McKelvey raises VC money strictly for validation, not for capital
Jim McKelvey · Billionaire Co-Founder of Square Joins Latka · Apr 5, 2021 · at 54:29
Square co-founder Jim McKelvey explains to Nathan Latka why he still pitches venture capitalists for his new ventures like Invisibly.
0:00 / 0:07exact quote · 7.9s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“I don't fundraise because I couldn't fund things myself, but I fundraise for the validation That comes with getting other people to believe in what you're doing.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Jim McKelvey
Square intentionally sacrificed card reader reliability for attention-grabbing novelty
“We made a critical decision at the company to release a card reader that was actually too small to do the job it was supposed to do, but got your attention in a way that nothing on the market had ever done. And I believe that attention was super important. And…”
McKelvey: Put 99% of focus on feedback over protecting ideas
“So I put 99% of the emphasis on getting feedback and one percent on protecting ideas. I've literally never seen an idea stolen. Okay. I mean, I've seen ideas copied. I see it all the time. But I've never seen somebody outrun the entrepreneur. Most people who a…”
McKelvey: Apple kicked VeriFone out of Apple Stores after Square attack
“He ended up upsetting Apple, and Apple kicked them out of the Apple store.”
Jack Dorsey's 2008 ousting from Twitter was 'unconscionably terrible'
“No. Absolutely not. What they did to him was unconscionably terrible, and I was very angry.”
Jack Dorsey opposed Square's iconic hardware, preferring a camera scanner
“I said, we need to build a piece of hardware, and Jack thought I was crazy because he said, we don't want to build hardware. Hardware is a terrible business, and it'll slow us down, and we can just use the camera on the phone”