Fast made what was manifestly the wrong decision, both in hindsight and in foresight (I'm happy to post my WhatsApp screencaps from a year and a half ago when I was exploring starting a co in that space). It's not possible to build a hands-off 'platform' like Stripe in that space - integrations are complex, and so integrating a large number of small clients predictably bogged them down till they ran out of money.
(That's not the only reason, I'm sure. It was also a shitty implementation of one-click checkout: most saliently, it wasn't one click. Anyone who actually tried Fast at the time - and I & my prospective cofounder shared the few tiny client websites either of us found like they were rare gems - could see that it was a terrible implementation, in a space where UX is literally the entire game. Many actually did, e.g. this guy from back then: https://chrisfrantz.com/checking-in-on-fast/)
maybe Bolt knew a couple of things Fast did not.
Who? (Also, given an open market, as was the case when the Amazon patent expired in 2017, the company fundraises to scale will beat its more timid competitor. This is basic strategy.)
If you were in a different industry…great execution in the wrong industry is as good as a Ferrari in a swamp.
> all that matters is knowing people
Sounds like you’ve been through some shit. I’m sorry for that.
The point I was making, summarily, is that Bolt ate Fast’s lunch. It went straight for the big customers. Fast wanted to grow towards them incrementally. In this story, if anyone had a fundraising connections advantage, it was Fast—they were Stripe backed. Bolt outmanoeuvred them (and was lucky).
This is unorthodox strategy. Fast played it conservatively. Bolt swung for the fences. Curiously, Bolt landed the home run.