More or Less · Topics · Episode #166
The Real Venmo Origin Story: A Subway Ad About a Random Engineer Named Lucas
Clip from the full recording, 47:13–51:45 · download mp4
Fresh off a documentary shoot with Ikram Magdon-Ismail and Andrew Kortina, Dave tells the story of how Venmo went viral with almost no marketing budget — a guerrilla subway campaign built around a random engineer's commute — even though, as Brit points out, neither Dave nor Sam made a dollar off it.
Dave and Sam (recorded separately) just sat for a new documentary series on fintech history, produced by Colin Luce of Basis Theory, telling the founding story of Venmo alongside original co-founders Ikram Magdon-Ismail and Andrew Kortina — plus early Braintree and PayPal figures — filmed on stage at the SF Jazz Center. Dave recounts the actual originating moment: splitting a check at the Breslin in New York’s Ace Hotel and being annoyed by the friction of paying people back, which became Venmo’s founding insight.
The best story from the shoot, per Dave: in the window between Braintree’s and PayPal’s acquisitions, Venmo’s marketing budget request was denied — “we can’t do this right now, we’re in the middle of acquisition” — so the team (Dave credits Kortina) improvised a subway ad campaign built around Lucas, a random engineer on the Venmo team: “Lucas takes the subway,” no Venmo branding at all, plastered across New York’s subway system. It went massively viral and grew Venmo enormously on essentially no budget.
Brit closes with the sharpest irony of the whole story: Stripe reportedly wanted to acquire PayPal largely for Venmo — meaning the “zero-dollar value” Dave and Sam’s generation of founders got out of Venmo at the time has clearly compounded into something enormous since.
Key points
- Dave and Sam recently filmed a documentary on Venmo's founding history (produced by Colin Luce of Basis Theory) with original co-founders Ikram Magdon-Ismail and Andrew Kortina, shot on stage at the SF Jazz Center.
- Origin moment: splitting a check at the Breslin (Ace Hotel, NYC) and being annoyed at the friction of paying people back.
- Best story from the shoot: denied a marketing budget mid-acquisition, the team ran a guerrilla subway ad campaign — "Lucas takes the subway" — about a random engineer, with no Venmo branding at all, and it went massively viral.
- Dave and Brit's own anecdotal proof of the campaign's cultural reach: Venmo was "everywhere" at Stagecoach Festival despite an essentially nonexistent marketing budget at launch.
- Brit's closing irony: Stripe reportedly wanted to acquire PayPal largely for Venmo, meaning the "zero-dollar value" the founders originally got out of it has compounded enormously since.
- Dave, self-deprecating: "None of us made any money" from Venmo at the time despite its outsized cultural and financial impact since.
Where they landed
Quotes
“Someone was like, 'Ugh, it's annoying how I have to pay the bill, but then I have to ask all of you guys to pay me back... I wish you could just text me a payment.'”— Dave
“They put these billboards all over the subways — 'Lucas takes the subway' — and they didn't even say Venmo on them, and it went massively viral.”— Dave
“That zero dollar value that Dave and Sam got has definitely grown over time.”— Brit
Suggested tweets
The real Venmo origin story, per Dave Morin: a check-splitting fight at the Ace Hotel's Breslin restaurant. That's it. That's the whole founding insight.
Tweet this →Venmo's actual growth hack: when the marketing budget got denied mid-acquisition, the team ran subway ads about a random engineer named Lucas — no Venmo branding at all. It went viral for free.
Tweet this →Brit Morin's closer on the Venmo documentary: Stripe reportedly wanted PayPal mainly for Venmo. The 'zero dollar value' the founders got at the time has compounded into something enormous.
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