Eduardo Borges

digital entrepreneur since 1997 ≫ building a fintech in public ≫ co-founder @dolafycom

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

7 months building a bootstrapped fintech

1) the hidden treasury

so far, we’ve been playing a game in which the end goal is to find that secret location

most of the assumptions we had about “where the money is” werent exactly right

Dolafy’s been profitable since our very first month live, mainly because we had a great network of digital entrepreneurs

but since then, we’ve been onboarding all kind of niches to actually understand who’s holding the map for the treasury

unfortunately, no podcasts, courses or friends could pin point where that location is

so we have to find it on our own

2) offboarding bad clients

during this exploration period, it was clear to us that some clients didnt really need our services

some were just shopping better fees with no real need for a long term relationship

others were trying to see if their fake ids would pass our detection system to run their schemes

plus the ones who promised millions and after a lot of support work ended up moving pennies

all those scenarios were really important to open our eyes about what works vs not

and now that we hit 300 clients onboarded, we have a much better sense of who they might be

3) not important/export

our biggest bet was on companies in need of paying suppliers all over the world - or getting paid in multiple currencies

i mean, there’s obviously a lot of money in the import and export world, and we wanted a small piece of it

but what we didnt realize is how troublesome these industries are, especially when trying to do banking for them

it’s a really hard client to move money for, with fierce competition and high compliance risks

if we had a proper banking license, which isnt the case, things would be much easier

but the current way this industry operates (SWIFT payments, mainly), it’s really hard for us to have a real impact

to do something that we would actually be proud of

so we stopped going after them and designing our product for these companies for now

4) digital marketers

that change gave us more space to decide the most scalable niche for Dolafy

(which could potentially guide us towards finding the hidden treasury faster)

so we decided to start focusing exactly on the niche our top 10 customers are: digital marketing

we have large accounts spending millions on ads every month with our cards

and then getting paid by platforms like google, shopify, etc

these marketers are great customers for us, not only because we speak the same digital language

but because we can actually improve a lot their experience, with our modern technology

we have the exact painkillers they need, and our competitors are doing a very bad job

so we decided to double down on media buyers, marketing agencies, marketplace owners, platform sellers etc…

i mean, i’m a digital entrepreneur myself, started making money online in 1997 (!!), so i know a thing or two about this world

maybe the treasury was right in front of our faces all this time?

5) partnerships

most players in the fintech space heard about us (“these 2 clowns and a bunch of robots built all this? no way!”)

and thanks to that, we now have an amazing list of partners to support us

companies that I personally admired for years, now their CEO is in my inbox helping us

Dolafy is formally connected to the main blockchains, yield projects, payments providers, digital banks, cards issuers, etc

and now that these important people are listening to us, we are actually able to do the changes our industry always needed

(we are launching soon the best onboarding experience that ever existed in the neobank space, thanks to that relationship with our partners)

very very excited for this one more month of @dolafycom live and all the changes it’ll bring to us

PS: if we find the treasury, there will be signs - stay tuned!

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

six months live. and Dolafy is skyrocketing.

1) over 200 clients live. onboarding 5 new businesses per day (from ~10 daily leads).

we haven't really nailed any distribution channel, and counterintuitively, signups keep happening non-stop

it really feels like a snowball effect. we started onboarding a few friends' businesses, they recommended others, and so on...

onboarding is still the slowest part of the process, but we are fighting really hard to make it as smooth as possible

how? with our AI agents and a whole new level of never-seen-before automation

2) Mark

when a customer onboards Dolafy, we now have 2 fantastic AI agents doing a really cool job for them

first Mark, our compliance agent, he starts screening clients as soon as they submit their docs

Mark reads everything and tries to understand whatever the customer uploaded/typed

(it takes around 15 minutes to check a business, from identifying if it really exists, if numbers make sense, to searching for adverse media related to the business and its owners - it's AMAZING to watch)

if not satisfied, Mark will request more docs/answers right away for the customers

when new docs are uploaded, it goes straight back to Mark, which will analyze them again

(Mark is ready to deal with hundreds of customers at the same time)

this is a really simplified explanation of his job, but there's a really complex compliance setup happening in the background, fully AI-driven and in-house built by myself

if any red flags are found, Mark opens a case for a human to analyze (hello!)

or if all good, with our approval, he sends the case to Helly, our onboard agent, and she'll take it from there

3) Helly

she decides what's the best bank for our client, depending on numerous factors like niche, incorporation country (and state, if in the US), etc

Crossriver Bank? JP Morgan? HSBC? Citi? Erebor? Banking Circle? Helly knows what's best for each client, and will open a virtual bank account there

partner bank asked for more docs? no problem, Helly will contact the customer right away and ask

after approved, she'll inform the client so they can finally start moving money crossborder

but the automation doesn't stop there. client needs to send/receive money from a different country?

they just click one button at our dashboard and Helly will get them a virtual account in that specific currency (EUR, AED, GBP, BRL, etc)

4) other robots

- Harmony: managing our marketing, editing landing pages, ads campaigns, email funnels, all through Slack

