YCombinator’s Demo Day just wrapped up, and I was amazed by the quality of the companies.

More than just the quality, I was amazed by the toughness of the founders. These guys (and gals) were not the young, sheepish, technical founders you’d expect. These guys are operators – savvy, confident, operators.

I’ve heard Paul Graham, on more than a few occasions, comment on the relative “toughness” of various founding teams.  In fact, last Monday after all the YC companies in this batch were done rehearsing for demo day, I had a few minutes to talk to him about the companies that presented. The most frequent compliment: “those founders are tough, they can take care of themselves”; the most frequent criticism: “those founders need to be less wimpy.”

I don’t think there is anything particularly new here. PG says that the definitive description of good founders is “relentlessly resourceful.” I’m pretty sure that “toughness” is a big part of that. Can you take care of yourself and get (sh)it done, or are you a wimp?

If you look at the founders that PG talks about the most, they are all tough as hell – and I’m pretty sure that’s why he likes them so much.  I doubt he is particularly impressed by my and my co-founder’s raw intelligence, especially given how ridiculously smart the other YC founders are. I can hear him now: “I don’t know how smart they are, but god damn are those WePayers tough.” PG knows a lot about WePay. His favorite stories are those that demonstrate our toughness…like the time my co-founder and I adopted a dog together, dropped out of law school, and quit a high paying banking job, just to “burn the ships” before we founded WePay. I can probably recall two dozen stories about other founders that demonstrate how insanely tough they are — all stories frequently and proudly recited by PG.

Again, this has all been said before, but a few things I noticed about being tough and being a wimp.

Wimps don’t really get anything done – they don’t release a product, they don’t make sales, they don’t raise money, they balk at big problems, they quit before they should.

Tough founders are animals. Al Pacino says it best in “Any Given Sunday”"

“On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us to pieces for that inch. We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch. Cause we know when we add up all those inches that’s going to make the fucking difference between WINNING and LOSING between LIVING and DYING. I’ll tell you this: in any fight, it is the guy who is willing to die who is going to win that inch. And I know if I am going to have any life anymore, it is because I am still willing to fight, and die for that inch because that is what LIVING is. The six inches in front of your face.”

Tough people choose decisiveness over diligence.

We are aggressively hiring people for a bunch of open positions at WePay, and the first thing I ask myself after meeting with potential candidate is whether they are a wimp. We try not to hire wimps. We want people who are capable of being decisive, even though we (and all startups, really) are prodding around in the dark.

As more people adopt WePay to collect money online, it’s only natural to meet our users in the place they overwhelmingly plan events, organize groups, and publicize charitable causes: Facebook.

Today we’re excited to announce WePay for Facebook, an easy and reliable solution for collecting money on the world’s largest social network. WePay’s two new Facebook apps, Sell Tickets and Collect Money, are integrated with Facebook Events and Facebook Groups, so it’s easier than ever to get your events off the ground, collect dues from your members, and collect money from your friends.

WePay for Facebook operates on the same simple premise as WePay itself.  All money collected with our Sell Tickets and Collect Money applications is deposited into a dedicated, FDIC-insured account associated with your event or group, so those contributing can be assured that their funds are are not just pooling up in an individual’s personal account.

Just as the name suggests, the Sell Tickets app lets an event administrator sell tickets to his or her upcoming festivities. It is ideally suited to help you plan a reunion, football tailgate, a back-to-school soiree, a charity concert – we could keep going here, but your imagination is the limit. “Tickets” is a term that can be construed loosely, too – maybe you’ll decide members of your Facebook-fronted fantasy football pool should use Sell Tickets for their buy-ins and safely store those funds in a WePay account until the end of the season.

An added benefit to Sell Tickets – it may help you keep relationships and finances intact. Never again will you have to shake-down friends or put yourself in the red because you fronted the funds for an event.

Likewise, Collect Money is a platform for those seeking to collect money from group members via Facebook. Whether you’re running a student club, professional association, or enthusiast group, Collect Money integrates into your Facebook Group.

While privacy concerns can often arise with social networking applications, your mind can be at ease with WePay.  Sell Tickets and Collect Money offer the same secure payment functionality you’ll find anytime you use WePay.

