WHEN OUR STARTUP PIVOTED ITS WAY TO SURVIVAL

Summary from the TLDR Crypto newsletter

Accrue began as a dollar-cost averaging app for investing in crypto and stocks, growing fast until the 2022 bear market froze user activity and investor interest. A pivot to dollar savings gained praise but little revenue, revealing that users liked the app but couldn't afford to use it. The breakthrough came when a Ghanaian user accidentally used a deposit feature to send money to Nigeria, sparking a shift toward cross-border payments, a move that grew to 70% of revenue in seven months. The team's biggest lessons were to let go quickly, listen beyond direct feedback, follow unexpected data, and embrace the messiness of finding product-market fit through persistence and pivots.