It was really fun and we designed GetGiving

I learnt about PayPal’s Adaptive Payments system in its Alpha release and realised that a Mobile Payments revolution was on the way that would change EVERYTHING.

With so many companies trying to become your mobile wallet it can be hard to know which basket to put your eggs in.

I decided 2 years ago that PayPal would probably win due these factors………

- They have Appox 100 Million users unlike finance startups.

- Their brand is built on primarily on commerce unlike Google.

- They are still young enough as a business to innovate. unlike the Banks.

- They are platform agnostic unlike Apple.

- They are approachable and have committed to empower developers to create the future through X.com

- There is no barrier to signing up for small businesses unlike PDQ services.

So I threw my eggs in their basket and have never looked back.

After Apple blocked our donation app. We went back to the drawing board and designed Givey which is a FAR deeper reaching product so I am pretty happy they forced us think harder to solve the Mobile Social Giving problem.

We also designed Mosho and TouchCart from the lessons we learnt hoping that our bet would pay off……

Thankfully PayPal  are beginning to make big strides into the real world.

With a REAL  pop up store in Manhattan to showcase their new innovations like the one John Lunn showed us the other day at the PayPal offices in London that brings a whole new meaning to the term window shopping

And then the icing on the cake was this morning when my good friend @LukeAndrews sent me a picture of his bill from Pizza Express from the other day, which no doubt he cashed in on the Taste London card

So PayPal is getting out of the building and out of eBay and this is only just the beginning.

My guess is to get on board or get out of the way.

I have made many terrible guesses about the future but I still back this one.  :-)

]]> http://www.daviderasmus.com/here-comes-paypal/feed/ 0 http://www.daviderasmus.com/there-is-something-in-the-water/ http://www.daviderasmus.com/there-is-something-in-the-water/#comments Wed, 27 Jul 2011 10:39:03 +0000 David Erasmus http://www.daviderasmus.com/?p=542 My mate Andy Smith once said, referring to the amount of Entrepreneurs from within my home friendship group…

“They must be putting something in the water in Leatherhead”

He was shocked as many are that most of my friends work for or run their own businesses or charities

To name a few of my closest friends from a sleepy village in Surrey :  Oliver Hall, Simon Kelly, Andy Lindsell, Louis Cole, Mike Moore, Andy Gill, Alex Ball, all starting and running their own AMAZING organisations and I could talk about 10 more!

Nearly none of us went to university or did amazing at school but we have built a culture together that is accepting and encouraging of people pursuing their dreams. It is a privilege to find myself amongst such a great bunch.

Are Entrepreneurs born or made?

Firstly Entrepreneur is a Horrific term! it sounds poncy, elitist and unattainable.

Secondly I want to separate Serial Entreprewatsits from guys and girls that have one project or business.

The risk profile for Serials is very high and there is definitely a unique DNA of person required to live that lifestyle.

For lifestyle startups however I believe EDUCATION AND EXPOSURE are the two key elements holding people back.

In my town where we have built that culture MOST people have opted for it.

In this climate of uncertainty and with GDP growth @ 0.2% we need people to step up, innovate, rather others around them and go for their dreams. Even if after a year it fails I am convinced that if presented correctly you would be MORE employable than if you had spent a year in corporate.

I currently sit on a board at UCL designing a new Degree which is fun, one of the big things I am pushing for is the idea that going into Startup is not LESSER of an option versus a corporate internship, if anything it can do more to develop a person.  My friend Raj Dey is doing great work in this space :  enternships.com

In Summary : I believe that being entrepreneurial can be for almost everyone but we don’t get the education and exposure to build our confidence that it is an achievable and valid life path!

Either that or they really do put some weird stuff in the Leatherhead water!

Once you or one of your creations is released into the public domain you become very quickly aware how small of a pawn you are and how big the chessboard is.

We have been very fortunate that the press have taken kindly to us and GIVEY over the last couple of weeks.

With articles in Mashable, GoMo,The Independent on Sunday, Third Sector and Mobile Marketing all very positive we have been beaming from ear to ear.

But Interestingly right after our Mashable article we got our first small dig in the ribs from a guy called Simon Painter.

The interesting thing is that what he says is not wholly untrue so I can’t write him off as a ‘hater.’

It is obviously one sided and I have retorts however good or bad to answer his points which I won’t bore you with.

It  is simply interesting to note that this is our first public stoning and I doubt very much it will be the last.

In fact I would be gutted if it was as it would probably mean we were not doing anything interesting.

I guess the press and bloggers are always writing for impact and so are rarely incentivised to be encouraging or provide a balanced view.

In all our press so far we have benefited from VERY positive write ups so would be unreasonable to expect something different from the prosecution

I guess it is important that the team and I hear the weaknesses they may present but don’t let the negative aspect affect our progress.

In that respect I guess the same is true with good press; don’t buy into the hype and pedestal but be sensitive to the aspects of our story that the people are buying into to better focus our attention.

Note to self:  In summary; Welcome criticism and praise in equal measure but pan through the dirt for the specs of gold and leave the rest in the dust as we motor forwards!

On Monday I had the privilege of delivering a speech after Steve Moore CEO of the Big Society Network and before the PM David Cameron at the Launch of Nick Hurd’s Launch of the Giving White Paper.

It was the day we launched Givey – The giving identity that allows Gift Aided donations through Twitter and other social apps.

It was a landmark day for all that have been involved in the Givey journey, it was the day we switched the light on and went past go.

Following the ‘Lean start up’ mentality with blood sweat and tears along with a list as long as my arm of amazing people who have given of themselves needlessly to make this needed innovation a reality we managed to get to live day without significant external funding.

Later in the day I checked Givey’s PayPal account to see the following….

We only take 1.25% of donations so this balance represented approximately the first £80 raised through the system.

Now 92p might not seem a lot to you given that my team and I have invested 18 months thousands of pounds, leveraged every relationship we have and cried many tears, but for me it is the moment that we WON.

Turning £00000000.92 into £92,000,000.00 is simply an issue of moving the decimal place.

Now it is live, people can touch it, they believe it and my job is almost complete as there are FAR more competent people than I fit for growing this vision into all it can be – Joe Crome is the man to watch out for.

This is an amazing video from Derek Sivers Via TED

When you watch it look at the length of time between each ‘stage’ of the movements growth.

Our first stage took me and the team 18 months and it produced £1.

What is the betting that stage 2 will take less time and produce at least £2?

This was arguably the most important pound I will ever generate.