What do you do when the most important problem you can solve is also the least glamorous one?

Duncan Barrigan spent 8 years helping build GoCardless into a global payments unicorn — then walked away to tackle something most founders walk right past: getting businesses paid. Not sexy. Not shiny. Just a $100 trillion problem that's been solved the same way, by humans, for 6,000 years.

In this conversation, Duncan breaks down why accounts receivable is actually a communication and negotiation problem (not a payments problem), how he brought a real cowboy and horse to lasso the Wall Street Bull for Lunos' launch, and what it really means to build a company around three values: curious, courageous, and relentless.

We also get into the identity shift that hit when he left a CXO role at a billion-dollar company, moved to New York in January, and had to rediscover who he was before Lunos existed.

If you're a founder choosing between the bold idea and the safe one — this one's for you.

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 — Cold open: the horse that got stopped at the Manhattan border
0:23 — Introducing Duncan Barrigan & Lunos
1:48 — Lunos or Lunos? The definitive answer
3:05 — The $100 trillion problem hiding in plain sight
5:03 — The epiphany: it's not a payments problem
6:20 — Moving continent, quitting his job, and starting in January
8:29 — London vs New York startup culture
12:33 — The stifled entrepreneur: Pokémon cards & astronaut dreams
14:17 — Space cowboys & bright pink: building the Lunos brand
17:35 — The Wall Street Bull stunt (and the Guardian article)
21:57 — Curious, courageous, relentless: the three values
29:33 — Good mistakes vs bad mistakes (poker & Napoleon)
32:15 — The identity crisis before Lunos existed
33:49 — What kind of company does he want to build?
38:03 — Building self-awareness as a founder
40:53 — What's coming next: the agent-to-agent network
43:36 — Flying planes, barrel rolls & personal challenges
46:29 — Who should work with Lunos?

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CONNECT WITH DUNCAN
Lunos: lunos.ai

CONNECT WITH MATT STONE & THE BIGGER STAGE
Website: thebiggerstage.com
YouTube: youtube.com/@thebiggerstage

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The Bigger Stage is for founders whose reputation is stronger than their messaging. New episodes drop every other Saturday.