Pedro Franceschi

In this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with notable X personality Trung Phan about the evolving social media landscape, and how to tame the mayhem and pandemonium of X. https://lnkd.in/dVHMzbui

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Stripe's decoupling of their value-added services from payment processing is commendable. Clayton Christensen would tell you: “When there is a performance gap — when product functionality and reliability are not yet good enough to address the needs of customers in a given tier of the market — companies must compete by making the best possible products. In the race to do this, firms that build their products around proprietary, interdependent architectures enjoy an important competitive advantage against competitors whose product architectures are modular, because the standardization inherent in modularity takes too many degrees of design freedom away from engineers, and they cannot not optimize performance.” Digital payments had significant performance gaps and both Stripe and Adyen saw this and approached it with a similar mindset back when they launched 10 + years ago. But a lot has happened in 10 years to close that performance gap. Again, from Christensen: “Once their requirements for functionality and reliability have been met, customers begin to redefine what is not good enough. What becomes not good enough is that customers can’t get exactly what they want exactly when they need it, as conveniently as possible. Customers become willing to pay premium prices for improved performance along this new trajectory of innovation in speed, convenience, and customization.” At Spreedly, we saw this change occur somewhere between 2017 - 2018. We went from a fringe idea (why would you want to work with multiple providers?) to hearing “Even the best provider places restraint on our product roadmap and growth. We need to build in flexibility from the get-go/now" I’m sure Stripe has known this for the last couple of years. This would be a gigantic engineering task to make happen though - a very impressive accomplishment. For existing PSPs and payment platforms like Spreedly that have always had an open platform mindset, this is excellent validation via a major market participant. And for merchants, there is more choice than ever when building the ultimate payment stack.

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⚡ 🎇 Basis Theory x Stripe ⚡ 🎇 https://lnkd.in/gfYrwF_G With this integration, leveraging Stripe's new Forward API, it is now possible for ANY merchant or platform - regardless of size, sophistication or resource allocation/availability - to get all of the benefits (control, freedom, flexibility, leverage, redundancy, etc.) that companies like Netflix, Microsoft and Uber spent millions of dollars of engineering resources to build with a single API call! The vitamin 💊 now beats the painkiller 💉 Get started today for less than $500/mo! 👇 https://lnkd.in/gzM6QMKQ *no frontend changes required

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Along with the effect on founders and making lemonade out of lemons for their runway, this article shows how retail the VC industry is. VCs work for their LPs. While some of them have wealthy GPs which help underwrite their funds, many don't, and will either eat or starve based on how well they can fundraise. With fundraising so far down as compared to 2-3 years ago, it's only natural that many VCs will cease to exist. Message to start-ups: fundraising is actually a two-way evaluation process. Don't just accept whatever cash is offered to you, choose the right investors who are actually set up to stick around for the whole journey.

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Pretty excited about this one - a team with a remarkable track record across top DeFi protocols, propelled by a clear & effective go to market strategy. The result? Over $300 million in TVL and $2 billion in trading volume within just a few short months. ___________________________ As Blast was gearing up for its launch, the market was flooded with over a dozen different spot and perpetual DEXes seeking funding. At the time, Blast had already achieved over $2 billion in TVL and we anticipated they would launch various mainnet incentives to maintain liquidity within the protocol. Our aim was to identify the team most capable of capturing the majority of mindshare and swap volume from the $2 billion+ of captive liquidity in the ~3 months leading up to the Blast token generation event (TGE). Consequently, we engaged in several discussions and reviewed numerous pitches to better understand how the DEX competition might unfold. We were particularly impressed by the Thruster team and their strategy to attract early attention and liquidity through focused partnerships and integrations. ___________________________ At Futureproof, we invest our own capital, which can sometimes be seen as a limitation in the venture capital space. We do not write overly large checks and cannot invest in all the deals that come our way. However, this constraint sharpens our investment focus. Ultimately, it leads us to invest in those we believe are best positioned to dominate their respective niches, rather than just securing a competitive position. High conviction, high hit rate... betting on the fastest horse. Thruster is exactly that - winning, growing and showing zero signs of slowing down. We can't wait to support them as they staff up and double down on their winning formula to integrate Thruster products and liquidity into other top protocols across DeFi, NFTFi and beyond.

