Aaron Frank @arfrank Twitter profile

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Aaron Frank

4 years

Fintech startups can be categorized primarily into two realms, - Soft fintech (services, don’t actually touch money as a business) - Hard fintech (touches money as a means of doing business)

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking how to best advise and invest into fintech companies, and over time have come up with a few mental frameworks to assist myself. Here’s one of them:

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Today I’m releasing the first pieces of a larger project to open source the other side of Fintech companies

Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Releasing the beginning of a new thing tomorrow, anyone want an early look

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

We raised from a boutique VC fund, you wouldn’t know them, they go to a school in a different state.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Releasing the beginning of a new thing tomorrow, anyone want an early look

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Months ago Citi offered to let me set a nickname on my account, and now I get emails like this. They even issued me a CC with the nickname on it

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me

Maia Bittner

@maiab

2 years

aww, that’s too bad

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

Just published the latest @NotAFintechCo guide - 0 to 1 go to market guide for fintech companies Thanks to @seema_amble ++, @ay_o , @drewrants & @NWischoff for the assist!

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

10 months

Excited to build the future of fintech at @lightspeedvp

Justin M. Overdorff

@jmover

10 months

It's @money2020 week so it feels apropos to announce that we convinced @arfrank to join the fintech pirate ship we've been building @lightspeedvp . I've known Aaron for a long time & couldn't be more excited to have him joining us as a Venture Partner. When building our team at

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

5 years

Thinking of writing up some stories from our time @final , at least ones that can be told publicly. Anyone wanna hear about the struggle?

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

The first question I ask founders when they ask for bank intros is "Have you talked with Joseph A Banks?" Few understand this is the ultimate fintech partner

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Here's why I'm short @Plaid . Quovo will eat their lunch, Yodlee is the incumbent in market and honestly what if Google does it? Anyone got any other bear case cliches for me to quote?

Mark Goldberg

@Mark_Goldberg_

4 years

Exciting news to share today -- @Plaid is staying independent: Why?🤔 As fintech explodes, the infrastructure underpinning it has become increasingly important. @zachperret and team are just getting started. The opportunity here is $50B+, not $5B. 🚀

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

You haven't really made it until your chief of staff needs their own chief of staff.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Everyone passed on the Series A of @Plaid , the Series B of @Chime , what is the Series C miss in #fintech ?

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

@jmover This tweet will take 3-5 days to settle

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Anyone got a public list of sponsor banks and processing partners? If not, putting together an open source list :)

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

If you’re in Vegas for @money2020 , can you say hi to Matt Harris for me? Don’t care which one, I’m running an experiment

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Got v1 of this done for @NotAFintechCo : 14 steps to getting a bank partner Thanks @cokiehasiotis @cedpvd @waltrcox @amandapey and anyone else I may have missed (tag yourself) or who contributes in the future

Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Working on 1 pager guide to finding, courting, closing and launching with a bank partner for @NotAFintechCo who wants to collaborate real time? @cokiehasiotis maybe

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

@CharleyMa RSUs

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Here is the Bank Account Model:

Open Source Model - Bank Accounts

docs.google.com

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Who has the best beard in fintech? These are the important questions everyone wants to know.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Soft Fintech Categories: PFM, KYC, BaaS, Credit Monitoring, FP&A tools, Issuing Processing, Data Integrators, Fraud Data & Tools, Compliance everything Hard fintech Categories: Merchant Acquiring, Lending, Insurance, Debit Cards, Credit Cards, Remittance, Brokerage, P2P

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Spent time over the weekend working on a new piece for @NotAFintechCo over at and

Open Source Model - Credit Card

docs.google.com

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

And here is the Term Loan Model:

Open Source Model - Term Loans

docs.google.com

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Just remembered the time @Final that a big name intl VC scheduled a meeting with us, and then went to the wrong Castro St. We were in YC, so living in MV, working downtown at 655 Castro, but they went to SF Castro St. They got a much different experience, still never met them.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

TFW when former founder friends tell me they're starting a newco, and I tell them I'm in before knowing/caring what it is 🥰

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

If @SBF_FTX had shorted $TSLA with customer funds he’d be a free man right now

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

9 months

The spend on now exceeds at least 74% of 1% of the US GDP

Simon Khalaf

@Simonkhalaf

9 months

The spend on @marqeta issued cards now exceeds 1% of the US GDP.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Ok it's here: Global edit is risky, but hoping some folks contribute

BaaS - Open Source Info - Banks & Processor

docs.google.com

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

Stripe Mafia comes at you Fast!

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

@TurnerNovak

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Sharing a template Google Sheet similar to how I track my angel investments I've shared it w/ friends/small funds who use it now. Thanks to @HarveyMultani for original inspiration. Comments open & feedback welcome!

