In one of the largest exoduses from Stanford University's computer-science programs, more than a dozen students have left to launch a startup called Clinkle Corp. that aims to let other students—and eventually anyone—use their mobile devices to pay for goods and services.
Several professors also are funding and advising the company, in what may be the epitome of a Stanford-fueled startup.
Clinkle, which has been operating secretly for the past two years while many of the students, including founder Lucas Duplan, pursued degrees, is hiring quickly and now has about 30 employees. Mr. Duplan has raised money—he won't say how much—from early-stage-startup investors but declines to name all of them.
Stanford's president, John Hennessy, who was Mr. Duplan's academic adviser and also is an adviser to Clinkle, says most technology startups created by undergraduates "won't last more than one summer," and "this is the first one that appears to be reaching velocity." Mr. Hennessy isn't an investor or shareholder in the company.
He said Clinkle could compete directly with Google, where Mr. Hennessy is a director, or become an acquisition target.
Anyone out there been able to try this? They are keeping initial member levels small before releasing to the greater public. Seems pretty legit
I'm curious how long Tech Bubble 2.0 will last. Everything these days is a startup and mobile/digital. How much more efficient do we need to be? I guess pretty much to the point where you don't need to move. Using your phone to make payments (?) saves precious milliseconds of time that you can use to do all those wonderful exciting things that you were previously missing out on. What kind of a name is Clinkle anyway.
What can they do that a bank cant do better and more reliably.
next up is Cankle Clinker, a fitness app to help you alleviate cankles
I dunno... I think you guys may be a bit pessimistic about it. Has a sleek layout, simple concept, and solves an annoying problem. Imagine being out to dinner on a trip abroad and being able to settle up to the cent while not having to be concerned with the hassle of currency conversion and then subsequently being able to split the bill virtually with your friends without anyone having to do anything other than click a button.
You're right... stupid idea... Probably won't catch on...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.clinkle
For those (understandably) skeptical about some of these new startups - especially those in the automated payment field - I can tell you that I've seen some outrageously cool stuff.
For example, let's say that you go to the same coffee shop each day, you're a regular, and they know you. Wouldn't it be cool for the barista to be signalled by the register when you walk in the door so she can get your coffee made by the time you make it to the counter? And how about if she just handed it to you and you walked out, knowing that your ID had been confirmed by the cashier and you've already paid for it? Already exists.
Don't write these (or the other guys) off just yet; there are huge lifestyle improvements to be made that we aren't even aware of yet. We truly have no idea how bad our lives suck right now, lol.
Eddie I totally agree. I remember when I finally got an iPhone how many apps I was missing out on that saved so much time.
I don't understand why time savers and convenient lifestyle hacks are so difficult for you skeptics to wrap your heads around. These things are designed to save you time, but I guess maybe you have an overabundance of that given that you, ya know... work in finance.
fuck touch screens
I use the VISA payWave system to pay for my groceries (I just wave my card in front of a reader, no need for PIN code, etc.)
I probably save a few minutes per month. The main advantage is probably that the chip doesn't wear off.
But if you also consider other improvements like self-checkout counters, etc. you can save some time (especially if it makes things go faster so you spend less time queuing).
I don't think it's going to change the world, but it's definitely a good incremental improvement.
This sounds awful. Going to the same coffee shop each day? Ordering the same exact thing every day? No time to take in the sights and sounds and aromas, to unplug? Why even drink coffee, why not just take a caffeine pill...you can hand it to yourself. Assuming of course that you have at least one hand that isn't being used up with other activities, such as using your cell phone to shave.
I disagree. I love going to get coffee... It's part of a routine that breaks up my day and I specifically walk to a coffee shop that is further from the office than closer Starbucks locations, but I order the same thing all the time because I like it. Humans are typically creatures of habit. Tons of people order the same things with regularity... Obviously this wouldn't inhibit what you wanted to order but would speed up your time spent in line.
It's totally different than if you are intentionally going to a coffee shop with the intent of "smelling the roses" or whatever... Going to lounge... But if you are a busy guy who needs to get in and out, this helps you do it faster.
Obviously you are against lifestyle hacks and want to spend more time doing mundane things for no apparent reason other than the fact that you think things are too automated already. To each their own...
Your comparison to a caffeine pill is stupid though. Reductio ad absurdum...
At the end of the day, what is the value of this "convenience" worth to me? What if I wanted a different coffee that day, does the store throw away the one they pre-made and re-fund me the money it automatically deducted?
