Re:PayPal Never Could Have Been Built Lean
by manderson2080 on Saturday April 03, 2010 @10:27PM
(#1239565)
In 2001, when the money was flowing, everyone's solution for any startup's problem was to throw money at it. Today, there many other outlets for growing an intelligent idea: blogs, press, alternative incentives programs. And minimal hardware/software costs to build such a product. While PayPal, in 2001, could maybe not have been built lean. It is very possible for the next PayPal-like startup to disrupt the market now on a micro-budget.
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Re:PayPal Never Could Have Been Built Lean
by steveklabnik on Saturday April 03, 2010 @10:29PM
(#1239570)
Yep. I don't think Venmo has gotten an insane amount of funding, for instance, and I think it's just as disruptive as PayPal was.
Re:PayPal Never Could Have Been Built Lean
by klenwell on Saturday April 03, 2010 @11:11PM
(#1239622)
"When people trust you, you can pull money from their accounts at will."
Hadn't heard of Venmo before this. But yeah, that sounds like it could be pretty disruptive.
They're not doing much that's dramatically new - check out the M-PESA system, which is massive in North Africa...
Re:PayPal Never Could Have Been Built Lean
by steveklabnik on Sunday April 04, 2010 @12:10AM
(#1239720)
I've had an account with them for a while, and I met them at SXSW. I'm not sure what they're publicly saying or not, but they've got some really cool stuff in the works with that feature...
They're a company that I'm excited about, because I've found them useful a ton of times since I've heard of the idea. One of those "you never knew how useful it was until you had it" kind of things.