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Maybe the real founder of @Visa was the interchange we made along the way

Alex Cohen 🤠

@anothercohen

3 years

This is the founder of Visa. He bootstrapped the company from his parent's garage and built a $400b business. You may not know it, but thanks to him you're able to swipe your card and instantly pay for anything using your credit or debit card. Hero

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

When's Bezos going to post his unhinged thread as a 1-click checkout founder?

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

@grahammcbain You merely adopted fintech. I was born in it

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

That entails things such as goto market guides, compliance policies and procedure, servicing manuals, financial models, credit models, fraud models, vendor contracts, rack rate pricing, and really anything else that one would need to get started.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Examples of Soft Fintech: @ncino @copilotmoney @usealloy @getVGS @finix @SentiLink @Shopify @Plaid @CreditKarma @NerdWallet , @fast @Verifi @NovaCredit @blendlabsinc @ModernTreasury @Galileo_Tweets @Marqeta , @synapsefi @unit_co_ @treasuryprime (don’t touch money as a business)

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

1 year

If you know you know

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Next time use comic sans you cowards

Robinhood

@RobinhoodApp

4 years

We're getting a new look. Stay tuned for more. 👀🎨📱

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

Unitcorn

Unit

@unit_co_

2 years

Today is a big day for us 🦄 We’re announcing our $100M Series C, led by @insightpartners . We’re using the new funds to accelerate our product roadmap, empower the next generation of builders, and expand into credit. [Thread 👇]

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

I believe that standardizing, templatizing, and open sourcing the non-engineering aspects of the core business as much as possible will make it easier for new ideas, products, and companies to be created.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Logos are hard. Don’t ask me how I know

Alex Cohen 🤠

@anothercohen

3 years

Can we talk about how the new Calendly logo looks like something you'd poop in?

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

It's really nice to finally get allocations into pre-IPO rounds done end of 2020/early 2021

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

5 years

BRING ON THE @Plaid MAFIA!

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Not surprised to see @jmover head from one payments company @stripe to another @LightspeedHQ ! Congrats! 🎉🎊🍾

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

5 years

PayPal to buy a16z. You’ve seen it here first

Seema Amble

@seema_amble

5 years

2020: more fintech acquisitions by the giants

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

History rhymes

The Wall Street Journal

@WSJ

2 years

Goldman Sachs executives expressed interest in buying a fintech that could help it win more credit-card programs

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Thanks to all my friends who gave this a read and provided some feedback, which have helped inspire some of this: @bapelj @lauraspiekerman @tberman @dadiomov @julieverhage

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Has anyone built the MLM of investing in startups online? Feels like we’re ready for that point in the cycle

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Who do you have the most mutual connections on LinkedIn with? Mine seems to be @dhaber with 617, I think

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

Fintech pro tip: @JosABank will not accept deposits or cash checks. Not sure if they’re really a neobank

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Examples of Hard fintech: @Stripe , @Square , @LendingClub , @SoFi , @Opportun , @greenskypay , @Kabbage , @OnDeck , @Brex , @Chime , @Lemonade , @crossriverbank , @Adyen , @Robinhood , @Transferwise , @Affirm , @Betterment , @Wealthfront (touches money as a means of doing biz)

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

1 year

Maybe the real duration mismatch was the friends we added to the group chat along the way

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Soft fintech are building towards product market fit. Hard fintech rarely defines new products, so they’re building to an existing product market fit.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Looking forward to Alex losing my money for a third go around!

Alex Cohen 🤠

@anothercohen

3 years

This should be fun - let’s raise some money from strangers on the internet. $25k minimum, accredited investors only. Invest in our second angel fund 👇

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Thanks for @ap @rohitdotmittal @lachygroom @tilltweets @mengxilu @seema_amble & all others who took an early look & provided thoughts on this & the larger project as a whole. And thanks to my co-founders, team members & the many others along this journey, just getting started

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

1 year

Proud investor in @KanmonHQ

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

With friends like these, who cares about recaps! Thanks @mengxilu

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

9 months

👏 A+ trolling

Rex Salisbury

@rexsalisbury

9 months

He was buried in an special cemetary reserved for those who tried new things at banks. The family asks that in lieu of flowers you switch to android, download cash app and have Morgan Stanley be left lead on your IPO.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

It takes a lot of people to make a people

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

It boils down to a few things: Soft fintech has high gross margins. Hard fintech has low gross margins.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Finally getting around to publishing some more resources on @NotAFintechCo . First up is a sample BSA/AML/OFAC doc for companies to adapt to their needs: Thanks to for providing this initial doc

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

First 10 Stripe employees getting ready to form their Mob

Turner Novak 🍌🧢

@TurnerNovak

2 years

early stage startup recruiting

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Soft fintech takes little cash to startup, but lots of cash to scale, usually due to sales. They do remain balance sheet non-constrained (BS Free). Hard fintech takes gobs of cash to get running, but less to scale. Balance sheet reserves still grow, but opex is not tied to it.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

Can't wait for @levie to have Box acqui-hire a web3 company to just mega-troll the community

