In 2010, the speaker proposed sending strangers $25 of "WowBell" credit via one-time codes that turned their phones into declining-balance cards at specific merchants. He pitched it as a way to control spending, like giving a college student a limited allowance. MokaPay later built the same idea.
I went back to him and I said, I have a challenge for you. I said, I meet people every day on the street, they never heard of WowBell. And so do you do this one-time code? I think it'd be really great if I can meet people on the street and send them money to their phone. Like I could send them $25 in WowBell credit to their phone and it becomes a debit card, in quotes, where every time they come to the register, you zap their code. Like an e-gift card. And it's declining balance. I go, wouldn't it be great, your kid goes off to college and instead of giving him $100 a month and he's drinking it all away on beer, but he can only use it at WowBow, and now you know he's eating. Like, let's think forward for this. So MokaPay created it. So I would walk around, meet people on the street, I'd say, oh, here's $25, send it to your phone immediately, you have $25. Venmo. Yeah, yeah, exactly. In 2010, man. We were doing Venmo in 2010.
