
Apply with me to YC in the next 3 days and change the world - tempaccount987
I'm throwing a hail mary here - because desperate times call for desperate measures.<p>I have an awesome prototype built that brings an emerging tech to the masses and I think has a good shot at changing the world.  YC has expressed interest (got to the interview as solo applicant in the last batch but decided to defer without a co-founder).  This idea won't be fresh forever (there are others starting to look into it) so I want to move on this asap with the right team.  But there is one thing holding me back from knocking this out of the park: I have yet to find the right co-founder.<p>For the past year I've met with 1 or 2 people a week, either by phone or coffee, and despite some close calls that person hasn't turned up yet.  But I believe they are out there, and I'm hoping they are reading HN tonight.<p>Getting a "shotgun wedding" is really not ideal, but if you are the the right person then I don't care how we meet.  I'm going to improve my chances of finding you any way I can.<p>So what is the idea?<p>Credit card fees are too high.  In the next five years merchants are going to start moving away from paying 2.5% plus 30 cents per transaction when fast secure alternatives become available.  They're going to (at first) offer them at checkout alongside traditional credit card options, and then eventually start incentivising consumers to make the switch.  If Amazon has a 5% margin on a $100 text book they aren't going to give $2.00 of their $5 to Visa/MC forever.<p>The same thing is going to happen in mobile.  Your phone is going to become your wallet, and I don't think 30 year old credit card technology is going to be powering this new ewallet when someone goes to buy a cup of coffee in 10 years.  All solutions today are carrying along the legacy baggage of credit cards.<p>So what will this solution be?  It's going to be a digital currency, like bitcoin or some derivative of it, running in the cloud with a solid api to build an ecosystem around it.  It's going to spring up organically in developing countries first I think, or places without stable currencies.  If you think bitcoin sucks, this isn't really the right place to get into a flame war on it.  I'm making a long term bet here and when it's more clear in five years or things have evolved it will be too late to jump on this, so whoever is going to win this needs to start now.  Digital currencies show some early promise but are way too difficult to use for normal people (or are proprietary and controlled by one company like facebook credits).  To me this is an opportunity, and I'm in a position to start laying the groundwork for this new platform.<p>Here are some screenshots of the prototype: http://imgur.com/a/KSKOt  It has basic send/receive functionality but is still super early stage.<p>In a few words, this is paypal for bitcoin.  The killer app will be in disrupting transaction fees that are a tax on every transaction in our economy.<p>Who do I want to meet?<p>You must be technical, have a passion for this space, and have insane work ethic.  This is going to be super fucking hard, but the payoff is that we have a non-zero chance of really changing the world in big way.  This isn't another photo sharing app.  Let me just stress again that you must be a deeply technical builder (I am one too).  There is no room for idea people at this stage.  I'm happy to share more of my background if we get in touch. (Edit: I added some of my background below).<p>If interested please send an email to applytoycwithmeandchangethewor@gmail.com
And include (1) something awesome you've built (2) why you would be right for this and (3) a phone number and how late I can call you.<p>Even if you aren't the right person, please upvote this and help us meet.  This post could literally form a company in the next three days.
======
potatolicious
What dmix said. Why are you using a throwaway account?

A co-founder relationship is very important, and my willingness to join you on
this venture has less to do with your idea and more to do with _you_.
Specifically:

\- Who are you, and what have you done?

\- What is your professional and personal experience, and what does it bring
to the table in a general sense of running a startup, and in a specific sense,
this idea of yours.

\- Why you? I need to be able to trust my co-founder pretty much absolutely
and unquestionably. What is your character and who can vouch for it?

Funnily enough, your idea and the fact that you have a prototype is a fairly
minor signal compared to the above.

~~~
citricsquid
The irony is he's using a throwaway even though his identity is not concealed.
If you visit the website address in the screenshots, click "help" and then
take the name listed and google it you have a full profile on the guy...

------
gavanwoolery
I hate conspiracy theories as much as the next guy, but there are a few basic
principles I follow:

1) When people are making money off of something, they protect that method of
making money, and evolve if necessary.

2) There are intricacies to our currency that might not seem immediately
obvious. People depend on the discreet nature of physical currency - it
controls the entire world of corruption (a lot of movies like to use diamonds
as black market currency, but in reality its too difficult to rule out man-
made diamonds these days, or to quickly evaluate the worth of a lot of
diamonds). Corruption does not occur solely among gangsters, but all manner of
people - from the most prolific bankers to the most "reputable" politicians.
Digital currency can too easily be traced.

3) The government has made little effort to create its own digital currency,
despite the fact that it would save tax payers billions, negating the need for
the IRS, Mint, and reduce the need for the FBI and Secret Service (which
monitors counterfeiting among other things)...and the corruption associated
with physical currency. You might encounter more red tape and inertia than you
anticipate -- if not now then when Visa lobbies its favorite candidate to
create laws that work against you.

4) Third world countries are not a great target for digital currency IMHO,
unless they have prevalent technology and understanding of it.

