WSO Podcast: Andrew Kortina: The Story of Venmo

Link to the episode

Some quotes with timestamps:

6:40 - I remember when I graduated from college... my mom was like, "What are you going to do once you're out of school? Are you going to get a job, or what's the plan?". And I just remember saying, "I still have like two more weeks in the dorm room. I can stay here after graduation. I hadn't really thought about it yet. I'll figure it out in those two weeks."

9:55 - There's a certain track that people follow. It's a good track to follow if your goal is to make money and raise a family.

13:50 - If anyone would use PayPal, it would be the two of us. Because we were using software to run the rest of our lives. So if we weren't using it, probably no one was using it for settling up with their friends, and it seemed like a good opportunity.

19:30 - [about selling Venmo to Braintree] It was really out of necessity ultimately. We were trying to raise our Series B. There weren't any investors who were interested in financing it because it was a pretty long term play to profitability... By the time that we had all of the paperwork signed, we had already run out of cash and I think that they even sent a wire before the papers were signed because we had to make payroll... It's a very expensive business to grow... There was no revenue for Venmo. It was all costs.