The fintech that lives on WhatsApp: Chain’s bet on microbusinesses

After more than a decade building startups, Mel Cruz learned something many founders discover too late: a company only works if the people building it are doing well, too.

Today, with her third company, she decided to do things differently. That search for greater clarity, both personally and in the team culture, ultimately became Chain.

Mel has also been a vocal advocate on the challenges of building a company as a woman in tech. For her, visibility matters—not just in March, when people talk about women in the ecosystem, but throughout the year.

Chain is a tool that turns WhatsApp into a financial assistant for small service businesses. Using artificial intelligence, it lets them create payment requests, send payment links, and understand their cash flow without needing to be finance experts.

But behind the product is something more personal: starting over after closing a company, learning to deal with impostor syndrome, and building a company that could change how thousands of small businesses manage their money.

This is your third company. What do you no longer do today that you did at your first one?

The biggest change has been personal.

At my first company, I often pushed myself aside. I pretended I was fine mentally, physically, and emotionally just to keep going, as if that were the only way to build a company. Over time, I realized that sends the team the wrong message. It makes it seem like the founder has to put up with everything.

Today, I’m much more aware of when I’m not doing well. If I’m sick, I go home. If I need to stop, I stop. Because a company can’t function if the founding team isn’t doing well.

Something important has also changed in how I make decisions with the team. I used to find it much harder to decide when to hire someone or when to let someone go. Today, I understand that those decisions are also part of taking care of the company culture.

I think I’m also much more patient with the process. I used to want everything to happen fast, for growth to be immediate. Over time, you learn that building a company takes time and that you only understand many things after going through them.

At the same time, though, I’m less tolerant of certain dynamics within the team. When something affects the culture or the way we work, I’m now much clearer and more direct about addressing it.

My perspective on leadership has also changed. Today, it matters a lot to me that the people who work with us can grow within the company, develop their talents, and eventually achieve their own dreams. In the end, building a company also means creating a place where other people can develop.

Tell us what Chain is and what problem you’re solving.

Chain turns WhatsApp into a financial assistant for small service businesses.

We have an artificial intelligence assistant built into WhatsApp that lets businesses create payment requests, send payment links, and receive payments without customers having to leave the chat.

But the most interesting part is that the assistant also translates financial information into everyday language. It gives business owners insights into their cash flow or collections without requiring them to become finance experts.

The reality is that for many small businesses, their operations already happen on WhatsApp: they manage appointments there, talk to customers, send receipts, and coordinate payments. What Chain does is bring financial management to the same place where business is already happening.

We believe deeply in building for this base of businesses, which generate enormous economic activity but often don’t have digital tools to manage their money.

Who is your ideal customer today?

We’re very focused on service businesses, especially in the wellness industry. Our customers include nutritionists, psychologists, physical therapists, yoga studios, CrossFit gyms, hairstylists… generally, independent professionals or microbusinesses with fewer than ten people.

These are businesses that are already formalized and have bank accounts, but don’t have tools to manage their cash flow.

The problem is that everything ends up happening on WhatsApp: appointments, customer service, payment receipts. And at some point, it becomes impossible to get a clear picture of what’s going on. Chain aims to integrate right there, in the tool they already use every day.

How is the product evolving now that you understand your users better?

For us, the big challenge now is proving that we can grow. We want the product to reach many more people and to keep improving the experience for our users.

We’re also working on a major evolution of the product. Today, Chain lets you collect payments, but we want you to be able to make payments from the same tool, too.

If your therapist charges you through Chain, you pay with Chain. But we also want you to be able to use it to pay other people, even when they aren’t charging you directly through the platform.

The idea is for Chain to become a complete financial tool for small businesses.

On LinkedIn, you’ve talked quite a bit about impostor syndrome and the pressure founders often feel. After more than ten years building companies, why do you think that feeling doesn’t go away?

I think self-recognition is hard. Often, you do what you do because you enjoy it or feel passionate about it, and you don’t necessarily stop to see it as something extraordinary.

I don’t think impostor syndrome goes away. What I’ve learned is how to hack it. And the way I do that is by recognizing other people.

For example, I’m my cofounder’s number-one cheerleader. I talk about her with great admiration because I see everything she’s built: her ability to solve problems, how she thinks about product, and the clarity with which she makes difficult decisions. And at some point, I see myself reflected in that and think: if someone like her chose to build this with me, I’m probably capable of doing it, too.

That exercise helps me remind myself that I am good enough to build what we’re building.

What responsibility do you feel toward other women who are building companies? What do you think would help there be more of them?

I think visibility is essential.

I recently wrote something on LinkedIn that still makes me think: often, the stories of women building companies are told in March. But why not in November? Or July?

In July, I’m still a woman, still working in tech, and still a founder. Nothing changes between March and July. I’m still the same person building a company.

That’s why I think it’s important for those stories to be told all year, not just at certain times. Not so much for us or our businesses, but for the girls, teenagers, and young women coming up behind us. When you grow up without seeing women founding companies, raising capital, or leading tech companies, it simply doesn’t register as a possibility.

When you start seeing those examples, something changes. Suddenly, it becomes imaginable.

I also feel a personal responsibility in how we build. If we do it well, if our companies grow and succeed, that helps make the conversation a little easier for the next woman who talks to investors or raises capital.

Often, the first women to enter certain spaces have to pave the way under more difficult conditions. They knock on more doors, face more questions, and encounter more doubts. But once that path is opened, others can follow it with less friction.

And beyond visibility, I think we need to build more community among women entrepreneurs. Spaces where we can share experiences, mistakes, and lessons learned, and truly support one another.

Because when a woman sees that someone else has already walked that path and managed to build something, she starts to think: maybe I can do it too.

For Mel, the idea of paving the way for others also informs how she thinks about her own company. More than just building a fintech, she wants to create tools that truly become part of small businesses’ everyday lives.

And that points to a very simple way to measure whether they’re succeeding.

When a product becomes part of the language

Mel has a simple dream for measuring Chain’s success.

She says she’ll know they’ve made it when she’s sitting in a restaurant in Condesa and hears someone at the next table say: “You pay, and I’ll send you a Chain.”

That moment, when the product stops being an app and becomes part of everyday language, is the kind of penetration many founders pursue. It’s also the kind of impact Chain hopes to have among the thousands of small businesses that manage their money from a chat today.

If that happens, Chain will have achieved something few fintechs do: becoming part of the everyday language of the people who really drive the economy.

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Interview by: Eduardo Hernández, Head of Startup Avenue at Volcano Summit and Partner at Leapstart, where he drives startup growth and the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. A former entrepreneur in the insurance sector, he has actively participated in initiatives such as Startup Weekend, Emprendedores Anónimos, Hackers/Founders, and Magma Partners.