『#279: Square – Thinking Inside The Box』のカバーアート

#279: Square – Thinking Inside The Box

#279: Square – Thinking Inside The Box

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Jim McKelvey looks at his iPhone and thinks this is a phone, a camera, a map, a music player and a camera… Why not a credit card machine? Audio: Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not so secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, word from our sponsor, which is, well, it’s us, but we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients. So here’s one of those. [Seaside Plumbing Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast. I’m Dave Young and Stephen Semple is here with another fantastic story for us to intrigue us and entertain us, et cetera, et cetera. And he told me just before we started here that we’re going to be talking about Square. That wasn’t the Charlie Brown reference. He wasn’t square. No, we’re talking about the little credit card dongle. It’s a dongle company because I don’t think we’ve covered enough dongle companies. Stephen Semple: I think this is actually, have we covered anybody else who’s done something like that? I don’t think so. Dave Young: They probably didn’t… Well, I’m anxious to find out, because now the dongles are not a thing because you can tap- Stephen Semple: Right. Dave Young: For the most part. But let’s hear about Square. Stephen Semple: They were founded in 2009 by Jim McKelvey and Jack Dorsey. They’re both from St. Louis and Jack Dorsey, of course- Dave Young: Jack Dorsey of, yeah. Stephen Semple: Twitter. Dave Young: Twitter. Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: Yeah. The co-founder of Twitter. Dave Young: So before Twitter or. Stephen Semple: After Twitter. Dave Young: After Twitter. Okay. Stephen Semple: So Jim McKelvey, he’s a computer programmer, an entrepreneur, and somewhat unusually, Dave, your heart is going to sing here, a glassblower. Dave Young: Oh, good for him. Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah, so- Dave Young: Well, now I’m surprised that it worked. Stephen Semple: And the interesting thing is, what we hear in the story is part of his glassblowing experience is actually what led to the birth of this idea. Dave Young: I get it. Probably selling it at art fairs and things like that where you can’t take people’s money. Stephen Semple: Right. So the original idea is, what he wanted to be able to do is allow almost anyone to accept a credit card payment using a mobile phone. And the original product was a tiny Square reader that plugged into the headphone jack of the iPhone that you would then swipe your credit card through. Dave Young: Right. Stephen Semple: Right? Dave Young: We had one for some reason. Stephen Semple: Oh, did you really? Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Okay. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah. So 2009, pretty radical idea, and it’s growing far beyond being a little reader. Today, Square has got payment processing, and point of sale, and invoicing, and payroll, and banking, and lending, and online commerce. It trades on the stock exchange under Block, is the company it trades under. They got 36 products, eight countries, and generated $3.9 billion in gross profit. That’s not just top line sales- Dave Young: Wow. Okay. Stephen Semple: Yeah, from Square. And this is where things get confusing because people will think because it’s under the company name Block. Block did not buy Square. Square went public in 2015 and in 2021, Square Inc. changed its corporate name to Block because the company had become bigger than Square because it had- Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: A Cash App and Bitcoin related businesses and all those other things. Dave Young: It’s now cubed. Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah. So Block is the parent company and Square is a business with inside that ecosystem. To me, I always found that, oh, did Block buy them? And it’s like, no, they just changed the name. Dave Young: No, they became Block. Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah. So it’s this enormous financial technology company, but it didn’t actually begin with somebody saying, “Hey, let’s disrupt global payments.” It started with a guy who couldn’t sell an ugly glass faucet. Dave Young: Glass faucet? Stephen Semple: Yeah, so- Dave Young: He ...
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