These apps are not yet accessible from the WePay.com site, but they will be soon. In the meantime, head over to Facebook and check them out – here and here.

Good luck with all your events and fundraisers this fall!

This is a guest post by Bridget Doherty, a good friend of WePay and the founder of Salted Caramel, a Sweet & Savory Confections company.  Having launched Salted Caramel in November 2009, Bridget and her co-founder Ginna Haravon are excited about their first official football season in business.

In honor of the launch of a new Tailgate package at Salted Caramel, a sweet & savory confections business I co-own with a friend of mine, I am here to get your tailgate season checklist in order.  At the top of the list, I urge you to include our delicious and unique Bacon Bourbon Caramel Corn and Smoked Pecan Bourbon Caramel Corn.

As a student at Boston College during some very exciting football years, I would say I am a tailgate pro.  In those days, my fellow Eagle friends would stock up on blocks of cream cheese for dips galore, purchase a enough Busch Light to make a grand pyramid of cheap beer and grill up whatever Costco had on sale.  We added music and antics, and most of us made it to Shea Field, where our friends’ parents tailgated.

Shea Field was a somewhat different flavor of tailgate heaven.  When the moms attended, there were tablecloths, centerpieces, and maroon and gold flowers.  They were sure to serve a variety of salads, a slew of homemade baked goods, and the tastiest food you ate all week.  When the dads were in charge, there was great beer, great meat, and maybe a box of cookies from the grocery store.

All three equally delicious and acceptable, here is what you need to know about planning the Ultimate Tailgate.

The Basics

Food you and your guests enjoy, that is to say, something you don’t pass up in your pantry Monday through Friday.

You are outside, celebrating the upcoming next win (or forgetting the most recent loss) of your favorite team which proudly plays the best sport on the planet.  If that mean dips galore, a variety of salads, or great meat – then do it!

Now, every tailgate I’ve attended includes libations so I would tend to classify this in the “Basics” category.  Again, this can vary from your favorite 30 rack to a fancy gameday cocktail, but bring it cold, with more ice than you think you’ll need and bring it in bulk.  Since tailgate season starts hot and ends freezing in most parts of the country, consider the drinks as refreshment turned internal warming device.

The Extras

Go ahead and spruce it up!  Team color napkins might just make that family tailgate recipe taste better.  Flowers are nice for any occassion, and who doesn’t love a platter designed after your stadium?

We’ve spent a lot of time at WePay trying to get “early adopters” to sign up for our service.  I imagine that every startup, by definition, is trying to do the same thing.

WePay is doing some serious stuff, so finding a cohort of people willing to try something new and unproven is particularly important for us. Mint is a good example of a website that probably struggled with the same thing.

I made the mistake of assuming that “early adopter” is a type of person.  I think this opinion was shaped by Silicon Valley, where we like to think that we are early adopters, without need for further qualification – as if we are the first to try everything.

A few weeks ago, when all the apple enthusiasts were waiting in line for the iPhone 4, Bill and I gave out WePay t-shirts to everybody in line.  We didn’t really expect any kind of material ROI, but we thought it was nice gesture, and it was “a concentrated population of early adopters” (as we called it at the time).

In reality, however, most of the people in line were just early adopters of the iPhone.  Some were probably also early adopters of other apple products, and most likely other technologies as well. But not necessarily.

I don’t think, for example, that these people were the first people to use facebook. In fact, they probably weren’t. Some of them probably thought it was stupid, and some others probably still refuse to use it.

I think enthusiasts are the easiest early adopters to identify. Car enthusiasts are the first to buy Teslas, Apple enthusiasts are the first to buy iPhones, and gaming enthusiasts are the first to buy the new playstation. People enthusiasts (narcissists, social butterflies, etc.) were the first to sign up for facebook.

WePay is not providing a product that appeals to enthusiasts.   Our early adopters are people who experience a problem that we are trying to solve. This is sickeningly obvious in retrospect, but it wasn’t when we originally launched.

I constantly have to remind myself that our early adopters are not the early adopters. It’s not so obvious, especially when your office is half a block from University Ave.

This is a guest post by John Liston: sports fanatic, Boston College junior, Massachusetts native,  and all-around cool dude.