~~~
DevX101
Without commenting on your first 3 points, I'd argue that a 3rd world country
could potentially be an excellent place to gain mass adoption.

In the U.S. we have credit cards and fixed addresses to mail bills. There's
probably a billion people who don't have this. There is absolutely an
opportunity in 3rd world countries to leapfrog credit card systems, which for
a variety of reasons don't work in these environments.

There's a mobile phone currency company in Kenya called MPesa which is
currently processing 20% of the countries GDP! There's simply no way you could
get that adoption in the U.S. that fast, since you'd have to displace VISA,
Mastercard, and debit cards...no easy feat.

So OP is working on a hard problem, but its doable.

~~~
gavanwoolery
That is (genuinely) a great point, but I would ask what this mobile currency
is based on - the country's currency? Is it mined like bitcoin? Processing
payments via mobile phone bills is a different beast than creating a new
currency, IMHO...but then again, maybe I am not understanding these companies
correctly. :)

~~~
utunga
you may not have heard of m-pesa - which arose out of people being able to
transfer mobile minutes and then became a fully fledge mobile currency in it's
own right.. as xtrumanx says (below) m-pesa is huge. you might also note that
this has already happened ;-)

~~~
itmag
That is very interesting. Is there some way I can start developing apps for
the M-Pesa ecosystem? Mind pointing me in the right direction? :)

~~~
utunga
sure is (interesting). unfortunately I don't know enough about it beyond just
suggesting you google m-pesa and go from there.. ;_)

------
brandonb
I know the OP and he's the "real deal." Hard-working, friendly, insightful,
and smart. I'd definitely start a company with him if I hadn't already started
one last year. So if you've been thinking about starting a startup but don't
have a co-founder, shoot him an e-mail!

~~~
chefsurfing
+1 He definitely is the "real deal". Known this guy for years and he is all of
the above + healthy and hearty. Much startup experience and independent
projects. Working with him on this would be a true adventure for those who
have the privilege.

------
dmix
I'm not currently looking to join a startup. But if I was I would rather have
5 paragraphs about who _you_ are, why you are the right person for this
problem and what you bring to the table... with 1-2 paragraphs about the idea.
Team = more important than ideas.

~~~
tempaccount987
It's a good point - I was trying to stay semi-anonymous.

For now I'll just say, I've built one startup previously to profitability and
20k users. Have also worked at 2 YC companies, one as employee #2 and the
other in a role that is relevant to this idea. I have a masters in CS and
studied economics undergrad.

------
AlexeyMK
I agree that credit cards are going to be displaced, but what is the rationale
that the solution requires its own currency? Most transactions are very much
within national (or European) boundaries.

I think companies like Venmo, Dwolla and Square (or even PayPal) are well-
positioned to becoming credit card alternatives.

So: why Bitcoin/a separate currency?

~~~
tempaccount987
I think Dwolla is a valid approach that is better in the short term (doesn't
ask people to change as much) but is not as good in the long term. They are
built on ACH which still takes 1-3 business days. The way I think of it is
Credit card = fast and expensive, ACH = slow and cheap, digital currency =
fast and cheap. So it's the speed of credit card at the price of ach. Also,
ACH doesn't work internationally well so there is an opportunity there
(Western Union, etc).

~~~
AlexeyMK
Sure, but look at the way Venmo/Square are approaching this problem.

Venmo: You have a venmo balance. Initially, money is brought in from a CC, but
they just moved to Bank Accounts. Payments are fast because it's just venmo
balance --> venmo balance most of the time.

Square: They control apps on the merchant (register, square) and the client
(card case, now pay with square), rendering a physical credit card useless. At
some point they connect to your bank account as well (or open their own bank).

