Payments as a Commodity and the PayFac-as-a-Service Model with Caleb Avery

Ernest and Caleb Avery of Tilled discuss how payments processes contribute to top line growth, and how the ease of PayFac-in-a-Box solutions can go from an advantage to a financial disadvantage as companies begin to scale.  Also discussed:  Drawbacks of ACH, the value of card payments for businesses, and Caleb speaks to the "verticalization of payments".

Episode Transcript

Ernest Rolfson (00:03):
Hey, this is Ernest Rolfson, the CEO and
Founder of Finexio. Welcome tob2b cash flow conversations, the
podcast dedicated to sharinginsights and innovations in
business to business payments,working capital and cash flow
management, and FinTechentrepreneurship. In each
episode, my guest and I tacklequestions in the ever evolving
world of FinTech and payments,an industry that's rapidly

(00:25):
evolving and of great interestto investors and businesses
alike. Looking forward to havingthis conversation.
So hey, today I'm talking withCaleb Avery, the CEO and founder
of Tilled, a PayFac as a servicecompany, enabling software firms
to become their own paymentfacilitators. Caleb's been in
the payments industry for nearly10 years and has founded another

(00:47):
company prior to Tilled in thepayments industry, while he was
still in college, which ispretty neat. So Caleb, great to
meet you. Again. Or re meet youI should say. Nice to see, I
know that you have not changedthe backsplash in your kitchen
since we talked.

Caleb Avery (01:05):
So they're gonna have the downstairs bar ready.
So I've got the cigars and thecocktail machine ready to go.

Ernest Rolfson (01:12):
Oh, perfect.
Okay, what's next, once, once wesell our companies we can we can
start the drunken podcast, whichmay be more interesting to
others. We don't have to, youknow, do this, do this grind
here every day. But that'sgreat. You're at the ready.
You're beating me.

Caleb Avery (01:31):
I am. It's only 930 in the in the morning. Ready to
go.

Ernest Rolfson (01:37):
So how I do have my coffee. Yes. So how did why
don't you tell me more about howyou did get started? in the in
the space here?

Caleb Avery (01:49):
Yeah, so I got started in the payment space by
co founding a credit cardprocessing ISO while I was still
in college. So between mysophomore and junior year of
college, I kind of had this thisidea where did I want to apply
for internships? Or did I wantto try go out and, you know,
work for myself and the latterseem much more appealing. And so
my partner and I started by justgoing door to door talking with

(02:12):
small business owners in theGreenville South Carolina area.
And, you know, surprisingly,they were willing to talk to us,
and trust us with their theirpayment processing services. And
so it really started out with usjust going out with the idea of
like, hey, if we could savethese guys money and offer them
a better solution, would they beopen to talking with us? And you

(02:33):
know, that has has reallyexploded, since you know,
founding that back in college.
You know, at this point, we'reprocessing billions of dollars a
year in payments, you know,through that, that ISO, but
started out with, you know, veryhumble roots, just going door to
door talking with these smallbusiness owners.

Ernest Rolfson (02:52):
Nice. Well, I guess, did you then eventually
evolve into larger companies tobe able to get into that, the
billion zone? How did that? Howdid that kind of transition
happen?

Caleb Avery (03:06):
You know, we built up a sales force about 120
agents that have been going doorto door but as time went on, we
started getting

Ernest Rolfson (03:13):
around these, these are all 1099,

Caleb Avery (03:15):
I'll correct Yeah, 1099 agents, in 22 states across
the country. But we startedgetting brought down on these
consulting projects, with largersoftware companies anywhere
between about 100 million up toabout a billion dollars a year
in annual payments volume. Andoftentimes, we were brought in
by like the fractional CFOs ofthese businesses who were trying

(03:36):
to make sense of, essentiallythe the credit card processing
statements to start with. Andso, you know, historically,
credit card processingstatements are made to be this,
you know, complicated, you know,obfuscated thing where, unless
you have the expertise, andyou've looked at 1000s of these
statements, they'reintentionally designed to be,
you know, difficult to read. Andso these these fractional CFOs,

(03:58):
would bring us in to say, youknow, Hey, guys, can you help us
figure out what's going on?
Like, what are we paying? Howmuch?

Ernest Rolfson (04:06):
This positioned you as the good guys to help
understand navigate this andsave some of these people money.
Is that was that that? Is thatthe way this is sold in the
past?

Unknown (04:16):
Yeah, for sure. So for a lot of the smaller software
companies or you know, 100-200million in annual payments
volume, they're using Stripe orBraintree, when they're on that
flat rate pricing model of, youknow, 2 to 9% and 30 cents, or,
you know, 2.75% of all my money.
Yeah, they really have no ideaif that's a reasonable rate. And
so they're basically calling andsaying like, hey, am I getting a

(04:37):
good deal? You know, I wentthrough this negotiation
process, you know, with stripeand I got them down from 2.9%
and 30 cents to 2.7% and 25cents. They're like, how did I
do cuz I have no idea. There'sno transparency with that that
flat rate pricing model becauseyou have no idea what the
underlying interchange costs arefrom the card brands and so You

(04:58):
know, having looked at 1000s ofthese statements, and, you know,
knowing in these differentindustries, what the interchange
costs should be, we were able totell them like, actually, you
know, sorry that the cost isprobably more like 2% or, you
know, 2.1%. And so Stripe ismaking a lot of money, you know,
off of you guys if you'reprocessing 100 $200 million a
year in payments. And so theywould really look to us to help

(05:21):
them figure out you know, how toactually, you know, monetize
these these payments and stopyou know, giving away all this
revenue to Stripe and Square andBraintree.

Ernest Rolfson (05:34):
These are your, when you're having this
conversation, you're talkingabout the end user corporates
themselves, right, you'retalking about some kind of large
retailer or some kind of large ecommerce company at this point,
you're still talking about someof these..

Caleb Avery (05:47):
It was more like b2b2c software companies. So
think dental software company,that selling a software, SaaS
service to a dentist, who has anend consumer or patient that's
paying them money. And so youknow, as an example, the dental
software company is collecting$100 million in payments across

(06:08):
700 dentists that have you know,all of their downstream
customers that are paying them,you know, for their services.
And oftentimes, these dentalsoftware businesses were just
passing along the 2.9% 30 cents,or the 2.7% and 20 cents from
Stripe or Braintree, on to thedentist. And so for the for the

(06:28):
software company, there's justno revenue. for them. They're
just like taking thisunreasonable price, and passing
along to their customer passingit along. And, you know, the
reason why a lot of thesesoftware companies start out
picking, you know, the stripe orBraintree is because it's easy
to get up and running. And soyou know, when they're designing

(06:50):
this, the software system,payments is kind of a portion of
what they're building, but it'snot the core of the business,
you know, the core of thebusiness is the dental software,
you know, it's the schedulingtool, it's all those aspects
that are custom for thatindustry.

Ernest Rolfson (07:04):
It's the critical infrastructure that the
companies need to use thesoftware, and then payments is
one little module, but theyhaven't figured out how to
monetize the payments.

