Sahil Phadnis
Co-Founder and President, Affiniti. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveLinkedIn ↗affiniti.finance ↗
Sahil Phadnis is the co-founder and president of Affiniti, an SMB fintech and spend-management platform for small businesses. He previously co-founded the Y Combinator-backed payments startup Pebble, raising over $6 million before closing the company due to regulatory challenges and subsequently founding Affiniti.
1shows
1appearances
19statements
1resolved
1supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
Everything Sahil Phadnis said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
US domestic stablecoin usage is mostly for illicit activities
“The only reason you'd want to use stable coins for domestic transactions is if you were, like, doing something shady, you know? Like, I don't know, like, buying drugs or something.”
Stablecoin neobanks work in unstable economies, not in the US
“It's a great thesis if you're in Chad, or if you're in Syria. It's a horrible thesis if you're in New York City or San Francisco.”
Phadnis raised $25K in a Berkeley dorm and returned 12% weekly
“Look, we straight up collected 25,000 dollars in 24 hours. We returned 12% within a week. Returned all the capital. Look, everyone was made whole and even more than their principal.”
Dollar-denominated stablecoins are not securities, they are just dollars
“Still to this day, I don't think a dollar denominated stablecoin is a security. It's a dollar. In that case, every dollar is a security.”
Affiniti acquires SMB customers for 25% of Ramp's acquisition cost
“If I'm trying to acquire 10 pharmacies in Nebraska, and RAMP is trying to acquire 10 pharmacies in Nebraska, I can almost guarantee we're gonna have 25% of the CAC costs that they would pay.”
Affiniti will never hire account executives; sales happen via single DMs
“I mean, the awesome thing with us is we'll never need to hire account execs. Because our sales cycles are literally off one email, or off one DM.”
VCs fund hyped trends primarily to report portfolio markups to LPs
“VCs will give money to what is a hot commodity, so then something can give them, someone will give them up round, and you can go to your LPs and say, hey, I'm up 90% on my portfolio.”
Legacy SMBs struggle because their tech stacks haven't adapted since 1995
“Old industry
Small businesses seem to be hurting the most in today's economy.
And why do I emphasize old industry?
It's because like, I'm not talking about drop shipping businesses or blank street coffee in Tribeca or sweet greens, the franchise owner.
Lik…”
Phadnis: Maintainer roles like CFOs will be disrupted by AI
“We think maintainers are the ones that are going to get disrupted in this like AI revolution.”
Phadnis: Affiniti acquired 2,000 SMBs in 14 months with one growth hire
“We acquired 2000 small businesses within, like, 14 months. We have one growth guy, and we hired him seven months ago.”
Phadnis estimates that Ramp generates $100M in software revenue
“And I think they look at a hundred million dollars of software revenue already.”
Private equity's alpha in SMB rollups is optimizing workforce efficiency
“What we realized is what PE firms were simply doing was optimizing workforce efficiency. And that was their alpha of why they think they can roll up every dermatology practice in America and flip them to 10% greater EBITDA profitability.”
SMBs evaluate credit cards for cashback, missing the embedded software value
“For some people, they see it as points in cashback. They don't see it as anything else. And I think that's largely what the SMB economy looks at cards for. And like, that's what makes this compelling is what We're trying to show them that there's software valu…”
Phadnis: Most American SMBs will never hire full-time finance staff
“At the end, most SMBs in America will never hire full-time finance functions. They, they're just not big enough to afford a CFO from Wharton to go run their books every single month.”
Affiniti will reach $10M ARR within 45 to 60 days
“Yeah, we're, I think we'll be there in the next, like, 45, 60 days.”
Phadnis raised $6M for his crypto startup in one month
“And then by the end of the month, we ended up raising six million in total from like Y Combinator and like a bunch of other.”
Up to 80% of Affiniti's SMB customers previously used community banks
“70 to 80% of our SMBs Do you know what they were using before us? Community banks and credit unions.”
Software generates only 10% to 15% of Affiniti's total revenue
“Look, I think like software is about
1510, 15% of our revenue.
Majority of revenue comes from interchange today.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Sahil's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 PRODUCT MARKET FITLEDGER | Co-Founder and President, Affiniti | 1 | 19 | 100% 1/1 | full record on A Product Market Fit Show → |