A Founder's Case Against Shrinking Big Startup Visions to MVPs
Daniel Kjellén, co-founder of Freda and former Tink CEO, argues that some startup challenges, such as compliance, cannot be solved with a minimum viable product. He says repeat founders can combine capital, credibility, and AI's faster development to pursue larger ambitions from the outset. The column draws on his experience scaling Tink across Europe before its sale to Visa.
Daniel Kjellén, now CEO and co-founder of Freda, previously led Tink, which Visa acquired in 2022 for €1.8 billion. With co-founder Fredrik Hedberg, he had personal capital and startup experience, allowing a broader initial build rather than a narrow MVP. At Tink, he managed 700 employees across European regulatory regimes, where compliance work was split among legal, product, policy, and other teams, often causing delays.
He argues that such fragmented compliance cannot be fixed one piece at a time. Recent language models let a 22-person team ship broadly and quickly, reducing the headcount and time once needed for ambitious builds. Repeat founders may combine credibility, funding, and AI speed to pursue larger goals from day one.
This argument could influence how founders, investors, and regulators view early-stage building in regulated sectors. Experienced founders with capital may pursue broader products sooner, potentially accelerating compliance and fintech tools that affect businesses and consumers. Yet if repeat founders gain easier access to talent, funding, and AI tools, first-time founders may face a widening advantage gap. The broader effect may be a venture culture that sometimes values complete, compliant systems over narrow experiments, though the approach could also increase early execution risk.