Dwolla Raises $16.5M from Andreessen Horowitz • Hacker News Board

Re: Dwolla Raises $16.5M from Andreessen Horowitz

#11

Post by benatkin » Tue, Apr 30, 2013, 7:09 PM UTC

notatoad wrote: post #10

white_devil wrote: post #9

Didn't a few people voice their concerns with Dwolla recently on HN? Something about trouble with getting their money?

i think the general consensus there was that signing up for a service and immediately trying to transfer $40k was a bad idea.

That was part of it. The main takeaway for many is that Dwolla is super friendly until you actually need to get your money out of it. I tried to get my $18 out of it but they insist on giving them a scan of my drivers license, a requirement that they didn't have at the time I signed up.

Re: Dwolla Raises $16.5M from Andreessen Horowitz

#12

Post by shawnee_ » Tue, Apr 30, 2013, 7:17 PM UTC

Mission: Allow anyone [or anything] connected to the internet to move money quickly, safely & at the lowest cost possible.

Fantastic mission statement: clear, concise and it sounds almost impossible to do.

Although they didn't like my take on it when I was at a certain unmentionable payments company, it was my intuition several months ago that a price war is inevitable in this space. Whatever company initiates it will be the one that gains enough momentum from the tail to scale efficiencies best. Namely: any and all efficiencies that are "left over" after price for fellow companies in the space to compete on (great support, a beautiful API, etc.) Dwolla's aggression here shows that they understand the future of money transfer.

Re: Dwolla Raises $16.5M from Andreessen Horowitz

#13

Post by platz » Tue, Apr 30, 2013, 7:17 PM UTC

Will Dwolla bring back support for bitcoin transactions?

Re: Dwolla Raises $16.5M from Andreessen Horowitz

#14

Post by rdl » Tue, Apr 30, 2013, 7:21 PM UTC

Ending the 3% tax on transactions (which ends up being what, 5-10x on the year, due to multiple transactions with the same dollar?) would be a huge boost to the economy.

Re: Dwolla Raises $16.5M from Andreessen Horowitz

#15

Post by jyu » Tue, Apr 30, 2013, 7:25 PM UTC

benatkin wrote: post #11

notatoad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think the general consensus there was that signing up for a service and immediately trying to transfer $40k was a bad idea.

That was part of it. The main takeaway for many is that Dwolla is super friendly until you actually need to get your money out of it. I tried to get my $18 out of it but they insist on giving them a scan of my drivers license, a requirement that they didn't have at the time I signed up.

When the entity is defined as a money transmitter, you need to abide by their legal requirements. One of those includes having photocopies of government issued id. They choose to lower the initial barrier to sign up at the expense of a bad one time user experience for getting the money out.

Re: Dwolla Raises $16.5M from Andreessen Horowitz

#16

Post by mschonfeld » Tue, Apr 30, 2013, 7:30 PM UTC

platz wrote: post #13

Will Dwolla bring back support for bitcoin transactions?

Dwolla never had native support for bitcoin transactions. We've always been used as a gateway between USD -> BTC by exchanges such as MtGox, BitInstant, etc.

This is still the case, and is still very much possible and active.

Re: Dwolla Raises $16.5M from Andreessen Horowitz

#17

Post by yebyen » Tue, Apr 30, 2013, 7:32 PM UTC

platz wrote: post #13

Will Dwolla bring back support for bitcoin transactions?

I don't want to flame the shit out of you, but I don't think you know what you're talking about. Did Dwolla ever support Bitcoin transactions directly? (I only ever did personal trading with Dwolla/Bitcoin, and transactions with Mt.Gox)

The ability to send and receive USD from Mt.Gox with Dwolla is still there (although MtGox USD codes are gone from what I've heard), and you can use Dwolla to fill up your Mt.Gox account with USD, which you can use to buy bitcoins.

If there's something I've missed, please speak up! :) I am an unverified Mt.Gox speculator so I can't use Dwolla anymore, only send and receive bitcoins as well as trade.

Re: Dwolla Raises $16.5M from Andreessen Horowitz

#18

Post by platz » Tue, Apr 30, 2013, 7:49 PM UTC

mschonfeld wrote: post #16

platz wrote: post #13

Will Dwolla bring back support for bitcoin transactions?

Dwolla never had native support for bitcoin transactions. We've always been used as a gateway between USD -> BTC by exchanges such as MtGox, BitInstant, etc. This is still the case, and is still very much possible and active.

Sorry, I should've been more clear; I didn't intend to talk about native support. I was referring to the "gateway" service explicitly. The only reason I brought this up was because Dwolla was missing from BitInstant last week, but now Dwolla appears to have resurfaced back on BitInstant's form.

Re: Dwolla Raises $16.5M from Andreessen Horowitz

#19

Post by platz » Tue, Apr 30, 2013, 7:50 PM UTC

yebyen wrote: post #17

platz wrote: post #13

Will Dwolla bring back support for bitcoin transactions?

I don't want to flame the shit out of you, but I don't think you know what you're talking about. Did Dwolla ever support Bitcoin transactions directly? (I only ever did personal trading with Dwolla/Bitcoin, and transactions with Mt.Gox) The ability to send and receive USD from Mt.Gox with Dwolla is still there (although MtGox USD codes are gone from what I've heard), and you can use Dwolla to fill up your Mt.Gox acco…

You didn't miss anything. I was referring to the gateway service; not native service. BitInstant had supported Dwolla in the past, and then it went missing from their site, and now it appears to be back.

Re: Dwolla Raises $16.5M from Andreessen Horowitz

#20

Post by brandall10 » Tue, Apr 30, 2013, 7:55 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #5

moonboots wrote: post #3

As a developer, the biggest concern I have with Dwolla is the initial friction for new users, e.g. entering their bank account number. I would like to see the complete end user signup flow featured more prominently. I didn't see anything on the topic while signing up for a developer account. Criticism aside, I'm definitely rooting for Dwolla. I don't think they need to match the comparative ease offered with credit c…

I've considered using it to have clients pay me because the only other options are to give away 3% to CC processors, or wait a week+ for a check to come in the mail. If there was a way for me to pass new client onto a single sign-up process (whether I built it via an API or whether it was on Dwolla's page and tracked via referrer), that would go a long way to convincing some of them to use it.

Just an FYI, if by clients you mean for consulting work, Freshbooks has an arrangement w/ Paypal (yeah, I know) where payments are a flat $.50 (yes, 50 cents) for all invoices up to $10,000. You will still have to put up with a wait to get that money in your bank account (3-4 business days if payment is immediate), but it can all be handled online. I've had all my payments over the past year go thru Freshbooks and the lifecycle of invoices/payments is tracked in their system.