Payback for Venmo | Tony Robbins and Venmo co-founder on finding your own story and getting to “yes”

The Tony Robbins Podcast

In this episode of the Tony Robbins Podcast we’re continuing our Business Mastery Panelist series with an exclusive interview between Tony and Iqram Magdon-Ismail, the co-founder of the digital payment platform, Venmo.

In case you’re not familiar with Venmo, the premise is simple: you connect the app to your checking account and you can send and receive payments to anyone with just a tap and a swipe of your smartphone. It’s the ideal solution for splitting bills and paying your friends back - especially for anyone who doesn’t like carrying around cash. Venmo makes exchanging money incredibly simple, and it takes the awkwardness out of asking someone to pay you back. Paying for everything from cab rides to dinners to rent and utilities is streamlined.

Venmo was acquired by Braintree in 2012 for $26.2 million, which in turn sold to PayPal for $800 million. And now, Venmo processes more than $6.8 billion in payments per quarter.

Yet as ubiquitous as Venmo is today, it wasn’t an easy path to success. Iqram and his co-founder Andrew Kortina endured countless obstacles in their early years, struggling to raise capital and almost closing their doors at one point.

In this episode, Tony talks to Iqram about the evolution of Venmo, from idea to fruition to acquisition, and how they were able to persevere through the darkest periods. They discuss the importance of learning to embrace criticism, creating your company’s story, and using the no’s to refine your approach to find that pivotal yes.