I was thinking of that too
@rufio Can you imagine what it's like to raise venture capital when your entire CS class drops out of Stanford to start a tech company?
"You had me at Stanford."
Haha, I was thinking the exact thing. "Oh us? No big deal. Our advisor is the President of Stanford, you may know him... he sits on the Board of Google..."
My fund is in a company with a similar management team and advisory board structure (Stanford students/professors, ect). While very attractive it can come with multiple inherent conflicts. It certainly hasn't been our smoothest investment. Can't go into any detail whatsoever unfortunately though. Just thought I'd say that..
Can you please explain why it is so "attractive"? Are you saying that just because these people are from Stanford the idea/company/startup is automatically attractive? I don't have work experience in VC. I'll admit that. And I realize that finance just works on a certain amount of favoritism (Target > Non target ), but this thread seems to be filled with too much automatic support for students just because they came from Stanford.
I might be missing something here though, so that is why I am asking.
Doesn't square wallet do this?
Yep.. and Dwolla, Paypal, Bitcoin, and M-Pesa are all varations of this. There are tons of competitors and any of the big tech companies (apple, facebook, google, amazon) could easily start their own payment app and get more users than anybody else on just the first day.
edit: I forgot that some of the big tech companies did start their own mobile wallets. Google already has google wallet and amazon has amazon payments, so there is a lot of competition in this space already
Agreed. I wonder what is different about Clinkle to make people switch from Square? It looks much more simple than Square. But will simplicity and fancy design will be enough to gain a solid user base? We shall see. There is a picture of cash, so I assume it is linked directly to your bank account.
Few startups interest me, but this one looks good. I'm just waiting to see who comes up with a new battery that holds a shitload more juice, that'll make waves...
Agreed... I have never been able to hold a charge well on any mobile or music playing device I have ever owned.
That is so true.
Somebody posted a photo on G+ yesterday of a 256mb hard drive from 1976 (which was about 3 feet high, weighed 200 pounds, and cost $18,000) next to a 32gb mini-SD card in the palm of a guy's hand today. Then someone chimed in, "yeah, that's great. But why hasn't battery technology kept up?"
I have a buddy who's a BSD at the Electric Power Research Institute and he tells me all the time how energy storage is the single biggest issue they work on and how it will absolutely change everyone's life on planet Earth when we get it figured out.
Isn't this basically Venmo?
What makes this app unique? I've had Google Wallet on my Galaxy Nexus for over a year now, combined with Wallaby I also know where to get the most out of my credit cards - the issue is that I have never been to a store that accepts NFC payments.
The real problem mobile payment technology is facing today is the lack of proper framework and systems for accepting NFC payments in today's stores. Sure it works at Starbucks (I wouldn't know, I don't enjoy throwing money away on girly coffee) and a few other big name companies, but what good is a mobile wallet if only 10% of the places you regularly go to accept it?
+1 on the battery technology comment. I'm really hoping the rumors of a 4000mAh battery on Google's X Phone are true. This is by far my biggest complaint about modern smartphones. The big 4 mobile operating systems literally perform the same exact functions now with almost nothing to differentiate; good to see Google has the foresight to work on something that consumers could really use, like more battery power. Side note - for anyone looking to learn more about battery information, I highly recommend Battery University )
I'm skeptical, but I'll certainly be giving the app a shot. If this is big enough to make a bunch of Stanford CS students drop out of school for, I would say it deserves my attention. Interested to see where they are going with this.
A bunch of Stanford CS drop-outs are about to realize you can't code your way into merchants. For you to pay with a mobile app, you have to be one of two things:
1) Credit card processor -- so you've entered a massively competitive field, with declining margins, and you rely on rails managed by Visa/Mastercard/AMEX. You're also way behind Braintree (which acquired Venmo) and Square. You now have the task of convincing merchants why they should switch from their incumbent processor -- consumer convenience is not a sales pitch unless it drives SUSTAINABLE revenue to the merchant.
2) Mobile app w/ POS integration - you now have to integrate with the hundreds of POS providers that merchants currently use. The 2 largest players control ~30% of the market and are rumored to be working on in-house mobile payment solutions. One of them has shut-off third-party integration for these types of apps.
With that in mind, the sheer momentum and support from Stanford suggests that we don't know the whole story.
To me, it just suggests we're in a start-up frenzy where everyone honestly believes that decently run tech companies deserve millions in venture backing.
well it's stanford, must be legit
I was thinking the same as pcarson92. Most new cellphones have NFC technology on them, so how is clinkle any different from what that is trying to create? As he mentioned, the problem now is just that stores aren't adopting the technology.
