Two of my portfolio companies had opposite approaches to the future of payments is biometric and ai-powered.. The one you'd expect to win didn't.
The way we pay for things is about to change forever. I’m exploring how biometrics and AI are converging to create a new era of seamless, secure, and personalized payments. From facial recognition to voice authentication, the future of payments is here.
Why Most Approaches Fail
Let me be direct: about 70% of the approaches I see to the future of payments is biometric and ai-powered. are fundamentally flawed. Not slightly off. Fundamentally flawed.
The root cause is usually one of three things:
- Copying what big companies do without understanding why they do it. What works for Google doesn't work for a 10-person startup.
- Over-engineering the solution when a simple approach would work better. I've seen teams spend six months building something that could have been done in two weeks.
- Ignoring the human element. Technology is the easy part. Getting people to actually use it is where the real challenge lives.
The Reality Nobody Talks About
Most people approach the future of payments is biometric and ai-powered. with assumptions that made sense five years ago. The world has moved on. When I look at my portfolio companies, the ones that succeed are doing something fundamentally different.
The first thing to understand is that most founders overthink this and underspend on execution. I've seen this play out across dozens of companies. The pattern is unmistakable.
At RemoteTeam, we learned this the hard way. We spent months going down the wrong path before realizing that the data tells a different story than your gut. Once we made the switch, everything changed.
Lessons From the Trenches
I want to share a few specific lessons I've picked up over the years. These aren't theoretical. They come from real companies, real failures, and real successes.
Lesson 1: The best time to start thinking about the future of payments is biometric and ai-powered. was yesterday. The second best time is now. Don't wait until you have the perfect plan.
Lesson 2: Hire for attitude, train for skill. The best the future of payments is biometric and ai-powered. practitioners I've met weren't the most technically gifted. They were the most curious and persistent.
Lesson 3: Your competitors are probably getting this wrong too. That's your opportunity. While everyone else is following the same playbook, you can zig when they zag.
This connects to broader themes around algorithmic trading, AI fraud detection, fintech AI, AI banking that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
The Bottom Line
Look, the future of payments is biometric and ai-powered. isn't rocket science. But it does require intentionality, consistency, and a willingness to learn from mistakes.
If you take one thing from this article, let it be this: start now, start small, and iterate. The founders who win at the future of payments is biometric and ai-powered. aren't the ones with the best strategy on paper. They're the ones who execute, learn, and adapt faster than everyone else.
I've been doing this for over a decade. The patterns are clear. The companies that take the future of payments is biometric and ai-powered. seriously outperform the ones that don't. Every single time.
If you're working on something interesting in this space, I'd love to hear about it. Drop me a line.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the most common pushback you get on this?
People often push back by citing exceptions or edge cases. And they're usually right that exceptions exist. But building a strategy around exceptions rather than patterns is a losing game for most founders.
Do all experts agree with this view?
No, and that's fine. The best ideas in business are often contrarian. I share my perspective based on my experience and data, but I encourage you to seek out opposing viewpoints and form your own conclusions.
What experience informs this perspective?
This perspective comes from over a decade of building companies in Silicon Valley, two successful exits (RemoteTeam to Gusto, MovieLaLa to Gfycat), and investing in 200+ startups including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Scale AI. I write about what I've lived.
How can I apply this thinking to my own situation?
Start by identifying the core principle behind the opinion, not the specific example. Then ask yourself: does this principle apply to my context? If yes, test it in a small, low-risk way before going all in.