Caleb Avery (07:14):
Yeah, and it's not a big deal. In the beginning,
you know, when you've got onedentist on the platform, you're
not leaving very much money onthe table. But all of a sudden,
when you've got, you know, 300,500, 1000 dentists, you know, on
the platform, you're leaving alot of money on the table. And I
think as the software companiesstart to scale, they start to
realize, you know, you know,this, this is a lot of money,

(07:36):
you know, that I'm paying towhether it's Stripe, or
Braintree or Square, whoevertheir processor is, you know,
it's a lot of money. That's,that's kind of flowing through
the system. And when they're notseeing any of that revenue, it
kind of starts to give thempause. And I think that's why,
you know, a lot of times it wasthese fractional CFOs that were
bringing us in because they werelooking at the the the p&l and
saying like, you know, Hey guys,why are we not making any money

(07:58):
off of you know, $100 millionthat's flowing through the the
software system. And so that'swhere we would come in.

Ernest Rolfson (08:06):
Got it. Got it.
So you started then specificallytargeting the software
companies.

Caleb Avery (08:12):
We did and really where the idea from from Tilled,
you know, came into play. One ofthese clients in particular was
processing about a billiondollars a year in payments. And
so they had already figured outhow to monetize their payments.
They had a couple of differentprocessors

Ernest Rolfson (08:27):
with like a Stripe or Braintree or someone

Caleb Avery (08:30):
They had started with Stripe or Braintree like
else?
eight years back and then theyhad transitioned where they were
referring business do you knowthe first data's and the big
processors of the world and sothey were generating millions of
dollars on their payments. Theproblem was the onboarding
experience was pretty brutal. Soyou know, they spent all this
money going out....

Ernest Rolfson (08:54):
they had so you're what you're saying the
software. So the softwarecompany was building the front
end and building the funnel, butthen it comes to the credit card
processing and you're back in1995. Right, filling out a form,
right?

Caleb Avery (09:06):
Yeah, they're like, Hey, here's first data's PDF,
you know, can you fill out thisfour page PDF, and we're going
to need, you know, a driver'slicense a voided check and three
months of process.

Ernest Rolfson (09:15):
We're gonna need the void, the void check.
There's no other way to check ifthe bank account is real or not.
You need a physical voidedcheck.

Caleb Avery (09:25):
And you might even have to fax us the voided check.

Ernest Rolfson (09:29):
And fax is preferred. It is absolutely
preferred because we have tokeep we have to keep the fax
operator employed. Right. It'slike we still have the if you go
to the first data office inAtlanta, you'll see they still
have an elevator operator, theywill press the buttons for you
because they got to keep themkeep them with a job.

Caleb Avery (09:48):
And that's it the top top all that off. You've got
to wait you know week to getyour your merchant account
approved. And it's just thisprocess. Yeah, that that as you
say is, you know, decades.
Behind whereas, you know, you goon to Stripes website or Squares
website and you fill out thisbeautiful, you know, digital
onboarding form and threeminutes later, you click Submit,
and then you're instantly ableto start processing payments,

(10:10):
and it's just this, it's justthis totally different
experience than, you know, hey,here's a PDF, and we're going to
need all these attachments andlike, yeah, give us a week or
two, you know, to get your youraccount approved. And so, you
know, for this client that wewere working with, they really
wanted to understand what itwould take for them to become a
fully registered paymentfacilitator. And so that that

(10:31):
payment facilitator or paybackmodel is really the basis for
you know, stripe and square andBraintree, and PayPal, and all
these guys that, you know, youhistorically think of is having
this beautiful onboardingexperience, it's really based on
this concept of becoming, youknow, a fully registered payment
facilitator. But historically,that was a two year, multi

(10:53):
million dollar process to becomea fully registered Payment
facilitator, where you've got togo through the process of
negotiating with a bank and aprocessor, and it's just a
terrible, you know, expensiveexperience.

Ernest Rolfson (11:07):
that and that, but that this is like, circa
what, like six years now, morethan six years ago, this is like
10 years ago. Now. Right?

Caleb Avery (11:16):
That the that right back model kind of catered to
into?

Ernest Rolfson (11:19):
Yeah, yeah. And it was this this kind of insane
and onerous and impossible.

Caleb Avery (11:26):
Yeah. Right. And so, you know, it's, it's been
around for for well over, youknow, a decade now. But there,
there still haven't been thatmany companies that have been
able to take advantage of thismodel, just because of how time
consuming expensive, you know,was to become a payfac. And
about three years ago, when Iwas doing this consulting ok was
right as companies like finx andfinicept you know, pay rates

(11:49):
amaryllis a lot of these payfacin a box providers were coming
online with their their models,and these paid back in a box
solutions took the, you know,two year multi million dollar
process to become a payback. Andthey've made it like a six month
couple $100,000 process tobecome a payfac. The problem is,
it's still six months, you'restill having to hire a team of
people.

Ernest Rolfson (12:10):
Sounds like six months sounds like a consulting
business to me.

Caleb Avery (12:14):
It is a yearly, like a consulting business where
you get to hire them for, youknow, 75k, or something in
upfront consulting fees, andthey work with you through this
six month process, to convinceyou know, a bank and a
processor, you know, that you'reable to, you know, prove these
merchants and they have todesign, you know, policies and
procedures and hire personnel,and integrate all these systems.

(12:39):
And it's complicated, you know,to get all of that in place. And
so, you know, when I explainedto my consulting client, what it
would actually look like forthem to go get, you know,
registered as a payfac, theyconcluded in like, 15 minutes,
like, there's no way we're goingto go down this path. It was
just far too much time and moneyand effort and risk, you know,

(13:01):
for them to take on,

Ernest Rolfson (13:02):
yeah, it's not a good it's not a good business
plan. So I guess this is allleading us up to what what is
the better way? What is the wayyou, you've figured out how to
overcome this barrier here thatall these other guys, and God
bless, by the way, God bless theFinx's and the other ones for

(13:24):
convincing people that thisconsulting business is like a
real thing. That should beinvested in or pursued. No, no,
look, I I'm not trying to slaganybody, if you can make $1 in
this space, because of howcomplex and backwards it is, you
know, all power to you butdoesn't seem like the right
scalable place. For this. In myopinion. What do I know?

