Payments company Dwolla recently surprised much of the fintech world by announcing it was stepping back from the consumer business to focus on its B2B, API-based model. Or maybe it wasn’t so surprising.
It’s no secret it’s hard to scale fintech companies — unless consumers are rich, money isn’t fun, and people don’t share money problems with friends. (Citigroup addressed this with a new campaign called “Let’s face money.”) This means the traditional startup model of spreading virally among friends is unlikely for fintech companies, though there are exceptions (Venmo).
