, was comparatively simple, but we still had to go to great lengths to ensure UX remained consistent and unbroken throughout the customer experience moving between Ledger and Mercuryo.
The Ledger team were great to work with, it must be said: their knowledge of the industry, from both a technical and compliance perspective, is second-to-none, and we learned a lot from working with them – and were hopefully able to share some of our own expertise in return.
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About The Author
Victoria is a writer on a variety of technology topics including Web3.0, AI and cryptocurrencies. Her extensive experience allows her to write insightful articles for the wider audience.
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Victoria is a writer on a variety of technology topics including Web3.0, AI and cryptocurrencies. Her extensive experience allows her to write insightful articles for the wider audience.
