6 ms·

WePay just built a new feature inspired by and for redditors

101 points by jmintz 16y ago

ivankirigin 16y ago
Just noticed the awesome thread after my quick comment. Pretty funny :) http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/f5vh1/i_founded_the_antipaypal_raised_9mm_and_now_want/c1difza http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/f5vh1/i_founded_the_an...
kmfrk 16y ago
My favourite part: “Quick question, though: did you or Bill have any programming or web development experience before founding Wepay? A buddy of mine (an investment banker) and I (ex-Army officer, MBA) throw around business ideas all the time while drinking at the pub, but we always are forced to bring ourselves back to earth when we realize we both have no programming experience whatsoever. Is it even worth it to start something tech-related when both founders aren't your typical tech guys? How did you do it? > I love this question. Bill had a CS degree from BC, but he wasn't a talented web developer or anything like that. His background was helpful, though, since it was good to have least some technical knowledge before starting the company; we weren't operating completely in the dark. I had zero technical background. You could probably get to Bill's pre-WePay level with a bunch of books, long conversations with your programmer friends (you can make some of these friends online - try hacker news), and persistence. > > If you are "relentlessly resourceful" you can find a way to build what you need to build (usually by finding the right person and convincing them that you and your idea are worth their time). It's definitely harder to start a tech/internet company without being technical, but it's not impossible. You just need to be a lot scrappier in the beginning. I have a ton of non-technical friends starting technical companies. Some of them will succeed and some will fail. The smarter, more resourceful, harder working ones will have the best chance of succeeding.” http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/f5vh1/i_founded_the_antipaypal_raised_9mm_and_now_want/c1dimd6 http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/f5vh1/i_founded_the_an...
niraj0228 16y ago
Great product for a great program. Great job WePay!
jjcm 16y ago
This is excellent. Not only is this going to roll out a great feature, but they're tailoring it in a way that's going to get great press coverage. Excellent job WePay guys, this was a wonderful move on their part.
- GrooveStomp 16y ago
  Agreed. It sounds like a very useful feature.
citricsquid 16y ago
Every time I see WePay claiming to be an anti-paypal I let out such a sigh. Instead of building a business (well, the marketing side) on what they offer, they're building it on how shitty a competitor is, except they're not a competitor. WePay is to paypal what... Myspace is to Facebook? I have no idea what to compare them to, but WePay offer 1/3rd the functionality of what Paypal offer and are building their business on everyone "hating" Paypal except they don't face the same challenges Paypal do. Even this comment is ridiculous, everyone is praising them for their "honesty" when this is exactly what companies like Mastercard did, so because they're big businesses they're not allowed to make sensible decisions, but because they're a startup they are? http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/f5vh1/i_founded_the_antipaypal_raised_9mm_and_now_want/c1difi2 http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/f5vh1/i_founded_the_an... It's stupid. They mentioned Paypal 17 times in their post, more than they mentioned their own business.
- albedoa 16y ago
  Though there are other merits to your post, I would like to share this relevant article by Jeff Atwood: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/03/whos-your-arch-enemy.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/03/whos-your-arch-enem... Sometimes having an arch-enemy is enough for users to understand your value add.
  - citricsquid 16y ago
    Definitely, I can fully understand this in the Stackoverflow situation where they were directly competing with Expertsexchange, but what WePay are doing is taking a business that offer 10 things, emulating 1 part of it and then marketing themselves as the "good" guys. I mean okay if WePay were an equivalent to Paypal then what they're doing is justifiable, but they're riding off the hate for Paypal to launch their own business and then everyone thinks oh hey they're the good they're a startup, woo startups! They're getting free passes too, Paypal avoided the Wikileaks things because they don't want to deal with an angry US government and suddenly they're the devil for not standing up tro the government, but when WePay do it they're heros? I can't replace my usage of Paypal (which is just sending money to people and buying things on Etsy etc.) with WePay, for me (a simple user at best) being unable to do that with a supposed "competitor" surely proves it's a worthless comparison.
jasonlotito 16y ago
While this is all well and good, they need to start... 1. Allowing people to make payments from outside the US. 2. Allowing for people from outside the US to accept payments. Until that happens, PayPal will continue to reign supreme. Awesome feature though. Just disheartened that I cannot use it. =(
- atgm 16y ago
  It's not like Paypal is great outside the US either, though; I have a Japanese account hooked up to my Japanese bank account and it's completely useless. It can't use funds from my Japanese bank, only put them in. What I'd really like to be able to do is use it to quickly facilitate transfers from my Japanese bank account to American services, or to my own account... but I can't.
  - jasonlotito 16y ago
    I'm not even talking about bank accounts. I'm talking about credit cards. I'm not expecting WePay to link up to banks around the world over night.
rs 16y ago
I like their energy in targeting Paypal, but is there any statistics out there that shows how many % of Paypal business users are actually unhappy ? I use Paypal quite extensively for business and it seems pretty good. I suspect that we tend to read/hear the noisy disgruntled Paypal users. My suspicion is that this portion is probably a small % of their user base.