I'm in the same boat as the people who thought that stuff like this already existed
this is what intrigues me though
How is this any different from Wallaby, Dwolla or Google Wallet? I have my doubts that a student-run start-up will crush major VC-backed players that have been in this space for years already. But maybe I'm missing something.
I agree with Bananastand, these guys will have huge task ahead of them if they intend on competing with the likes of Square which Visa is an investor in.
Eddie interesting app about the coffee shop. Mind giving me the name of the app? I am surprised Foursquare did not scoop them yet, as now more than ever they need to increase their API layering set up with more goodie offers.
Speaking of apps, anyone here use Instagram. Probably most of you all right. Did you'll now they use foursquare geo mapping and not their own parent company facebook API for mapping. How far will foursquare go with this layering will be very interesting and at the same time scary in the future(as a big brother literally dictating our thinking). Maybe google will buy them off and kill them.
Now for the questions, for the instagram users, when taking picture, is it automatically mapped or one will have to crop it first and than map in accordingly. I am a bit paranoid about downloading and finding it out for myself and would rather be under the radar. Cheers all.
Yeah, I am airing on the side of skeptical too. Like others have mentioned, there is simply too much competition. We have a ton of startups for the same reason that a ton of lottery tickets are bought; some number of people/startups/VC companies will win and make bank. But the heavy majority of them will get/do squat. Unless Google already said they are picking this thing up, I don't see why having one person related to Google (who is automatically supporting them because of the Stanford connection) is that big of a deal. This is a different type of example, but think about how many times you see a huge movie star or producer's name on a movie or TV show that turns out to be shit. Once again, we have too many all stars already to believe them every time they open their mouths.
They should have just stayed at Stanford and gotten their degrees. How much longer did they have left? Would it really have been that much worse to get the degree AND THEN still make apps. It's not like they are some pro sports prospect who might have a career threatening injury any day. They would have still had the chance to make a fine app after finishing the degree. Sounds like a misguided decision to me.
Regarding your second point, I think you have to give a little more credibility to a man who sits on a the board of company whose market cap is $260 billion dollars than you do to Snookie endorsing a nail polish.
I am skeptical to see how this company works out too, as I agree with the general sentiment around an saturated start up market, but I think your concern around credibility is not the issue. Worst case scenario, Google snaps them up on the cheap as a "talent acquisition" to take their top developers and all these kids will likely get paid.
I agree with just about everything here. But "talent acquisitions" have to be the most fabulous waste of money in the tech world today.
They made the right call in dropping out, the reason they did is because they didn't have anything else left that they needed to learn in order to apply it to this. I'll be honest, if I had conviction in a startup, I wouldn't stick around and finish up a few semesters of schoolwork just to get my degree if the thing I was working on had the prospect of making me millions and changing the way society does something (again, I understand that this could very well be a flop but they believe in it so that's the way they are approaching it). It's not a huge risk to take a break from school if you are young and talented. Do you really think the type of kids who can get into Stanford to study CS are going to be unable to matriculate somewhere? If they want to do it, they will. There are online classes and numerous other flexible study arrangements at most top universities. If you are doing something meaningful (i.e. running a start up with high national visibility and not dropping out of school because you are partying too much and failing out) what incentive does the university have to not take you back? They are in the business of making money after all.
Maybe my little female brain is missing something here but I think they were pretty smart to roll the dice on this... Like my dad always says "You gotta risk it to get the biscuit."
Obviously this team is aware of the over saturated mobile payment market; you'd have to be living under a rock to miss it. Knowing this, they still dropped out of Stanford to continue work on Clinkle. That alone tells me that these kids must have something up their sleeve that really sets them apart from the competition. If you are smart enough to get into Stanford, you wouldn't be stupid enough to drop out to make the 10th mobile payment app that does the same thing. That's my line of thinking at least.
I just think there is too much hype in start-ups. Anyone would drop out of Stanford to work on a venture-backed tech company, especially with the support of the faculty..... at Stanford. I'm not faulting the entrepreneurs, I'm faulting the people feeding the fire.
They're
[quote=crossjohn255]They're
Stop the fuckin' presses.
These Stanford kids can eat a dick, cuz here's the next bazillion dollar business:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/XFwHt0oUCbc
FUCKING. SOLD.
See. Now this is a really cool idea. Saves the bar from losing out, saves the customer time. I try not to fear change, although sometimes I fail. But you can't be blown away by everything you see.
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