Eli Wachs 👣’s Post

Once again, this is absolutely NOT fraud advice. But if you wanted to contribute to the $456 Million lost in Zelle scams, this is how you may do it. Digital finance can be great for society, but it won't be if part of the social contract is billions of dollars lost to identity theft each year. Phishing/account recovery scams are on the rise. Auth<>Security<>Identity all really go together, and it's why we've built Footprint to solve across these areas.

Sharing my most recent investor update. It's about my dog Oreo, who sadly left us after 17.5 amazing years. What my essay talks about are all of the lessons Oreo taught me about happiness. How it could be there on any day, in any moment, waiting for us. For as much as entrepreneurship is about the destination, it is important to remember each day was a destination in your mind at one point. We must cherish and appreciate those small moments. Because there will always be a new destination. Happiness delayed is not happiness earned. To my best boy--I know you're running around a garden somewhere, meeting new friends. And to anyone who reads this, I hope it inspires you to reflect on how you engage with happiness. https://lnkd.in/dvvmdUjU

Busy month for us in July!

There's been a lot of news for portable identity of late. We've never gotten more inbound than in the last few weeks with Plaid's Layer announcement and Clear's partnership with Public. Folks have wanted to know how we Footprint feel about it. Huge players getting into the space. I relay that firstly it feels exciting--both a validation of why we started the company, and a time to continue to double down on product and architecture. Also, these entrants do not feel all that new to us. We wrote about Plaid and Identity last June in a public post. A lot of what we wrote then still stands true. We believe portable identity is not one-size-fits-all. There is a lot of nuance in the term. I figured I'd share what I've sent to folks more publicly. It is about how we think about what defines portable identity, and why we think we're well suited to deliver the best product in the space. As I say in the piece, I also want to congratulate the Plaid/Cognito and Clear/Sora teams on the hard work to get here--it really is an exciting time for portable identity! https://lnkd.in/eUra-mvp

I've been lucky to get to watch George build Hebbia since day negative one, back when we were roommates in school. No one deserves this success more. George works harder than anyone I know. He understands how difficult it is to build a generational company is--from handling the tough choices you must make to customer obsession to create the best product. I'm so proud and happy for him and the Hebbia team. Can't wait to see them continue to transform the AI landscape.

I was asked recently on a podcast for my biggest advice for founders. My answer: if you don't believe in yourself, no one else will. What I mean is that there are many moments in the journey where others will believe in you. Belief can be a flywheel: you are confident in a moment and that confidence convinces others to feel similar conviction. So you raise money, people join, you get some media. Amazing, right? Sure. But, there will be moments where others' belief wanes. At which point you'll be at a critical juncture: is your belief at that moment stemming from your conviction, or have you shifted it to being derived from other's belief. It better be in camp 2. Which means in good times, it once again must come from you and you only. Don't confuse noise or tourists as predictors for future performance. It all must come from within.

A special edition of not fraud advice: not hacking advice. Evolve and the great data leak of fintech. Some people find it strange when we say Footprint is a security company. But that's how we built it from day one. Alex's background is as a world-class cryptographer (his adviser at MIT is a Turing award winner who invented the ZKP). Why does security interact with onboarding? Because that is where all of the PII ends up. If you onboard a user, you must securely vault their data. If you don't duplicates get out for people to create fraudulent accounts after a breach (third-party identity risk). To de-duplicate the world and give people back their identities, you need to have strong security to do it. But above all if you build in fintech/Financial Services, people need to trust you'll take care of their data. It's truly the least you can do.

Last week we had our Footprint team onsite last week in NYC. It was amazing to get the team together at our new HQ for a week of fun, learning, and dreaming. We started off the week with a scavenger hunt in Soho. I did not know of the history of it as a hub of iron works, but will never look at some of the buildings and bars the same! After our offsite tradition BBQ, we then had Adams from QED Investors come for an hour fireside chat at our office for a discussion around fintech, competition, and the future of infra tools. To kick it off, we had our Series A celebration Thursday with team, customers, partners, investors, and friends. Can't wait to the next one, and so excited for what our team has in store!

It's summer in NYC. Love is in the air. But hopefully, your dating app crush is real. In this week of This is NOT Fraud Advice, we talk about romance scams. How they happen, why they're lucrative over time, and why more dating apps should perhaps require verification of real people behind their devices.

We're hiring at Footprint for our NYC office and remote! Thanks to Ben Lang for featuring us here along with some other great companies.