The founder of Braid , a company that wants to make shared wallets more mainstream among consumers, Entrepreneur Amanda Peyton has always been “the friend that’s good with money”. In her words “People are terrified by money, so I need to lean into it so it will never become scary for me,”
Founded in 2019, group-financing platform Braid is trying to make transactions work for various entities, from shared households to side hustles to creative projects. It recently launched a new twist on consumer payment links: People can set up a Braid Pool around any effort.
Over 90,000 pools have been created since Braid first beta-tested the product in January. “The guiding question for us has always been, ‘How do we make sharing money not suck?’” Peyton said. Transparency into money goals and boundaries is a side effect of using Braid and this is missing from the general fintech landscape right now.
Braid is starting by helping friends, not strangers, pool money together — a focus that has maybe saved them from some of these tensions.
“We’re processing at this point, like seven figures a month in payment volume and it is not as much of a problem as I thought because I think the social consequences of taking money that’s not yours is so dire,” she said. “You can take all the money, but you will lose all your friends.”
