599: They Rejected Her Idea, She Turned it into a BILLION Dollar Business | Suneera Madhani (Best of Foundr)

The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan

Nathan Chan

Marketing, Business, Entrepreneurship

4.8 • 662 Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Suneera Madhani built Stax from an idea her employer rejected into a $1B fintech unicorn processing over $25B in payments. In this interview, the Stax co-founder shares how she went from selling credit card terminals out of her car to pioneering the first subscription-based payment processor, raising over $500M in capital, and scaling a company now generating $120M+ in revenue. From turning down a $17.5M acquisition offer to building an omnichannel platform before “fintech” was even a word, Suneera breaks down the strategies, resilience, and leadership lessons that took her from a scrappy founder to one of the most successful female entrepreneurs in tech. What you’ll learn from this interview: • How Suneera turned a rejected idea into a billion-dollar company • The scrappy marketing tactics that got her first 250 customers • Why she turned down a $17.5M acquisition offer early on • The lessons from raising over $500M in funding and navigating investors • How to build an MVP using white-label solutions and customer feedback • The importance of execution and focus over “big ideas” • Why resilience, intuition, and community are critical for long-term success • The rebrand from FatMerchant to Stax and what it taught her about scaling By the end of this interview, you’ll walk away with proven insights for scaling a fintech or SaaS company from zero to unicorn status—so you can apply the same strategies to grow your own business with focus and resilience. SAVE 50% ON OMNISEND FOR 3 MONTHS Get 50% off your first 3 months of email and SMS marketing with Omnisend with the code FOUNDR50. Just head to https://your.omnisend.com/foundrhttps://your.omnisend.com/foundr to get started. HOW WE CAN HELP YOU SCALE YOUR BUSINESS FASTER Learn directly from 7, 8 & 9-figure founders inside Foundr+ Start your $1 trial → https://www.foundr.com/startdollartrial PREFER A CUSTOM ROADMAP AND 1-ON-1 COACHING? → Starting from scratch? Apply here → https://foundr.com/pages/coaching-start-application → Already have a store? Apply here → https://foundr.com/pages/coaching-growth-application CONNECT WITH NATHAN CHAN Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/nathanchan LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanhchan/ CONNECT WITH SUNEERA MADHANI Website → https://staxpayments.com/ Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/suneeramadhani/ LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/suneeramadhani/ FOLLOW FOUNDR FOR MORE BUSINESS GROWTH STRATEGIES YouTube → https://bit.ly/2uyvzdt Website → https://www.foundr.com Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/foundr/ Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/foundr Twitter → https://www.twitter.com/foundr LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/foundr/ Podcast → https://www.foundr.com/podcast

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey Founder Fam, I want to talk to you about something super exciting. We're officially partnered with Omniscend, the email marketing and SMS platform built specifically for e-commerce founders. We've been recommending OmnisCent to Founder students for a while now because it just works. Whether you're launching your first store or you're scaling the seven figures, it really helps you automate your marketing and get real results.
0:24.0	Did you know on average, Omnysend customers make $68 for every $1 they spend, which is an insanely good return on investment.
0:32.6	And because you're part of the founder community, you get 50% off your first three months with the code Founder 50.
0:39.3	Just head to Omnysend.com forward slash founder without the E to get started. All right, now
0:46.2	let's jump back into the show. Imagine taking your business idea to your employer and then being
0:52.3	laughed out of the room and then turning it
0:54.6	into a billion dollar fintech. That's exactly what today's guest did. I'm joined by Senira
1:00.1	Medani, co-founder of Stax, the first subscription-based credit card processor that's now processed
1:06.1	tens of billions in payments. She's also a three-time founder, Fortune 40 under 40 honoree,
1:12.5	and the voice behind CEO school, where she's built a community of over 300,000 women in business.
1:17.5	And in this conversation, you're going to learn how she went from pitching payments out of the
1:21.8	trunk of her Volkswagen to raising over $500 million in capital, the scrappy tactics that got her first $5 million in
1:30.2	transactions and her first customers within six months, and why saying no to a $17 million
1:35.8	buyer was the best decision that changed everything.
1:39.5	Hear the stories. Learn the proven methods and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship
1:47.2	welcome to the founder podcast with nathan chan all right so the first question that i ask uh
1:56.8	everyone that comes on is how did you get your job, aka how did you find yourself doing the work you're
2:02.5	doing today? I guess the way that I found my job, when you say find your job, I don't think any
2:08.1	CEO says they found their job. I was in the payment card industry. So my background was in
2:15.3	credit card processing.
2:18.5	I was in the industry.
2:19.6	I saw a problem.
	...

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