Square has drawn a lot of buzz to the mobile-payments business. Venmo's founders hope to draw on that as they build their company.
Andrew Kortina and
Iqram Magdon-Ismail were randomly paired as freshman roommates at the University of
Pennsylvania and have been cooking up ideas together ever since.
First there was a classified ad service for Penn students, and then a
web-based iTunes
competitor. Magdon-Ismail went on to work for Ticketleap and Kortina
landed at Bit.ly.
But not for long. Last spring, Magdon-Ismail called Kortina and
announced, "I'm thinking of leaving my job." Kortina's response: "The
second you're ready to leave, then I'm ready to leave." That's all it
took for the two to embark upon their next entrepreneurial venture. But
what form would it take?
Magdon-Ismail, who was living in Philadelphia at the
time, traveled to New
York City to spend a weekend brainstorming with Kortina. Inspiration
came in the form of an unmet need, as it so often does. Magdon-Ismail
had forgotten his wallet and wrote a check to Kortina to cover his share
of the weekend expenses. "We thought, 'Why are we still writing
checks?'" recalls Kortina. "'Why aren't we using a web service to pay
each other back?' So we decided to build something that would let us do
that." The result was Venmo,
a mobile-based platform that allows friends to exchange money using
their phones.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Inc.com's 2010 30 Under 30 List: Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail, Founders of Venmo
Author: Donna Fenn
