Michael Nguyen
(ngu)

“It’s 2015!”
- disgruntled patrons

History
“Square, Inc. is a financial services, merchant services aggregator
and mobile payment company”
2008 - Idea formed by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey
2009 - Officially founded
2010 - First app and service launched
Mission statement: “That everyone should be able to accept credit
cards—and we‘ve been rethinking buying and selling ever since.”
● Squirrel

Products

Reader P.O.S. + Stand
Main products
Cash

What’s hot
Analytics, marketing,
customer relationships
Square Capital -
loans and fundraising

Financials
● Square has no monthly usage fees, charging only a flat 2.75% fee per swipe.
● Q4 2010 - $1m transactions per week
● Q1 2011 - $1m transactions per day
● 2014 - $30b transactions, $300m profit, $6b valuation
● Square’s revenue is growing 3-4x faster than PayPal
● IPO by end of year

● Venmo
● Paypal
● Clover
● PayAnywhere
● Intuit GoPayment
● Flint - superior customer service and technical support
● Spark Pay - monthly payment option saves money for high-volume merchants
● Inner Fence
● EMS Plus
Competition

Secret sauce
Good UX
○ Set-up process is low-barrier
○ Slick and intuitive UI
○ Pricing model works well for SMB
Good marketing through Square Cash
Comprehensive, one-stop solution for SMB

Prediction
YOUR prediction: will the company succeed or fail -- and WHY
● Doubtful VCs have cited heavy competition and tight margins in the payments
business.
● Jack Dorsey “as unable to stabilize the [Twitter]’s culture and technology”
● Jack Dorsey compared to Steve Jobs
● Good momentum
● Japan & Australia
● Entering large mainstream chains, e.g. Starbucks & Whole Foods