- Burd: news guy, he keeps us informed about everything that happens to any partners we use (for security, new products, etc)

- Casey: tracks our to-dos, if we miss any important task, she'll follow up with us next morning to make sure we don't miss it

- Dylan: our finance agent, not yet implemented, but he'll be in charge of invoices, expenses, revenue, etc

- Natalie: she's able to read and answer emails, interact on the live chat, and other support stuff

(she's not active yet, as we still like to talk directly to our customers at this stage)

5) ... and 2 humans

myself and my partner are the only not-so-AI managing Dolafy, a bootstrapped neobank

even though we are profitable and could hire someone, there's really no need right now

all tasks are being handled really really well by our team of agents, and whenever we see a task being repeated too often, we just automate it

2 persons will always be there, managing the 7 agents we have in place, and doing whatever tasks are still not replaceable by robots

(after all, fintech is a strictly regulated industry, and we still need to follow a bunch of AML rules)

but in my opinion, this is a huge shift on how businesses can be managed in 2026 - the true potential of AI at work

pretty cool right?

so yeah... stay tuned for more news about the first AI-first fintech ever built on planet earth!

PS: we now have a really cool office in Floripa! let us know if you are around and need an international bank you can trust for your business

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

@davycardinaal are you also facing issues with trackpad? on M2, it doesnt do short movements, makes it really hard to do text selection with mouse

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

found a short-movie theater at Doha’s airport with free popcorn while waiting for my flight to Dubai

this was a great experience i must say

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

what do we do TODAY that people in 2075 will find just as INSANE?

[Grok @grok]

1. Factory-farming tens of billions of animals in extreme confinement for food.
2. Flooding oceans and human bodies with microplastics from single-use everything.
3. Handing kids phones engineered for addiction and attention extraction.
4. Manually driving cars that kill 1.2 million people every year.
5. Dumping CO2 into the atmosphere while fully aware of the damage.
6. Treating cancer by poisoning the whole body and hoping the tumor dies first.
7. Making surveillance and data sales the default business model of the internet.
8. Using dry toilet paper instead of water.
9. Raising children primarily on screens as digital pacifiers.
10. Working 40+ sedentary hours a week that systematically wreck body and mind.

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

@Scaredembone @grok is that correct? or batteries would make my starlink work even if the country is off?

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

soon, your ISP and mobile operator will be hacked

choose where you live wisely and find a way to communicate with your family when time comes

be ready to stay offline for weeks, also without electricity when the power plants get hacked too

get your starlink ready on the standby plan, activate more than one mobile eSIM on your phone

learn how to produce (and stock) solar energy, make sure you know where to find drinkable water

you have a few weeks left to prepare

if you belong to my community, i'll happily help you with whatever you need

stay safe out there

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

@lohaworld bitchat does that

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

@joaopkury yes 100%, just a matter of time

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

@CasinelliG i do it in-house; but the banks dont - and i rely on them

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

every banking partner we have is now using the same provider for onboarding: sumsub

the problem is this compliance company keeps adding a lot of rules that is ruining the experience our clients

i'll give you some examples:

1) "Please upload a proof of address"
- sure, here's the photo of a light bill I have that I just got on my physical mail
- no sir, you can't use that photo, we need the original PDF file
- god dammit, ok, let me open the PDF and remove the password and create one so you can open
- sorry sir, we can't accept an edited PDF

2) "Please upload your ID/Passport"
- sure, here's a scan of my drive license
- no sir, you can't upload scans nor PDF's, we need a real photo of your ID
- god dammit, ok, here's the photo i had saved on my whatsapp
- no sir, we can't accept that photo, it doesnt contain the original metadata from your iphone camera

yes, i understand, we don't want to approve crooks using fake ids etc

but since when we decided to impact 99% of our legit customers because of the 1%?

we got to a point that, if sumsub rejects a fully legit ID, for whatever reason, fintechs will simply accept that as the truth, and reject the client

we have to fix the way we verify someone's authenticity online. this system is broken.

someone must end this shit show asap

(and i haven't even touched the privacy topic of sumsub knowing who everyone is, because that would open a whole can of worms that i'm not ready to fight against)

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

@callmeronak @didit im not the one in control of the monopoly

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

now that’s a vibe

[Bojan Tunguz @tunguz]

Analog techno is the thing.

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

@mageeclegg a lot less…

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

@shanzson whats your take?

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

@sseraphini i could tell you but i’d have to kill you

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

@awerner hahaha it is indeed

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

@johnbabodor it’s not up to me

sumsub has monopoly on every single fintech

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

@severaldegrees i agree, their tech is fully beatable, but good luck dealing with their monopoly

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

@gringokiwi @ThiagoMot_ … while real criminals obviously know how to circumvent all those rules anyway

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

@fintechlawyerkc problem is requesting a new doc for the id when the first one was good enough, slowing down onboarding time and ruining user experience

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

@kamilhussen24 @ether_fi dolafy cards are the best in market for ads

[Eduardo Borges @duborges]

@Sonecarox @Wise vem pra Dolafy, temos varios studios de games conosco - e jamais travaremos seu saldo