My backseat quarterbacking here... I feel like these guys focused on the wrong things, the fascinating thing though is that with all the help they had, no one told them.<p>I would have got a marketing person in on day 1.  Who needs a &quot;back-end engineer&quot; if you have no users using the product.  I wouldn&#x27;t have rewrote the app.  Who cares how maintainable the app is if you have no users.  I would have looked for a more realistic back-end route that can work today while I work on the bank integration (why not top up gift cards? I&#x27;ve paid people to write blog articles for me in Amazon Gift Cards.  They&#x27;re as good as cash.)  basically, just keep plowing until get from zero to one.  Even if one looks NOTHING like your original vision.