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Jeff Weinstein is a product lead at Stripe where he helped grow their payment APIs to hundreds of billions in volume and transformed the way founders start companies into a few simple clicks with Atlas. Prior to Stripe, Jeff led several startups and sold companies to Groupon and Box. He’s known for his customer obsession, craft, quality, and building beloved products businesses rely on. In our conversation, we discuss: 🔸 The power of customer obsession and how to operationalize it in your product development process 🔸 How to pick the right metrics and use them to drive impact 🔸 Techniques for getting things done at big companies 🔸 A group practice Jeff started to uplevel product craft, called Study Group 🔸 The story behind Stripe Atlas and its mission to increase entrepreneurship globally 🔸 Lessons from working with the founders of Stripe Listen now 👇 YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gE2HeQq3 Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gdADCBQs Apple: https://lnkd.in/gW79ZutA Some key takeaways: 1. Before focusing on craft, experience, or quality, you need to ensure that you’re solving a burning problem for someone. One of Jeff’s first companies went offline for hours and not a single customer reached out—that’s when he knew they didn’t have product-market fit. If users aren’t clamoring for your product, you’re not solving a real need. Think about it this way: solving the core problem is the main course; perfecting craft, UX, and quality are the desserts. 2. Jeff emphasizes the “go, go, go ASAP + optimistic, long-term compounding” approach: seize opportunities with enthusiasm while maintaining a strategic focus on long-term growth. Stripe’s evolution in global payment methods exemplifies how combining rapid execution with thoughtful, enduring strategies leads to significant, sustainable results. 3. When customers take the time to complain or provide feedback, treat it as a gift. Respond promptly to complaints or feedback, even if it means interrupting other tasks, as it creates a direct signal between you and the customer. This responsive attitude can lead to a loyal customer base and product improvement. 4. Ask customers to describe what a “bad day” looks like when using your product, and then find ways to track metrics around those frustrations. You don’t necessarily need to solve every issue right away, but having this problem library builds awareness to inform your roadmap.

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TWO OR THREE-STEPPING TO SERIES A A lot of software founders are still trying to raise a $4-5M seed round from a pre-revenue standpoint to get to Series A. I get that we all want more buffer nowadays but it's also a harder calculus to go from pre-monetization, to early customers, to giving yourself enough sales cycle time in order to hit $1-2M ARR proxy for a strong A. Which is why inevitably, more founders end up having to raise messy extensions/bridges/Seed II or whatever you want to call them. So my advice is that IF you have the luxury of starting a company today, PLAN AHEAD. Even prior to even raising your first angel round. Break up your path to Series A into 2 or 3 tranches of mission-driven capital. Each tranche has a clear goal that you can rally your team and investors around. For example: First tranche to build the product and get early design partners. Second tranche to get to $300K of ARR. Third tranche to get to Series A. This will help support higher operating discipline and awareness. Incremental purchasing and hiring decisions will instantaneously shorten your runway in a way that a larger $5 million seed round obfuscates. And you'll be motivated to find GTM efficiency faster in the journey. Great habits for long term success. For context, Peter Walker of Carta recently sent an update on the arduous path from Seed to Series A. The survival rate is about 1/2 of what it used to be: "Something like 20-24% of startups that raised a seed round would graduate to their Series A in 24 months or less. For companies that raised their seeds in H1 2022, only 13% have made it to Series A across the 6 industries in the chart."

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Between April 2023 and March 2024, the top category in seed rounds in both capital raised and valuation was (gasp!) HR. Despite the typical skepticism around HR tech, data from 1,271 priced seed rounds show that HR startups outpaced other industries with the highest median pre-money valuation and the highest median cash raised. This trend contradicts some investors' perceptions and highlights the growing importance of human resources technology and its potential to drive significant value and attract substantial investment. h/t Peter Walker and the always insightful Carta data.

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Stripe, More Than A PayFac 💡 In terms of Stripe's product stack, the above is the web overview, but it's more relevant to think about their products and services in the context of what they do for businesses and the problems they solve rather than just listing them. 🔹 Simplify Company Incorporation: This allows businesses across the globe to incorporate and operate. 🔹 Prevent & Manage Fraud: They analyse millions of transactions across the globe to identify and mitigate fraudulent activities in real-time. 🔹 Take Payments: Bread and butter of Stripe's business has grown across many more geos and payment methods. 🔹 Understand Risk & Manage Finances: Get a better understanding of all revenue, transactions, obligations and compliance reporting 🔹 Get Paid Faster: This allows customers to access their funds faster. 🔹 Obtain Financing: Unlocking access to funding for the UK's small businesses and creating new revenue streams for platforms. As you can see from the jobs it covers and the solutions it provides for customers, Stripe continually increases the breadth of its offerings by creating solutions that solve all sorts of business problems, not just facilitating payments. Here are the latest set of product announcement that are particularly interesting: ⏱ Pay by Bank & Faster Payouts It allows merchants customers to pay using their bank account utilising the Open Banking framework and sending payments via Faster Payments, the UKs real-time payment infrastructure. It means organisations across the UK can get paid faster. 💰 Stripe Capital for the UK The platform uses a company's transaction and business history on Stripe to proactively qualify businesses for financing. Funds hit approved accounts the next business day, and businesses repay the amount as they earn. 🤖 Radar Assistant A key part of the platform is its customisable rules engine, which gives merchants the ability to set custom rules tailored to their specific business needs, enhancing the flexibility and accuracy of fraud prevention. 👨‍💻 A/B testing Businesses can use the optimised checkout suite, which uses pre-built UIs, a wide range of payment methods, and controls that allow businesses and platforms to fine-tune the checkout experience for their customers quickly. They can use A/B testing to analyse the impact of adding, removing, repositioning payment options and modifying the experience on conversion and, ultimately, revenue, without writing a single piece of code. 💳 Interoperable, de-coupled Stripe products The gist is that some of the bigger products in Stripe's product stack will now be offered as standalone solutions to businesses that do not use Stripe as their payment provider. Source: Jas Shah - https://t.ly/le-I8 #Fintech #Banking #Merchants #OpenBanking #FinancialServices #Payments #Processing #PayFac #Financing #Fraud #AI #Cloud

