How Fast Burned Through $120M in 3 Years Without Product-Market Fit

One-click checkout seemed like a huge opportunity: reducing friction at checkout means more completed purchases. Fast raised $120M (including from Stripe) to build the fastest checkout experience on the internet.

The problem: one-click checkout was already solved. Apple Pay, Google Pay, Shop Pay (Shopify), and Amazon Pay all existed. Fast was entering a market with multiple well-funded, well-integrated incumbents.

What went wrong — No honest Decision Matrix:

A Decision Matrix comparing checkout solutions would have revealed Fast's impossible position:

Criteria	Apple Pay	Shop Pay	Amazon Pay	Fast
User base	1B+ devices	100M+	300M+ accounts	Zero
Merchant integration	Built into Safari	Built into Shopify	Built into Amazon	Requires custom integration
Trust	Apple brand	Shopify brand	Amazon brand	Unknown startup
Switching cost for merchants	Zero (built in)	Zero (built in)	Low	High (custom integration)

Fast was competing with solutions that were already built into the platforms merchants used. Why would a merchant spend time integrating Fast when Apple Pay and Shop Pay are already available?

What they needed — Pre-mortem:

"Imagine Fast has shut down after burning $120M. Why?"

• We couldn't convince merchants to integrate our button when Apple Pay/Shop Pay is already built in
• Our total transaction volume was negligible
• We spent most of our money on hiring and marketing, not on solving the actual integration problem
• The CEO focused on Twitter presence and media coverage instead of product-market fit

Confidence determines speed vs. quality was inverted: Fast had LOW confidence (no proof that merchants wanted another checkout button) but invested as if confidence was HIGH (massive hiring, expensive offices, aggressive marketing).

Fast's failure was stark:

• Burned through $120M in funding in approximately 3 years
• Reportedly processed only $600K in total gross merchandise value — across ALL merchants, EVER
• That means they spent approximately $200 for every $1 of revenue processed
• Shut down in April 2022 and laid off all ~400 employees
• CEO Domm Holland was widely followed on Twitter (100K+ followers), creating a public narrative of success that didn't match the underlying metrics

The contrast with Stripe is instructive: Stripe, which invested in Fast, succeeded by solving a problem that genuinely didn't have a good solution: accepting online payments for developers. Stripe's API was 10x better than anything available. Fast's checkout was a marginal improvement over solutions that already existed and were already integrated.