🤑 Zogo: 8 figure exit @ 22

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Read time: 4 min 52 seconds

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Psst... come closer. The story I'm about to tell you isn't on any startup podcast or newsletter yet. 

So grab your coffee, close your "How to Pitch VCs" tab, and let me tell you how Bolun Li built Zogo, a startup that got banks to pay teenagers to learn about money.

First, a little teaser about Bolun:

• Found his founding engineer on Tinder (yes, really)

• Made $100K+ from 10+ large financial institutions without a product

• Traded 8% of his company for 3000 hours of free development work

• Acquired 150+ large financial institutions without raising a penny

• Sold his company for 8 figures at age 22 after ONE meeting

Let's dive into the messy, unfiltered truth behind one of fintech's most interesting exits.

From Babson Summer Camp to Pitch Competitions

Bolun first arrived in the US from China at the age 13, barely speaking English. 

His entrepreneurial journey began at a Babson College summer camp in Boston. At the camp, high schoolers put together business plans, made presentations, and competed for prizes. For Bolun, it was his first taste of entrepreneurship—and he was hooked.

Later at Duke University, Bolun discovered the power of pitch competitions. He quickly realized these competitions had prize money, and that seemed like a good way to make some cash as a college student.

And make money he did. Bolun started winning. $10K here, $20K there. 

Suddenly, Bolun had $60K in the bank.

Here's where it gets wild. 

The idea Bolun had been pitching since high school – an allowance management app where parents could set tasks for kids to earn money (white labelled for local banks) – was never actually built. It was just a pitch deck, nothing more.

With $60K in the bank, Bolun knew he needed to actually build something BUT he didn’t know how to code. 

Through hustle and networking, he met someone from a dev shop founded by a Duke alum who offered 3000 development hours for 8% of the company 🤯.

He took the deal right away.

The Mentor Who Wouldn't Stop Texting

After 3000 hours. The iOS app was built.

However, even though banks showed strong interest when he first pitched them this allowance management idea, they didn’t want to buy when he actually demoed the product to them. 

Well…except a kind-hearted NGO that paid $1K for a pilot.

While Bolun was struggling to get customers, something unexpected happened. A successful entrepreneur named Scott Ogle approached him after a class at Duke.

Scott had just sold his company for 9 figures – a business that sold software to banks. He had thousands of bank customers and approached Bolun because he loved the idea of improving financial education for his three kids.

Scott wanted to invest, but not through a traditional SAFE note. Instead, he wanted to buy the founder's shares directly.

The deal? $100K wired directly to Bolun's personal bank account for 5% of the company.

But the cash came with something he didn't expect: RELENTLESS ACCOUNTABILITY. 

After wiring the money, Scott began texting Bolun every single day with the same message: 

"10 banks by the end of the year." 

Day after day, the texts would come: "Where are the 10 banks? Where are the 10 banks?"

At first, Bolun was annoyed. He thought it was impossible to sign that many banks in such a short timeframe. 

But those daily texts helped Bolun focus on that single goal. Bolun couldn't disappoint someone who had just given him what felt like a gazillion dollars. He had to get those 10 banks.

This relentless pressure forced Bolun to rethink his entire approach. By focusing on the goal of signing 10 banks by the end of the year, he began to question whether he was building the right product for achieving that goal. 

The Pivot That Changed Everything

The breakthrough came at an airport. 

Scrolling through the App Store while waiting for his flight home, Bolun discovered Swagbucks, an app that pays users to complete surveys.

While banks didn’t want to pay for his teen allowance app, Bolun frequently heard them complain about their own financial literacy programs. Regulators evaluate banks’ outreach under the Community Reinvestment Act(CRA), so banks have a clear incentive to invest in financial literacy education.

That night, Bolun quickly put together a Figma prototype of a Duolingo-like platform that rewards people with "pineapples" for completing financial literacy lessons.

The results were immediate.

Within three months, Bolun signed pilot contracts with 12 banks and made $100K+, before building anything. He accomplished Scott’s challenge by November that year (2019).

With contracts in hand, Bolun needed to build…fast. He found one co-founder in a Duke computer science class. The other came from an unexpected place: Tinder.

“On the date, he mentioned he was a software engineer,” Bolun chuckled. “I jumped in with, ‘Oh my god, you’re a software engineer! Let’s skip dating. I have a startup I need help building.’”

The Perfect Business Model: 100% Bank-Funded User Acquisition

The brilliance of Zogo’s business lies in its ability to solve problems for both banks and customers while bearing no customer acquisition cost. 

For banks, Zogo offered two critical benefits, besides helping them meet the CRA requirements:

1. Valuable data: The platform provided actionable user data for the banks. For example, they could get intent data like home purchase timeline, information that was extremely valuable to financial institutions.

