Wednesday, April 28, 2010

What is VENMO ?




Last week I got an email from this company inviting me to join from my friend Marlene Gavens AKA The Savvy Seller. So I looked at the website briefly and signed up. Hey, I'm ALWAYS up for a PayPal alternative. I'm not a PayPal hater, but I believe competition is good in any market and PayPal has very little! So I went to the site to check it out. I _thought_ I was importing my Google contacts into an address book but it turns out that I gave Venmo permission to 'invite' them all! Soon I started getting text messages on my phone all night about them giving me $1 every time someone joined! Who Knew. Now, a few days later, they are sending reminder notices - ick! I'm sorry to those I've irritated with this, LOL, it was totally an accident. However, because of a couple of those emails I've decided to check it out.
The FAQ page at the website (which is all httpS so secured by Verisign) is very interesting. the company was stared in April of 2009 by two University of PA students. They have each been involved in several other Internet start up companies.
Venmo is meant to be totally text message based so I can see this becoming VERY big in my children's generation - it seems all they do is text all day! So I have $14 they 'gave' me in the account. I'm going to be brave and add a bank account today and try to withdraw that money and will even send $1 or $2 to some of those who 'joined' at my invitation. I'll report any issues back here. So far, my perusal of the website has given me a beginning feeling of confidence!

7 comments:

Danna Crawford said...

Thanks for the post Kat! Now I see why I got an invite from you! LOL

Best of luck to you with the site!
Danna <>< . .

BookCornerCafe said...

Glad you did this post since I was wonderng why I got that email to join and now I know what it is.

Sushiboofay said...

It sounds pretty good, but I don't have a texting plan because no one I know texts - so I probably won't join - but please keep us updated on how it goes!

Kat Simpson said...

Well, I added my bank credit card and it charged me two cents, LOL so that seems to be working!

Kat Simpson said...

okay - added my bank account and they are going to make a 'small deposit' so I can verify it. Also had hubby join and I texted 'send jeffsimpson $2' and it worked.

really easy . . . . . so far so good!

mymomsbooks said...

I got the invite too. Wasn't sure to join? Always want folks to be to pay at their choice. As we old folks know texting is the future.
Suz

Kat Simpson said...

That's what I'm thinking, Suz - texting is the future. Heard today from the catalyst conference that 1 in every 5 google searches is LOCAL!