Sramana Mitra: When you have a very competitive market, people figure out innovative ways to differentiate. What I was probing for is, have you figured anything out that offers that kind of differentiation? Todd Ablowitz: There is some interesting stuff, but it gets pretty obtuse. You can take data about these merchants. When you have
Sramana Mitra: This industry is very crowded and competitive. Todd Ablowitz: It’s interesting that you say that because what we see is, when you combine a vertically-focused offering with payments and value-added services, you have the least competition and the most margin.
Sramana Mitra: The lending trend is everywhere. I know that Square is offering small business financing. There are FinTech companies that are focused on giving loans. Intuit, for instance, is offering both payment and financing. What other examples do you have of the small business financing being offered by payment processors?
Sramana Mitra: You provide Escrow-type of service? Todd Ablowitz: We provide just SaaS tools. Our customers can send us the transaction information. We don’t process the transaction. We don’t get into the chain. We teach them how to do it. We enable it and make it better, but we don’t compete with our customers. We
Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about some customers who have become payment facilitators on top of your platform. Focus on use cases and customers that are interesting. Talk about the before and the after. Todd Ablowitz: One of the most interesting customers is FiveStars. FiveStars is a loyalty tablet that goes on the counter of your
Todd Ablowitz: Then in 2009, Jack Dorsey started Square. He scratched that itch that I always had – more like 15 questions in 45 seconds to sign up a merchant. I loved what he was doing except I knew enough to know that what they were doing was breaking the rules at that time. Ten
FinTech is a complex industry with massive changes underway. In this interview, Todd and I attempt to explore what is defensible in this highly competitive space. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself and to Infinicept.