[manderson2080]

In 2001, when the money was flowing, everyone's solution for any startup's problem was to throw money at it. Today, there many other outlets for growing an intelligent idea: blogs, press, alternative incentives programs. And minimal hardware/software costs to build such a product. While PayPal, in 2001, could maybe not have been built lean. It is very possible for the next PayPal-like startup to disrupt the market now on a micro-budget.

[steveklabnik]

Yep. I don't think Venmo has gotten an insane amount of funding, for instance, and I think it's just as disruptive as PayPal was.

[klenwell]

"When people trust you, you can pull money from their accounts at will."

Hadn't heard of Venmo before this. But yeah, that sounds like it could be pretty disruptive.

[adw]

They're not doing much that's dramatically new - check out the M-PESA system, which is massive in North Africa...

[steveklabnik]

I've had an account with them for a while, and I met them at SXSW. I'm not sure what they're publicly saying or not, but they've got some really cool stuff in the works with that feature...

They're a company that I'm excited about, because I've found them useful a ton of times since I've heard of the idea. One of those "you never knew how useful it was until you had it" kind of things.