ritikm
Joined 15 years ago
Karma
363
Submissions
76
Member since
Apr 8
Recent submissions
Comment · 6 years ago
> YC once tried an experiment of funding seemingly good founders with no ideas. I think every company in this no-idea track failed.
We were a no-idea company in the S12 batch. We ended up starting Streem [1], which was acquired by Box in 2014 [2] and ended up integrating and becoming Box Drive [3]. While we didn't build an enduring company, I'd say it was a moderate success by some metrics.
YC had two no-ideas in S12 and another one or two in W13 before they shut the track down. Unclear if that's enough data to spot a trend, but YC is smart and likely had other data to back up the decision. Looking back, it was a painful process to go from "no idea" to what eventually became Streem. I don't think I'd ever go and decide to start another company without an idea in the future.
[1] https://lifehacker.com/streem-offers-unlimited-cloud-storage...
[2] https://venturebeat.com/2014/06/16/box-acquires-streem-so-yo...
Comment · 7 years ago
[PM on Brex Cash]
Glad to hear that you’re having a good experience with the Brex card! We would love to hear your feedback on the card, and what you would like to see in Brex Cash. We are doing a limited roll-out for Brex Cash, however, as YC alumni ourselves, we are prioritizing this community and would like the opportunity to show you the product and let you see for yourself if it’s a strong fit for your business. Shoot me an email: ritik [at] brex.com
Comment · 7 years ago
[PM on Brex Cash]
> - checks are still a thing in business, what is remote deposit story?
You’re absolutely right - which is why are in the process of adding the capacity to send and receive checks. Remote deposit capture is what we're looking into for the "receive checks" piece.
> - ACH fraud a big thing - do you have ACH positive pay? Ie originator ID and limit?
Yes, we are able to offer ACH positive pay. Generally, per the payment network (NACHA) guidelines, if a fraudulent transaction is identified by Brex or by a customer, we are able to return it to the originating bank. This helps to prevent customers from ACH debit fraud, and allows us to keep track of potentially malicious activity for future transactions.
Comment · 7 years ago
[PM on Brex Cash]
This may not solve your problem, but if you have a company entity registered in the US, we can support you no matter where you live or have your headquarters domesticated!
Comment · 7 years ago
Got it, good to know and will keep in mind for future planning. Thanks for the feedback here!
Comment · 7 years ago
[PM on Brex Cash]
We require all users of Brex Cash to have 2FA enabled on their account. Adding 2FA checks to withdraw/send money is on our roadmap for Cash!
Comment · 7 years ago
[PM on Brex Cash]
Great question -- not on the roadmap as we're laser focused on building a resilient and delightful Brex Cash product for our customers.
Comment · 7 years ago
[PM on Brex Cash]
Top five things:
1) 1.6% or more yield on your cash balance. (Savings accounts in the US offer 0.06-0.16% interest on average.)
2) Zero fees on ACH and wire transfers. (Average wire fee is $23.)
3) Get Brex reward points every time you do a transaction. (Haven't seen an account give reward points for each transaction but I could be wrong.)
4) One account for all your deposits. (Typically have two accounts -- checking and savings -- with checking typically earning less yield and savings accounts having a transfer limit of 6 transactions/month).
5) Easy-to-use online interface designed to give you back time to run your business. (Of course, very easy for me to say this so I'll let the customer feedback do the talking as we roll Brex Cash out).
You can visit https://brex.com/cash for more information.
Comment · 7 years ago
[PM on Brex Cash]
Yes, you get an account and routing number with your Brex Cash account, which you can enter into on Stripe (like you would your bank account's account/routing number) to receive your Stripe payouts.
Comment · 7 years ago
[PM on Brex Cash]
Thanks for the feedback! Let us know if you have any questions by emailing [email protected] or visiting https://brex.com/cash
Comment · 7 years ago
[PM on Brex Cash]
It’s true that banks are able to offer money market fund sweeps, however, they are incentivized to hold funds as deposits (better for their bottom line), which often results in limitations on account activity, and checking account interest rates near 0%.
We built Brex Cash to give startups their time back -- so customers can spend time building their businesses, instead of optimizing deposits and spending across multiple bank accounts. Within the Brex Cash account, our goal is to provide startups with a safe and liquid place for their funds, with benefits of yield that larger companies are offered.
Comment · 7 years ago
[PM on Brex Cash here]
Thanks for the response, all great questions. Answers below:
> Can you guys elaborate on this in non-marketing/PR speak? If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck…
Brex Cash functions like a checking account, but the structure behind it is different. Traditional banks separate checking and savings accounts, which means customers earn a lower yield on their money as a whole. To be able to offer yield in all of the funds, we use a different structure: customers put their cash into Brex Treasury LLC, a registered broker-dealer affiliate of Brex Inc., that invests the cash in U.S. Treasuries through a money market fund. This means that while we don’t offer FDIC insurance, funds are held in low-risk securities backed by the U.S. government.
> Do we want you to be getting around the regulations? Are those regulations in place to hurt or help us (the business owners)?
Brex Cash is regulated as a broker-dealer, by FINRA. This is a well known structure used by Fidelity and other large financial institutions to offer similar products offering higher yield cash accounts.
> I’m genuinely curious here — I am seriously excited about a real, digital-first, intelligent, non-physical business bank. But I’m immediately concerned that you’re trying to “move fast and break things” and frankly I don’t really want that when it comes to my business checking account.
Totally understand the concern, and this is top of mind for us as well. We’ve spent over a year building the right technical, regulatory, and financial foundation to make sure we can scale this product. This is a product that we have built to be resilient and not to move fast and break things -- when it comes to customer’s money, we simply don’t do that. We’ve been working with customers for months to make sure the product functions well. Lastly, we’re rolling it out slowly, starting with an early access program for existing customers. Our motto internally is: “The Brex Cash rollout should be boring” :).
Comment · 8 years ago
Hey HN, co-founder of Elph here!
Excited to share what we've been working on.
Elph is highly scalable blockchain infrastructure for Ethereum. We're capable of handling over 5,000 transactions per second (vs. Ethereum's 15) at a fraction of the cost by using a MapReduce-like technique (lots of transactions that get executed on our chain that get submitted to Ethereum as a single transaction) that retains the trustless and security properties of Ethereum today. (For those in the blockchain space, this is done using concepts from Plasma.)
Happy to answer any questions!
Streem (YC S12), acq. by Box in Jun 2014.