How The Founder Of Kudos Used Big Tech As His Startup MBA
Before raising 0M for his fintech startup Kudos, Tikue Anazodo spent years inside Google, Microsoft, and Affirm. This wasn't a detour; it was a deliberate strategy to get a 'Big Tech MBA' and learn to build at scale.
TL;DR: Tikue Anazodo, founder of Kudos, didn't just stumble into building a complex fintech company. He strategically used his early career at tech giants like Google and Affirm as a training ground to master scale, regulation, and product discipline. This 'Big Tech MBA' allowed him to identify a key opportunity—that most wallets serve merchants, not consumers—and launch Kudos with a focused 'wedge' strategy to build a truly consumer-first financial product.
Key takeaways
- Use your early career as a deliberate training ground for your future startup.
- Master regulation and compliance before they can kill your business.
- Identify a simple "wedge" product to enter a complex market before building your full vision.
- Build for the end-user, not just the merchant who pays the bills.
- Create pre-launch checklists to de-risk your product and "earn the right to ship".
- Don't just build features; build deep operational expertise in your chosen industry.
Your Early Career Is Your Real Seed Round
For most founders, the path to a company is a leap. For Tikue Anazodo, founder of Kudos, it was a calculated ladder. Before raising over 0 million to build a smarter wallet, he spent years training inside the best tech companies in the world: Microsoft, Google, and Affirm.
This wasn't a detour. It was the point. For immigrants like Tikue, a job at a large company is a practical necessity for visa sponsorship. But he turned that necessity into a strategic advantage—a self-designed “Big Tech MBA” to de-risk his future startup by learning how category-defining companies actually run.
Tikue’s story provides a powerful framework for thinking about your own career. Don’t just clock in. Use your job to acquire the skills, operational knowledge, and mental models you’ll need when you’re the one in charge.
The “Big Tech MBA”: Using Your 9-to-5 to Train for Your 5-to-9
Tikue’s journey started in Lagos, Nigeria, where entrepreneurship wasn’t a career choice; it was the default reality. This ingrained a problem-solving mindset, but he knew an idea wasn't enough. He needed to learn how to build and scale.
He arrived at Columbia University to study computer science having never written a line of code. He was years behind his peers and had to rapidly catch up, fueling an obsession with building and learning. He deliberately chose jobs to fill his knowledge gaps.
- At Microsoft, he learned to deploy consumer software used by tens of millions, understanding the basic mechanics of shipping product at scale.
- At Google, while launching Google Pay’s online product, he learned what true scale requires. It’s not just about code; it’s about navigating legal scrutiny, mitigating risk, and building the institutional discipline to serve billions of users. As he put it, “You don’t just ship at Google. You earn the right to ship.”
- At Affirm, he added the final, critical layer for a fintech founder: deep regulatory expertise. He saw firsthand how compliance, lending laws, and consumer protection weren't theoretical hurdles but operational constraints that shaped every single product decision.
The Common Mistake: The Premature Leap
Many founders jump into their startup with raw talent and a good idea, but zero operational experience. They have to learn everything on the fly, from managing burn to navigating legal complexities. This is “winging it.”
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