I was out for a few drinks on Friday evening and unlocked my first Foursquare/American Express special. The connection between your location, the merchant, and American Express, all facilitated by Foursquare, is incredibly powerful.

It reminded me of an idea I pitched to American Express during a long series of job interviews back in 2007, while Foursquare’s founders were still working at Google. This was four months after the first iPhone hit the market, and well before the App Store was introduced.

Amex was keen to know what I thought the next market trend would be, and I immediately said “mobile” and pointed them to Dennis Crowley, now the founder of Foursquare, and said “just watch whatever he’s doing.” At the time, Dennis’ last company, Dodgeball, had been bought by Google, so I fully assumed that we’d see Google+Dodgeball rather than Foursquare. They wanted more, so I pitched them this: Continue reading →