I think having a niche currency is just another barrier to success. Not saying
that you shouldn't proceed with this opportunity, but you're far from the only
player in the space who realizes the magnitude of the opportunity and sees
what the future looks like.

------
runako
What dmix & potatolicious said, plus:

\- The killer app in this space is whether you have an answer to "Why can a
startup displace the incumbents?" and "How are you going to get people using
this?" The answer to the second must be understandable by my dry cleaner, who
would not trust bitcoin even if it were issued by the US Treasury. The
prototype at this stage is probably about as useful as PayPal's first
prototype (which was for a different idea, IIRC). Edit: not hating on Bitcoin,
just pointing out that success here will derive in part from expanding its use
beyond the core early adopters.

\- Work on your writing & proofing. It may seem petty, but you're aiming big
so this stuff matters. People (cofounders included) will pay attention to
sloppy writing at this stage, using it as a proxy for information they don't
yet have about you. Plus, when my cofounder emails senior people at major
banks, will I feel compelled to rewrite the emails? Temp accounts plus poor
writing => no response.

Hope this helps, and good luck.

~~~
glenra
On that second item, writing & proofing: it might help to use a word-processor
that includes a grammar-checker. Spell-check alone is not sufficient to catch
things like

"It's killer app will be in" => should be "Its"

"Their going to (at first) offer them" => should be "They're"

"along side" => should be "alongside"

------
deepkut
Conceptually, I believe Bitcoins, or some derivative of them, will change the
world. However, after writing a 25 page report on the legality of Bitcoins,
I'm convinced the US government will view them as "domestic terrorism."

Yes, you read that correctly.

There are laws that state that anything that can be used to facilitate money
laundering OR threaten the US economy is illegal.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm one of the most active Bitcoin fans I know, I
think the concept is unbelievable. I just wanted you to know that there might
be some additional legal barriers as you can gain traction.

Stay hungry, stay foolish.

~~~
tempaccount987
Can you link to the paper? Happy to read it. My thoughts/plan in general
though: basically do what facebook credits did. Get licensed as a money
transmitter, collect info on all users to comply with AML and know your
customer laws. It's a pain, and expensive but doable and there is precedent
for it (Paypal blazed this trail as well). Then there will be a PR battle
where you win hearts and minds by highlighting the benefit to small business
owners.

~~~
deepkut
Bitcoin Paper:

[http://www.scribd.com/doc/86764784/Diepenbrock-
BitcoinReport...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/86764784/Diepenbrock-
BitcoinReport2011)

Due note that the paper was written in April of 2011. However, this shouldn't
change any aspects of the legal analysis.

If you have any more questions, or just want to talk, let me know!

------
debacle
I don't think you've properly thought this through. Many people have, and
there's a reason we still have the system we have today:

How do you handle chargebacks? What about fraud? If you don't properly protect
your users, you're not really providing a good service, and you need to make
the rules incredibly clear for your merchants, they aren't going to work with
you.

How are merchants supposed to respond to the volatility of bitcoin? For a
currency that sees semi-wild (compared to standard FOREX) swings in value,
they could be waffling between the red and the black on a daily basis. There's
no value in holding bitcoins when there are better currencies out there.

Where do you make money? Transactionally? On a flat-fee basis? In loaning out
the cash? The problem with banking is that the fractional reserve system has
created a risk environment such that you can't make money unless you're
leveraging your reserves for lending, and that's an incredibly complex system
on its own. The big banks make money because they are vastly huge. How would
you move into that scene? Is the intent to be acquired? How do you leverage
startup inertia to compete against a company doing hundreds or thousands of
times the volume in a day than you'd hope to see in a month?

Just a few questions. Many people have given this particular problem a lot of
thought, and none of them have been able to make it work as of yet.

~~~
tzz
Sometimes thinking this much about why not to do something keeps you away
accomplishing things in life. I am sure when Amazon started in 1994, if they
had to worry about all the problems associating with selling things online,
they wouldn't start. If Google had to worry about how to make money from a
search engine in beginning, they wouldn't be here. Assume that problem you
going to face in future will have solutions and just start your idea.

------
fossuser
Paypal had enormous problems with fraud that almost killed them (and did kill
their competitors).

I think Bitcoin is awesome, but it offers users no protection - it's more of a
cash replacement than a credit card replacement. This is something that might
end up being difficult to handle (something to make sure users will
understand).

