June 18, 2021

142: Money Talks #35: Stripe Gets to Know You | Netflix and Flywheels | Bitcoin Highjinks in Miami

142: Money Talks #35: Stripe Gets to Know You | Netflix and Flywheels | Bitcoin Highjinks in Miami

In this Money Talks segment, Eoin Fitzgerald and Pete Townsend start with their insights on what Stripe’s latest product could mean for their long-term plan, then they think through flywheels with Netflix finally getting into merch, before heading south to Miami for the outtakes from Bitcoin 2021.

MoneyNeverSleeps is sponsored by PAT Fintech, the training partner that demystifies fintech and digital finance for financial services professionals.

MAIN STORIES WE COVERED:

Stripe launches its solution for another critical part of the financial value chain

Pete’s view on Stripe launching an identity verification product: “One does not simply spin up identity verification. From what I learned from Steve Ritter at Mitek, this is deep, deep, deep technology. This is not something you just spin up. So when I saw Stripe’s news I was skeptical, but it’s been in development for 10 years - as you would, if you're Stripe.”

Eoin’s higher-level view on Stripe: “Stripe has become a financial services store, in the sense that it has all of the different functionality to allow you to spin up any kind of financial services company or integrate any kind of financial services offering into your wider product offering.”

“It’s more than embedded finance, it’s providing everything on a company’s journey and allowing them to build big businesses on top of Stripe.”

Stripe goes beyond payments with Stripe Identity (TechCrunch, 14-Jun-21)

Stripe secures further $1bn in investment (Charlie Taylor @ Irish Times, 15-Jun-21)

Stripe rolls out new tax compliance tool for merchants (Silicon Republic, 11-Jun-21)

Stripe: Thinking Like a Civilization (The Generalist, 13-Jun-21)

Netflix does merch and flywheels

Eoin on the Netflix opportunity: “Disney create the content and then they create everything else around it. You're continuously consuming content or purchasing things from them – that’s the flywheel. It's a surprise that it took Netflix so long to monetize the shows beyond subscription fees, especially with their own original content”

“It’s a bit of a no-brainer - that's what Disney is famous for. I wonder if it will get to a stage - following the Disney model - where we’ll see a Netflix theme park?”

Pete on bringing flywheels into fintech: “If I really enjoy an experience with a fintech app, I want to do more with it. I want them to have more of my financial life. I can't yet put a finger on a flywheel for three fintech products, where one drives flow into the other, and that second one drives flow into the third and the third drives flow back into the first.”

“Maybe it’s Revolut with perhaps acquiring a travel booking site, or Amazon with a checking account, but there’s a missing link in both examples.” 

Overdue - Netflix does merch - the flywheel is spinning (Scott Galloway on Twitter, 11-Jun-21)

The Flywheel (Hubspot Blog)

When Will Amazon Offer a Checking Account? (Ron Shevlin in Forbes, 14-Jun-21)

Bitcoin 2021 Miami outtakes

Pete’s thoughts on the highjinks: “Lots of comedic things happening there that probably weren’t meant to be entirely comedic. But it's part of the culture. David Sacks on the All-in Podcast compared Bitcoin Maximalists to Fight Club, as in ‘we're all raised to believe that we're going to be rockstars and movie stars, and when we found out that we weren’t, we got angry and we wanted to do something about it,’ so we got into Bitcoin.  But, that's not all of our journeys.”

Thousands of bitcoin believers descended on Miami to party and preach the gospel of ‘HODL’ (CNBC, 7-Jun-21)

5 Weirdest Moments at the Bitcoin 2021 Conference in Miami (Decrypt, 6-Jun-21)

OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST:

Pipit Global’s crowdfunding campaign on Spark Crowdfunding  - last few days!

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Pete TownsendProfile Photo

Pete Townsend

Co-Host

Web3 & fintech investor, MD @Techstars Web3, founder of Norio Ventures, mentor, non-executive director, podcaster and bad guitar player.

Eoin FitzgeraldProfile Photo

Eoin Fitzgerald

Co-Host

Fintech investor, podcaster, wannabe VC