Brendan Wood

The integrations were the biggest problem to our growth at Passive because nobody offered off-the-shelf solutions. And so essentially we're trying to tackle that. It's a larger problem. And we think if we do a really good job at it, it's going to fundamentally change the industry.

The longest part of bringing SnapTrade to life was deciding we were going to do it. We were building the passive app before that, sort of like a build-your-own-robo-advisor tool, run it in your own brokerage account, that sort of thing. And that depended on high-quality trading integrations to a brokerage account. In order to be able to place trades through a third-party app, you need an API.

The longest part of bringing SnapTrade to life was deciding we were going to do it. We were building the passive app before that, sort of like a build-your-own-robo-advisor tool, run it in your own brokerage account, that sort of thing. And that depended on high-quality trading integrations to a brokerage account. In order to be able to place trades through a third-party app, you need an API.

The longest part of bringing SnapTrade to life was deciding we were going to do it. We were building the passive app before that, sort of like a build-your-own-robo-advisor tool, run it in your own brokerage account, that sort of thing. And that depended on high-quality trading integrations to a brokerage account. In order to be able to place trades through a third-party app, you need an API.

Like I said, we were running into these integrations problems. We were spending probably 80% of our engineering budget on integrations. It was hard to even focus on our own product quality at that point. In the summer of 2021, we were kicking around the idea of maybe we should consider selling our integrations.

Like I said, we were running into these integrations problems. We were spending probably 80% of our engineering budget on integrations. It was hard to even focus on our own product quality at that point. In the summer of 2021, we were kicking around the idea of maybe we should consider selling our integrations.

Like I said, we were running into these integrations problems. We were spending probably 80% of our engineering budget on integrations. It was hard to even focus on our own product quality at that point. In the summer of 2021, we were kicking around the idea of maybe we should consider selling our integrations.

Wouldn't it be easier for us to justify the engineering effort on integrations if we could make money off them in some other way? So we had some friends who were running other B2C fintech applications. And occasionally these people would reach out and say, listen, you guys got these integrations to a few brokers that we like. Can we use that?

Wouldn't it be easier for us to justify the engineering effort on integrations if we could make money off them in some other way? So we had some friends who were running other B2C fintech applications. And occasionally these people would reach out and say, listen, you guys got these integrations to a few brokers that we like. Can we use that?

Wouldn't it be easier for us to justify the engineering effort on integrations if we could make money off them in some other way? So we had some friends who were running other B2C fintech applications. And occasionally these people would reach out and say, listen, you guys got these integrations to a few brokers that we like. Can we use that?

And our answer was always, no, that's like our proprietary technology. That's our competitive advantage. We're not just going to license that to anybody else. But it started happening more and more frequently in 2021. And we started really thinking about it.

And our answer was always, no, that's like our proprietary technology. That's our competitive advantage. We're not just going to license that to anybody else. But it started happening more and more frequently in 2021. And we started really thinking about it.

And our answer was always, no, that's like our proprietary technology. That's our competitive advantage. We're not just going to license that to anybody else. But it started happening more and more frequently in 2021. And we started really thinking about it.

If the integrations are our biggest problem, wouldn't this be so much better if we had 100 applications that we could power with these integrations or 1,000 applications? It snowballed from there. We said, let's have a few conversations with people. And we, in, let me see, early fall 2021, we started like cold calling a few other companies just to test the water.

If the integrations are our biggest problem, wouldn't this be so much better if we had 100 applications that we could power with these integrations or 1,000 applications? It snowballed from there. We said, let's have a few conversations with people. And we, in, let me see, early fall 2021, we started like cold calling a few other companies just to test the water.

If the integrations are our biggest problem, wouldn't this be so much better if we had 100 applications that we could power with these integrations or 1,000 applications? It snowballed from there. We said, let's have a few conversations with people. And we, in, let me see, early fall 2021, we started like cold calling a few other companies just to test the water.

And I remember the first call that we cold called, it was on a whim. We'd never spoken to this guy before. We found his phone number randomly. He was running essentially a third-party tool for self-directed traders. We called the guy up and said, here's what we're thinking about doing. We see you guys have built one of your own integrations to this stock broker. How would you like to have more?

And I remember the first call that we cold called, it was on a whim. We'd never spoken to this guy before. We found his phone number randomly. He was running essentially a third-party tool for self-directed traders. We called the guy up and said, here's what we're thinking about doing. We see you guys have built one of your own integrations to this stock broker. How would you like to have more?

And I remember the first call that we cold called, it was on a whim. We'd never spoken to this guy before. We found his phone number randomly. He was running essentially a third-party tool for self-directed traders. We called the guy up and said, here's what we're thinking about doing. We see you guys have built one of your own integrations to this stock broker. How would you like to have more?

We have eight of those that are currently functioning in our own product. We're thinking about commercializing this. Does that sound interesting? And his quote was, shut up and take my money. Sounds like this could be useful. So we looked into it a bit more. We kept having responses like that of people saying, this is a huge need. If you build this, I will buy it.