WePay: The "PayPal for Groups"

If Skoobit is the "Netflix for Textbooks," then WePay is the "PayPal for Groups." Their pitch is simple: "People frequently pool money and share expenses, which is not always so easy. WePay makes it easier, faster, safer and cheaper." Although the startup out of Boston College hasn't launched yet, its one that i'm watching closesly and you should too.

We've all been through the hassle of pooling money with a group of friends to pay for that ski trip, booze for the party, utilities, or rent for the house you're renting off campus for school. Thankfully, the concept doesn't just apply to college students, but anyone who is looking to collect cash from a group of friends. If they are able to alleviate this pain, then the model becomes very appealing due to the ability to easily generate revenue by taking a small percentage of each transaction. (The same concept that made PayPal so lucrative and valuable selling to eBay for $1.5 billion)

Marketing the service could prove to be fairly straight forward and simple, too. By partnering with real estate agencies, vacation planners, and similar businesses they can create multiple channels for viral distribution. Even by itself, the service is viral since one friend likely has multiple groups of friends that he or she hangs out with. Thus, word of the application could spread exponentially, similar to how Facebook took off. It would also be easy to create social network applications and host their own API.

Bill Clerico, one of the Founders, is actually a good friend of mine and just quit his investment banking job at Jefferies (where he worked for the past year) to pursue the opportunity. He'll be living off his bonus while building their prototype and looking for a seed round of financing to get WePay off the ground. His partner, Rich Aberman has also deferred a prestigious scholarship in the Leadership Program in Law and Business at NYU Law to pursue WePay full time. Below are some pictures of their office where they live, work, and are cultivating their new startup:

Maybe they can partner with Tatango, an ad supported group text messaging service, who already has frats and sororities as users. Be sure to follow WePay on their blog.They plan on launching in early 2009.