The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan 456: How to Build an Unbeatable Business with Square Co-Founder Jim McKelvey
Jim McKelvey was a glassblower when he created the idea for the payment platform Square (now Block, Inc.). He was furious that he couldn’t accept certain credit cards as an artist and contacted a former colleague and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey to solve the problem. What took three weeks to build became a three-year journey of creating Square into a banking disruptor inspired by McKelvey’s frustrations. In the 15 years since McKelvey teamed up with Dorsey, Square has grown into a billion-dollar business and beat the world’s best company at absorbing startups—Amazon.
Listen to Nathan and Jim discuss:
- Hitting it off with Dorsey when he was his summer intern
- Realizing how many laws they were breaking with Square
- Convincing the banking industry to accept Square
- Taking on Amazon and winning
- Researching unbeatable companies throughout history
- Why he wrote the book The Innovation Stack
- How to pitch a product
- Why it’s better to copy than innovate
- His new foundr course
- Plus, excerpts from our live community event
- And much more innovation advice...
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