
WePay just built a new feature inspired by and for redditors - jmintz
http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/f5vh1/i_founded_the_antipaypal_raised_9mm_and_now_want/
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citricsquid
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_an...](http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/f5vh1/i_founded_the_antipaypal_raised_9mm_and_now_want/c1difi2)

It's stupid. They mentioned Paypal 17 times in their post, more than they
mentioned their own business.

~~~
mrkurt
Positioning yourself as "the anti-big-evil-guy" can work really well when
you're the little guy. It would be stupid of them _not_ to run with it when
it's resonating so well. It doesn't really matter what challenges they face,
the story for users is what matters.

The Myspace to Facebook example is funny, because Facebook was the anti
Myspace. Not only that, they were the anti Myspace specifically because they
stripped out features.

Many successful companies were the anti-something or another when they were
small:

* Google was the anti-Yahoo

* 37 Signals was the anti-enterprise (and lately, the anti-funded startup)

* Southwest Airlines is the anti-American Airlines, don't you love their free baggage commercials?

* Reddit is the anti-digg

~~~
citricsquid
I commented below with a proper answer (or my attempt at it) but basically, in
each of those situations they are _actual_ competitiors. You could replace
Yahoo with google, Reddit with Digg, but you can't replace Paypal with WePay.
To me at least it seems like they're school yard bullies, identified a "weak"
target, one that everyone dislikes and then using that dislike to improve
their own position without _actually_ competing. It's the cheats way and for
me at least, I wouldn't be happy running a business that way. If I'm going to
spend my time bitching about a competitor, I'd make damn sure that I was
_actually_ a competitor.

~~~
mrkurt
I dunno, I don't think that's true. You can replace the search function of
Yahoo with Google, but that was only one of a bunch of things Yahoo was doing.
You can't fly Southwest Airlines to Tokyo, but you can on American.

As a matter of fact, Southwest Airlines limited service reach makes many of
the things they tout possible. AA could never, for instance, operate with only
one kind of airplane.

People love the underdog. You might think of big bad Paypal as being the weak
target, but I don't think anyone else does.

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kmfrk
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_an...](http://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/f5vh1/i_founded_the_antipaypal_raised_9mm_and_now_want/c1dimd6)

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jasonlotito
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
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
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.

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jjcm
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
Agreed. It sounds like a very useful feature.

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

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rs
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.

