From $0 to $500K: Leading a Cross-Functional Team Through a Life-or-Death Pivot
Eversify (Now Azura) | Chief of Staff & Founding Product Manager
The Situation
Eight months in, our NFT trading platform was dying. The market had collapsed, the company was making acquisitions for dying products, and was burning $60K/month. We had one shot at a pivot.
Finding the Opportunity
I ran 100+ interviews with our existing users and discovered something interesting: they'd all moved to trading memecoins via Telegram bots ($500M+ daily volume), but the experience was broken. They'd execute on Telegram, then switch to separate apps for charts and position tracking. The friction was killing them.
The bigger issue: Telegram bot wallets operated in regulatory gray areas. No US-based company could safely build in that space.
The Bet
Build the first non-custodial cloud trading terminal — Telegram bot speed without the compliance risk. Target users who were already trading but frustrated with the tools.
Execution Shortcuts
Instead of rebuilding from scratch:
Repurposed our NFT infrastructure for token trading
Partnered with Turnkey for compliant wallet infrastructure
Partnered with Defined.fi for onchain data
Built 6 core features for MVP: market and limit trading, live charts, live P&L, wallet gen & import, token holder insights, sniping and copytrade automations.
Shipped in 90 days.
What We Learned
Users initially imported their Telegram wallets to monitor positions and sell, since they were constantly on the app monitoring their positions, when new tokens launched, they naturally started to also buy. 95% of volume came from manual trading, not automation. Doubled down on data & execution speed and added more chains instead of building complex bots.
Outcome
$500K revenue in month one
Created new crypto product category (non-custodial trading terminals)
Validated our thesis, users wanted a seamless traditional financial interface to trade onchain.
Key Insight
The best pivots leverage existing assets in new directions. Our infrastructure and user relationships became more valuable in DeFi than they ever were in NFTs.