I recently had Touradj Barman on my podcast to discuss his entrepreneurial journey and founding Up’n Go, a contactless payment solution for restaurants.

Here are some of the key lessons I took away from our conversation:

* Start with solving a specific, narrow problem - Up & Go began by simply focusing on easing check splitting

* Get a customer before building the product - Partnered with a restaurant first to customize the product to their needs

* Constraints force focus - Bootstrapping kept costs low so they could focus on the essentials rather than getting distracted

* Turn challenges into opportunities - Pandemic accelerated contactless payment adoption, driving huge transaction growth

* Persistence pays off - Depth of experience matters in competitive space; Up & Go now leads competitors in volume

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