How Fuelfinance is growing to $4M ARR helping founders understand finances

What’s up! This is Sheldon from The Zero to One - helping you grow your product by breaking down the growth tactics, strategic playbooks, and GTM motions behind your favorite startups and giving you the actionable insights to replicate them. Check out all my previous deep dives here.

This week, I sat down with Alyona Mysko, Founder & CEO of Fuelfinance, a finance-as-a-service startup that's rapidly scaling toward $4M ARR and has become the go-to financial solution for growing companies, such as Hampton and Oceans.

I had a lot of fun writing this deep dive. Alyona and the Fuelfinance team are redefining the relationship between finance and fun.

It was awesome to get a chance to dig deeper into their story and share with you the bts on how they got here.

After speaking with Alyona, I had this distinct feeling that Fuelfinance is only at the start of its journey. I’m willing to put myself out there that you’ll hear much more about them as time goes on.

Ps. a big thank you to Alyona for sharing your insights into building the company, and to Yuliya for setting it all up - the work you do is truly awesome.

So, without further ado, this is the story of how Fuelfinance went from Zero to One 🚀

The path to $4M ARR for Fuelfinance

It's 2019, and Alyona Mysko has a vision to "make finance cool again" - a strong stance in a traditional industry dominated by QuickBooks, Xero, and other legacy financial products & systems.

So she launches the first version of Fuelfinance, a financial service for early-stage startups, offering a human touch combined with software to help founders understand their finances.

The early days looked like your typical founder hustle story:

• Reaching out to her network

• Constantly meeting with other founders, and

• Building a product people would actually pay for

Their first customers came from Alyona's and Yaroslav's network of founders they knew or had previously mentored in accelerators.

It was a hit.

The first few users loved Fuelfinance and started to evangelise it, spreading the word in their networks.

Within a year, Fuelfinance had started to build some traction.

I’m a big believer in momentum. We see it happening all around us. Some nights your favorite NBA player just can’t seem to miss. Every shot. Swoosh. And then some nights, they couldn’t pay for a bucket.

Many studies prove this ‘hot hand’ exists.

And I have a strong belief that this same principle applies to building a business. When you feel momentum - lean in. Lean in hard. Ride your hot hand.

And that’s exactly what Alyona did.

Feeling this traction, she and Yaroslav, previously the CEO of Petcube (YC company), went all in on scaling the business.

This proved crucial.

The combination of Alyona's financial expertise and Yaroslav's product and scaling experience, they soon hit an inflection point. And in 2023, they hit $1M ARR.

Today, they are on track for $4M ARR, with over 70 high-ticket, sticky customers.

So, the question still remains: How did Fuelfinance get here?

💭 Be Opinionated: In Product, Marketing, and Positioning

From the jump, Fuelfinance took a distinctive, opinionated approach to finance - something foreign to a traditionally ‘boring’ industry that many founders dread.

When talking to Alyona, one thing was crystal clear: she has a deep conviction that finance not only could be, but actually was, fun and engaging.

I’ve talked a few times about Founder-Market fit in these deep dives (like this Jasper edition), and this is one of the best examples.

Building a startup is a grind. It’s hard. Forces you to go outside of your comfort zone. And punches you in the gut over and over again.

Picking an industry and product/service that (i) genuinely excites you, and (ii) you are an expert in, makes this journey of a lifetime all the more manageable.

It’s not a necessity, but it helps a lot.

Your passion and knowledge come through when you speak to potential customers, investors, or A+ hires. Thus they’re more likely to see it, and believe it.

Imparting this same conviction on others that you feel is critical to get off the ground.

And when you are genuinely excited by it, you impart onto others what I felt after speaking with Alyona. But back to being opinionated.

For Alyona, being opinionated wasn't just a marketing angle - it was a core belief that drove the business:

And so that’s what Fuelfinance set out to achieve. An opinionated stance on finance.

Making it fun.

Why this worked:

Practical insights from the tactic.

Bold, distinctive content

Fuelfinance’s marketing breaks all the rules in a traditional B2B playbook.

Scroll through their LinkedIn and you'll find bold graphics, bright colors, pop-culture references, jokes, strong stances, and trend-jacking that make you love seeing them on your feed.

"We’ve termed some of our marketing... We call it Beyoncé marketing,".

In many ways, it reminds me of the approach ClickUp takes to B2B marketing. Fun. Different. Takes a stance. Keeps it more human, something you see mostly in B2C.

This wasn't just being different for the sake of it.

Don’t do that.

Different is great, but only if it has substance behind it.

Fuelfinance’s content is super strategic.

Weaving in different types of content for different stages of their funnel:

Top-of-funnel content: Attention-grabbing, sometimes provocative posts that drive followers and awareness.

Middle-of-funnel content: Value-adding templates, cheat sheets, calculators, and knowledge that builds credibility

Bottom-of-funnel content: Case studies and product feature announcements that drive conversions

The key insight: You can't just post 100% information. No one will be interested in buying from JUST that. My suggestion for a ratio to start testing is 80/20.

80% free value, and 20% more bottom of funnel, still with value hidden inside it though.

Each content type serves a different purpose in their growth engine.

Some to build connection, some to build trust, some to demonstrate expertise, and others to convert.

The results speak for themselves - their LinkedIn is driving 20% of their MQLs, with that number growing every month. But more on this in tactic number 2.

Solution designed with strong opinions

Fuelfinance doesn’t try to be all things to all people.

Their finance-as-a-service approach makes deliberate, opinionated choices about what good financial management looks like for growing companies.

While many finance options either focus on basic tracking tools or full-service CFO replacements, their solution has evolved to fit a specific customer at a specific stage: companies with enough revenue to need financial insights for scaling, but not yet large enough to need enterprise solutions.

This led to a hybrid approach - combining human financial expertise with technology and AI.

Starting with spreadsheet-based deliverables, which then evolved to include a web interface while maintaining the human touch.

As Alyona noted, "switching from G Sheets to a web interface was a huge upgrade - still supporting both."

“We started from early stage startups when we just started, but now we understand that we match better with later stage companies. Those who already have a track record of revenue,” Alyona explained

This refinement came from listening to customers and recognizing patterns in who received the most value from their service:

And that’s the gap in the market they chose to fill.

By being opinionated about who they serve and how they serve them, they created a service-software hybrid that resonates deeply with their target customers instead of being only okay for everyone - something that often happens as companies grow and feature bloat creeps in.

Counter-positioning against financial stereotypes

I would say that Alyona deliberately positioned against the stereotypes of financial services, but there’s a slight nuance. It’s not just a branding decision, but a belief decision. Belief against:

• The boring, dry nature of traditional finance solutions

• The complexity of enterprise systems

• The simplicity of basic spreadsheets without insights

This counter-positioning created a clear value proposition: finance that's both powerful and approachable.

"All founders think that finance is something very boring... But that's not it. It's really fun," Alyona emphasized.

Their tagline of “making finance cool again” is more than just words - it's a mission statement that permeates their entire brand and way of operating.

As Alyona shared:

This positioning has allowed them to carve out a distinct market position, taking themselves out of the line of competition.

By challenging assumptions about what finance should be, they’ve become a market of one.

🕵️‍♀️ Become the (founder-led) authority

In the early days of a startup, the founder IS the brand.

This is becoming even more true as B2B categories increase, the number of solutions increases, paid marketing gets more expensive, and buyers are more confused than ever.

You need to cut through the noise.

You, and by extension your business, need to be seen as a subject-matter expert, with authority on your industry.

This is how you become trusted by buyers.

It’s how in crowded markets, you stand out.

So when your buyers are ready to buy, they come straight to you. Often preselling themselves.

The best way to do this is with founder-led content.

Alyona and the team crush it here.

With Alyona’s personal brand, Fuelfinance feels a lot more personal and relatable.

You’re not buying from a soulless enterprise, but from Alyona and her team.

Alyona has become inseparable from the company. Placing herself at the center and building a personal brand that has become a significant growth driver for the business.

Her LinkedIn posts regularly generate hundreds of thousands of impressions, drive demos, and open partnerships for the company.

Why this worked:

Practical insights from the tactic.

Personal brand as demand generation

Alyona doesn't only post about the business - she creates thought leadership content that establishes her as an authority in the startup finance niche.

Her content ranges from financial best practices, insights, cheatsheets & templates to transparent sharing of Fuel's growth journey.

What makes this approach particularly effective is her balance between authenticity, expertise, and product.

Scroll through Alyona’s feed and you’ll see personal stories (with lessons in them), the wins and losses of building Fuelfinance, and a whole lot of graphics, cheatsheets, guides, and videos of Alyona showing her expertise.

But importantly, she also doesn’t shy away from speaking about product. In her words: “But then I started sharing it [Fuelfinance] in a way that gives value: new features and how they can solve REAL problems, insightful/inspiring interviews with clients, events.”

Sharing finance cheatsheets, guides, and insights, builds authority.

Her transparency builds trust.

And her product updates and customer interviews get people interested in the solution.

Together, they generate demand - driving qualified leads directly to the team to close.

Becoming the go-to finance expert for founders

Alyona has strategically positioned herself as a translator between traditional finance and the startup world.

Her background in finance combined with her startup experience gives her unique credibility to bridge this gap.

Her approach goes beyond typical thought leadership.

She wants to become a trusted advisor that founders turn to, even before they are customers (i.e. to go to her LinkedIn and their more in-depth content and resources)

So when a founder has a finance question, they go to Alyona.

And when they’re ready to buy a financial solution, Alyona has created a natural path to Fuelfinance.

Doing it through:

• Simplified explanations of complex financial concepts

• Frameworks that make finance accessible to non-finance founders

• Templates and cheat sheets that provide immediate value

• Content targeted specifically to founder pain points

By solving founders' problems with free content, she builds the trust that eventually leads them to become customers when their problems become more complex.

Authority through community presence

Alyona doesn't just publish content to build her brand - she shows up where her ICPs are.

Whether it's communities, events, or relevant social spaces, her presence reinforces both her and the Fuelfinance brand.

A key insight here is her focus on niche, targeted events rather than just the major conferences that everyone knows about and goes to:

"We are focusing on not very popular conferences... some affiliate summit, summit for architectural companies."

This targeted approach ensures they're connecting with the right audience rather than getting lost in the noise of major events.

She also leverages strategic relationships with notable founders to amplify her message (more on this below).

By showing up consistently in these spaces and connecting with influential founders, Alyona creates a halo effect that elevates both her personal and the company’s brand.

🏘️ Community & Partnerships as a Distribution Engine

As we spoke about earlier, Fuelfinance had the typical startup origins - with the first few customers coming from their immediate network.

But for every startup, this network inevitably runs out.

The difficulty is though that referrals are usually one of the best ways to acquire customers - they have built-in trust, convert at higher rates, and usually cost a lot less to acquire (or often even free).

The problem comes with scaling this.

It’s even more challenging for a higher ticket solution to predictably scale referral mechanisms as they grow.

Fuelfinance, however, has tried to keep this referral feeling through robust strategic partnerships and a community growth engine.

Systematically building relationships, turning what for most companies would be ad-hoc connections, into a structured growth machine.

Why this worked:

Practical insights from the tactic.

Leveraging high-profile founder networks

One of Fuelfinance’s most effective growth drivers has been its strategic relationships with well-known founders and creators:

Through excellent service, Fuelfinance turned customers into evangelists:

This creates a powerful flywheel effect:

1. Provide exceptional service to a customer

2. That customer shares with their network

3. High-profile customers bring in more customers

4. The cycle continues

But it relies on one key component. You actually have to deliver an exceptional service. Good doesn’t get referrals.

Alyona explained how these connections compound: "Everyone knows everyone. So Sam knows Austin. Austin then introduced Alex. So that's how it all started."

It’s a common theme I see doing these deep dives.

Founders know other founders.

And it’s intuitive.

Think about your circles, there’s typically a common interest or theme between you and everyone in them:

• Where you went to school

• Sports clubs

• Hobbies

It’s also a caution to be specific with the type of customers you take on, especially if you have a service element to your business.

If you have one-person consulting shops that might shut down if they don’t sign another client, chances are, they know other people like that, and that’s who they refer.

But if you serve $10M+ founders, they’ll most likely refer other $10M+ founders.

So be careful about taking on too many clients whom you don’t want to work with long term.

The key lesson here is that by focusing intensely on making high-profile & influential customers successful, they created natural evangelists who drove growth through their networks.

Formal partnership development

It’s very rare to see an early-stage startup have a robust and well-functioning partnerships program. But that’s exactly what Fuelfinance have built.

What started as a bunch of informal partnerships has evolved into a structured program with some of the world’s biggest companies, like HubSpot, Brex, and Carta.

To do this, they hired a dedicated Head of Partnerships to systematize this growth channel. He brought in experience from managing partnerships at a $12B startup and really opened the eyes of the team on how systemitised partnerships can be.

Their partnership approach is extremely methodical for a startup of their size:

• Quarterly planning of partnership activities

• Regular newsletters specifically for partners

• Consistent follow-ups and relationship maintenance

• Affiliate programs and formal agreements

As Alyona explained: "It's very structural. We plan the number of activities that we'll do during the quarter. We plan to create content together, or webinars, or products, or events."

She also shared an important insight about the nature of partnerships:

Much like the product itself, their partnerships program is a beautiful blend between tech (the science) and people (the human touch).

This systematic approach has landed them major partnerships that have created credibility and distribution channels that would typically be out of reach for a company of their size.

Turning crisis into opportunity

One of the most inspiring and aspirational aspects of Fuelfinance’s partnership strategy is how they've managed challenging moments to build meaningful relationships.

Alyona shared a compelling story about how one of their biggest partnerships emerged from when Mercury shut down accounts for Ukrainian founders after the Russian invasion:

What happened next demonstrates the power of authentic relationship building between two companies:

"A salesperson at Brex commented on this post that they are ready to take all Ukrainian founders.

They got more than 500 applications from this post. They were working nonstop for several weeks. It was a huge help for all Ukrainian founders."

This genuine moment of connection and care eventually evolved into a formal partnership:

A testimony to authentic connection around shared values, creating stronger partnerships than typical business development efforts.

🧪 Testing & Experimentation Mindset

Behind Fuel's impressive growth is a relentless commitment to experimentation and data-driven decision making.

Rather than betting everything on a single channel or approach, they've systematically tested their way to success. Committing to at least one new experiment per week.

Why this worked:

Practical insights from the tactic.

Hundreds of micro-experiments

When I asked Alyona about any "aha moment" or sudden inflection point in their growth, her answer was refreshingly honest:

So often I hear new founders looking for a silver bullet. But most of the time it’s just lead bullet after lead bullet that bit-by-bit, compound to make a difference, or until you’re lucky enough that one of the thousand lead bullets you try to shoot, ends up, unintentionally, being the silver one.

Having an experimentation mindset is crucial for finding sustainable growth channels. You need to figure out what works for your business. And the only way to do that is to continuously test.

Coming back to Fuelfinance, these weren't random experiments - they were structured to answer specific questions about growth channels, messaging, and product features.

Using churn analysis to refine their ICP

One of the most important levers to success for any startup is figuring out who the right person to sell to is. You could have the best ice in the world, an Eskimo still wouldn’t buy it.

I can’t stress enough how important finding the right ICP for your business is.

It can be make-or-break.

One of the most powerful insights to come out of Fuelfinance’s experimentation was just this. They figured out who was churning and why.

It led to a pivotal shift in their target customer:

A common problem I see with new companies serving other startups - startups go out of business.

It’s out of your control. But it very much is a risk to your business.

So, rather than continuing to chase early-stage startups, Alyona and the team used this data to refine their ICP:

Now their focus is on two specific customer segments:

1. Agencies (legal, marketing, sales) with several million in annual revenue

2. SaaS companies that are Series A or later with ~$4M+ in revenue

This data-driven approach to ICP refinement allowed them to find customers with higher retention rates and larger contract values - transforming their unit economics, and ultimately their growth trajectory.

Systematic scaling of what works

The final piece of the Fuelfinance experimentation puzzle is their methodical process for scaling channels once they've proven effective.

Their validation approach is simple but effective:

"We were testing - okay, if we invest two times more next month in this channel, will it bring us more new revenue? And we saw - yes, it brought us new revenue. So that's why we understood this is something that works. We want to invest more and more in that."

By creating clear metrics for channel scalability, tracking the data, and systematically investing more resources in what works, they can consistently create repeatable growth engines, while maximising their current ones.

As Alyona puts it: "When we get another fundraising round, I know how we will invest this money to already have return on investment."

As I said in the intro. Alyona left me with the conviction that Fuelfinance’s journey is nowhere close to over.

For The Zero to One, it's been your host, Sheldon.

Stay awesome and speak soon!

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