Venmo Five Years Ago • Hacker News Board

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#11

Post by kloncks » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 5:27 PM UTC

In summary- it’s so awesome to see how they went from scrappy to a must-have product that does around $700mm in annual transactions.

Where is this from? Venmo should be doing much higher than this figure.

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#12

Post by imjared » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 5:32 PM UTC

dplgk wrote: post #8

bigdubs wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

venmo is used more than cash by my late 20 and early 30 friends as well.

What are the 30's people using it for?

I bought concert tickets and a friend paid me for one of them. I need help moving and my friend let me use her zipcar membership. I venmo'd her money for the cost of the van. A few friends and I wanted to send flowers to a friend who had a baby. One person bought them and charged us each the split amount. etc.

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#13

Post by roymurdock » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 5:33 PM UTC

pkamb wrote: post #10

> It was riding the twitter wave in letting you interact with handles (usernames) over SMS. I'm curious, were any of these SMS service comparies successful as interactive SMS services? It seems like most of the services like Twitter, Venmo, etc. "started" as SMS services but quickly moved to apps once the iPhone appeared. And only then did they blow up. But maybe I'm wrong about that. What does Twitter/Venmo non-noti…

Not really big/popular but GoButler seems to be an interactive personal assistant "app" through SMS:

http://www.gobutlernow.com/

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#14

Post by harryh » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 5:34 PM UTC

dplgk wrote: post #8

bigdubs wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

venmo is used more than cash by my late 20 and early 30 friends as well.

What are the 30's people using it for?

I am 37. My last couple venmo transactions:

  Paying off a bet about who would become CEO of twitter
  Paying someone for my portion of a bar tab.
  Fantasy Football league dues
  Receiving money from someone for their portion of a bar tab
  Paying someone for movie tickets

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#15

Post by habosa » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 5:37 PM UTC

Venmo was started by UPenn alums so it was popular among my friends long before it was a phenomenon (one of my good friends interned there and wrote the BlackBerry app).

I used to use it exclusively by SMS starting around 2011. It used to be smart enough where I could text in "Pay John $5 for food" and it would figure out which John I meant and do it. I loved that.

It's been amazing to watch Venmo grow to what it is now. If I could only keep three apps on my smartphone, I would choose Uber/Lyft, Venmo, and Google Maps. I can't navigate my life without all three of those.

In my last year of college my Venmo year in review showed that I had spent $17k on Venmo and received $18k. So not a huge net, just a constant movement of money in and out among my friends (rent, food, parties, etc). If I had to use cash we would have never been able to make the small things work, and if I had to use PayPal I would have accrued $100s to $1000s in fees.

So basically: thank you Venmo. You make my life measurably simpler.

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#16

Post by habosa » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 5:38 PM UTC

aaronmacy wrote: post #9

mlrtime wrote: post #6

It is spreading like a virus (in a good way) in corporate as well. We use it to pay each other for lunch. I now use it to pay my cleaning lady.... I'm glad to support something that isn't paypal. Hopefully Venmo stays small and lean.

PayPal owns Venmo.

I think the exact sequence of events was Braintree bought Venmo for ~$25M and then later PayPal bought Braintree.

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#17

Post by stevesearer » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 5:38 PM UTC

dplgk wrote: post #8

bigdubs wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

venmo is used more than cash by my late 20 and early 30 friends as well.

What are the 30's people using it for?

I use it for just about everything I would have previously had to write a check to an individual for. Most of the time this ends up being some form of paying someone back for my portion of a split bill or if they purchased something on my behalf.

Even though I have had paypal for years, most people cringe when someone doesn't yet have Venmo and offers to send via paypal.

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#18

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 5:39 PM UTC

RankingMember wrote: post #5

josephpmay wrote: post #2

For those who are older, Venmo is used today probably more than cash by college students (for things like paying a friend back, paying membership dues, paying to get into a party, etc.)

I'm weird but I feel like cash is superior for those applications and doesn't require me to hand my credit card number out to yet another company.

[deleted]

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#19

Post by habosa » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 5:40 PM UTC

Question: does anyone know how/if Venmo makes money or is it just a loss-leader for Braintree/PayPal?

I use it for thousands of dollars of transactions a year but I have never paid a penny in fees or seen an ad. People claim that Venmo acts as a bank and invests my carried balance but I can't imagine that's lucrative enough to pay all the bills.

Re: Venmo Five Years Ago

#20

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 21, 2015, 5:41 PM UTC

RankingMember wrote: post #5

josephpmay wrote: post #2

For those who are older, Venmo is used today probably more than cash by college students (for things like paying a friend back, paying membership dues, paying to get into a party, etc.)

I'm weird but I feel like cash is superior for those applications and doesn't require me to hand my credit card number out to yet another company.

[deleted]