Venmo / Andrew Kortina / Iqram Magdon-Ismail

Venmo offers SMS-based Payments for a new way to pay and get paid w/ SMS

 

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Venmo is a SMS-based Payment Platform and a new way to pay and get paid using a cellphone, by sending a text message.

Use the invite code web20show to get in and give Venmo a try.

I caught up with the Founders of Venmo, Andrew Kortina (@kortina) and Iqram Magdon-Ismail (@iqram). They operate with no titles and both wear all available hats in their ultra lean 2 person startup based in Philadelphia, PA.

What’s the gist? Well, Venmo allows anyone to send and receive money with a cellphone that has text message capability. It’s really a simple way to pay for things, and to transfer money between your friends, face to face.

Right now they are in a closed, slow growth beta stage. Here’s the deal, they’re still small and they just want do their best and provide awesome service! They got a little more exposure than they were looking for with the blog post titled “Venmo: The Future of Payments” posted earlier this week.

I just wanted to emphasize the fact that they are in “beta” right now. They are working though various features to get the user experience were it needs to be. Venmo is a fantastic example of “release early, release often”. They have been iterating over features and tweaking things based on the feedback they get from the user-base instead of assuming what their users want and need.

Use the invite code web20show to get in and give Venmo a try.

If you do sign up, be sure to share your feedback. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it!