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Comment by kbenson | Hacker News Reader

As the embedded video alludes, it's not that revolutionary an idea to pool transactions and use local resources to fulfill more cheaply if possible.

That said, the world is full of wildly successful companies that just executed well on not very revolutionary ideas, and they provide real value that was largely absent before they grew to prominence. Sometimes it's not about doing something new, it's about doing it well, or doing it in a way that allows more people access.

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Or, in the case of international money transfer: They see through the existing system and just openly do what most banks have been doing all the time behind the scenes, passing most of the savings to the customer.

The only problem I see with this specific business model: As soon as enough people use it, this method of transfer will be the norm and all the big banks will offer it too, thereby invalidating the justification for the existence of the new players. (Mind you, still a great win for the customer!)

>The only problem I see with this specific business model: As soon as enough people use it, this method of transfer will be the norm and all the big banks will offer it too, thereby invalidating the justification for the existence of the new players.

Yes exactly what I was thinking. But by that time Transferwise could be a reputable brand with lots of customers so they could pivot to offer other financial services.

And almost certainly better tech.

You ever check out the OS your bank is running?

Honestly, I don't care whether I am driven over by a Porsche Cayenne or a Willys MB.

And while I have not worked in the banking sector myself, lots of my friends did - and it was not cobol. They are catching up and they all know that their mainframe sw is dated and act upon it.

I don't think the "quality" of the tech is of any relevance here.

EDIT: Well, I actually know some guys who bit the bullet and learned cobol when they were just turning 20. By the time they turned 30, they did not have to work anymore.

> and it was not cobol

And if it was, personally, I wouldn't have a problem as a customer.

It's cobol.

I'd have 100% more trust in a system written in COBOL than node.js.

But it is currently maintained by the new nodejs devs who figured maintaining COBOL pays greater.

> You ever check out the OS your bank is running?

Does it matter? I don't care what Fidelity, Vanguard, etc run under the hood, I have no loyalty nor switching costs.

Vanguard's interface is garbage, plain and simple, but they have the lowest cost index funds; I'd use paper and pen to correspond with them if necessary. I moved from Betterment, who has a very delightful iOS app and web interface, because the fees were lower at Vanguard.

Ideally this is solved by positioning. Since they are associated with this concept it should be hard to copy as long as they executed it well, even if (or especially if) it's copied by a huge traditional banking brand (e.g. a British bank). At the very least they should be positioned well for a buyout (as that's likely the best way of going about it by a traditional bank).

I don't think it's possible without significant restructuring (for banks). They have huge costs that TransferWise is avoiding.

sometimes you say? it is always about execution

being passionate about things that nobody wants, and disrupting things nobody cares about will get you nowhere. a low margin grocery store fulfills a need and thats why they are everywhere.

Ideas are utterly worthless. Execution is everything.

I freely give every single idea (some actually valuable!) I've ever had away for free. Because I know if someone is better at implementing it than I am, they are the ones who provided the world value. Not me for dreaming it up and then doing nothing about it - there are millions of me's, and ideas without execution are not interesting.

>Ideas are utterly worthless.

>I freely give every single idea (some actually valuable!)

A solid contradiction ;) But I understand your intentions.

I guess value and worth can have subtlety different meanings

Ha. Good point :)

I give most of my ideas away, since I've ruled them out as not being optimal uses of my own time.

I've done the teeth pulling NDA and noncompetes with a lot of people, just so they would tell me their original idea that I'm contractually bound not to copy for a limited time in a limited geographic area or tell anyone about. And I realized how unoriginal all of them are. If they weren't so concerned about people copying their idea they would have gotten feedback on it a lot sooner for the simple answer of "Hey, Spotify does this already, did you check the menu options?" running completely counter to their market research and conclusion that "nobody" is doing this and its "huge".

Tell that to the Winklevoss twins

I guess if you only value ideas by the money that ends up in your pocket in the end, then sure, ideas a worthless and execution is the only thing that matters.

For an example, FedEx established the business model of paying extra to get something there sooner in a high-volume, economical way. It's always been there in a custom, luxury form despite the early doubters acting like it was a dumb idea entirely. Fred Smith and company just executed it very well vs all prior attempts. Billions in income followed.

I use this service all the time when I need to transfer cash,. It's simpler than using a bank, often faster, and almost universally cheaper. The idea is old as dirt, but execution is everything, and boy do they execute well.

Like Drucker said, there is efficiency and effectiveness. When you do both it's a good outcome.

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