1871 Member Rippleshot Makes Waves at FinovateSpring 2014

By Lauren Kaufman, 1871 Intern

The Rippleshot team at FinovateSpring 2014

What happens when you demo your startup at the only conference series focused exclusively on showcasing the most innovative new financial and banking technologies? 1871 member Rippleshot found out when they presented at the FinovateSpring 2014 conference last week in San Jose, CA. Rippleshot, a service that gives credit card issuers and merchants the power to detect credit card data breaches well before merchants or issuers typically can, was one of 67 financially-focused companies to demo at the conference.

Rippleshot Co-Founders Canh Tran, Lucas Ward, Yueyu Fu, and Randal Cox heard about Finovate through previous participants Charles Tribbet and Larry Baker of Bolstr.com and decided to go through the extensive application process. “To actually get to the Finovate conference and do a live demo of our product took a village in terms of preparations, logistics, rehearsals, media coverage, and pre-conference networking,” said Rippleshot CEO Canh Tran. “It took our entire team and the 1871 community to help us plan and execute.”

After two days of pitching, networking, and learning, Tran and Rippleshot came away with four top lessons from FinovateSpring 2014:

1. It takes a village to plan and execute a successful conference demo.

2. It pays in terms of experience, contacts, and learning to reach out to the digital startup ecosystems in California and New York while still representing Chicago.

3. The response from the target community of banks and credit unions was tremendous, showing that startups like Rippleshot can validate their solutions beyond Chicago.

4. This year Rippleshot was the only Chicago company, and the company wanted to represent Chicago and the 1871 brand well. According to Tran, “Being part of 1871 gave us a level of confidence that we’ve been to the ‘dance’ before, and we knew we had a unique and innovative solution compared to all of the mobile payments and automated mortgage loan applications.”

As a result of the feedback from the conference, “We have tweaked our strategy to go after small to medium size banks and merchants,” said Tran. “Overall, I think that the Finovate conference’s West Coast stage gave us tremendous exposure, helped us validate our solution, and provided great leads and VC contacts.”

Learn more about Rippleshot here.

Read more about FinovateSpring2014 here.