The World cup hadn’t even progressed past the group stage before the excuses started to pile up for those whose predictions and brackets failed to come to fruition.

“Who could have possibly predicted that the French, of all people, would throw in the towel and seemingly surrender as soon as the tournament started?”

“Nobody told me that the English players aren’t allowed to see their wives or girlfriends during the tournament, how can they be expected to perform under such stress?”

“Everybody knows that the officiating has been so bad it has completely changed the tournament, how can I be expected to pick the correct winners if the game is rigged?”

And for those of us participating in world cup pools whose members included those of the opposite sex…

“Why would I pick Brazil to win, their jerseys are that hideous yellow color, nobody wins anything looking like that.”

With these excuses started floating around in mass only two and a half weeks into the month long competition, I have an unwelcome caveat for the winners of the thousands of world cup pools filled out across the country. Good luck getting paid.

Anybody who has ever won a World Cup pool, a March Madness bracket challenge, or a fantasy sports league can tell you that when the competition is over and a winner is declared, all of a sudden all of the enthusiasm for the idea of betting ten, twenty, or however many dollars on the competition has suddenly evaporated. If you haven’t already collected all of the money and put it in a safe place in organizer’s desk drawer then you’re never going to see all of that money.

This is where you run into all of the previously listed excuses as to why some unforeseen variable made the entire competition null and void because although you managed to win, every loser has a referee, injury, or other circumstance which they believe warrants not paying up. Especially in the world cup, where most peoples’ bracket rivaled BP in their performance record.

This puts the chances of collecting somewhere in between Notre Dame Football living up to the hype for once and Ohio State ever toppling an SEC power.

How do you go about running a successful World Cup pool then? Well conventional wisdom has always dictated that all of the money be collected up front and kept in a “safe” location. If your friends are anything like mine, then this can become a much more arduous task than it sounds, as nobody is ever trustworthy enough to look after all the money.

The vicious cycle of excuses and distrust has led to many a pool winner going unpaid and countless arguments raging over debts and fairness. In the past, family members and neutral parties have always offered somewhat of a safe haven but there’s an even better solution out there: WePay.

You can always tell where someone is from based on phrases they use. Hella: NorCal;  Gnarly: SoCal; Wicked: Boston. My friends and I have picked up some phrases that we use so much it’s as though they are going out of style.  As it turns out, a few of them do pretty well as startup mantras.

“You just have to want it more”-John Liston
The first time my friend John said this to me I think it was because I had a headache.  Apparently wanting it more can even defeat illness.  John is the ultimate sports fan, so I think that’s where he got the idea.  In competitive sports, you have to want to win so bad it hurts. It’s no different with start ups: you have to want it more than anyone else, and you have to do whatever it takes to get what you want. There’s a great quote in There Will Be Blood. It goes like this: “I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.” Pretty pathological, but I think you get the point.

“Killin it.”-Kenny Miller
We use this one a lot.  Good grade on a test? Killin it!  Hot date? Killin it!  Caught a can of diet coke before it spilled? Definitely killin it.  And that’s exactly how start ups should be.  Killin it on everything.  I think a lot of awesome companies never make it because there’s one piece of the puzzle that doesn’t quite fit-they lack users, their technology sucks, the management isn’t up to snuff, etc.  You can’t just be doing OK, you need to be killin it – otherwise, the big guys will crush you.

“Complaining gets things done.”-Sophie Monroe
It’s rough that my quote makes me sound like the most obnoxious person on the planet, but I’m not about complaining just for the sake of it.  Complaining is about recognizing problems….and fixing them, so that you (and everyone else who feels the same way) can be happy.  This is how I get people excited about WePay: I pitch them the problem.  I help people recognize their existing frustration before I talk to them about all the features and benefits of the product. It’s the entrepreneur’s job to articulate the problem, stir up the masses, and offer a solution.

“Actually…”-Rebecca Crawford
My best friend Rebecca is always right, and she never hesitates to correct you in conversation.  A typical conversation looks like this: “Did you know that African Elephant is the largest mammal in the world?” Becca: “Actually…the African Elephant is the largest LAND mammal. The honor of largest mammal would have to go to the blue whale.”  Few people have the courage to stand up to someone who sounds like they know what they’re talking about.  Aside from having the courage, you also need to know that you’re right.  In a startup, credibility is you’re best friend. So not only is it important to be outspoken and vocal about your company/product, it’s also important to be right.

