Hey there - my name's Tim and I'm a cofounder at Passthrough. My other cofounders and I came from Carta and Google before launching the company.
We make investing in venture & private equity as simple as buying stock on Robinhood by building persistent, re-usable financial identities for investors. But we're also fund closing rails (i.e. the process of investing into a private fund) that anyone can inject into their website.
You'll have to develop a deep understanding of the entire product and the freedom to work on projects that align with your goals and ours. We've got an extremely talented 8-person R&D org today. Reach out if you'd like to join us.
I think the issue is how it happened. They had a product prototyped and ready to go, went back to the drawing board and revised it. Constant feature creep kept causing them to go back and revise revise revise, spend more money, and delay. Hardware doesn't have constant iteration. This is what happens when you try to apply software principles.
The article talks about crowd processing eliminating falsified balances, but it doesn't go into some exchanges getting hacked. Hasn't that been a security concern? Haven't people lost money that way? I know my credit card numbers can get stolen, is that the right comparison? Do exchanges just make you whole?
Fundraising 101 is don't fundraise. Any investor worth his salt says don't raise money unless you have to. You need some damned good reasons to give up your equity/control. I don't get why this is a big deal. This article should have focused more on the changing VC model then illustrate the basics of bootstrapping.
I don't think employeers worry these people got fired. I think companies are concerned whether you're just a hired gun (not that there's anything wrong with that). But if I'm a young company and I want someone to come on board, I'm not making the decision lightly. I want a long-term partner. So yes, a lot of short term employment would be concerning.
Do you think the criticisms levied at microfinance are fair? Likewise, do you feel it's appropriate to build a for-profit business around a social mission? Is that a conflict of interests?
Sometimes random opportunities come knocking and some people call it luck, but I think a dedicated and thorough approaching to networking (more simply put: meeting people and being open to ideas) is transformative. And what goes around comes around too.
It was cool talking with Jeremy Galen @ Mirth and he raises a good point. Daily deals don't work for tons of businesses and can destroy value. So, what's the best way to bring in and retain customers and reward them without deals? I don't know if Mirth is the perfect answer yet, but they're asking the right question.
I'm not sure your views on timing are appropriate. Airplanes revolutionized travel, but I don't think everyone booked a trip once the Wright Brothers flew. I also don't get why competition amongst big players to "win" the payments, ticketing, and loyalty section is harmful or why it precludes NFC from succeeding in the West. Besides that, just because these are the three existing uses of NFC technology that people deem profitable, that doesn't mean there's not something else out there. It's young. I also think your arguement is targeted at B2C and I think it overlooks B2B uses.
Hey there - my name's Tim and I'm a cofounder at Passthrough. My other cofounders and I came from Carta and Google before launching the company.
We make investing in venture & private equity as simple as buying stock on Robinhood by building persistent, re-usable financial identities for investors. But we're also fund closing rails (i.e. the process of investing into a private fund) that anyone can inject into their website.
You'll have to develop a deep understanding of the entire product and the freedom to work on projects that align with your goals and ours. We've got an extremely talented 8-person R&D org today. Reach out if you'd like to join us.