Hayden Simmons

@defyneric @raincards @wirexapp @Stablecoin @dakota_xyz @blend_money @Morpho @aave @moonpay @daimo @SeismicSys @UmbraPrivacy @privy_io @turnkeyhq what about loyalty? credit? kyc? brokerage?

my favorite APIs to launch your own neobank: cards: @raincards @wirexapp @Stablecoin virtual checking accounts: @dakota_xyz yield as an api: @blend_money @Morpho @aave crypto on ramps: @moonpay @daimo privacy: @SeismicSys @UmbraPrivacy wallets: @privy_io @turnkeyhq who am i missing?

@strato_money Yeah. But it’s irrelevant unless you know the cost of those employees.

@rallycapvc This is rev per employee, not their salary

90% of neobanks will die Many crypto cards will too After my last post, a lot of people debated profitability But revenue per employee might be the most underrated metric in the industry Anything surprise you?

@defyneric @FrontePay

i’m compiling a list of all neobanks on X @ all the ones you know

@pitdesi @rabois $100k bet doesn’t sound “very small” ;) But congrats! Any money out of his pocket is a win for the world.

Wow. Spacex buys Cursor for $60B A lot of people thought this company was dead a few *months* ago Great outcome for all, including me in a very small way… Thus concludes my bet with @rabois (He bet me $100k that no company founded in SF between 2020-2023 would exit >$10B)

The biggest mistake first-time founders make is wasting first impressions too early. What do I mean by that? I had a pre-seed portfolio company ask for an intro to QED during their pre-seed round because they thought it'd be helpful to have them as a potential Series A lead. This is just wrong. You are wasting your first impression and it's very hard to reverse. The expectations of a Series A investor are night and day from where you are at pre-seed, with far less tolerance for "we're still figuring it out" compared to 1st-check writer like myself. You're raising a pre-seed round for a reason: you need time, reps, and trial-and-error to grow into a more mature company. Sure, you can argue that you can follow up later and show your growth. But why start from a deficit? Here are your two options: Option A (I always advise against): -> Meet your headline-name/mega VC (think Ribbit a16z) too early -> They're underwhelmed because they're used to the quality and maturity of founders at Series A+ -> You are now stuck with a mediocre impression that you need to reverse -> It's an uphill battle—you may not even get a follow-up call because 1. They are no longer as curious because they've met you (prematurely) and werent impressed. 2. There are infinite other founders they could be "first-time curious" to give time to instead. I've just seen too many "oh ya I've met this founder before - will pass" Option B: Just wait. Grow into your Series A maturity. Then meet them for the first time. You pick.

@HarryStebbings @harleyf @tobi this means nothing except that you have a big enough following they had to reply and/or you know the guy

I just emailed the President of a $142BN company with an account suspension problem. He responded within 5 mins: I will handle it. Email me. $142BN company. President responds for customer service enquiry in 5 mins. 🤯 Long Shopify. @harleyf @tobi are special.

@stablecoing @FrontePay

@rallycapvc what's mateo's handle?

Estamos creando un mapa de las compañías construyendo la Golden Age de LATAM en industrias como AI, Stablecoins, Healthcare, Industria, Energía, Finanzas y más. ¿A quiénes deberíamos agregar?

@Matt_Schulman1 @lennysan

@lennysan Yogurt pouches and Lara bars

Does anyone else’s toddler eat two bananas before bed?

@HadickM @Aarondklein @raincards Kinda doubt Rain cards are replacing GPR cards or anything with high cash-in or monthly fees…

@rallycapvc @Aarondklein @raincards Depends on the program

VCers tweeting your book, let’s settle this debate on whether stablecoins are used for payments. Meet me in downtown Silver Spring, Md and let’s have lunch, go to the mall, grab coffee and a beer. You bring stablecoins I’ll bring my credit/debit cards. Will see who can buy what.

@HadickM @Aarondklein @raincards what costs are your rain card saving you, the consumer, vs any 1000s of bank-issued visa/mc cards?

@Aarondklein Great, I’ll bring my @raincards which allows me to spend my stablecoins and then settles directly with visa, providing me with lower costs then your bank issued card and better consumer experiences.

