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- 🤯 From $3M Mistake to 10,000 Users: The Comeback of Peek
🤯 From $3M Mistake to 10,000 Users: The Comeback of Peek
Imagine getting 10,000 users with $0 spent — here’s how Sherry did it.
Admond Lee
August 24, 2025
Hey Founders,
👋🏻 Welcome to The Runway Ventures (🎙️Podcast Edition) — where I interview founders and deep dive into their stories to help you become the top 1% founder by learning from their startup journey and mistakes with actionable insights.
Today’s story is about how Sherry scaled Peek to 10,000+ users with $0 spent. Let’s get to it! 🚀
Today at a Glance:
🫡 1 Founder → Sherry Jiang (co-founder of Peek & Code with AI)
⚠️ 2 Mistakes → Waiting too long to pivot
🧠 3 Lessons Learned → Build in public to acquire users cheaply
🔗 The Runway Insights → YC: The sales playbook for founders
💰 Southeast Asia Funding Radar → WeRide secures strategic equity investment from Grab to accelerate the deployment and commercialisation of Level 4 Robotaxis and shuttles in Southeast Asia
🫡 1 Founder: Sherry Jiang (co-founder of Peek & Code with AI)
🌟 The Highlights
🇸🇬 Sherry Jiang is the co-founder & CEO of Peek — an AI-powered personal finance coach that helps young professionals effortlessly track their net worth, auto-categorise spending, and get personalised insights to reach their financial goals.
🫡 Sherry’s Founder Story
Sherry Jiang’s founder journey with Peek began with a bold leap of faith. In 2021, she walked away from a steady career at Google — where she’d spent six years and even helped launch Google Pay — to start her own company.
🏦 Peek was born from a personal pain point. Sherry had a complex financial life – US and Singapore bank accounts, crypto wallets, various investments — and managing it all was overwhelming.
So Sherry set out to create Peek, an AI-powered personal finance coach for Gen Z that would track net worth, categorise spending, and deliver helpful money insights in a friendly way.
Her mission?
💟 Make managing money enjoyable and intuitive for young people who might otherwise feel lost or stressed about finances.
The Problem — 💸 Young professionals (especially Gen Z) struggle to manage their money because their finances are scattered across bank accounts, credit cards, brokerage apps, and even crypto wallets.
Existing tools are either too fragmented or just Excel spreadsheets, and most finance apps feel overwhelming or guilt-driven.
The Solution — 🤑 Peek acts like a personal AI-powered CFO.
It automatically aggregates all accounts in one place, tracks net worth in real time, auto-categorises spending, and delivers friendly, personalised insights (like a “money vibe check”).
The result? Users can actually understand and improve their finances without stress.
 | 🔥 Early validation for Peek came surprisingly fast. Sherry initially tinkered with different concepts (including a crypto finance idea) but ultimately honed in on Peek’s personal finance coach model — and it clearly struck a chord. 🚀 Within 30 days of launch, Peek hit #1 on Product Hunt and amassed its first 5,000 users with zero paid marketing. The user growth snowballed from there. |
🏗️ Sherry embraced a scrappy, “build in public” approach:
She tweeted daily progress updates (which went viral on Twitter)
Leveraged niche TikTok creators to spread the word
… all of which helped Peek blow past 10,000 users while keeping customer acquisition costs under $1. 🫡
🤯 Fun Fact: As a non-technical founder, Sherry actually vibe-coded Peek’s early prototype in just 3 hours and got into Iterative (an accelerator) that invested $275K!
That mix of product-market fit and creative growth hacks became the climax of Peek’s journey so far — a surge of momentum where the app’s popularity and buzz confirmed that Sherry was onto something big.
🌋 The Lowlights
There were times before I made the decision to pivot when I felt it coming, but it took me months to trust my intuition. If I had trusted my gut and acted sooner, it probably would have saved me at least half a year of work
Of course, no startup story is all sunshine, and Sherry’s path had its share of storms.
📈 Peek’s lowest lows trace back to its earliest days. Before pivoting to Peek, Sherry was building Bluejay Finance (a multi-currency stablecoin protocol for Southeast Asia). For a while, it seemed promising – she even raised about $3 million in funding for that concept.
🥶 But then crypto winter hit in 2022, and the bottom fell out. The cryptocurrency market crashed, interest in Sherry’s stablecoin idea evaporated, and her startup’s prospects dimmed overnight.