Caleb Avery (13:46):
They're they're just kind of approaching the
problem from a fundamentallydifferent direction than we are
a Tilled. So from, you know,these payfac in a box providers
position, their view is thatevery one of these software
companies should be a fullyregistered payment facilitator.
And, you know, in my experience,I just don't believe that most
of these software companiesactually want to be they fully

(14:07):
registered or need to, I thinkthey want the benefits of the
payfac model, which is theinstant digital onboarding
experience, and, you know, anice revenue stream off of your
Which is really at the end ofthe day isn't that beyond all
payments. But the question is,what's the best way to get
there, in my opinion, the bestway to accomplish those things
and get the benefits of thepayfac model is through what we

(14:27):
call payfac as a service. And sothe idea is that you can come to
Tilled, and you can launch in acouple of weeks, not six months,
you don't have to hire any newemployees. You don't you don't
have to take on any additionalliability. You just plug into
our API's and SDKs and let ushandle all the complex, you
know, back office operations,the underwriting the fraud,

(14:48):
monitoring, the compliance, thethings that you know, add
overhead and risk and cost, youknow, to the to the business.
But the kicker is that we'restill paying the lion's share of
the revenue to the software comany, and I think that's rea
ly the the beauty of the modl is that we're giving them, you
know, the turnkey solution, whee they're still making the lio
's share of the revenue on allthe payments that are, you kno

(15:08):
, processing through their plaform.
this other table stakes instantonboarding, everything isn't the
revenue piece, the big nuggethere, that's been the blocker
and that's what we're stripe ismassively greedy and won't give
you a cent.
It's a big one. So, you know, ifyou're doing, you know, 100

(15:31):
million dollars in payments,going back to that, that dental
software, you know, example fromfrom earlier in the
conversation, that's, you know,there's let's say 80 basis
points of margin, if the dentistis paying, you know, 2.9% and 30
cents strike was making 80 basispoints. So $800,000 a year, you
know, in profit on all that.

Ernest Rolfson (15:53):
just, I guess, for the listeners, too, that are
less familiar with that, I guessthat probably on average, in the
industry, it's probably likethree to 4x, the average of the
industry, right, in terms ofbasis, point margin, in my
experience.

Caleb Avery (16:07):
yeah, so like, on the on the, like, traditional
ISO side of the business, you'reright, kind of 20 to 30 basis
points is more than the averagethat we would see, you know, on
those like brick and mortaraccounts that we're signing. And
so, you know, this idea ofmaking 80 100 120 basis points
is, it's pretty uncommon, youknow, outside of the the

(16:28):
software space, but, you know,it's really the norm that we're
seeing with a lot of these ISVs,where they're, they're adding a
lot of value on top of justpayments. And so they're able to
justify a higher price point,you know, for the the payment
services, because they're notjust coming in and providing,
you know, a terminal to processthe payments, they're adding,
you know, scheduling tools andinvoicing and reconciliation and

(16:51):
there's a lot of value out ontop of just the the payments
element of their of theirsoftware.

Ernest Rolfson (16:59):
Yep, yep, that's what we're doing here with like
Finexio on that outbound paymentside, too, right? It's like,
hey, the payments itself is acommodity. But you know, we can
make over 200 basis points here,because we're doing all the high
touch value, add programmanagement, turnkey support to
get the software companies toembed payments in the door, and

(17:19):
that's where, hey, we'll, we'llbe able to share that with you.
And drive the top line together,which is what if you're smart,
and you're an investor, yourbusiness, and if you're a
software company, and you'retrying to do payments in
revenue, it's all about top linegrowth right now.

Caleb Avery (17:36):
Yeah, no, it is that I mean, there's a lot of,
you know, benefits to, you know,being able to add this
additional revenue stream, youknow, into your business, I
mean, think about the benefitfrom a from a valuation
perspective, you know, if you'vegot these, you know, 700
locations, and you're making,you know, $100 a month on your
on your SaaS fee, what if youget out 100 or $200 a month in

(17:59):
revenue, through, you know,payment processing, revenue, all
of a sudden, you're doubling, ortripling, you know, your average
revenue, you know, per unit onall of the locations that you've
signed up. And I mean, that'stremendously, you know,
beneficial to not only yourbottom line, but your valuation
if you're fundraising or ifyou're looking to exit the
business, you know, investorsare really, you know, wise to

(18:23):
the the benefits of having thisrecurring revenue stream, you
know, that you can you can getfrom from payments.

Ernest Rolfson (18:32):
Yep, let's, let's, I don't want you to
share, certainly your secretsauce, but I mean, what is it
that you're doing differentlyhere around making this so easy
that you can take advantagebecause this is something we've
looked at, even at our company,and I think you and I will find
interesting ways to worktogether here, as we both grow
our respective firms is that youknow, you can't even offer the

(18:53):
credit card processing because Ayou can't get any of the you can
get the revenue is not worthyour time and effort. That's
been a big blocker always forus, B the only other way you can
do it is via referral, or doinga handoff and going through that
paper form PDF situation, whichalso is a disaster. So,
surprise, surprise here atFinexio. Even though we're

(19:15):
talking to 1000s and 1000s ofmerchants a year we find limited
success with credit cardprocessing, it's not our core
focus, we don't find the successbecause of the pricing and
because of the high friction.
And there's not a turnkeyoffering. But knowing you know,
I'm really close with thefounders of we pay where I have
no stress, I get in touch withanyone we want to get to the
bottom line and why we gotconnected is there's no real

(19:38):
offerings out there. And so whatis the thing that you're doing
that you've overcome to makethis simpler that the market
needs to really know about? Thatyou're addressing is it that
just the bank suck and these bigcompanies suck is it they just
don't want to because there's somuch money on the table, they
you know, they want to make itimpossible. Don't you know,

(19:58):
maybe it's a combination ofthings, but I'd love to hear
what it is to the extent you canshare, what is the approach
you're doing here? That is thekind of the aha.

Caleb Avery (20:11):
Yeah, no, certainly happy to share. And so, you
know, from my perspective, it'sa combination of technology, you
know, business model, but alsoour backend partnerships. And
when you think about, you know,the technology side of this, we
spent almost two years buildingout the, the core API's and the
core platform before we everprocessed our first transaction.

(20:31):
So I think, you know, you can'tkind of understate how difficult
it is to build out, you know,this type of technology, and,
you know, the thought ofspending, you know, two years
before you're ever generatingany revenue, and, you know, ever
processing, you know, anytransactions, it's kind of hard
to do the fathom.

Ernest Rolfson (20:51):
Do you have and forgive me, do you have outside
investors? Or did you self fundthis thing, just as a side note,

Caleb Avery (20:58):
it was primarily self funded to get to the point
where it was operational. Andthen we brought in an outside
seed funding round lastNovember. And then, you know,
we've got some excitingannouncements coming soon. Going
to be announcing here for you onthe fundraising side.

Ernest Rolfson (21:18):
No, that's great. We're, we're rooting for
your success there, obviously, Ithink it's a be a no brainer,
based on what we're learning.
But where I was just gonna say,I'm very sympathetic with you
is, and I probably didn't domyself a favor earlier on, I
thought we'd be out of the gatefaster. But I think in the
payment space, it is fairlycapital and time intensive. And
it takes multiple years ofinvestment and funding and

(21:41):
development to get a robustplatform and system before you
can even move dollar one.
Because we're in the business oftrust and safety and high
repeatability. Right, and wehave to get the dollars to the
right place. Most of the time,you know, barring some various
things that might happen, mybusiness is a little bit

(22:02):
different than yours, we'redealing with paper checks in the
USPS, and all sorts ofrandomness that can occur. But
you know, long story short,we're in the business of moving
money, you and I, and theinvestors really need to have
the patience and wherewithal tounderstand that a lot of time
and energy has to go in upfront,you can't just like, flip a
switch, and all of a sudden,it's like magic beans here.

