Bo Jiang. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Privacy.com, a new way to transact online without showing your credit card number or pin. He previously worked on mobile products with Hatch Labs, which is the venture studio that incubated Tinder and Pixie TV, which was acquired by Samsung. He holds a BS in Mathematics in MIT.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – High Output Management and Who
What CEO do you follow? – Charlie Munger
Favorite online tool? — Zoom
How many hours of sleep do you get?— 7
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Pay attention and see things through”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:34 – Bo has always been interested with Bitcoin and Krypto frequency where the idea of Privacy came from
01:56 – Privacy was a side project in Bitcoin
02:00 – Bo didn’t pay anything for Privacy
- 02:10 – Bo retained the domain as an investment for the company
02:51 – Bo shares how he made the deal of using the domain for free
- 03:10 – Domains are assets but the value won’t grow that much
- 03:28 – Bo gave the domain owner less than 10% of the company
03;40 – Privacy has a browser extension and mobile app
- 03:44 – It allows you to create unique card number for every purchase you make online with just one click
- 04:00 – You can use any name or details and set your own credit limit
- 04:20 – It’s actually a debit card which can be linked to your checking account
04:30 – Currently, there’s nothing that is completely unhackable
- 04:42 – Privacy takes the best practices and security measures to ensure the client’s security
- 05:25 – The cards from Privacy can’t be use anywhere else
05:38 – Privacy makes money from interchange
- 05:43 – Every time that there’s a transaction using a card, the merchant pays Visa, Visa shares the fee with the bank, and the bank shares the fee with Privacy
05:56 – If Nathan uses $100 on an Amazon checkout, Privacy will get around 1%
06:51 – Privacy has raised $3.5M
06:59 – Transaction volume is how Privacy’s revenue grow
07:10 – Privacy is more focused on how much people have saved from using them
08:06 – Privacy was founded in 2014 and was launched as a beta first, a year ago
08:30 – Privacy currently has 150K users
09:15 – Privacy is growing in double digits, month over month in transaction volume
- 09:23 – Privacy has already broken a million transactions in just a month
09:50 – Team size is 10 based in New York City with some in Florida and Oregon
10:16 – Bo is still thinking of Privacy having a premium feature
10:31 – Average MRR is around $10K
10:57 – Bo was inside of Hatch Labs
- 11:20 – Bo thinks that Tinder work because it was the right product at the right time
- 11:55 – Hatch Labs was a venture studio and had 10-20 projects at a time
12:41 – What IC puts in every project in Hatch Labs depends on the project
13:06 – Bo left Hatch Labs a year and a half ago
15:14 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

While online shopping is becoming more of a necessity, online security can still be questionable so having an alternative to paying with a credit card is something people are looking for.
Focus on your company’s mission and the rest will follow.
Don’t overestimate or underestimate things – see through them.

Resources Mentioned:

The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

743: Will 28yo Privacy.com Founder Replace Credit Cards?

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders