<aside> 💡 Every startup's journey to product-market fit is unique, shaped by its industry, timing, and market dynamics. At Xendit, where I was an early hire, we discovered some fundamental principles that I believe can apply universally, even though our specific path in Indonesia's B2B fintech landscape was our own.

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About Xendit

Throw Many Darts

In our early days at Xendit, we deliberately ran parallel experiments rather than betting on a single direction. We simultaneously explored:

• A B2B payment gateway API focusing on enterprise payment infrastructure
• Kliksell, a B2B2C platform for Instagram sellers to manage invoices and inventory

This "multiple darts" approach proved invaluable. Instead of agonizing over which direction to take, we let market response guide us. Within 1-3 months, patterns emerged showing stronger traction in our B2B API offering, particularly in disbursement API.

The Magic of a Single, Simple Metrics

One of our most powerful decisions was keeping our success metric dead simple: 30% month-over-month growth in Total Payment Volume (TPV). This clarity had several benefits:

• Everyone in the team, from engineers to business development, understood exactly what success looked like
• It eliminated competing priorities and kept the entire team focused
• We could quickly assess if our experiments were working
• Decisions became more objective and less emotional

This simplicity was particularly powerful because it prevented the common startup trap of getting distracted by unmeasurable metrics or conflicting goals.

The B2B Secret: Your First Clients Are Your Best Teachers

In most of my startup mentoring sessions, first time founders wrestle with the same question: "How do we know what to build?" The answer, I've learned from my time at Xendit, is deceptively simple but demands courage and dedication.