Tweets that use the word "humble" in conjunction with an incredible boast are top targets for one of Twitter's favorite hashtags: #humblebrag. Jack Dorsey's mobile payments company Square offered a prime example of the genre Wednesday, when it announced that the company had hit a whopping $10 billion in money processed per year.
Today we're processing $10B in payments annually, an amazing and humbling milestone. To the small businesses growing with Square, thank you.— Square, Inc. (@Square) November 14, 2012
Still, if any milestone was worth humblebragging about, this one is it. A year ago, Square was processing $2 billion in payments per year. It took five more months to hit the $5 billion per year milestone.
To have doubled its annualized transactions in just seven months is a testament to the success of Dorsey's platform, based on a dongle you plug into your smartphone or tablet and lets anyone swipe a credit card to pay you.
It's particularly impressive given that Square is facing an increasing number of competitors in the dongle-based payment industry, from Paypal to Groupon to Bank of America. But Square is a surprisingly nimble 800-lb. gorilla in this space, where it seems important to be the one to get your platform out first.