First Principles of Investing in FinTech

Increasingly, fintech isn’t just about stealing the incremental customer, or participating in the evolution of the industry from analog to digital. It is a fundamental overthrow of how things have been done historically: a complete revolution.

Software will eat financial markets, cut out middle men, and turn investing into an experience from which consumers get more than a financial return. Still, only a relatively wealthy subset of consumers participate in financial markets; for software’s impact here to be truly revolutionary, it will need to increase access and participation in the ma... See more

While selling into the finance department has historically been a daunting task due to large incumbents in the category, we believe the next-generation of finance software has arrived. There’s a huge opportunity ahead for vendors who identify critical components of the finance workflow that have been grossly underserved by technology.

the financial services industry is one that has yet to convert fully to the new paradigm. And in the spirit of inspiring this industry to reposition in the Entrepreneurial Age, I often talk about innovating in finance in front of various audiences—corporate executives, entrepreneurs, policymakers. My key message is always that the revolution in fin

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Fintech has a lot to learn from products like Figma and Dropbox. Social financial products will have as much in common with Pinterest as they do with Citibank.

Why can’t a traditional bank do this themselves? 1) They don’t understand how to underwrite using tech industry metrics (ACVs, churn, LTV, engagement, et al.), and 2) they don’t have the tech DNA to underwrite programmatically, which Sand Hill Sachs will have. This may be a new company, an existing fintech player with distribution in tech, a VC fir... See more