Techcrunch reviews Zecco. WTF? God help us that there’s a startup with a business plan that actually might meet an unmet niche….oh no, because Techcrunch would much rather hype flash in the pan over capitalised and business plan free startups that create solutions for problems that don’t exist.
But probably more seriously here, who at Zecco doesn’t Mike Arrington like? Is there some past history here? after all, given the usual gushing reviews we normally get, this one is cold and calculated. Sure, they’ve got the Neil Kjeldsen is an expert disclaimer out front, but seriously can we trust someone with a history with paid brokers to be positive about a threat to their industry + this would have had to have been signed off up the line prior to publication as well.
Tags: zecco
Very interesting point. I have to say that Im used being ditched for strange things when we enter big old businesses 🙂 Therefor this doesnt seem like big negative to me 😉 – but you have a point.
I think what he’s saying is that there is no niche.
Though I am not personally interested in the service at this time I am interested in seeing what happens.
I personally would have written positively about Zecco. But our writers have absolute discretion to write what they think. On at least two occasions I’ve disagreed with Marshall so much that I’ve written my own opinion over at crunchnotes.
After reading Neil’s post, I agree with it however. I think his points are very good.
You come across as a total ass in this post, by the way.
Hey Mike,
Do you really want me to point out every fucking time you come across as a total ass? Cuz its pretty often.
Mike
you hype the worst of the worst Web 2.0 startups, and then you allow your writers to attack a company with a solid business idea that could actually go well….the ass my friend is you.
Alex
how is there no new niche? Internet banking offers $0 cost banking services, Google offers $0 cost office products…so why couldn’t there be a $0 cost broker? If you can apply advertising supported services to other areas, why not to equities trading? I can tell you right now, that if they offer a similar service to Australians, I’ll be amongst the first to sign up, I’m a small time trader (when I do trade) but $0 trades means I’m much more likely to trade than if I’m paying $20 (roughly average) per trade.
I hate to agree with tech crunch but Neil pretty much nails a good review. They will do fine, but wont compete against the winners because of the times we are in.
Wow. Lot of debate. Very interesting. As a member of the team that created Zecco I have a few comments to add.
First re. the viability of the business model and the impact it will have on the overall industry. You need to take into consideration the numbers.
Let’s take E*Trade as an example. They did around $ 1,5 billion revenue last year … $ 500 million of which was commissions. But they had 1,2 billion expenses — mainly due to the fact that they are running on fairly old legacy architecture and also that they spend around $6 per transaction in pure sales and marketing costs.
Once you take a look at these numbers you immidiately realize why the business model will work. Zero commission trading is a powerful message that delivers true consumer benefit. We think this will provide lots of word of mouth. And if we have to finance $2 per trade to make it free that’s still only 1/3 the cost of E*Trade because they spend so damn much on marketing.
Obviously for this to work our trading platform plus the underlying settlement and clearance management has to be as good or better than E*trades. And it is. As a matter of fact we run on the same infrastructure, trading platform and settlement and clearing solution that many other online brokers — including some of the very largest in the industry.
So given parity in products and platform. Giving the fact that the customers money is equally safe with us as with anyone else (our treasury function is provided by Penson — a publicly traded company and one of the 10 largest in the business and it is heavily insured, as it should be) — why would anyone want to spend money on something they can have for free?
Anyways … we’re all looking forward to our upcoming launch on October 9th … hope you will all stop by and help us celebrate … and hey, the more discussion we can get going on the subject the better … so please chime in.
It’s sad that someone might rip something without it launching yet (or without trying it?). However, I would suggest that you write another piece after YOU have used the service. As a currently disgruntled Zecco customer, I would be interested to read your opinion.