SambaSambaSamba

What would convince you as a consumer? If everyday products were 3% cheaper, would that impact you at all? 5% cheaper? At what point do you think people would care? What about cash only businesses? As a consumer would you prefer if you could use your phone instead of pulling out and handling cash?

If adoptions ever takes hold, I think it is unlikely to start with the replacement of payment cards. It is more likely to take hold is specific niches that currently suffer under the MasterCard/Visa duopoly as well as in emerging markets. In the adult industry, I'm sure products being 20% cheaper would sway consumers. Also not to mention the omission of purchases from your credit history which may be judged harshly by others. Low margin businesses could support online and international sales while offering competitive prices. Some markets aren't serviced well by the duopoly. Some consumers value pseudonimity/anonymity in their financial transactions. These can develop into niches where crypto has potential to take hold, and then from there it might expand and compete with the larger markets (and their vigor) if it grows into a competitive product based on fees and usability.

If it ever hits critical mass, vendors will surely either drop card support or strongly encourage cryptocurrency usage. Albeit that is a big "if" that likely comes down to solving a lot of scalability and usability issues right now. There is also a need for regulatory clarity. I think we are a long way away, but I wouldn't write it off simply because I personally find Visa/MasterCard to be convenient in my own life.

> Now, with only my consumer brain, does what they say actually make sense? Do merchants actually want to get rid of the 2-3% transaction fees?

Except that you are now at the mercy of MasterCard/Visa. Sure it might not be a problem now, but things can change quickly. 14 years ago they turned off Wikileaks donations because it violated their "moral standard" while still allowing donations on the Klu Klux Klan home site. They often impose arbitrary rules on adult sites to the point where many small vendors can't keep up, and that is ignoring the 20% fee that they charge for being at high risk of chargebacks.

> who is going to pay the rewards (and loyalty program) modern CC carry?

These loyalty programs are simply offsetting some of the existing costs. If you remove the transaction fees entirely, more money would be saved than leaving them in combination with a rewards program. Maybe that is a hard sell from a Product PoV, but it is not like the rewards are coming from nowhere.

> but isn't this just going back to the age when financial systems weren't developed enough to help merchants acquire and maintain customers ?

Like when the card companies used aggressive tactics and lobbying to prevent vendors from upcharging card payments to offset the costs of transaction fees?

It sounds like you are institutionalized in the sense that you are familiar with all the existing institutions and can't imagine any changes.

edit: Everything I said is more generally in line with cryptocurrencies however. The biggest advantage of stablecoins is for the minter / maintainers. It is a relatively low cost product that can generate a boat load of interest if you can garner enough interest like USDT and USDC have. The only advantage to users is that the prices are (ideally) pegged and less impacted by wild speculation that has been rampant in the cryptocurrency space.

Skills will more or less be the same. Communication skills may be slightly more important depending on people's understanding of whatever language is used.

The biggest issue will be cultural. Don't be a workaholic. Don't live to work. Don't bring that culture here. It is fine if you like to work, but don't project that as expectations on others.

Source: I'm US person who moved to Europe. I've worked for US companies as well as global and European companies.

Yeah its likely. The moment I saw the Mainvest homepage I was reminded of the SS homepage when I was there. It looks like there have been changes since.

I assumed a founder or one of the employees was the one to post the link. I was genuinely curious to see how they are different. SS did a lot of things wrong, and there was a lot of room for improvement, but at a glance this place looks the same.

edit: After re-reading the original comment, I guess the "blatant ripoff" line was a bit rough. I probably should have used some softer language

> That you would call them shady says more about you than them.

You may be right there. I was pretty miserable when I worked for SS and see most things from that period in a negative light. I don't mean to sound adversarial, but what would it be saying about me?

I think my issue here is that is feels more like a direct steal of a business idea and less like competition. I don't see any changes, differences, innovation, or rebranding.

It's a fine line, and everyone sees the line differently. For example, an outsider stealing a business idea is better in my mind. They could have very well been working on the same idea concurrently like Leibniz and Newton. They will also have a different perspective and take on the situation. When a previous employee steals an idea without improvement, it doesn't sit well with me.

I think I'd be fine with it even if they just shifted focus. As a direct improvement on SS they could say they are focusing on transparency and security, pushing users towards 2FA and secure practices while being open with some of the risks involved. They could focus on local small businesses within X km or maybe some new attempt to quantify risk and match investors to businesses based on risk profiles. They did none of that. They took the exact same "Main Street" motif and just changed the color. Competition is good, but cookie cutter companies like this with no innovation only hurt each other. And then when these companies fail, everyone that that pulled in to invest and the small businesses involved suffer.

I wasn't proposing anything. I still think it is worth shedding light on shady practices so people are at least aware.

Just because something is define in law does not make it right or wrong. All we can really do is inform people and let them decide for themselves.

It's not an article and I was making an assumption. I worked at a similar company (with one the the founders of this place) and the idea was that "affinity based" loans have a lower chance of defaulting. I have no idea if the numbers back that up though. It's like a rough mix of social media and small business lending. It's not necessarily the most financially prudent, but I don't think it is trying to be.

It is still worth pointing out as it is a little shady, even if it isn't illegal.

In some ways it is similar to SlideBelt and how MissionBelt essentially stole their product. Except in that case I believe it was a family relation and not a professional relation.

In this case, we have businesses asking for money. What if the founders decide they like one of the bids? They could hide/remove the bid and then steal the business idea and use their connections, which the struggling business likely doesn't have, to steal the idea.

Would you really trust these people?

I think "Main Street" is referring to small businesses, which are usually outside of ordinary people's reach when it comes to investing, since most business investing is limited to "accredited investors".

Small business lending is an interesting space. Small business often fail and thus small business loans tend to have garbage rates. I'm assuming the idea is to hit people on an emotional level, allowing 'investment' into someone that you can relate with as opposed to some large corporation.

There's a fine line between trying to improve an idea and cheap knock-offs and stealing an ideas and identities.

Uber and Lyft are very similar, but at least they could be differentiated. Lyft had tips at the start. The apps, sites, UX, colour scheme, etc... were still noticeably different despite offering the same product.

Also it's a little different when you work at one company, leave, and then a year later you copy their same product with little change and 0 attempt to establish your own brand.

I used to work with your co-founder Felix. The idea isn't bad, but this feels like a direct copy of the company where we worked, StreetShares. They had the exact same "Main Street" theme an overused it a bit. The "About" page used to list the employees' favourite main street in their synopses. Even the homepage is surprising similar. The main difference seems to be the stock photos.

So are there any differences in your product and SS? I assume the tech stack is much better. SS made me want to vomit. I guess this is an SS clone without the military focus? SS wasn't an original idea either, but at least they tried to put a spin on it. This just feels like blatant rip off