KPMG and PwC Didn't Prepare Me for a Startup

They all got the funding rounds, the press coverage, and the investor attention. Babatunde Akin Moses got something harder — seven years of building Sycamore in the gap between what he believed and what turned out to be true. This conversation does not start at success. It starts at the assumptions — the PwC and KPMG credentials, the certainty, the pitch room where he didn't know what a SAFE was. It moves through the 2021 investor deal that fell through after plans had already been made, the pivot to revenue before tech, the co-founder who walked away, and the years of growing quietly while others were celebrated loudly. Babatunde calls it the smooth sailing fallacy. From the outside, everything looks clean. From the inside, it is a different story entirely. This is When Everything Changed Podcast. CHAPTERS 0:00 — Teaser 1:16 — Introduction 2:16 — What he believed would guarantee success 4:16 — Living vicariously through the media 9:46 — The ecosystem he didn't understand 12:31 — The SAFE moment: when reality hit first 16:16 — "I always blame myself first" 18:01 — The 2021 investor deal that fell through 21:16 — Fin first. Then tech. 23:16 — The laundry business: before Sycamore 27:46 — Co-founders, dating periods, and the thread analogy 35:16 — The smooth sailing fallacy 44:16 — What structure actually means for an early-stage founder 55:16 — Trust as the real product in fintech Nigeria 1:04:46 — Progress is about input, not output 1:13:16 — The biggest mindset shift, in one sentence 1:15:46 — Final reflection: what he wishes he had known earlier