Anyone use Venmo?

[khaangaaroo]

Some of my friends and I use Venmo to transfer money to each other. It's a startup company, so it hasn't caught on like Paypal. But their aim is to provide a free alternative to the fee-charging money-hungry payment transfer institutions.

For member to member purchases through forums, I've almost always use Paypal cause everyone seems to have it, and occasionally Amazon Payments. There's also Google Wallet, but I've never tried before. I'd like to see people's thoughts were about the other payment methods, and whether or not they'd be good for informal transactions like on geekhack.

[vun]

If their goal is to be a free alternative, how do they make their money?

[khaangaaroo]

I don't know for sure. But my guess is that they don't make any money. A lot of bay area startups are funded by venture capitalists, and the really popular ones get way more money than they need just from investors.

[tp4tissue]

I don't know for sure. But my guess is that they don't make any money. A lot of bay area startups are funded by venture capitalists, and the really popular ones get way more money than they need just from investors.

that's a ponzi scheme

[vun]

I don't know for sure. But my guess is that they don't make any money. A lot of bay area startups are funded by venture capitalists, and the really popular ones get way more money than they need just from investors.

So it's a money sink? Running a website isn't free, and nobody's going to invest in something that just costs money without making any back.
I just think it sounds a bit too good to be true if everything they do is free, since running it costs money.

[khaangaaroo]

I dunno if this is a good example, but think of Facebook. They technically didn't make any of their own money until they started displaying ads many years later. However, they already had hundreds of employees and were worth millions before that because investors put their money into the company. A lot of startups don't have a sell-able product or service. They just have an idea and investors put money into them, kinda hoping it'll be the next big thing.