Apply with me to YC in the next 3 days and change the world

I'm throwing a hail mary here - because desperate times call for desperate measures.

I have an awesome prototype built that brings an emerging tech to the masses and I think has a good shot at changing the world. YC has expressed interest (got to the interview as solo applicant in the last batch but decided to defer without a co-founder). This idea won't be fresh forever (there are others starting to look into it) so I want to move on this asap with the right team. But there is one thing holding me back from knocking this out of the park: I have yet to find the right co-founder.

For the past year I've met with 1 or 2 people a week, either by phone or coffee, and despite some close calls that person hasn't turned up yet. But I believe they are out there, and I'm hoping they are reading HN tonight.

Getting a "shotgun wedding" is really not ideal, but if you are the the right person then I don't care how we meet. I'm going to improve my chances of finding you any way I can.

So what is the idea?

Credit card fees are too high. In the next five years merchants are going to start moving away from paying 2.5% plus 30 cents per transaction when fast secure alternatives become available. They're going to (at first) offer them at checkout alongside traditional credit card options, and then eventually start incentivising consumers to make the switch. If Amazon has a 5% margin on a $100 text book they aren't going to give $2.00 of their $5 to Visa/MC forever.

The same thing is going to happen in mobile. Your phone is going to become your wallet, and I don't think 30 year old credit card technology is going to be powering this new ewallet when someone goes to buy a cup of coffee in 10 years. All solutions today are carrying along the legacy baggage of credit cards.

So what will this solution be? It's going to be a digital currency, like bitcoin or some derivative of it, running in the cloud with a solid api to build an ecosystem around it. It's going to spring up organically in developing countries first I think, or places without stable currencies. If you think bitcoin sucks, this isn't really the right place to get into a flame war on it. I'm making a long term bet here and when it's more clear in five years or things have evolved it will be too late to jump on this, so whoever is going to win this needs to start now. Digital currencies show some early promise but are way too difficult to use for normal people (or are proprietary and controlled by one company like facebook credits). To me this is an opportunity, and I'm in a position to start laying the groundwork for this new platform.

Here are some screenshots of the prototype: http://imgur.com/a/KSKOt It has basic send/receive functionality but is still super early stage.

In a few words, this is paypal for bitcoin. The killer app will be in disrupting transaction fees that are a tax on every transaction in our economy.

Who do I want to meet?

You must be technical, have a passion for this space, and have insane work ethic. This is going to be super fucking hard, but the payoff is that we have a non-zero chance of really changing the world in big way. This isn't another photo sharing app. Let me just stress again that you must be a deeply technical builder (I am one too). There is no room for idea people at this stage. I'm happy to share more of my background if we get in touch. (Edit: I added some of my background below).

If interested please send an email to applytoycwithmeandchangethewor@gmail.com And include (1) something awesome you've built (2) why you would be right for this and (3) a phone number and how late I can call you.

Even if you aren't the right person, please upvote this and help us meet. This post could literally form a company in the next three days.

What dmix said. Why are you using a throwaway account?

A co-founder relationship is very important, and my willingness to join you on this venture has less to do with your idea and more to do with you. Specifically:

- Who are you, and what have you done?

- What is your professional and personal experience, and what does it bring to the table in a general sense of running a startup, and in a specific sense, this idea of yours.

- Why you? I need to be able to trust my co-founder pretty much absolutely and unquestionably. What is your character and who can vouch for it?

Funnily enough, your idea and the fact that you have a prototype is a fairly minor signal compared to the above.

It's a good point - I was trying to stay semi-anonymous.

For now I'll just say, I've built one startup previously to profitability and 20k users. Have also worked at 2 YC companies, one as employee #2 and the other in a role that is relevant to this idea. I have a masters in CS and studied economics undergrad.

Boy. This is the 60000 dollar question isn't it? Who wants to be my partner? Good luck. I really hope you find them. Taking on the credit card industry is going to be awesome!

a little unfair to tack this response on to this particular post, but it reminds me (again) how much time people spend on the outward appearance of apps around alternative currency without addressing the part that's actually hard.. how do you give an alternative currency real value?