It was tough.
Besides, her co-founder parted ways during the pivot period, leaving Sherry to shoulder the vision alone. The internal upheaval and uncertainty took an emotional toll. Sherry admits that she saw the need to change course months before she actually did, but she hesitated.
🥵 Sleepless nights, second-guessing, stress over dwindling funds – Sherry went through it all in this low chapter of Peek’s story. Yet, even in the thick of it, she didn’t quit. She tightened spending, pieced together small checks during the funding crunch, and told herself this wasn’t the end.
🚀 The Comeback
Pivoting isn’t shameful, it’s often necessary.
So Sherry made the hard decision to pivot. And Peek was born.
By building in public, leaning on her marketing chops, and listening closely to users, she regained momentum fast.
Little by little, the comeback gained traction.
🔥 Within months, Peek hit #1 on Product Hunt, grew to 10,000+ users with zero ad spend, and proved there was real demand for a friendlier way to manage money.
For Sherry, the pivot wasn’t failure — it was survival, and the key to unlocking Peek’s second life.
📌 Here’s the TLDR of Peek:
2015–2021 — 🦄 Sherry worked at Google, helped launch Google Pay (reaching 100M users in India), and learned how to build and scale products.
Nov 2021 — Left Google, joined Entrepreneur First, and co-founded Bluejay Finance (stablecoin protocol).
May 2022 — 💰 Raised ~$3M seed for Bluejay to help people in Asia manage money across currencies with a decentralised stablecoin protocol.
Mid-2022 — Crypto winter hit, traction vanished, and a co-founder departed.
Late 2022 — 🤑 Sherry pivoted to build Peek, an AI-powered personal finance coach.
Early 2023 — Launched Peek alpha and started building in public on Twitter.
Jul 2023 — 🔥 Peek hit #1 on Product Hunt.
Gained 5,000 users in 30 days with no ads.
Late 2023 — Surpassed 10,000+ users, driven by viral tweets and TikTok creators.
Aug 2024 — 🧑🏻💻 Sherry co-founded Code with AI, a workshop teaching non-techies to build apps in 48 hours.
2025 — 🇺🇸 Peek expanded beyond Singapore into US.
Code with AI: Sherry and Agrim (her co-founder) vibe-coded a full-stack app in 30 mins, live, in front of 100+ at SuperAI (the biggest AI event in Asia).
Sherry’s journey shows that failure isn’t the end but a turning point.
🦄 She left Google, saw her first idea collapse, then rebuilt Peek into an app helping thousands manage money — and launched Code with AI to empower others to build too.
Her story proves that resilience and pivots often create the best startups.
💪🏻 You’ve got this.
Want to learn more about Sherry’s founder journey?
⚠️ 2 Mistakes
Mistake 1: Waiting too long to pivot
There were times before I made the decision to pivot when I felt it coming, but it took me months to trust my intuition. If I had trusted my gut and acted sooner, it probably would have saved me at least half a year of work.
In the early days (before pivoting from Bluejay Finance to Peek), Sherry admitted she saw warning signs but ignored her gut. She pushed on for months before pivoting, wasting time and energy on a model that wasn’t working.
🙏🏻 That hesitation cost her at least half a year.
Founders often confuse grit with stubbornness. Sherry admitted she ignored her gut feelings because she didn’t want to disappoint investors or admit she might be wrong.
Mistake 2: Mistaking funding for validation
Bluejay Finance raised ~$3M in seed funding.
On paper, that’s a huge win.
🥶 But the money masked the deeper issue — product-market fit wasn’t there. Funding bought time, but not users. Sherry realised too late that a healthy bank account can trick founders into thinking things are going well when customers aren’t biting.
🧠 3 Lessons Learned
Lesson 1: Trust your gut (but back it with data)
Sherry’s biggest reflection? She wished she trusted her intuition to pivot earlier.
But she also learned to validate that gut feeling with user feedback and quick experiments.
🌮 Key Takeaways:
🧪 Validate quickly with experiments
If you’re on the fence about a pivot, run a 2-week experiment.
Talk to 20 users, ship a quick MVP, or test a landing page.
Don’t wait for a perfect answer — get fast signals.
Before pivoting to Peek, Sherry quickly vibe-coded a prototype for Peek in 3 hours.