@gminoprio @AdrienStern

There should be a generic deeplink format to interconnect all mobile wallets together with no middleman

@giveashitnature but more deer = more ticks

It's actually a myth that deer are a vector for Lyme disease. They are definitely a target for ticks, but deer don't contract or carry Lyme. White-footed mice are the most common reservoir for Lyme disease, and looking at the photo below, you can see just how many ticks can attach themselves to a single mouse and come away infected.

If you're worried about ticks, put up an owl box. The animal driving most Lyme disease in the eastern US is the white-footed mouse. Ticks that feed on them are far more likely to come away infected than ticks that feed on other animals. The bigger the local mouse population, the worse the next year's tick year. A single barred owl pair raising chicks can take hundreds of rodents in a breeding season. Owls also don't carry Lyme. The bacterium can't survive their digestive tract, so an owl that eats an infected mouse is a dead end for the disease. Researchers at the Cary Institute, the leading lab on Lyme ecology, have been explicit about this: "Landscapes that support predators have reduced Lyme disease risk." One owl box on its own isn't going to fix a tick year. But a yard with owls, foxes, bobcats, and weasels in it has fewer mice, and a yard with fewer mice has fewer infected ticks. If you have woods or fields nearby, a properly sized barn owl or screech owl box (different species, different boxes) is one of the most useful single things you can do for tick exposure at the landscape scale. Match the box to the owl that lives near you. The mouse is the problem, owls are the solution.

@gminoprio @AriEiberman Yes — please DM me

If we had Colombian virtual accounts to stablecoins tomorrow, who would need it?

@pitdesi @MissJilianne Really, we should be charging them $10 to walk across the GGB, then reduce the toll for commuters.

@MissJilianne Seems fair to me US taxpayers pay for the parks, seems ok to me for foreign visitors to pay more to visit them

I think it’s disgusting the United States charges $100 per person visiting our country to enter a National Park. Embarrassing too!

@raagulanpathy @KASTxyz A lot of folks remember Azimo, it was acquired for like $200m.

“My All-Company Emails” If you want to work at @KASTxyz it comes with a high performance culture and expectations. We don’t mince our words, or pat each other on the back all day, because we have a lot to do. I do swear a lot. It’s not for the soft, and we never pretend like it is. Expect Sunday emails like this. Business is ultimately a full-contact sport, and no one cares about silver medals. —- Subject: Only winning matters & how we can lose… Clinke Loot Pockit Osper Holvi Simple Moven Level Money Azimo These were all founded at a similar time to Revolut and each raised $10s of millions, and some even hundreds of millions. All went to hundreds of millions in valuation. No one remembers any of them, because none of them exist today. The only other two that survived were Monzo and N26 and both are less than 1/10th the valuation of Revolut. I doubt either will survive independently much longer, both will get bought. The common reasons for failure are shared: - Feature Companies (ie. crypto cards) not SuperApp - Distribution too small, didn’t nail viral growth - Slow product velocity - Regulatory friction and banking partnerships We have smart people, and theoretically should not lose to companies in the same emerging space . But theories are just theories. Small, nimble teams bring down big companies all the time. Tesla brought down a whole car industry. Google beat Microsoft for the Internet. OpenAI beat Google for AI. Anthropic is beating OpenAI. The two places that produce companies which cut down competitors and win, are San Francisco and China. One will beat you on funding and tech, and mid-20s fresh minds working non-stop. The other will outwork/outship you. The reality, is there are never any successful small to medium fintech firms. Either you scale to $100B+ or you die. I’ll be honest. We are too slow. We are not in the details enough. We are not using critical thinking enough. And worst of all, some are pushing with great intensity, but others are not matching that pace. That leads the front runners asking why they are running so fast. I see this in the CEO reports. We will become a much more data driven, and metrics driven business. And we will leave less room for those who don’t keep up. The intensity will pick up. Don’t be shocked. But we have no choice. Win or die. Just ask the ones from the 2015-ear you can’t remember. Regards, Raagulan. Founder & CEO KAST

@pitdesi try getting an affordable passion fruit

@amiravalliani Agreed! Just don’t share our roadmap tooooo much pls

The best read on stablecoins in emerging markets I’ve read in a while 👇

@Zack_Shooter Clear red wine

Day 2: AI golf coach - watches every swing and gives real-time feedback - books hard-to-get tee times around your calendar - snipes underpriced clubs online Can extend to everything you care about One coach for your whole life that actually takes action (I’ll be your first customer)