------
kirinan
I like the idea, mainly because its such a big domain and a hard problem. I
don't feel however that you should find a cofounder this way. Since this is
such a tough domain to begin with, meeting someone and then starting a
business together within days is setting yourself up for failure. The idea of
changing the world is cool, and may be able to bind people together for the
immediate short term, but what happens when you hit the really bad lows in the
startup? You haven't known each other for very long, and may split. That being
said, I'm sure you have already thought about that, and are ready for that
risk. If you are, then god speed and I really do hope you can change the
world.

------
ig1
IMO You're better off applying on your own and stating your intention to find
a cofounder.

YC does occasionally accept sole-founders who plan to find someone else, as
far as I know (I may be wrong) they've never accepted a team which was put
together by strangers for the purpose of YC.

YC places a huge emphasis on team (over everything else in the application)
and team dynamics play an important part in that. They need to know the team
won't fall apart when under pressure as that's one of the main reasons
startups fail. If you pair up with someone you've never worked with, then
neither you or YC have any indication how the team dynamics will work.

------
calydon
Why are you trying to recruit someone just like you (technical)? You might
want to consider looking for someone more on the business dev side, or someone
with mad banking knowledge/security chops.

One thing people sometimes don't realize about financial services apps is it
is not just the quality of the app that matters, it's how they deal with fraud
(chargebacks). This alone destroy most early starters. PayPal succeeded where
others failed because they started out trying to solve the problem of online
fraud and then pivoted to become an e-wallet.

------
asto
I don't think alternative currencies have a long-term future. The only reason
they exist now is because people and governments in most countries are quite
ignorant about technology. Once they become more widely used, they will start
causing a whole lot of problems* and will be banned by governments.

The real solutions, in my opinion, _have_ to use real currencies or they will
face a severe risk of death by regulation.

* Use for illegal activities.

* Problems with controlling capital flow across national borders.

* Problems with estimating money supply in an economic system etc.

~~~
tempaccount987
There is a precedent for doing it legally, Paypal, Facebook Credits, etc are
all digital currencies. They do it by getting licensed as a money transmitter
and complying with all AML and know your customer laws. It's an expensive and
long process but people are able to do it. Not sure I fully understand the
last two bullets. In general I think you're right that this startup will have
larger legal challenges/costs than most but building something that is 100%
above board and shows you're making a good faith effort to comply/do the right
thing buys you a lot of good will. You want to be YouTube, not MegaUpload.

~~~
asto
Paypal is more of a wallet service that works with real currency. Even then
it's quite heavily regulated in India, where I live. I'm not sure about other
developing nations. FB credits have extremely limited use as far as I know, so
it's not much of a threat. Another non state-issued currency is food coupons
(like sodexo). As long as the new currency cannot be universally used, it's of
no concern to the authorities.

You cannot, for example, pay some shady person for a handgun with FB credits
or food coupons. From what I can tell, your currency will make that possible.
If this transaction happens with a regular bank account (through creditcard or
bank transfer), the bank will be able to point the police to the person
involved. Will you also be able to do this? The price for reliably collecting,
holding, updating such information is quite high.

~~~
davedx
I'm pretty sure that storing an audit of your transactions is a legal
requirement for any financial services company. It's a compliance no-brainer.

------
damian2000
Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't this just boil down to writing a bitcoin
client web app (and/or mobile app)? So you are betting the house on bitcoin
becoming popular.

------
mikeroher
I agree with potatolicious and dmix. Also, what's the difference between
"Bitbank", Paypal, Stripe, etc. What makes this idea unique?

~~~
tempaccount987
Paypal, Stripe, Square etc all use credit cards which cost 2.x% plus 30 cents.
Bitbank uses a digital currency with low or no fees. It's more competing with
Visa/Mastercard than with Paypal, Stripe, etc. Those companies could become
partners actually if they decided to support it as another payment method.

~~~
neilkumar
But from my POV (consumer), I get a 30 day float (assuming I pay my bills on
time). Whats in it for me to not use a credit card?

~~~
sgornick
You know how some people pay with credit card simply to get the airline miles
or 1% cash back?

Who pays that? The merchant. (Well, the merchant adds it to the price that
everyone pays, but I digress).

Now given the option. Pay $100 with your credit card or pay $98 if paying with
bitcoin, which are you going to choose.