That rapid experiment gave immediate feedback that people loved the concept.
🫡 Talk to customers relentlessly
Instead of debating in your head, get 20 user interviews.
Use the framework in The Mom Test to ask the right questions and validate (or invalidate) your assumptions.
Lesson 2: Build in public to acquire users cheaply
Sherry didn’t have the luxury of a massive marketing budget when she pivoted to Peek.
💪🏻 Instead, she made herself the face of the brand and started sharing openly on Twitter and TikTok — progress updates, lessons, even failures.
That raw, transparent storytelling resonated.
One viral Twitter thread alone brought in thousands of signups, and niche TikTok creators drove new users at less than $1 CAC (customer acquisition cost).
🌮 Key Takeaways:
🚀 Share early and often
Don’t wait for perfection. Sherry shared Peek’s prototype, screenshots, and even failures. This made users feel part of the process.
For example, if you’re building a SaaS tool? Post a screenshot of your dashboard-in-progress and ask, “Would this solve your pain?”
😎 Build a founder brand
Sherry herself was Peek’s biggest growth channel. People trust people more than logos.
And yes, people buy from people.
That’s why many startup founders start by sharing their journey on their personal social media accounts (not company pages).
Read this book (The Minimalist Entrepreneur) written by Sahil (founder of Gumroad) on how to build a successful founder brand.
🦄 Leverage micro-influencers
Instead of chasing big TikTok stars, Sherry tapped niche creators with engaged Gen Z audiences. This lowered CAC dramatically.
Whatever your industry, there are micro-influencers (1000–10,000 followers) who’d happily showcase your product in exchange for free access or small partnerships.
Lesson 3: Don’t just solve the problem, solve the emotion behind it
When Sherry first built Peek, she realised the functional problem was simple: people needed a way to track net worth and spending across accounts. But what kept users coming back wasn’t just functionality — it was the feeling the app gave them.
Most finance apps scold you for overspending (“you blew your budget again”). That guilt made people quit.
💟 Sherry flipped the script: she made Peek feel like a supportive friend. With features like “money vibe checks”, Peek encouraged rather than shamed.
📈 Retention shot up, and users started sharing it organically.
🌮 Key Takeaways:
🔥 Map the emotional journey
Ask, “What’s the dominant emotion my customers feel when dealing with this problem?”
For finances, it was shame.
For healthcare, it might be fear.
For B2B workflows, it’s often frustration.
Whatever industry it may be, build against that emotion.
😍 Design for encouragement
Swap negative cues for positive reinforcement.
Instead of red warning signs, Peek gave friendly nudges.
In SaaS, that might mean celebrating small progress instead of nagging about missed deadlines.
✍🏻 Test language as a feature
Sherry treated copy and tone as core product design, not decoration.
A two-word phrase like “vibe check” differentiated Peek from Mint or YNAB. As a founder, test tone like you’d test features.
🔗 The Runway Insights
💰 Southeast Asia Funding Radar
WeRide secures strategic equity investment from Grab to accelerate the deployment and commercialisation of Level 4 Robotaxis and shuttles in Southeast Asia (Link)
Robocore raises $30M (Series D) from Foxconn to expand its telemedicine business globally (Link)
PeelOn raises $1M (Seed) to extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables (Link)
Carbon280 bags $10.8M (Seed) for hydrogen storage (Link)
Kozystay raises Series A to scale Indonesia’s short-term rental market (Link)
🤝🏻 Before you go: Here are 2 ways I can help you
Founder Office Hours: Book a 1-1 call with me, share your problems and questions, and I'll help you cut through the noise, avoid costly mistakes, and get clear next steps that actually work. I help early-stage founders with:
Validating ideas & building MVPs
Tech & product development
GTM strategy & fundraising
Finding PMF & growth hacks
Growing & monetising newsletters
Attract customers & investors by building a solid founder brand on LinkedIn
Promote your business to 18,000+ founders: Acquire high-value leads and customers for your business by getting your brand in front of highly engaged startup founders and operators in Asia.
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That’s all for today
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed today's issue. More than that, I hope you’ve learned some actionable tips to build and grow your business.
You can always write to me by simply replying to this newsletter and we can chat.
See you again next week.
- Admond
Disclaimer: The Runway Ventures content is for informational purposes only. Unless otherwise stated, any opinions expressed above belong solely to the author.
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