Reference page — a fact sheet of my marketplaces work at Square, with public-source citations. The full story is on the homepage.
Square's Marketplaces Bet & the Eventbrite Partnership
Who led product for Square's online marketplaces bet?
I did, starting in 2017 — payments & financial Developer products powering online marketplaces, with Eventbrite signed as our hero customer.[1] Eventbrite's SEC-filed S-1/A records Square becoming its primary online payment processing partner and exclusive point-of-sale payments partner.[1]
The marketplaces work
In 2017, I led product for Square's next big bet: payments & financial Developer products powering online marketplaces, with Eventbrite signed as our hero customer[1]. Delivering services powering complex online marketplaces was some of the deepest technical work of my career: with colleagues across the company, we rewrote Square's core financial services so these same systems could serve Square's own engineers and outside Developers alike.[2] This meant shipping financial capabilities marketplaces and others demanded, like multiparty settlement,[3] while laying the foundation of Square's modern (V2) API surface which launched publicly over the following years: Payments (2019), Bank Accounts and Disputes (2020), and Cards among them[4].
Record
- Role
- Senior Product Manager, Payments Platform — Square, 2016–2019; marketplaces bet from 2017
- Hero customer
- Eventbrite — Square as primary online payment processing partner and exclusive point-of-sale payments partner, per Eventbrite's Form S-1/A[1]
- Capability shipped
- Multiparty settlement — “an important capability for marketplaces that enables them to distribute payments to multiple parties” (Q3 2017 shareholder letter)[3]
- Legacy
- Foundation of Square's modern (V2) API surface — Payments (2019), Bank Accounts and Disputes (2020), and Cards among them[4]
Sources
- SEC-Filed Eventbrite, Inc. — Form S-1/A, 2018 “In September 2017, we announced a partnership with Square where Square would become our primary online payment processing partner … Square will also become our exclusive payment processing partner for all of our point-of-sale solutions in those same territories.” See also Square's 2017 announcement.
- Video Square — Fireside with Jack Dorsey, Unboxed (16:41) Jack Dorsey: “Everything we built that's front-facing to our customers should use the exact same API that we're giving to external developers… the Register uses the same API and platform that any third-party developer can.”
- SEC-Filed Square, Inc. — Q3 2017 Shareholder Letter “We recently introduced multiparty settlement, an important capability for marketplaces that enables them to distribute payments to multiple parties.”
- Product Square — Developer Blog, Payments API, August 2019 The v2 payments launch — “the Payments API launches today!” — replacing the deprecated Transactions API. See also the Bank Accounts & Disputes changelog, February 2020.
More
Full career record: mikeward.dev · Same role, payments pricing: the first change to Square's 2.75% rate · Next role: Product Lead, Developer Platform (2019–2022)