Stripe and PayPal both are at 2.99% + $0.30, Square is at a flat 2.75%. So
giving the customer the 2% discount for paying with bitcoin still yields the
merchant more than had the customer paid with a credit or (signature-based)
debit card transaction.

~~~
neilkumar
But, almost no one seems to offer a discount for cash - which they pay 0% on
and they don't have to wait to collect from the credit card companies.

There are so many of these alternative payments systems available nowadays,
but none seem to really offer any benefits (or protection or increased
warranties) to me over a credit card to change my personal purchasing
behavior.

~~~
sgornick
Merchants incur expenses dealing with cash as well, so accepting $0.98 worth
of bitcoin might be equivalent to accepting $1.00 in cash and coin after the
hassle of dealing with cash in factored in.

It will be some time before we see bitcoin used at retail, point of sale. But
it really solves problems for online purchases -- for the merchant. And maybe
that's where the the sweet spot is. If you want what the merchant sells and
the merchant wants bitcoin (for the reasons you state -- protection from
fraudulent customer chargebacks), you won't be given the opportunity to use
your credit card.

------
wizardhat
I'm gonna call it right now: bad idea. It's not about efficiency, it's about
convenience. Plus, what makes you think you math is right? Square only takes
2.75%, and also Amazon is a high-volume, low-margin exception. The long tail
is low-volume high-margin, and I doubt you will convince people to radically
change payment systems for a lousy 3% savings.

------
itmag
I have a friend of mine who would be a good fit. He is working on a product in
the exact same space as you and he has a EU license to act as a payment
provider. He's also the kind of person who wants to change the world.

Email me at allhailarnold@gmail.com and I will introduce you to him.

------
mirsadm
I would also suggest not to make it sound like a job interview. At the moment
you have an idea and not much else. If you want to find a cofounder then you
need to be the one showing people why they should choose to go with you not
the other way around.

------
dholowiski
Transferring bitcoin funds is already easy with the GUI. Sure a wrapper around
it might make it slightly more user friendly but it's trivially easy to
implement. Not to mention the fact that Bitcoin is illegal in most developed
countries.

~~~
sgornick
It is? How so would that be?

------
hornd
Although I'm only slightly interested (don't really have too good of a work
ethic :)), I think this is a really interesting space that has plenty of room
for innovation. Hope you kill it!

------
ijoey
Boy. This is the 60000 dollar question isn't it? Who wants to be my partner?
Good luck. I really hope you find them. Taking on the credit card industry is
going to be awesome!

------
aDemoUzer
Not fond of the idea and I just did not get inspired nor saw its potential.

For next batch, I applied as lone founder with no-idea, if you did not get in,
seems like I might have similar fate.

------
utunga
a little unfair to tack this response on to this particular post, but it
reminds me (again) how much time people spend on the outward appearance of
apps around alternative currency without addressing the part that's actually
hard.. how do you give an alternative currency real value?

~~~
lackstein
>how do you give an alternative currency real value?

I'd start by looking at how they implemented the Real in Brazil. They managed
to convince an entire country to trust and use an, at the time, completely
fictitious currency. There's an excellent article about it, which
unfortunately I can't find.

The trick was to get people to start thinking of prices in terms of Reals,
while continuing to use the original currency. If you can accomplish that,
you've given your currency value.

~~~
nl
_There's an excellent article about it, which unfortunately I can't find._

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-
fake...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-
saved-brazil)

HN Discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1757716>

------
discobean
Did you invest in Bitcoin when it was $21, and want to bring that price back
up?

------
tomasienrbc
I love all the "aren't the current players going to win this war" posts.
That's a HUGE advantage for you: everybody is going to underestimate you and
your possible impact.... until it's too late. This isn't a sure bet, not by a
long shot, but it's got a good chance of being something as impactful as
Square has the potential to be, and that's a big fucking deal y'all.

------
spwmoni
Because bitcoin worked out so well. Have fun with that, dude.

~~~
acgourley
There are many hard startup problems (autonomous robotics, craigslist
competitors) which have had people crash upon the rocks in pursuit them. Does
that automatically make them stupid to try? Bitcoin's failures don't mean all
non-state issued digital currencies will fail.

~~~
damian2000
Yes but he's actually using bitcoin, not trying to come up with another
digital currency.

------
wdr1
No thanks. I'd rather sell sugared water.

