Victor Cardenas – Slash
Victor Cardenas grew up in Venezuela and spent a lot of time with his grandfather who built one of the largest ATM importers in Latin America. This shaped him growing up to be business oriented and he took this with him as he immigrated to the United States at 18. He met Kevin Bai while Kevin was studying at the University of Waterloo and Victor studied at Stanford. They came up with the idea for Slash, originally named TabTab. Slash is a fintech company that offers business banking, corporate cards, and global payments; an all-in-one banking platform for businesses. After launching, they went from $0 to $5 million in annual revenue within 11 months. Victor decided to drop out of Stanford after his second year of enrollment, only a year after he started Slash. This abrupt change was a big leap and a large bet he placed on himself to succeed in this business. They started in a niche market, sneaker resellers, which they believe led to their success, believing in “consumers writing the product roadmap”, which Cardenas stated at LATAM in Silicon Valley in 2026. With their business now having $300 million in annual revenue and a $1.4 billion valuation, Victor seems to have made the right bet. Cardenas is a great example of how someone takes a bet on themselves and goes against the societal norm of going to college for 4 years and then working for someone else. I will take this as an example of how someone goes out and acts at the first sign of proof instead of waiting for the perfect time to start.
4 Comments
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Good post, I like the inclusion of going from 0 to 5 million. It really sells the idea of this young kid going from nothing to the top of the world, due to his innovative spirit.
11 months is pretty abnormal as far as how much time it take for a business idea to gain traction and yield high amounts of annual revenue. I love that Cardenas did not hesitate to launch the idea he saw as solving a problem. He could have waited to get the college degree before launching his business but did not and I really respect that.
Nice post, crazy how much a business can grow if you appeal to the right crowd at the right time!
I liked how you emphasized that he started in a niche market. That’s so cool and important and i believe really contributed to his overall success in the industry. I also like how he didnt wait for the right time to start because i think that simple step is where a lot of innovation and potential for innovation gets lost.