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Michael Babineau

05/30/19

@ Y Combinator

The challenge with credit card data is that different companies represent the same merchant in various ways, leading to a cardinality problem where multiple descriptions exist for a single merchant.

Video

Analyzing Billions of Transactions to Understand Consumer Behavior - Michael Babineau and Kevin Hale

@ Y Combinator

Analyzing Billions of Transactions to Understand Consumer Behavior - Michael Babineau and Kevin Hale

05/30/19

Related Takeaways

Michael Babineau

05/30/19

@ Y Combinator

The human element in transaction data processing can lead to inconsistencies, as different people may describe the same merchant differently or make typos.

Michael Babineau

05/30/19

@ Y Combinator

Credit card statements often contain vague transaction descriptions that can confuse consumers, as they may not clearly indicate the merchant's name.

Michael Babineau

05/30/19

@ Y Combinator

Second Measure analyzes over 50 billion transactions, revealing that there are 1 billion unique transaction descriptions, but not nearly that many actual merchants in the U.S.

Michael Babineau

05/30/19

@ Y Combinator

Credit card data is excellent for predicting consumer trends, but it has limitations when it comes to companies that don't sell directly to consumers.

Y Combinator Cast

11/18/22

@ Y Combinator

Stripe succeeded because it addressed a known problem in credit card payment integration that many developers faced, but no one attempted to solve it due to perceived difficulties.

Michael Babineau

05/30/19

@ Y Combinator

Second Measure employs machine-based approaches to clean and analyze messy credit card data, aiming to create a useful output from raw transactional data.

Varun Mohan

04/20/25

@ Lenny's Podcast

Selling to Fortune 500 companies is challenging and cannot be done solely through credit card transactions.

Tony Xu

03/26/25

@ Y Combinator

As we studied the delivery needs of various merchants, we realized there was a broader demand beyond just one type of business.

Jared Friedman

11/18/22

@ Y Combinator

A good problem to solve is one that is acute and significant enough that people care about it, like the need for corporate credit cards for startups, which was previously unmet.