(22:24):
So I, raised a important point,you know,

Caleb Avery (22:28):
it's it's tough.
And, you know, the The realityis, it wasn't a problem that you
could just solve withtechnology. And I think that's
probably been the almost thebigger roadblock to preventing
someone from attacking, youknow, the model that the way
that we have is that not onlydid we have to spend all this
time and money building outthis, this, you know, really
elegant technology, but we alsohad to go convince, you know,

(22:51):
banks and processors of this newmodel in this, this new kind of
underwriting methodology andflow of funds. And you can
imagine, as you know, startupwith no balance sheet, and no
website, and no pitch deck and asmall team, like going to a $10
billion....They're not exactlythrilled. You know, when you

(23:12):
tell them, hey, it's not costingyou time and money, you know, to
go build out, you know, thesolution and work with us. And
for us, you know, it took over ayear to get those partnerships
in place. And the risk that thatI took was like building the
technology without any of thethe partnerships in place. And

(23:32):
it was really, this, you know,almost blind faith that like, of
course, I'm going to, you know,find a way to make this work.
But, you know, you can imagineduring that year, there were
points in time where it's like,we're spending a lot of money
on, you know, developers, youknow, building this thing out,
and like we still didn't haveany of the the back end
arrangements, you know, inplace.

Ernest Rolfson (23:58):
One of the things I in my early days, and
I've given this advice on other,probably a podcast or two is I
said kind of the feeling ofdoing what you're described,
because I've done exactly whatyou had to do. And it is
miserable and painful and a lotof sleepless nights. I say it's
kind of like, you know, you'regetting punched in the face 100
times over and over again. Andyou just have to keep plodding

(24:20):
forward. And it's like, is thatbank or is that big processor
going to partner with me? So Ican go and do this, you know. So
kudos to you. But I don't thinkwhat the market understands and
investors certainly is thetremendous, tremendous barrier
to entry that these businesseshave. Payments is a big

(24:41):
business. There's a reason whythere's like five big companies
or 10 big companies and onlyjust a few public companies in
these spaces. It is incrediblydifficult to break into these
businesses. And you have to havenot only the smarts you have to
have really good technology andeverything, but it's about
knowledge. It's the knowledge inthe world. relationships and you

(25:01):
cannot replicate that. And it'slike, oh, why can't pay pal
start, Caleb, why can't pay paldo this tomorrow? You know,
why, isn't Google doing this?
Isn't Google just take all yourbusiness or PayPal? I've read
about PayPal? Don't they dopayments?

Caleb Avery (25:22):
It's it's hard man.
And I think, you know, when whenwe were fundraising that was,
you know, a question that thatcame up pretty often is like,
you know, why? Why doesn't youknow FiS and first data, you
know, offer these these types ofsolutions? And the reality is,
yeah, it's, it's hard. And, youknow, for a lot of these big
institutions, they have theprice point, to make it

(25:43):
interesting. But the the actual,like, practical reality of
building technology that's easyto implement and easy to work
with. It's just not just not intheir DNA, you know, oh, yeah.
Common implement our API in twoweeks. No way, it's never gonna
happen. .

Ernest Rolfson (26:04):
Now, they've got like a semi unionized employee
base, as well as the issue atsome of these companies, you
know, so that's the biggestthing is in payments, like
anything else, you're dealingwith people. And if there's no
incentive for these people tomove and do some innovation,
with the cool startup aroundsome new business idea that's
there, why, why are they goingto work on it? Right?

Caleb Avery (26:24):
I agree, and, you know, touching on that kind of
barrier of entry point, youknow, the conversations that I
was always having with theseguys is like, oh, come back to
us, when you've got a billiondollars in volume. It's like,
everybody wants to talk to youwhen you've got a billion
dollars in volume. But it's...

Ernest Rolfson (26:37):
like when you don't need my help. Come back.
Hey, I'd love to get the moneycome back when you don't need my
money. And I'd love to give yousome. Yeah. How's that sound to
you? Caleb?

Caleb Avery (26:51):
Sounds great. Yeah, whenever, we don't need the
help, I'll gladly come back andask for some help.

Ernest Rolfson (26:56):
Absolutely. Love that.

Caleb Avery (27:01):
So that's what we were faced with. And so a lot, a
lot of fun conversations. Butyou know, obviously eventually
figured out, you know, the therecipe, you know, and brought it
all brought it all together.

Ernest Rolfson (27:16):
Totally. So now this is really can be, what
you're really enabling, I guess,to paraphrase is now creating a
new real revenue strategy forthese businesses, and to create
some real differentiation andflexibility for the software
companies to provide payments.
Without exactly becoming apayments company themselves is

(27:39):
what I'm hearing.

Caleb Avery (27:42):
Yeah, our core vision is to help software
companies monetize theirpayments. I mean, it's it's that
simple. Like, that's the visionfor the business.

Ernest Rolfson (27:50):
It's not just that it's, it's to monetize the
payments of their customers.
Right? Which is, that's thetough part. Yeah, yeah. It's
like kind and how can they thinkabout it not to define your
company free? But how can theythink about it is your point, it
is their payments? They'reenabling those payments, right?
Your partners or software firmsare enabling and creating those
payments? How can you do bettersolving...

Caleb Avery (28:13):
They're selling the customers, you know, they're
they're bringing theopportunities to the table,
they're signing up thebusinesses, they've written the
software, like, they're, they'rereally providing, you know, the
lion's share of the value. Andso in my opinion, they should be
earning the lion's share of therevenue, you know, and all the
payments that are ultimatelyflowing through their their
software system.

Ernest Rolfson (28:32):
Yep, yep. So is there a sweet spot for this now,
in terms of SaaS, and inspecific verticals, where you're
excited about payments orintegrated payments is one word
for this? Or maybe embeddedfinance is a kind of a buzzword
that this kind of touches on?
Where are you? What are youexcited about in terms of SaaS
kinds of companies and partnersare going after or other big

(28:56):
kind of plays here?

Caleb Avery (29:00):
Yeah, the way the way that I think about the the
market there, there's kind ofthree chunks to the market,
there's like zero to $50 millionin annual processing volume,
there's this middle segment thatthat's like 50 million to about
2 billion in annual paymentsvolume. And there's companies
that are processing north of $2billion. And in that zero to $50
million, you know, a yearsegment, stripe, and Braintree

(29:23):
are really the dominantsolutions. You know, those are
the startups that are gettingstarted, they're finding product
market fit. And paying 2.9% 30cents is, you know, frustrating,
but it's not, it's not going tokill the business. And you can
probably get started, you know,with those platforms, and then
kind of north of 2 billion,that's where, you know, I really

(29:44):
feel like these payfac in a box,you know, providers have their,
you know, sweet spot for thecompanies that want to become
fully registered paymentfacilitators. And I put that
caveat in there because for alot of businesses, doesn't
really matter how much volumethey're processing. They don't
really ever want to become, youknow, a fully registered, you

(30:04):
know, payment facilitator andwe've got clients, you know,
processing well north of, youknow, $2 billion that just don't
want, you know, to ever become afully registered payment
facilitator. And so for us, youknow, we really view the sweet
spot in this middle segment inthis kind of 50 million to 2
billion, you know, segment ofthe market that I call the
payback wasteland, because preTilled, there really wasn't a

(30:25):
great solution for these clientsin this middle segment of the
market. And so they were turningto, you know, the legacy
processors, the thesis, thefirst data, the card Connect,
Alibon, all of these guys thathave, you know, what I would
consider antiquated solutionsthat are difficult to integrate
into, they have, you know,pretty painful boarding
practices, and it's really justnot, you know, a great setup.