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"What we are saying is, hey, right now you have this unified infrastructure that allows you to do payment experimentation. And guess what, if you want to try and test different services, now you have access to an app store of services, you go in, in the Primer dashboard, they can just like toggle on and off, like the services you want to use. You can add test them, AB testing in the world of payments is simply impossible, right?" - ⁠Gabriel Le Roux The Asia Tech Podcast welcomed Gabriel Le Roux, a co-Founder and the CEO of Primer back to the show for a quick catch up. Gabriel had written a post on how Stripe's new openness would change the payment space and I wanted to record about it. Check it out on the Asia Tech Podcast YouTube channel as well...and subscribe! Listen to the full episode here... #payments #openpayments #fintech #platforms #interoperability #SME

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One of aspects of Carta's product development that excites me the most is not something we have an opportunity to talk about a lot. Its the infrastructure behind the product experiences we build that is so foundational to the ecosystem. Carta money movement infrastructure moves billions of dollars every year to facilitate crucial transactions. Now we are bringing automated money movement to fund admin and it is a game changer. This infrastructure will work to eliminate the manual, black box, and cumbersome ways that fund transactions are processed today. The future is transparent, seamless and predictable for Carta Fund Admin customers. I am pumped! https://lnkd.in/g3W_cRxn

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Wiz - $0 to $23B in 4 Short Years + The Actual Reason Why Alphabet Inc. is Happy to Make it Happen Alphabet is likely buying Wiz for $23B - an insane amount of value created in just 4 years since its founding in 2020. For context, it took OpenAI 7+ years to get to $20B. Alphabet buying Wiz at $23B puts a fantastic comp out there for investors to underwrite to and justify insane valuations (kinda kidding, kinda not). Currently, Wiz is over $500M in ARR (~46x) but plan to get to $1B in ARR by the end of '25, which would put it at a bit more reasonable 23x, but still a steep price and certainly an indication of conviction in the strategic value of Wiz. So why could Alphabet spend such an insane amount to buy Wiz at such a hefty price? Because the actual golden goose here is winning market share in the ~$300B/yr Cloud Services market that is growing at an insane 21% YoY. The means nearly $60B in new TAM will be up for the taking the next 12 months alone.. Today, Google Cloud (11%) is a distant 3rd in market share behind Amazon Web Services (AWS) (31%) and Microsoft Azure (25%), but it is growing the fastest at 28% YoY. If buying Wiz can help Google accelerate their growth and continue to gain share, they'll be able to capture a bigger slice of that fast growing Cloud Services TAM. And with a market that big growing that fast, there is almost no price too high. Every marginal point of market share is worth at least $15B of EV (assuming 5x). Alphabet currently trades at 5.5x revenue so assuming they can get a marginal $5B of ARR out of the deal over the next few years, the economics make sense almost immediately. Google Cloud is also Alphabet Inc.'s best hedge against AI's potential disruption to their core search business as more people turn to generative AI instead of that trusty search bar to answer their questions. This will be Google's biggest acquisition ever by nearly 2x, and it will be a massive, much-needed replenishment of funds into the venture ecosystem (Index Ventures Sequoia Capital Greenoaks, Insight Partners, Andreessen Horowitz) Fun aside - Wiz has some wildly notable angels on the cap table like Howard Schultz and Bernard Arnault. If this deal goes through it's going to be a huge win for a bunch of founders, investors, and employees and an overall great mark for the early-stage technology ecosystem! All of this is assuming Lina Khan lets it happen!