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

@levie So you're saying don't Box yourself into a market

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

At what size VC fund do you need to really consider portfolio construction? 1mm? 5mm? 10mm? 25mm? 100mm? tagging a few folks so they might opine @jmover @pitdesi @iamjakestream @Mark_Goldberg_ @dkimerling @anothercohen @nkatragadda @amyecheetham @Jordyalbert @alexavontobel

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Soft fintech revenues rarely hit a billion: @Marqeta revenue is reportedly $300MM preIPO. @JackHenryAssoc w/ 1000s of customers is only at $1.6BN Hard fintech can hit billions in revenue and scale beyond with one business: @RocketMortage recently IPO'd with $5.1BN of revenue

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Disappointed they didn’t embrace a volcano as a logo

VisaNews

@VisaNews

3 years

Meet Visa. A new, iconic brand symbol is just the beginning. Visa is more than a credit card company; we’re a trusted network that drives commerce forward. Learn more:

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Did you know that Boeing has a "how to start an airline" guide: For all you side-hustlers out there h/t @zachperret

StartupBoeing

www.boeing.com

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Really impressed with the grit of @zbruhnke He failed to build @stripe while at @FeeFighters w/ @pitdesi He failed to build @plaid when he started Spout And now he’s failing to compete with @chime while building @_HMBradley #relentlessness #silvermedal

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

Just got a Zillow forecast email of home values that predicts a 11% drop in next year. First time I've seen that in a very long time

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

In Soft fintech, compliance is a cost of doing business. In Hard fintech, compliance is a core driver of your ability to do anything.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Soft fintech’s moat is product / design / distribution. Therefore you can define new product spaces to focus on and win. Hard fintech’s moat is regulatory hurdles. Therefore it makes sense to build the same thing as big as possible before the world changes.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

In my view almost all operating parts of a Fintech company are technical, largely because of the complexity management that must be mastered to operate efficiently.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

@anothercohen Not Ex Stripe and Not Ex A16Z. Solid resume. Term sheet incoming

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

Has anyone tried to put together a rough chronology of Fintech history, and the stages? If not, feels like a doc we should crowdsource & then let @shamir_k , @dan_omalley @jasonhenrichs fill in the gaps on

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Recently put together a comprehensive list of all investing/advising I'm doing to easily share with investor folks. (Also have sent to job seeking friends for easy intros to those companies) I wonder if true "investing in public" will ever be a thing for private markets.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

Are we at the part of the cycle yet where folks quietly talk about buying Discover?

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Anyone wanna join my private slack group?

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

Tried to make a deposit at @_HMBradley today but then remembered they only exist online

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

They grow up so fast and pick up your phrases <3 @anothercohen

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Step one for us was putting together a “how to launch a credit card guide” that we planned on open sourcing. It’s since been lost to the sands of the Sky Lobby, but creating a new version of it is definitely in scope of this greater project, and in fact has already been started.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

- Opportunity exists for a hard fintech focused VC, based on many conversations with early stage companies, someone with conviction and maybe a warehouse facility would be able to make a solid return with unique competitive advantage in the field

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

This idea started in 2017, while at @Final we looked at offering CC as a Service () It seemed obvious that in order to best serve our customers we’d need to give them as many tools & guides as possible to get up & running in an efficient & standardized way

Final - Request for Credit Cards

We at Final have decided to put out a Request for Credit Cards (RFCC), to help bring new ideas and products to market. One might think our Final branded credit card would be competitive, but besides...

www.getfinal.com

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

How many solo GPs used to be founders?

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

To wrap this up, many other areas where differentiation definitely exists could be explored in a longer medium: - Market vs execution risk - Customer acquisition - Sales cycles vs contract values - Data as a product - Implementation - Initial team sizes needed to get traction

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

Do they adjust our GLG rates for inflation automatically too?

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

2 years

It’s fucking May, but winter is definitely here

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Soft fintech looks at data as a way to build new products and ideas. Hard fintech uses data to optimize existing products and find business efficiencies.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

The faster I'm moved to BCC, the sooner I will make it known I can't be silenced on the intro I just made.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

This feels analogous to software (bits) versus hardware (atoms) in many ways. Of course, there are examples that don’t fit well, and I always look forward to finding the exceptions.

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

Falling more in love with Memos for raising rounds, especially early. Conveys deeper thought for big ideas and real story telling. Just saw my best one yet :D

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

1 year

S23 YC Companies holding back seed round valuation resets

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

This seems relevant today 😉

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

3 years

20% delusion is the new 20% dilution

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

1 year

Adobe at least has a better designed volcano, right? @zachperret @dbkahn

DOJ Preps Antitrust Suit to Block Adobe’s $20 Billion Figma Deal

The Justice Department is preparing an antitrust lawsuit seeking to block Adobe Inc.’s $20 billion acquisition of startup Figma Inc., people familiar with the matter said.

www.bloomberg.com

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Aaron Frank

@arfrank

4 years

I can almost see civilization from here.