The Lessons Every Fintech Founder Needs: Burnout, Exits, and Round Two

In this episode of the Fintech Combine, Kris Kovac talks with Cale Johnson, founder of Onsetto and former ClickSwitch CEO. Cale shares hard-won lessons from building and selling his first fintech, why business account switching is the industry’s hidden bottleneck, and how Onsetto is helping banks and credit unions finally achieve true commercial primacy.

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00:00 – Welcome to The Fintech Combine
00:18 – Today’s Guest: Cale Johnson (Onsetto)
00:52 – What Is Onsetto? Second-time Fintech Founder
01:47 – From ClickSwitch to Commercial Account Switching
02:42 – Focus vs. Feature Requests at Scale
03:55 – Early Days at Onsetto: Nimble Roadmap
04:36 – The Bottleneck: Getting Businesses to Actually Switch
05:59 – Driving Primacy: AR, AP, Payroll, Funding
07:02 – Go-to-Market Status & Pilot Results
07:48 – ROI: Beyond Activation to Real Lift
08:59 – Tech Complexity: Consumer vs. Business Switching
10:12 – Defensibility: Infra vs. Features
11:46 – Reuniting the Core Product/Tech Team
12:55 – Zero-to-One Mindset vs. $20M ARR Habits
14:15 – When to Hire (and Where AI Fits)
15:56 – Integration Options: Out-of-Box, SSO, White-Label
17:20 – Fast Deploy: Live in a Day
18:20 – Avoiding Shelfware: Driving Real Usage
19:55 – B2B→C Motion: Two Sales You Must Win
21:05 – Fundraising, Fit, and Board Dynamics
22:35 – Burnout & Life After Acquisition
23:40 – Team Building Philosophy
24:52 – Knowing When to Sell: Signs & Strategy
26:20 – Pricing Pressure, Competition, and Margins
27:36 – How the Deal Happened (and Nearly Didn’t)
29:18 – Structure Right: Delaware C-Corp, QSBS
30:40 – Build the Foundation: SOC 2 & Data Discipline
31:58 – Exit Lessons: Protect the Founder
33:42 – Post-Merger: Don’t Absorb Too Fast
34:25 – How to Contact Onsetto
35:07 – Wrap-Up & Subscribe CTA