Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly media, the computer book publisher, and probably one of the most influential people on the internet, recently wrote a blog post entitled Work on Stuff that Matters.  If you are an entrepreneur or care about entrepreneurship it is well worth reading but the summary is that the keys to success in a new  venture are:

1. Work on something that matters to you more than money.
2. Create more value than you capture.
3. Take the long view.

I think its worthwhile to reflect upon those on this blog so that people know how we think about this business.

Work on something that matters to you more than money: Before FeeFighters I started another business (TSS-Radio) and over the first few years, when we were getting started, we got ripped off several times by unscrupulous credit card processors, even though I spent lots of my (very scarce) time trying to shop intelligently and understand how to negotiate such a deal.  Starting a business is hard, but we rely on such ventures to improve the economy by providing employment and innovation.  Our goal at FeeFighters is to make life easier for small business owners and, in our small way, help spur the pace of innovation.

Create more value than you capture: We serve two types of customers at FeeFighters – small business owners shopping for financial services and financial services providers looking for new small business customers.  Small business owners get value from us because we save them time (it can take weeks to research, find and negotiate a credit card processing deal) and money (the prices found on FeeFighters are much lower than the list prices for credit card processing).  For financial services providers the value comes in that we are the lowest cost and easiest way for them to find new customers.  In return, we take a small commission, smaller than what they are used to paying to brokers or salespeople to generate new business.  They pass along some of the difference in cost to our customers and keep some to further invest in their own business.

Take the long view: consumer financial services have slowly been moving toward a mostly-online experience – witness LendingTree, Zillow mortgage marketplace, bankrate.com, etc.  as have many other consumer services such as travel, tickets and events and entertainment.  The small business market lags behind for now but eventually it will catch up.  As it does, FeeFighters will be there.