Afterpay

Buy-now-pay-later giants: Afterpay $34B, Affirm ~$17B

Shaan sizes the buy-now-pay-later category: Affirm is a ~$17-18B public company, Australia's Afterpay is a $34B company, and Klarna (Europe) is likely the biggest of all.

“So there's Afterpay in Australia, which is even bigger. Afterpay is a $34 billion company, which is kind of interesting because normally Australian companies are much, much smaller. Klarna is big in Europe, I think, for this.”

Take it out of the proceeds: removing the out-of-pocket friction

Shaan describes how Compass funds his home-staging improvements as a no-interest loan deducted from the eventual sale proceeds. The same logic powers taxes-out-of-refund, Affirm, and Afterpay, pointing to a broad opportunity wherever people don't want to pay out of pocket up front.

“it's like, take it out of the— take it out of the thing. Like, taxes is another good one where it's like, oh yeah, I don't want to pay for you to do my taxes, just take it out of my refund or put it up, add it to my bill later, you know? And so where are there other opportunities to reduce the money out of pocket up front?”

Steal thisRemove the out-of-pocket moment: let customers pay out of future proceeds (sale, refund, salary) instead of fronting cash, even if the cost is identical.

Pinduoduo for Shopify: a 'buy together, save together' button

Shaan pitches a Shopify checkout button that turns customers into an acquisition channel: instead of paying ~$15 per customer on Facebook ads, offer a group discount where buyers recruit friends, mirroring how Afterpay's button lifted checkout rates.

“I think if you added a buy together, save together button, you would increase sales. So works is you're about to check out and it says, great, you can either have this item for $80, but if you get 5 friends to buy, you all get it for $60, um, you all get it for $50 or whatever it is, some discount there. And you basically are saying, rather than paying $15 per customer in Facebook ads, I will pay, you know, $15— I'll pay $10 right now to discount this item for you, um, because you're going to go acquire 5 customers for me, right?”

Steal thisBuild a Shopify checkout plugin that swaps ad spend for a group-buy discount so each customer recruits the next.