Continuations

A lot of technology gets built through layering new systems on top of old ones to the point where some stacks look like an archeological dig at Troy. There is nothing wrong with that approach per se, except that over time some of the lower layers become a constraint on what can be done above them. A classic example of that has been operating systems. Sometimes they have to be revised, for instance to account for the move from 32-bit to 64-bit architectures. Sometimes they have to be replaced ...

Today Dwolla announced a new financing led by A16Z with Scott Weiss joining the board. The funding will go towards establishing a new office in San Francisco, an expanded presence in New York and much needed additions to the team in Des Moines starting with a lot of engineering hires. I am of course excited about this as an investor but even more so as a user of Dwolla. It already works well for me in in paying contractors but I can’t wait for it to be more broadly available. It is 2013 after...

When Union Square Ventures invested in Dwolla we were excited about the team’s approach to payments. But there was a big limitation which made initial use of Dwolla a bit daunting: you had to have a funded Dwolla account which could take several days to set up. Today Dwolla is launching guest checkout which allows anyone to get going immediately! Having the guest checkout option also makes accepting Dwolla more interesting and the company has lined up 20 launch partners. In addition to ecomme...

In marketing a site or service, a picture is worth more than a thousand words. For market places such as Etsy and Shapeways this is easy because they can lead with pictures of some gorgeous products available for sale. But what about an abstract service such as payments? For a long time Dwolla’s home page had text and even stylized diagrams of payment flows. They provided a fair bit of information but were not engaging. I was therefore thrilled to see the Dwolla’s new home page feature photog...

Sorry, no Tech Tuesday today (due to my travel schedule). Quite fortunately that creates an opening for a brief post about Dwolla, Iowa and the Midwest more generally. I spent my first year in the US as an exchange student in Rochester, Minnesota and came away with a real fondness for the Midwest. I am still in touch with my host family who provided a wonderful experience including travel to the far North of Minnesota and North and South Dakota. One of the things I came to appreciate in parti...