How We Got Fred Wilson, Benchmark and Index to Invest $94M | Why Robinhood's Strategy is Wrong

Give early employees founder-level equity stakes

FOMO gave 5-7 non-founder senior engineers 2-3% equity each—percentages typically reserved for founders—creating an 'extended founder team' that worked unpaid for 8 months and feels true ownership.

Use angel rounds to solve distribution, not just funding

The company raised exclusively from 140 angel investors to solve the cold start problem, turning early investors into motivated users and advocates rather than relying on institutional capital for initial growth.

Raise institutional capital to hedge downside risk

After bootstrapping to product-market fit, FOMO accepted Benchmark's investment primarily to protect against crypto market volatility wiping out the business, not for initial growth capital.

Reject the 'financial super app' theory

Erlang argues Robinhood and Revolut's bundled approach lacks intentionality; FOMO uses the social graph as glue to let users express investment theses across onchain assets, equities, and perpetuals.

Ship imperfect products to passionate niches

Rather than diluting the product for mass appeal, FOMO launched to specific user bases, iterating rapidly via Telegram channels with top traders who provided free feedback because they loved the product.

Build global-first on onchain infrastructure

By building onchain from day one, FOMO avoids the geographic constraints that forced Robinhood to horizontally scale products domestically instead of expanding internationally.

Maintain momentum at all costs

Erlang emphasizes that everything is about momentum—when you have it, you must double down 10x harder rather than easing up, because once the 'boulder starts rolling down the hill,' it's difficult to stop.

Eliminate traditional corporate hierarchy

The company operates with 17 team members, no internal hierarchy, and no one-on-one meetings, relying on shared ownership and seniority to drive accountability without bureaucratic oversight.

Practice epistemic modesty with user feedback

While iterating based on user input, founders must maintain intuition about core product vision and reject feedback that doesn't fit the larger strategy, even when users request it.

Embrace the 'casinoization' of markets

Erlang rejects the critique that retail trading is purely gambling, arguing that coordinated retail investors (like Wall Street Bets) democratize price discovery and challenge institutional hedge fund dominance.

Expand retail access to pre-IPO assets

Perpetuals and prediction markets give retail investors synthetic exposure to private companies like SpaceX before IPO, with prices converging to public market values and blurring traditional market boundaries.