2. Young customer acquisition: Most banks Zogo worked with had an average customer age of around 50-54 years old. They desperately needed to attract younger people.

For those young customers, not only was Zogo a great way to get free financial education, but it was also great for earning real monetary rewards (e.g. giftcards, etc)

Here's where the model gets genius:

Banks paid for EVERYTHING – including:

• The gift cards users earned for completing modules

• The referral rewards when users invited friends

• Marketing Zogo to their customers

From 12 to 80 Banks: The COVID Pivot and Big Break

By the end of 2019, Zogo had 12 bank customers and Bolun thought he was on top of the world.

Then COVID hit…A lot of banks suddenly reduced their budgets.

He had just signed a WeWork lease and expanded the team.

However, just when things looked bleak, a VP of marketing from a credit union reached out on LinkedIn asking for help setting up a financial education program… with a $200K budget.

This contract was a lifeline. 

Most importantly, it also gave Bolun the confidence to spend money on growth and marketing.

Financial industry webinars usually cost around $12,000 each, a terrifying amount for a cash strapped founder. But with the new contract, Bolun took the risk. The team also started investing aggressively in content marketing in financial publications (at $7,500 per article…oof) and PR.

Despite the high price tag on webinars and industry articles, these investments helped Zogo build a name for itself in this heavily guarded, trust driven industry. A lot more banks started reaching out to Zogo after those marketing activities.

By the end of 2020, Zogo had grown from 12 to 80 bank customers.

With 80 financial institutions on board, Zogo started attracting attention from the giants.

American Express and Chase both reached out, ready to roll out the app right away. With interest coming from the top leadership, deals were closed shortly after.

The Secret Weapon Behind Zogo's Growth* 

*sponsored by Notion for Startups

Oh, you thought Bolun's story couldn't get any more interesting? Hold my pineapples…

While interviewing Bolun, I noticed something on his screen that caught my eye. Between sips of boba tea, he casually flipped through the most organized workspace I've ever seen from a startup founder.

"Is that... Notion?" I asked.

"Oh this?" he laughed. "Yeah, this is how we kept our sanity while juggling so many banks without hiring an army of project managers."

Turns out, Zogo used Notion in two key ways that made all the difference:

First, as a better Google Doc for pre-meeting ideation. Before any important meeting, team members would draft detailed Notion docs with their thoughts and insights – Jeff Bezos memo style. 

Everyone could contribute ideas and link to relevant documents, giving the team time to process concepts deeply rather than reacting to PowerPoint slides in real-time.

"Our best ideas came from these pre-meeting docs," Bolun told me. "Someone would drop a random thought at 2 AM, and by the morning, three other people had built on it. By the time we actually met, we'd already solved half the problems."

Second, as their centralized operations hub for the entire business. With banks signing up left and right, they needed one source of truth that everyone could access.

"Before Notion, we had spreadsheets everywhere. Google Drive folders inside folders inside folders. It was a nightmare," Bolun said. "Once we centralized in Notion, our onboarding time for new banks dropped from weeks to days."

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The 8-Hour Meeting That Led to an 8-Figure Exit

By 2021, Zogo had grown to about 150 financial institutions and a team of 35 people, without raising a penny of venture capital.

Though they only had about $2M in revenue that year, they had a decent amount of cash because financial institution customers all prepaid for 3-year contracts. 

Then came a LinkedIn message from Peak6, a trading firm that also owns the likes of Apex Clearing (backend provider for apps like SoFi and Robinhood). 

After the GameStop trading frenzy, the SEC mandated that investing apps include financial education. Suddenly, Zogo was the perfect acquisition target.

The billionaire husband-and-wife owners of Peak6 flew Bolun to Chicago for a meeting. What was supposed to be a standard investor meeting turned into an eight-hour marathon from 3PM to 11PM.

The result? An all-cash mid 8 figure offer to acquire Zogo.

Bolun took it right away. 

Today, Zogo continues to grow, with over 300-400 financial institutions as customers. 

As for Bolun, he stayed on for two more years. In 2024, he left the Zogo to travel the world with his parents while exploring some new ideas.

The Playbook: 5 Lessons From Zogo's Journey

1. You don't need to build to validate: Bolun made $100K+ from big banks with just a Figma prototype.

2. Find an accountability buddy who won't let you slack: Scott's daily texts created the focus that led to Zogo's pivot and success.

3. The perfect business model has zero CAC: When your customers (banks) pay to acquire your users, you've struck gold.

4. Invest in marketing when it makes sense: Spending $12K on a webinar seemed crazy until it brought in multiple $50K deals for Zogo.

5. Know when to exit: Bolun sold at the peak of the market in 2021, walking away with 8-figure at age 22.

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See you next Tuesday,

Leo

p.s. grab this free Notion for Startups perk if you haven’t done so already.

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