(30:46):
And so for us, we've really, youknow, concentrated on this
middle segment, of the market,where you have, you know, enough
payments volume, to make it asubstantial revenue stream, you
know, for the business, and itreally doesn't make sense for
you to become a fully registeredPayment facilitator, because you
can actually generate morerevenue working with tilled

Ernest Rolfson (31:05):
Just the point was you can make more money with
Tilled.

Caleb Avery (31:09):
That was the summation.

Ernest Rolfson (31:12):
Beautiful, I think we got it loud and clear
there. But what was there aspecific, you talked about the
horizontal, is there anyverticals you like, or you think
specifically for payments and,and embedded payments and kind
of helping, is there any, anyany reason around vertical, we
talked a lot about medical,which I'm interested to talk
with you further on, but anyother spaces, you found success,

(31:34):
surround payments and needsaround, you know, payment
consumption, and having anembedded in the software,

Caleb Avery (31:41):
I think one of the really interesting trends that
we're really, you know, writinghere at Tilled was just this
verticalization of payments,where, you know, historically,
the, the big processors serve,you know, every vertical and
they were really the only gamein town, you know, if you go
back 10-15 years, there was noone like Toast or Mindbody, you

(32:02):
know, in the space that that hadcreated these, you know,
vertical specific niche, youknow, software businesses and
kind of fast forward to today,were seemingly in every
vertical, whether it's barbershops, or you know, pool
maintenance software, or rentcollection software, or
nonprofits or healthcare orwhatever the vertical is, like,
you can pretty much find youknow, a software that's tailor

(32:24):
made for you know, that type ofvertical, and you know, at
Tilled, we're really looking atalmost any vertical that we
would consider kind of low ormedium risk. So we're not
getting into, you know, cannabisand CBD and some of the higher
risk businesses, but within theamount of low and medium
receptors, you know, we'reworking with clients across, you

(32:47):
know, pretty diverse, you know,group of verticals, and the
economics are pretty similar,you know, across all of these
verticals where there's, there'smoney to be made, and in some
cases, you know, more money tobe made in payments than even on
you know, the core of theirtheir business.

Ernest Rolfson (33:07):
Understood, a little side note, who I mean, we
talked about and uniformly agreethat literally everyone sucks
and don't work with them, theymake it impossible. And that
really is the situation for thelisteners to understand. I'm not
even in your business. I'm notin the credit card processing
side. It is miserable. Theindustry sucks, it makes it

(33:29):
impossible. So good on you fordoing what you're doing. I'm
very sympathetic is it isshockingly bad, shockingly bad.
Who is the who was the best ofthe worst? Is it just is it
stripe or Braintree? I mean,because they are good stripe and
Braintree are good. I thinkthey've made it so easy. They're
just taking everybody to thetool shed and taken all their

(33:52):
money. And no one else has beenable to figure out an
alternative. That's why just forpeople that don't know, that's
the situation. And they're justso much better than the other
jokers out there, which isliterally everybody else, that
they're just dominating. Andthat's why stripes worth $93
billion, because they're theonly ones they've got a couple
millennials there that justfigured it out, that are just

(34:13):
modern, that use mobile phones,right. But people like me and
you that's the answer. But isthere a best of the worst out
there?

Caleb Avery (34:23):
I would say that Stripe is probably the the
company that we get the mostpositive feedback from customers
that are looking to leave, butare saying yeah, we've loved
stripe, you know, the technologyis fantastic. We've had a great
experience but like, it's justexpensive. And their, their
technology is so good that theyhave you know, this cult

(34:45):
following amongst you know, thethe startup crowd and I
understand it, you know, quitefrankly, like we we send you
know some of the smallercustomers that come in to
Tilled. You know, weoccasionally recommend stripe,
you know, to some of these guyswhere it's like hey, you should
go use stripe You know, for thenext 6-12 months, and then
circle back to us, you know,when you have that product
market fit, you know, and enoughcustomers to justify, you know,

(35:08):
coming on board with Tilled.

Ernest Rolfson (35:13):
Exactly. The thing is everyone out of the
gate wants to be a player andthinks they want to be able to
keep all the interchange and doall this stuff, right. And
that's where stripe, I thinkdoes a really good job of coming
in and say, Look, we're gonnagive you something its gonna
work. And you can feel thatgood, good about it. I think
that's what they're that's whatthey're good at.

Caleb Avery (35:31):
Yeah, well, I think as well, stripe has a lot of
like pre built UI elements,where you don't have to build
out your invoice or you don'thave to build out your right
checkout page and some of the...

Ernest Rolfson (35:42):
They're in the program management business.

Caleb Avery (35:45):
Yeah, yes, as a startup, you know, they have
these assets that, you know, ifyou want to launch your business
in two days, yeah, go to stripe,and plug in their, their pre
build, you know, onboardingform, and their pre built, you
know, checkout tool, and, youknow, it all works pretty well.
But like, as you scale up yourbusiness, and you've got a team
of, you know, 10 developerssaving that, you know, week or

(36:07):
two, that you get by, you know,using the prebuilt stripe
elements is really no longer anadvantage. And arguably, it's a
real disadvantage. And I think alot of the clients that come to
Tilled are excited about our APIfirst approach where they have
the flexibility to build whatthey want, and make it look like
their brand, their look, theirfeel, and they don't have to

(36:28):
compromise on Well, hey, this iswhat stripe has, and there's,
you know, limited, you know,configurability to, you know,
their pre built UI templates.

Ernest Rolfson (36:37):
Yep. So here at Finexio to just kind of switch
it over here for listeners islike we're doing this strategy
of Tilled and Strip, right. Sowe've got the program
management, the websites, theportals, the landing pages, and
just give it to you and you canwhite, label it and take it and
do whatever you like, you know,and go and run with it and use

(36:59):
our API for back end outboundpayments, or for the more
sophisticated customers and youwant to get more of the revenue
and do other things, you cancome and just use our API,
right. And we've done that witha company called Veem. That
their CEO, Marwan is a buddy,he'll be on the podcast here
soon, where that worked greatfor them, they've got a lot of
volume, they've got the frontend, they know what they're

(37:19):
doing. They just needed a reallysolid API for US domestic b2b
payments, right? Somebody else,your prototypical customer, they
don't know what they're doing.
That's where you need the stripelike assets and other these
turnkey things. And we realizethat this was a big gap in the
market. So we're kind of AP isso different, and so much more
of a backwater than your space,which is now so much more

(37:41):
developed, that we have toactually do both models, because
the customers are at so manyweird different spectrums of the
of the sphere here, it's, it'samazing.