101 points by jmintz 16y ago

Just noticed the awesome thread after my quick comment. Pretty funny :) http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/f5vh1/i_founded_the_antipaypal_raised_9mm_and_now_want/c1difza http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/f5vh1/i_founded_the_an...

kmfrk 16y ago

My favourite part: “Quick question, though: did you or Bill have any programming or web development experience before founding Wepay? A buddy of mine (an investment banker) and I (ex-Army officer, MBA) throw around business ideas all the time while drinking at the pub, but we always are forced to bring ourselves back to earth when we realize we both have no programming experience whatsoever. Is it even worth it to start something tech-related when both founders aren't your typical tech guys? How did you do it? > I love this question. Bill had a CS degree from BC, but he wasn't a talented web developer or anything like that. His background was helpful, though, since it was good to have least some technical knowledge before starting the company; we weren't operating completely in the dark. I had zero technical background. You could probably get to Bill's pre-WePay level with a bunch of books, long conversations with your programmer friends (you can make some of these friends online - try hacker news), and persistence. > > If you are "relentlessly resourceful" you can find a way to build what you need to build (usually by finding the right person and convincing them that you and your idea are worth their time). It's definitely harder to start a tech/internet company without being technical, but it's not impossible. You just need to be a lot scrappier in the beginning. I have a ton of non-technical friends starting technical companies. Some of them will succeed and some will fail. The smarter, more resourceful, harder working ones will have the best chance of succeeding.” http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/f5vh1/i_founded_the_antipaypal_raised_9mm_and_now_want/c1dimd6 http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/f5vh1/i_founded_the_an...

niraj0228 16y ago

Great product for a great program. Great job WePay!

jjcm 16y ago

This is excellent. Not only is this going to roll out a great feature, but they're tailoring it in a way that's going to get great press coverage. Excellent job WePay guys, this was a wonderful move on their part.

GrooveStomp 16y ago
Agreed. It sounds like a very useful feature.

citricsquid 16y ago

Every time I see WePay claiming to be an anti-paypal I let out such a sigh. Instead of building a business (well, the marketing side) on what they offer, they're building it on how shitty a competitor is, except they're not a competitor. WePay is to paypal what... Myspace is to Facebook? I have no idea what to compare them to, but WePay offer 1/3rd the functionality of what Paypal offer and are building their business on everyone "hating" Paypal except they don't face the same challenges Paypal do. Even this comment is ridiculous, everyone is praising them for their "honesty" when this is exactly what companies like Mastercard did, so because they're big businesses they're not allowed to make sensible decisions, but because they're a startup they are? http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/f5vh1/i_founded_the_antipaypal_raised_9mm_and_now_want/c1difi2 http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/f5vh1/i_founded_the_an... It's stupid. They mentioned Paypal 17 times in their post, more than they mentioned their own business.

albedoa 16y ago
Though there are other merits to your post, I would like to share this relevant article by Jeff Atwood: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/03/whos-your-arch-enemy.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/03/whos-your-arch-enem... Sometimes having an arch-enemy is enough for users to understand your value add.
- citricsquid 16y ago
  Definitely, I can fully understand this in the Stackoverflow situation where they were directly competing with Expertsexchange, but what WePay are doing is taking a business that offer 10 things, emulating 1 part of it and then marketing themselves as the "good" guys. I mean okay if WePay were an equivalent to Paypal then what they're doing is justifiable, but they're riding off the hate for Paypal to launch their own business and then everyone thinks oh hey they're the good they're a startup, woo startups! They're getting free passes too, Paypal avoided the Wikileaks things because they don't want to deal with an angry US government and suddenly they're the devil for not standing up tro the government, but when WePay do it they're heros? I can't replace my usage of Paypal (which is just sending money to people and buying things on Etsy etc.) with WePay, for me (a simple user at best) being unable to do that with a supposed "competitor" surely proves it's a worthless comparison.

jasonlotito 16y ago

While this is all well and good, they need to start... 1. Allowing people to make payments from outside the US. 2. Allowing for people from outside the US to accept payments. Until that happens, PayPal will continue to reign supreme. Awesome feature though. Just disheartened that I cannot use it. =(

atgm 16y ago
It's not like Paypal is great outside the US either, though; I have a Japanese account hooked up to my Japanese bank account and it's completely useless. It can't use funds from my Japanese bank, only put them in. What I'd really like to be able to do is use it to quickly facilitate transfers from my Japanese bank account to American services, or to my own account... but I can't.
- jasonlotito 16y ago
  I'm not even talking about bank accounts. I'm talking about credit cards. I'm not expecting WePay to link up to banks around the world over night.

rs 16y ago

I like their energy in targeting Paypal, but is there any statistics out there that shows how many % of Paypal business users are actually unhappy ? I use Paypal quite extensively for business and it seems pretty good. I suspect that we tend to read/hear the noisy disgruntled Paypal users. My suspicion is that this portion is probably a small % of their user base.