This is a guest post from my fantastic mom, Yvonne Monroe.  She has been using WePay in a lot of fun ways with her friends.  It turns out moms have fun too! : )

Sadly my babies are all growing up.  My oldest is going to be a senior in college, my son is going to be starting his first year at CalArts in the fall and my youngest will be a junior in high school.  I have no idea where the time went!  I remember the good old days of Chuck E. Cheese birthday parties, playdates and schlepping kids around Silicon Valley for every kind of practice imaginable.

Now everyone drives themselves, have their own jobs, and even have boyfriends and girlfriends!  They’re all busy most of the time.  I do miss all the time I got to spend with them but I am proud of the adults they are becoming.  All mushiness aside (gotta love it though, huh?) I now have time to spend for myself.  It is quite an exciting concept.  I just started having my own life again and it was weird.

I started going for drinks with my girlfriends during the week nights, I found a boyfriend and have started going on weekend trips with friends from work.  While it’s all been fun, all of the awkward feelings about money began to resurface.  When I am not at home, I am out in a group.  When I’m out though I never want to (and I’m sure no one else wants to) step up and pay for the entire group.  When my friends and I go out for drinks, splitting the bill for the bottle of wine (or 2…) is always an arduous task.  My kids always make fun of me (why do they think everything I do is so funny?) for the lengthy discussion with friends over who should pay and how much when the check comes for dinner.  After a great night out it’s always a drag to talk about the check.  Someone invariably ends up paying a lot more than she should and then tries for the rest of the night to act like it was no big deal…even though this has happened the past 3 times.

My daughter just began interning at WePay.  I signed up since it was free (and because it’s all she talks about) and gave it a try.

I started using WePay and all of these hassles with collecting and splitting money with groups went away.  I create groups with the usual ladies I go out with.  I collect money in our group account for everything from drinks to movie tickets to gas money for long trips.  At first I felt bad sending bills to my friends for $10 for dinner-I mean I can spend the 10 bucks that once right?  But then I realized that I have done that my whole life and contrary to popular belief that money never “evens out.”  My friends and I have saved so much money using WePay it’s crazy.  And no one cares when they get a bill from you-they were going to pay me back anyway they just never have cash or always forget.  It’s been awesome.

Next month some of the ladies and I are going on a weekend trip to Napa.  We pooled our money to split hotel rooms, a rental car, gas, golf, the list goes on.  We got a WePay debit card so we can access the money as if it were coming from our own bank accounts.  It’s the perfect solution to managing group money.  And if you think about it, everything you do is with a group of some kind.

I only wish I had known about WePay as a young mom.  How many times have we tried to split the cost of that Chuck E. Cheese lunch for the kids or snacks for the classroom?  Better yet, WePay allows you to collect donations and sell tickets.  For me fundraisers were the worst part of my kids’ young years.  Keeping track of donations for walk-a-thons and magazine drives was such a headache.  WePay makes it easy to collect donations for anything.

WePay!-Why didn’t you exist 10 years ago??

So pass this on to the young moms you know too -WePay will make life so much easier. They’ll have time to appreciate all the fun, happy times with their kids and friends.

With the arrival of summer, people are beginning to take more and more weekend trips with friends. Normally when a group of friends vacations together, one of them gets stuck as the organizer and financier. In other words, he or she is responsible for figuring out the total cost of the trip by adding up the price of gas, food, and hotel rooms. Then they have to split the cost of the vacation and collect money from their friends.

Unfortunately, getting your friends to actually pay their share of the money is the tough part. Some use PayPal to collect money for the group, while others collect personal checks and cash. Even up to the day you leave, you’ll find yourself still hounding your friends to pay up….and that’s the least of your worries! Most likely, you’ll have to collect money after the trip as well. Then you get to chase down your friends for money they owe you weeks after the vacation has ended. This get’s incredibly awkward when you’re dealing with friends that owe you money, so most people just forfeit the money to avoid the problem.