Caleb Avery (37:52):
Well, it gives you a lot of flexibility to sign up
the smaller clients as well as,you know, the larger clients by
having that, you know, diverseproduct offering.

Ernest Rolfson (38:01):
Exactly, exactly. So, uh, where to go,
where to go from here, we'vecovered a lot of ground, um, you
know, or was there anything youwanted to touch on that we did
not on, you know, some of thesome of these kind of core
concepts we've touched on anddifferentiators and otherwise,

(38:23):
because if if, if there'sanything you don't think that
was important, around just someof these key concepts that we've
been kind of exploring havinggood convo on, I'd love to talk
to you about any of your viewson b2b payments.

Caleb Avery (38:37):
Covered pretty good ground so far. So I'll turn it
over to you

Ernest Rolfson (38:42):
No, I'm just curious, do you is there do you
have clients that are doing b2bpayments? Do you see, you
mentioned b2b2c is so much ofthis consumer to business? Do
you see any use cases in b2b?
Have you thought through any ofthat, or their customers coming
to you, I'd love to just hearwhere you see integrated
payments and receivables andpayables around me to be which

(39:04):
is kind of my home. And I cansure I can jive off whatever you
share on based on what we'reseeing in the market as well.

Caleb Avery (39:14):
Yeah, I mean, I think COVID in general has been
just an accelerant on, you know,a lot of the the trends that
were happening, you know, prepre COVID where, you know,
businesses that werehistorically you know, paper
check, you know, processes aretrying to find ways, you know,
to digitize their theirpayments. And, you know, one of

(39:34):
the things that that we, youknow, quickly, you know, adapted
to a Tilled was offering a ACHas an additional, you know,
payment method within our API.
You know, when we launched, itwas just credit cards. And we
had, you know, it was like thefirst 40 customers that that we
talked to there were probablyeight or 10 you know, that just
needed ACH and like without ACHprocessing like we just wouldn't

(39:57):
win those deals. You know, Iguess that was a miss on my
part, you know, not not, youknow, understanding the needs of
the customers, you know wellenough that we were able to get
that integrated pretty quickly.

Ernest Rolfson (40:11):
And just pause there. That's, that's really, I
want to just ask you the reasonthey're just to make sure I
understand, but listenersunderstand too is that really
hard, although you can makegreat money on the card payments
is still only a portion of yourcustomers revenue stream or
payment stream, I should say,right and transaction. So what
you're talking about is you'vehad to be nimble during COVID,

(40:33):
to say, we've got to helpsupport these customers, we've
got to think more aboutholistically their payment
flows. So we're going tointegrate and offer more payment
methods and your case more waysto receive payment and do
business and transact. Becausemore businesses moving digital,
that's really what you'resaying, right? We need to we
need to think as we're not justa card payment company, we need

(40:54):
to put on our solve a problemfor a CFO and more like how do
we expand the aperture offacilitating multiple types of
payments? Is that what you'resaying?

Caleb Avery (41:03):
100%. And especially in b2b payments, that
are oftentimes much larger, youknow, dollar amounts and
tickets, then in consumerpayments, when you're paying a
$10,000 invoice, the cost, youknow, of the credit card,
processing fees, relative to ACHcan be a pretty large
difference. And so for a lot ofthese, they'll take it easy, you

(41:26):
know, for sure, and I thinkpeople are willing to pay the
credit card processing fees anda lot of instances, but they
really want to offer thatmultiple methods of payment to
try and encourage that lowercost of payment acceptance, by
paying with ACH and so you know,what we've seen some platforms

(41:47):
do is like pass along aconvenience fee for paying by
credit card, but it's free topay by ACH. And so when you go
to pay that, that invoice, itpops up with the two options,
and you can pay, you know, 40bucks, or whatever it is to pay
by credit card or it's free, youknow, to pay by ACH just as a
way to encourage, you know, thethe end user, whether it's a

(42:08):
business or a consumer to usethat, you know, lower cost
method.

Ernest Rolfson (42:15):
That makes a lot of sense. Two things to tease on
here, I think one, as you may ormay not recall, I really grew up
in this space at working atMasterCard. And the answer was
and is always the card thatthat's the best way to pay

(42:38):
that's now evolved as they'veevolved their strategy as a
multi rail company, seniorexecutive and EVP at MasterCard
is on our board of directors.
And we've had a close workingrelationship with MasterCard as
a customer, so think very highlyof them. But one of the things I
find myself having to explain iswhy card is such a good option.
And why merchants and supplierssee card is so valuable and why

(43:01):
buyers want to use card. Giventhat you're on the other side of
the transaction, I'd love tohear in your own words, What do
you see is the core valueproposition and key benefits of
card? And why are people willingto pay so much money for these
card transactions? That'ssomething that I think there's a

(43:21):
lot of misunderstanding aboutI'm sure you've had to tell that
story to investors. And Iconstantly shake my head and
say, You fools you don'tunderstand how valuable this
product is, and some of the keychallenges, but I'd love to love
to hear from you or from whereyou sit. Why do you think it's
an important product? Yeah, andwhat problem what problems? Is

(43:43):
it solving? I guess? Or what arethe benefits?

Caleb Avery (43:47):
I think, for business owners, some of the
allures of you know, taking thecredit card payments. For one,
you're meeting the customerswhere they want to pay. And so
from a from a consumerperspective, you know, they get
their points or their rewards ortheir cash back, you know, by it
by paying with credit card, butthey also have more consumer

(44:10):
protection from from achargeback perspective, to
ensure that, you know, thebusiness owner is going to hold
up, you know, their end of thebargain.

Ernest Rolfson (44:20):
Thats like a safety and a fraud... Right,
you're paying for peace of mind,right?

Caleb Avery (44:26):
Yeah, and so I think that's one element of it.
The other is from a businessowners perspective, you know, if
you're checking out on, youknow, an e commerce store to pay
for, you know, shoes, if you'repaying by credit card, you
instantly know if you know thatcard has, you know, available
funds and you place a hold, youknow, on the on the account and

(44:47):
from a from a business ownersperspective, you know, okay, the
the, the funds are good, youknow that money is going to come
to me and you can do all thatinstantly. Whereas the way that
ACH is set up today, there'sthis huge lag in In the kind of
authorization and approval andmovement of funds, and for a
business owner you can eithertake the risk and say, Oh, well,

(45:10):
you know, plaid told me, youknow that they had money today.
So when I go and pull thatmoney, you know, later today or
tomorrow, it should be there.
But you're taking that riskthat, you know, the money was
there, when they authorize thetransaction, but then they pull
the money out. And you'vealready sent the goods. And so
there, there's this disconnectbetween the kind of time of
transaction and the time of themoney movement, which in my

(45:33):
opinion, is like one of the bigissues with ACH today, which I
think, you know, with with,like, push the card and RTP type
solutions, they're trying tofind ways to solve for, you
know, some of those big gaps,you know, within aACH today,
which I think prevents it frombeing a more dominant, you know,
payment method. Especially inmore more consumer transactions.

