From Developer to Founder: How I Bootstrapped and Shipped Bringin
Visa drama, solo coding, and Europe’s first Lightning card: Prashanth shares how he bootstrapped Bringin ⚡️
Every founder has their unique story, and it is worth sharing as a story of one of the founders gave me ideas and ways to build my own venture.
So if you’ve ever wondered what it takes for a Software developer to build a venture-backed Bitcoin startup, read on.
How it all began
I graduated in 2018 - I wanted to work in early-stage startups. In 2019, I left my job at a consumer internet startup in Bangalore, India, to join a ‘new money’ company. This was due to a rush of inspiration after reading Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas Antonopoulos.
I was looking for an engineering position and got to work hands-on with not just Bitcoin, but also Lightning (way before it was as cool as it is today).
At Lastbit, run by fellow Bangalorian, Prashanth Balasubramanian, I worked on the backend for Europe’s first-ever consumer Lightning/fiat interface, where European consumers could sign up to buy/sell/spend Bitcoin over Lightning. We launched the world’s first Mastercard debit card that can be funded by Lightning.
The financial system is fragmented, and putting all these features together in a single application was nearly impossible without being a fully licensed fiat money institution. So, Lastbit became Striga, focusing on KYC compliance and back-end infrastructure. I set off to build the solution to bridge Euros and Lightning with a B2C user app.
Starting Afresh
When Lastbit became Striga, the only card that I used to spend my Bitcoin salary was halted. I had no other way but to sign up for Kraken. But unfortunately, Kraken has halted bank withdrawals. Binance was a nightmare - tool, 3 days to get Bitcoin converted into Euros after answering many questions.
It was a very clear problem, and see how Striga was aiming to build the infrastructure to build an app to solve this. That’s when I decided to start my own venture.
When I quit my Lastbit job, I lost my visa. I was days away from being forced to move back to India for good. That’s when I heard about a startup program which offered visas to founders. All I had to do was build a functioning fintech app in 20 days.🤣
Bringin v.1 was not the smoothest functioning app, but I got it done. Not in 20 days, of course. I had to move back to India. I had to work remotely from India, getting bank accounts, forming partnerships and proving the app could move real money before getting my residency approved.
At the heart of Bringin is the use case — Solving on/off-ramping for bitcoiners in Europe. I wanted this to make accessing, swapping and Euros as easy as beeping your card (it nearly is) without ever asking for custody of users’ bitcoin (self-custody is a non-negotiable for me).
Prefer listening over reading? Listen to Prashanth’s story on Fountain or here:
Building the Company
Among the many changes and pivots of Bringin, I’ve built two revenue streams.
Creating a widget and an SDK to allow bigger players to integrate their solution.
Developing a killer front-end platform and apps to build an independent market share.
Having both of these solutions up and running allows a company to pivot and adapt to the market - AI, competitors, and financial downturns need not disrupt your operation.
I started working with a good friend of mine, but it was very soon clear it was not the right fit for him, and just after a couple of months, I continued by myself.
Our proprietary platform gives us direct access to a loyal customer base we can develop.
Our back-end APIs and SDKs allow anyone to build a financial product for the future that is powered by lightning, including wallets, payments, and AI agents, and to onboard customers without having to worry about fiat on/off-ramps, compliance and all these hurdles.
Bootstrapping this startup involved all of the things you’d expect:
Going ‘all in’ on savings - sell Bitcoin savings on bear market :)
Mostly a 1-man team with 1 amazing intern to get the MVP up and running
Not a writer but had started writing on LinkedIn and X - Hired a part-time x manager.
Building partnerships and networking on LinkedIn could afford to fly to conferences
Cold outreach to all potential users, partners and investors for feedback, integrations and investment on X and LinkedIn
Things got better, slowly, we raised some funds from many angels with a 5- 10k check allowed me to move to the EU back with a real product and residency status for that.
Interns become full-time engineers and start working with more contractors for content, social media and designs.
Now, we have a team of seven (fully remote, including contractors). They are mostly people who have reached out at events or who came on board as interns after proving their work on other bitcoin-related projects. (More on how I hired my team members in this post).
I’ve learned that effective communication isn’t about a top-down approach. It’s not forcing employees to attend Zoom meetings at awkward hours. It’s not about tracking emails to see if they were read. And it’s not about disruptive DMs.
My approach is to let team members fall into their preferred communication roles. Some people want to contribute more to a forum. They get energy from interactions and need to keep tabs on what’s going on. Others, especially devs, can get overwhelmed by too much chatter. They need deep-work focus.
At Bringin, we organise key information via Slack channels. If we need individual responses on progress, I use the DMs. Employees can mute notifications to stay focused or unplug out of hours (I do this to control my attention and avoid overwhelm).
How We Closed Our $950,000 Pre-Seed Funding
I’m a developer through and through. This means I had to step very far outside of my comfort zone and build relationships with early investors.
