I am talking about apps such as Venmo and Circle, allowing direct payments with no cost to the user.
What are your opinions on them, they seem to be promising yet the uptake of the service has been pretty slow over the years.
Full disclosure:
I am working as a 'student ambassador' for circle currently.
They are offering $5 to anyone who signs up and uses the app within 2 weeks using a specific code. (
www.circle.com/invite/UNF74A )
The reason I bring this up is I don't see how it is a viable business model, they are literally buying their customers and not making any money off them.
Does anyone know what plans they have for revenue?
What will happen when the Venture Capital funds dry up?
I presume this is what happened to a similar startup called Tilt, which was recently purchased by Airbnb for roughly $60mil. In a previous funding round Tilt had been valued at $400mil so something went wrong, I can only assume it was funds drying up.
edit:
Something funny to mention. When apply for student ambassador at circle the recruiter was sh*t talking bitcoin, saying it was a useless system for payments.
Needless to say I made sure to correct him on that.