Ernest Rolfson (45:59):
Sure, but in b2b as well. Right? That takes three
days to settle.

Caleb Avery (46:06):
It's a long time.

Ernest Rolfson (46:06):
It's one of the things about checks that there's
one of the things about checks,why checks sucks so much, not
only are they expensive, and youneed to use a human being to get
them out there is you got apiece of paper in the mail, if
the USPS gets it to you in thisday and age that is a dice. It's
questionable, it is absolutelyquestionable. It's a piece of

(46:27):
paper, and you don't know ifthere's money backing it. Would
you really want somebody to sendyou a piece of paper, you don't
know if there's going to be goodfunds behind it or not? Is that
really what you want? You're notwilling to pay to make sure
you're getting your money.

Caleb Avery (46:40):
It's just inconvenient. I mean, I think
that's kind of the the biggestreason why cards are so dominant
is that it's convenient. Andpeople are willing to pay that
price. That's the thing.

Ernest Rolfson (46:50):
It's convenient for the buyer and seller. Big
time. And I think you touched onI mean, I again, I don't think
most people realize how much ACHsucks and as a garbage product.
And there's a reason it's supercheap. And it's like, oh, hey,
it's like only like 10 cents.
It's only like 10 or 15 cents.

(47:12):
Okay, great. Why isn't it 100%adoption? Why are there still 12
trillion b2b checks? Why arethere still trillions of
consumer check? Because ACHsucks. Nobody likes ACH, thats
a secret. It's a garbageproduct.

Caleb Avery (47:25):
There's just a lot of drawbacks. You know, and I
think, you know, we're trying tomake ACH better. And, you know,
a lot, a lot of these, you know,solutions are trying to make a
ch better, but you can't solvethe just fundamental flaws. You
know, yeah. with the, with theapproach, and I'm hopeful, you
know, that that, as you know,RTP, and some of these other,

(47:46):
you know, faster money movementmethods, you know, start
becoming more and moremainstream. It helps and
encourages, you know, wideradoption. Yeah, right. Right.
Now, there's just a lot ofproblems with ACH.

Ernest Rolfson (47:59):
You don't see the real time payment thing
making any major impact anytimesoon, from where you said, what
it sounds like. So nice idea.
Nice concept.

Caleb Avery (48:12):
Yeah. I'm hopeful, but I'm not optimistic, I think
is probably the best way to sumit up.

Ernest Rolfson (48:19):
Right, right.
Yeah, I've had conversationlike, oh, RTP, we're gonna make
all our money in real time orreal time payments are going to
just kill the cards. And you'relike, not unless it solves all
the benefits. We talked aboutthe security and the guarantee
element and the chargebackprotection, the fraud all this

(48:39):
other element that consumerconvenience or pay your
convenience factor, and theysolve the size of limits, and
you get all the new banks on anew platform and all this other
fun stuff that it's like, I hopeI'm retired by the time RTP is
out there and all this stuff.
That's I think that's wherewe'll be. candidly, because I

(49:00):
last time I checked, the banksmove at a certain pace, which is
like a melting glacier, ormoving glacier. You know, so to
believe that RTP suddenly isgoing to come and kill and
change all these other things.
You have to believe that there'sthis fundamental step change
difference in the way thatmassive financial institutions
move and roll out new thingsthat are just which is just

(49:21):
never gonna change entity. Hey,there's an opportunity. Oh,
they'll just oh, they're gonnado it. Obviously, they're just
gonna do it. It's all just gonnaroll out. Right? Of course.
jamie diamond is going to bethere's going to be pushing the
coffee is going to be pushingthe, the tray right over the,
you know, it's like, No, no,he's going to be counting his
money. He's going to be countinghis money. Looking at the cash

(49:43):
and the accounts as these fundstake three days to clear and
they're collecting their floatsand they're very happy.
So people forget how banks makemoney. Is the fun is that kind
of comical, fun, fundamentallyJust sitting not sitting on your
money fundamentally, banks wantto sit on money, fundamentally.

(50:10):
I don't know, I don't know, I'mtrying to get my head around
modern economic theory, modernmonetary theory, which is zero
interest rate world banks dohave to figure out how to move
things differently and makemoney differently, especially
with all the spending plans andeverything we're doing, you
know, having said that, how muchmoney could you charge for real
time payment, that's going tooffset the zero interest rate

(50:34):
environment world, you can'tcharge enough. And people are
not gonna pay? Probablybusinesses and payments, right
is like the next new thing comesout. They're not willing to pay
10x more.

Caleb Avery (50:44):
Right. I agree. I mean, I I remember when we, when
we I say basically tried tolaunch instant payouts for
merchants, this was like, Iguess it was maybe like four or
five years ago. It was like 1%was the the cost, you know, to
get it, it's your payout. Andthe the business owners like, so
I could get my money right now.
And it would cost me 1%. Or Icould wait until tomorrow

(51:08):
morning. It'd be free. And we'relike, yeah, I'm okay. I'm okay.

Ernest Rolfson (51:18):
Yeah, they're good. That's that they they
actually passed remedial math.

Caleb Avery (51:24):
They really doesn't even make sense to me. Yeah. No,
thank you.

Ernest Rolfson (51:29):
Yep. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's we started a Supply
Chain Finance business here. Andwe went and raised about $15
million from a nice, some nicepeople in New York City. So we
could get payments like 30 daysfaster, where you can charge
about one to 2% that's, that'swhere the markets at there.

Caleb Avery (51:50):
So that's more reasonable than 12 hours faster.
Exactly. 30% more.

Ernest Rolfson (51:59):
So the the payments industry has a ways to
go and learning about how youknow the time value of money
works and how businessesperceive it. But that's the next
big thing I believe. And that'swhy we've we've ahead of the
curve there. In my opinion, socheck with me in a few years,
see if see if I'm an idiot ornot. We'll see. You know, I

(52:19):
don't know the jury's out. Sobut as as our friend Wayne
Gretzky says, To go back someWayne Gretzky stuff, You've got
to skate to where the puck is.
Didn't know that one. You didn'tknow Oh, that's Wayne Gretzky
his most famous quote, actually,there you go. Yeah. So I'm not I
know nothing about hockey orWayne Gretzky, other than he was

(52:42):
in a Saturday morning cartoonseries growing up with with Bo
Jackson and Michael Jordan, didyou even know that was the
thing. Now I'm a few years olderthan you there was literally a
cartoon series where it was likethe current sports stars of the
day and age on Saturday morningnonsense cartoons after like
Ninja Turtles. Wonder if that'son amazon prime. It may be I'm

(53:04):
an elder millennial. So I havethis like a weird analogues kind
of story set that I can pull outon you where I remember I had to
get up to like, change the TVmanually, you know? And but but
then I can also talk aboutInstagram and some other things
to some reasonable degree of Ican like it's passable. It's

(53:25):
passable. So I guess goingforward, but uh, you know what,
what's next for you in thisindustry? Where do you see tilde
really going? payments b2bpayments what's what's kind of
the next wave here? what'swhat's next for your company?
What are you stoked about?