Getting the first angles is not easy. The first check is the hardest one. I have a few of my dad’s friends who were real estate investors, ready to invest. But i knew if I had taken that money, I would never learn how ot do it the right way.
I got introduced to many angel investors in Bangalore when I was in India, who wasted so much of my time walking through all the risks and business models, only to propose some really absurd terms to give money, which almost instantly assured me that it was BAD money.
Although I had no investors onboarded and my savings were running low, and I had taken a personal loan to pay interns, I said no to money from the wrong source or the ones which will do no good in the long term.
I did it the hard way - when to X - Vivek has a list of Bitcoin only investors on his profile - I made a list of all of them in a Notion table. Continuously reached out to all of them, again and again, till I received an answer. Even if it was a ‘no’.
While I was doing this outreach, I also made sure we were launching and shipping and sharing the progress.
Stephen Livera became our first investor - his belief in us gave the project early credibility. Vivek made some introductions to a few investors who were onboarded with small checks.
Eventually, we got many of our users to invest in the product, which was amazing.
I’ve done some podcasts focused on BTC ecosystem investment, released a few videos to engage the Reddit community, and geared up to pitch Bringin at BTC Prague in 2024.
This brought me together with some angel investors who were helpful in advising me on the next steps for funding. The learnings about the world of tech startups never end! In the Bitcoin space, there aren’t a huge number of well-informed investment funds looking for opportunities to give you money.
It is easy to raise funds from investors when you have credibility from your previous start-up's success, or a degree from a reputable institution or at least have a business founder. Without any of these, the only way was to show progress with real users and real money.
Being able to move real money with vIBAN to 100 customers in the EU with all licensing requirements and no money in the bank was challenging. But there was no easy way to make it happen.
BTC Prague, the turning point.
The BTC Prague pitch contest was a huge turning point - I finally made it to the EU and was able to attend the conference. The pitch on BTC Prgaue led us to some amazing investors who backed us in the pre-seed round.
I met Joe Bryan, creator of What’s the Problem, who reached out after the BTC Prague pitch contest, and later became an investor and advisor. He has been extremely helpful since then. Without his help, we wouldn’t be able to raise $950k. He is a great advisor ot have onboard.
Rather than chasing VC money and spamming funds with my pitch deck, I decided to build trust by showing my expertise. This led me to write on LinkedIn and connect with more knowledgeable folks there. One of them, Santosh, even became my co-founder and has been instrumental in operations, business development, and seeking investment. Plus, I’ve been able to form nearly a dozen partnerships (app integrations) which are mutually beneficial. One of these partners, Ledasat, just announced our btc-Euro collateralized loan product last month.
The best part is that many of our users turned into investors, which was a huge credibility for many VCs, who decided to back us.
Most of all, angel investors and VCs need to be kept in the loop. I advise founders to let them into the inner circle of your decisions, problems, and communications. Share your challenges as well as launches and announcements. If things aren’t going perfectly, you might receive timely advice or develop a useful partnership to solve issues.
I wouldn’t go deep into how ot raise funds as I am still learning and every founder's journey is unique.
Remaining focused on this throughout the launches of our debit card and app upgrades is what allowed us to welcome new VC partners to power the next phase of Bringin.
From Developer to Founder
I’m still not an expert on fundraising. Or startups. I’m learning every single day. I love coding and creating products. Moving from love to coding will never go away. I force myself to do all the other work that needs to be done in my start-up to earn the luxury and the time for coding without interruption.
When I started, I had no idea how to do any of this. I just kept moving toward what felt right. I made mistakes. There few things which are told by many “don’t do this” - you think you know you shouldn't - but you will end up doing it anyway. There is no shortcut. The only way is the hard way, by making a mistake. You will find help, people to work with. You will attract whatever is needed for you to move forward. I got so much help, but only when I started doing it.
I am still doing the same - I have no idea how to scale Bringin to a unicorn, and it sometimes is scary. How do I get to 100,000 customers after knowing how hard it is to get 100 people to use your product every month?
I have some idea, but the reality is always harsher than what I imagine it to be. I will figure it out. I will do whatever is needed to move the needle, and things will happen.
If you're building in Bitcoin, looking for a role, or just figuring out your own path, reach out.
You never know what might come next.
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That’s it. Thanks for reading.
I’d be happy to expand on any of these topics if you’d like.
Publications looking for more insight into the btc-business space, feel free to reach out.
And if you are looking for a role in bitcoin, keep following founders on LinkedIn and organisations like Bitvocation. Who knows, maybe you’ll follow my path and launch your own startup one day.
Want to work in Bitcoin, too?
Start with these resources:
→ Job Feed on Telegram
→ Job bot on Nostr
→ Beginner’s Guide: “How to Find Your First Job in Bitcoin”
→ POW Lab Inner Circle
→ Bitcoin Conferences + Ticket Discounts
🔁 Know someone who’s dreaming of working in Bitcoin? Hit forward. This story could give them the information and inspiration they’ve been waiting for.