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Brex is one of my favorite fintechs. Ever wonder what their journey from $0 to over $300M in revenue within 7 years looked like? 2017-2018: The Birth of Brex • Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi, both 22-year-old Stanford dropouts, decided to flip the fintech world on its head by launching Brex, a corporate credit card tailored for startups. • With their co-CEO model (which has become popular), they doubled their management bandwidth. Internal & external duties? No problem when you have twice the number of CEOs to lead folks 2019-2020: Rapid growth • Brex quickly partnered with big names like DoorDash, Flexport, and Roblox. • In 2019, they secured $300 million in funding, catapulting their valuation to $2.6 billion. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you’re swimming in a pool of investor cash. 2021-2022: Diversification and challenges • Brex expanded its product suite to include expense management, bill pay, & travel booking services. If you’re going to burn through cash, you might as well make it convenient. • Despite their success, they faced some “minor” hiccups. Layoffs in 2022 were a delightful reminder that even fintech unicorns aren’t immune to cutting costs by cutting people. 2023: Strategic shifts • Transitioning to a single CEO model, Pedro took the helm while Henrique became chairman. Having two brains was slowing things down? • They continued to innovate, integrating AI into their platform. By the end of 2023, Brex hit over $300 million in revenue, proving that even with all the chaos, they were still making bank​. 2024: Path to profitability • With a goal of being cash-flow positive by 2025, Brex halved its cash burn by chopping 20% of its staff and focused on sustainable growth. Making money instead of burning it is always a sound strategy. • Serving 30K+ customers globally, Brex’s commitment to transparency & customer-centric solutions has kept them in the game. They’re not just participating – they’re rewriting the rules. Want to copy their homework? 1. Identify a significant pain point in an industry and create a solution that addresses it. Please don't start a business without doing this. 2. Utilize a strong co-founder dynamic to maximize efficiency & divide responsibilities effectively. Two heads are better than one, until they aren’t. 3. Secure early partnerships with influential companies to build credibility and a customer base. It’s always about who you know. 4. Listen to your customers. & Expand your product offerings to meet their evolving needs. 5. Maintain a strong focus on transparency & trust to build a loyal customer base. People surprisingly prefer not being lied to. 6. Strategically manage growth, and make tough decisions like layoffs when necessary to ensure long-term sustainability. 7. If you want to go public, be profitable. Did I miss anything?

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Seed VCs are turning to new ‘pro rata’ funds that help them compete with the big firms Alpha Partners, SignalRank and now SaaS Ventures help seed VCs pay for shares when big VCs try to price — or push — them out Lee Edwards, partner at Root VC, has a saying at his firm that “pro rata rights are earned, not given.” That may be a bit of a stretch since pro rata refers to a term that VCs put in their term sheets that gives them the right to buy more shares in a portfolio company during consequent funding rounds to maintain an ownership percentage and avoid dilution. Still, while these rights are not exactly “earned,” they can be expensive. One of the latest trends in VC investing these days are funds dedicated to helping seed VCs exercise their pro rata rights. https://lnkd.in/dRM3RvdA By Christine Hall

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Is double digit growth a sign of true product-market fit? Jason M. Lemkin at SaaStr does an excellent job at emphasizing the importance of metrics such as customer retention, engagement, and adoption rates in determining product market fit. Additionally, it discusses the significance of customer feedback, market demand validation, and the ability to solve a pressing problem for target customers. By focusing on these key indicators, startups can better assess and refine their product-market fit strategies for sustainable growth and success.

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If you're data driven and interested in optimization, (aka, making more money), "checkout" how Digital Wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay and other payment methods can impact conversion rates in this talk from Stripe Sessions: https://lnkd.in/g7uchg7u This was such a great experience to share with Brian McMullin from SamCart and the Stripe team. #payments #fintech

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Proptech integrations are hard, and it’s been this way for more than a decade. We can solve this problem by taking a page out of fintech’s playbook… In the fintech industry, banking systems historically required large engineering teams. Companies like Plaid and Stripe revolutionized this process by simplifying integrations, which resulted in a huge wave of fintech innovation. Many leading property management softwares, companies like Yardi and RealPage, were founded in the 80s and 90s. Their SOAP APIs can be difficult to work with. As a result, proptechs have frequently struggled to build integrations that work with these foundational technology platforms. Integrations are becoming increasingly expensive, causing operators to spend millions every year just trying to maintain all the various technology solutions in their proptech stack. My company, Propexo, seeks to ease the integration burden for property operators, who currently spend significant amounts on maintaining their tech stacks. By providing streamlined and reliable integrations, Propexo helps reduce these costs and turn integration into a competitive advantage. Propexo aims to address this by standardizing and modernizing API integrations, making them more efficient and enabling proptech firms to expand their market reach quickly. Proptech is on the cusp of a revolution… #proptech #multifamily #propertymanagementsoftware #integrations

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If you were asked how much merchants in the US pay in transaction fees each year, would you have guessed $172 billion? That's with a B! For small businesses and fintech companies alike, it's critical you: 1. Understand what these fees are and where they are going 2. Get a grasp on the legality (and suitability) of passing fees along to the consumer 3. Consider managing transaction fees alongside a payment optimization partner We explore all three points in Astra's latest guide. Link in comments! ⬇️

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