Luckily, there’s an easier way to collect money for a group. With WePay, you can open a group account for your trip and invite your friends. You can send your friends bills through email (kind of like PayPal for groups). Once the bills are sent, you can monitor who has paid and who hasn’t, which makes it easy to keep track of your “I swear I’ll pay you back” friends.

Once your friends pay, you can then spend the money with a WePay debit card, by sending paper checks (right through WePay) or by transferring the money to your bank account. You can book your hotel, buy food, plane tickets, gas, etc. Since you are using WePay, all your friends can track expenses so you don’t have to save receipts- the record keeping happens automatically!

Avoid a stressful trip and use WePay. It’s free to sign up!

I recently saw Whip It and the first roller derby team just signed up for WePay, so I’m on a pretty big roller derby kick right now.  Roller derby dates back to 1922 when it was controlled mainly by promoter Leo Seltzer.  Seltzer trademarked the name roller derby and toured his band of skaters around the US.  The homegrown sport quickly garnered attention for its spectacular displays of athleticism, teamwork and showmanship.  Eventually the appeal of roller derby (mostly due to the old model) began to die out.  By the late 70s roller derby had faded into the background.

In the early 2000s though, some spunky, athletic, fun-loving women revamped the sport.  What used to be mainly men turned into a sport that is now 98% women.  A grassroots movement occurred throughout the US that eventually spread to countries across the world.  The Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) was founded in 2004 with the goal of “facilitating the development of athletic ability, sportswomanship, and goodwill among member leagues  In 2005, the WFTDA counted 50 leagues as members, in 2010 there are an astonishing 470 leagues.  Each of these leagues is comprised of multiple teams.  Many leagues have a travel team who represents them in bouts (what matches or games are called in roller derby) across the country.

While learning all of this what impressed me the most is the loyalty the derby girls have to the sport itself.  To be sure, the team is important, but every derby girl I’ve talked to is clearly most passionate about derby, not the team, the league or herself.  Many of these women devote countless hours not only to training themselves but also to team practices and league administration.  Aside from leading lives as students, professionals, wives, mothers, daughters, etc, they take time to make sure the sport they love continues forward in a way that will be fun and meaningful to all those involved.

As with any organization though this requires a lot of time and expended energy on bureaucratic nonsense. WePay can help roller derby girls collect and manage money for their team and league.

• sell tickets
• collect dues from teammates
• bill sponsors
• collect donations
• manage money separately for multiple teams in the same league
• divide expenses for travel team road trips

WePay allows leagues to do all of this on one site.  Currently, leagues use many different (and remarkably expensive) websites to handle their needs.  For example, some derby teams sell tickets using a service that charges an extra $2 per ticket.  Sometimes the teams don’t receive the money for up to a week.  Leagues often have to pay for the skating space before they receive this money.  

With WePay, derby derby girls can sell their tickets online, collect the money as soon as the transaction clears and cut a check for the space immediately.  And it’s only 50¢ per ticket.  Score one for the team!

I am super pumped about roller derby and excited to get involved (as a fan, I am in no way coordinated enough to even attempt skating).  I’m going to my first live roller derby on Saturday in San Francisco.  Can’t wait!!

I just got off the phone with a PTA treasurer that recently started using WePay to collect membership dues online. I, of course, tried to figure out all the other ways WePay could help PTAs and PTOs collect and manage money. There are a lot.

I was pretty surprised to learn about all the responsibilities of PTA and PTO treasurers and board members.

The treasurer has to prepare and adhere to the budget, collect money and make deposits, pay PTA bills on time, create financial statements, report the organization’s finances to the board, provide money boxes at events, etc.

In addition, treasurers and other board members must plan fundraisers throughout the school year and decide where proceeds can be most effectively allocated.

The PTA often helps with yearbook sales by tallying purchases and collecting money. The PTA collects money for activities and field trips, and they constantly track receipts and disbursements.

Sometimes, the PTA or PTO provides additional services that make the lives of parents and teachers a lot easier. For example, some PTA’s organize the purchase of school supplies for parents. The PTA sends order forms to parents, collects the forms and money, puts together the orders and submits them to a vendor.  When supplies come in, the PTA helps distribute them to students.

If you’re a member of a local PTA or PTO, WePay can make it much easier for you to transparently collect, manage and disburse money. If you have any questions about how WePay can help, don’t hesitate to contact us.