Confident as ever that a next huge wave of the boom is FinTech. Great energy as young people leave banks and hedge funds and build product
— howardlindzon (@howardlindzon) July 23, 2014
I had yet another mobile moment last week that made me realize how UNDER appreciated this ‘mobile’ boom has been.
I walked into the Coffee Bean in Midtown Manhattan and saw Tim Armstrong. Tim is the CEO of AOL. I had met him briefly once. I decided to walk right up and say hello and re-introduce myself. Of course, I brought up Stocktwits and he asked how things were going …so I told him. Inside of 30 seconds I was able to update him on the future of finance and the importance of millenials on the financial web. I showed our Stocktwits ‘trending ticker’ page, explained what it represented and than opened the Robinhood app and with three swipes placed a Google trade. Of course Tim git it and asked a bunch of great questions. The key….he was engaged. A chance meeting led to to a good understanding of the future possibilities in 30 seconds.
In the PC era, I never would have approached Tim. Even in this era of tablets, pulling out an iPad to give a presentation would have been silly. But, in this era of mobile apps that deliver magic, a quick simple demonstration delivered a win/win. The apps were the full pitch.
As this boom rages on…it is only fintech that lags. New loan shark tactics are the best this boom has to offer. ‘Square’ is neat but not nearly pervasive enough. Bitcoin gets a lot of geek love, but Paypal is still the name I hear most when I talk to millenials. How can this be?
As for brokerage, outside of Schwab at $36 billion and Fidelity (private),the e-brokerage world is tiny (TD Ameritrade if $16 billion and Etrade $5 billion). Sign on to your Schwab account on your iPhone and witness the dark ages.
This week’s podcast goes a bit deeper into the fintech subject. As promised, you’ll start to literally hear more from me in audio form. I’m really liking this format, particularly the video-less aspect of it, so I’m getting official with a coming-soon iTunes version and maybe even a Twitter handle.
Thursday, special guests Michael Parekh (@mparekh) and my dog Lindzee were “in studio” with me and my sometimes co-host Jennifer Van Grove. First, we dived into the market’s reaction to the Bloomberg report that Zillow is buying Trulia for $2 billion (or two Instagrams). I think the deal is happening. And I like it. Not just because my wife is addicted to Zillow Digs, which thankfully is an affordable obsession.
The other topics we discussed were Facebook’s blowout second-quarter and the future of financial tech.
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