Caleb Avery (53:49):
I think one of the feature sets that I'm most
excited about is our omnichannel solution. And so when I
say omni channel historicallyTilled has been a card not
present platform helping peoplemove money online which is now
face to face theory right not onface to face. But you know as
the world is opening back up foryou know a lot of our customers

(54:12):
the vast majority of the moneyis actually moving you know in
person so like dental softwareyou know, as an example the the
dental software company may onlybe collecting 25 to 30% of the
actual revenue for that dentistbecause the dentist still has a
terminal so when you go to getyour teeth clean, you know, you
give them your credit card, youknow when you're in person to
get to be able to take thatpayment and so you know, we're

(54:34):
pretty excited to be rolling outour omni channel solutions to be
able to help these softwarebusinesses both handle the card
not present payments, but alsothese in person, you know,
physical payments, which is theworld opens back up I just truly
believe is going to be you know,where the big growth, you know,
opportunities are, you know,both retail but also for our

(54:55):
customers and their customers.
You know, to be able to solvethat that pain point as well.

Ernest Rolfson (55:03):
So you're going to be going a cart more card on
file type businesses, consumertype businesses and these kind
of omni channel where you've gotan online payment but or in
person retail kind of payment.
And so yeah, the retail andconsumer face to face
transactions are not going awayanytime soon. Long story short.

Caleb Avery (55:23):
certainly not.
Certainly not. I know I'm readyto get out of the house and see
people and travel.

Ernest Rolfson (55:31):
no, absolutely.
And our one of our big verticalshere is hospitality and hotels.
And we're seeing the spendingpickup it's not quite at pre
COVID levels and still below. SoI have an enormous tailwind in
my business here. Because ofthis, some of our partnerships
and hotels, customers we've got,but I was just on vacation,

(55:51):
which is weird. Just like theOh, we're actually out in public
with people as strange. And wewere at, we were at some we were
at a resort, lunch in anotherhotel. And I was shocked to hear
that they're like, Oh, yeah,we're at like, 90% capacity, or
like, we've been busier thanwe've been in years. So like
people are coming fromCalifornia and from Texas and

(56:12):
all this stuff. And I'm like,that's great for the economy,
this is awesome. We'll still bedealing with this COVID stuff
for some more time is the otherside of the coin, because people
are out and about, they'll keepspreading. But on the other
side, people want to get out andspend and do business, you know,
and and folks are eager to doit. So I think good for your
business good for my business.

(56:34):
Obviously, spending is pickingup so we got in at the right
time, I'd say.

Caleb Avery (56:39):
Yeah, we've had a couple of like hotel booking
platforms and like short termrental platforms that have
reached out to us becausethey're they're just exploding.
Yeah. Now we're a lot of theseguys. You know, I've been
hesitant to invest in anytechnology until they started to
see the revenues pick back up.
But you know, as you said, it'sit's really, really starting to
explode where people want totravel, they want to get out and
about, you know, the people thatare getting vaccinated or are

(57:01):
able to do that now.

Ernest Rolfson (57:05):
Absolutely. And there's so much cash sitting
around because of folks that aretraveling especially for leisure
that they've just been sittingon a pile of cash has been
growing and growing and growingand their personal bank accounts
because they've not been able tospend it. So you know, you're
not going out to a fancy dinneror taking your family to Disney
World during global diseasestate. No, not but the minute

(57:30):
you can. I'm pretty sure youwill write along with everybody
else on the planet. Those longlines at Disney and hot the hot
burning sun of Orlando will bethere waiting for you with those
high prices. It'll be rightthere. They'll be happy to wave
you and

Caleb Avery (57:46):
it actually sounds pretty good right now.

Ernest Rolfson (57:49):
Sure, you'll get a Mickey Mouse ice cream or ice
cream

Caleb Avery (57:54):
$13

Ernest Rolfson (57:55):
I'll tell and that's a fair price. That's a
fair price for that ice creamfor that nickel ice cream cone.
Well any other parting thoughtshere or anything we didn't touch
on that you want to let our ourvisitor our listeners I'm
talking like I'm still workingfor the mouse here or visitors
or any of our guests here onehere about anything we didn't

(58:18):
touch on? It's been a greatConvo and and we've touched on a
real breadth of topics I thinkin in detail where people will
be like, how do these youngstersknow about this stuff? I'm
putting myself in that category.
I don't even know how old youare. But let's consider
ourselves the next generationhere.

Caleb Avery (58:36):
I think so

Ernest Rolfson (58:37):
we're below 50 How about that we're under 50
and in this industry it is

Caleb Avery (58:45):
no I agree.

Ernest Rolfson (58:46):
Wonderful. What what what else do we need to
what's any major point we needto get across here or parting
shot across the bow if you will?

Caleb Avery (58:56):
shots across the bow i think i think we've taken
taken our fair shots you know atthe at the competition, but I
really enjoyed the conversationtoday and really appreciate you
having me on on the podcasttoday. This was fun.

Ernest Rolfson (59:09):
Absolutely.
Absolutely. And just by the way,for the listeners, where are
you? Where are you based?
Where's your company based?

Caleb Avery (59:15):
I am based in Boulder, Colorado. And so our
office is here in Boulder,Colorado. But as you can imagine
with the the pandemic we've beenhiring, really nationwide. And
so now we've got employees infive states and right now we've
got five open roles on the onthe team across product
engineering, sales, marketingsupport, and we're hiring

(59:38):
nationwide. We really feel likewe just want to get the best
people you know on the teamregardless of where they're
located. But anyone that is inBoulder Colorado we do have a
nice nice little setup.

Ernest Rolfson (59:54):
Well look man great talking with you really
fun conversation. I got smarterhere, learned something and we
got to each talk on some thingswe're passionate about. So,
look, I'll be looking forward totracking your growth, but more
importantly, staying in touchand seeing if we can work on a
few things together. So thanksfor your time, man. We'll be
talking more soon. It was it wasa lot of fun and informative.

Caleb Avery (01:00:18):
Yeah, no, no, thank you very much. I really enjoyed
it. I appreciate theopportunity.

Ernest Rolfson (01:00:22):
Thanks, man.
Talk to you soon. Appreciate it.

Caleb Avery (01:00:24):
Bye.

Ernest Rolfson (01:00:25):
Thanks for listening to b2b cash flow
conversations. This is ErnestRolfson, the CEO and founder of
Finexio. I welcome yourquestions and comments. You can
reach me at [e-mail] can also find us on Twitter
@finexiopayments. To subscribe,you can go to
Finexio.com/podast. Be sure tocheck out my new episodes on

(01:00:47):
Apple podcasts, Spotify, orwherever else you listen to
podcasts. Thanks and talk withyou again soon.