In the second episode in our three part series titled: Focus. Build. Win, I sit down with James Derby, EVP of Merchant Facing Product at Payroc, to unpack how a core product strategy transformed scattered tools into a focused growth engine for partners and merchants. Instead of mastering dozens of third‑party options, the team picked a few products to go deep on, built vertical features that matter, and tightened the feedback loop from sales floor to roadmap.
James walks through Roc Terminal+ for broad processing needs, Roc Giving for nonprofits, and Roc Services for field service teams, including a new scheduling component aimed at competing upmarket. The thread tying it all together is software-led sales: lead with the operational win and let payments follow. That shift brings faster deployments, better support, and real economics for ISOs and agents, with an 8–11% margin lift on new core placements and lower attrition as support improves. Owning the gateway and settlement stack gives Payroc the control to integrate acquisitions, standardize security, and ship features at speed without vendor drag.
We also get into the commercialization playbook: building a business case with sales input, targeting underserved MCCs, choosing build vs. white label, and running disciplined pilots before GA. Post‑launch, James emphasizes data, not vibes - tracking adoption, revenue, support quality, and direct merchant feedback to keep product-market fit tight. Looking forward, tap to pay continues to rise, standalone terminals slowly recede, and consolidation among large processors creates room for agile teams that ship vertical SaaS with integrated payments.
If you care about turning product focus into partner success, this conversation delivers practical detail you can use.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to Focus Build Win, a special three-part
series that dives into howPayRock turned a focused core
product strategy into a growthengine.
Across three conversations,we'll explore how the company is
leveraging acquisitions,building products that scale,
and aligning sales, recruiting,and partner teams to win.
SPEAKER_02 (00:21):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments Podcast.
I'm your host, Greg Myers.
This is the second episode inour three-part series titled
Focused and is being brought toyou by Payrock.
In the first episode, I had thepleasure of speaking with Jim
Oberman, the CEO of Payrock,about how focusing on a core
product strategy really becamePayrock's growth engine.
Today I'm honored to have as myspecial guest, James Derby, the
(00:44):
EVP of Merchant Facing Productat Payrock.
James and I will be discussingPayrock's product strategy,
commercialization, and why thiscore product strategy is so
impactful for sales partners andfor merchants.
So, James, thank you so much forbeing here and welcome to the
show.
Thanks, Greg.
Appreciate you having me on.
So before we dive into thetopic, let's talk a little bit
about you and Payrock.
(01:05):
So if you don't mind, tell ouraudience a little bit about
yourself, your professionaljourney, and your role at
Payrock.
SPEAKER_01 (01:10):
I will just stick to the current role here at Payrock
and a little history.
I spent about 23 years on thePOS side for hybrid retail and
restaurant, got into the paymentside of it mainly as a POS
provider and payments asobviously necessity of the POS
space.
Got to great relationship builtwith Payrock over the years.
And in 2018, I was actually anacquisition of Payrock.
So that's how I came on board.
(01:31):
And since then, as you probablyhave ascertained, we've we've
had some growth spurts, and I'vegotten the pleasure of working
in in multiple departments,multiple job descriptions as
we've grown.
So I've done everything from theAgent ISO channel as one of the
executives there all the waythrough now today, running
commercialization and merchantfacing product.
SPEAKER_02 (01:48):
Okay.
So for those that may not befamiliar, can you give us a
quick overview of what PayRockdoes and sort of their role that
they play in the paymentsecosystem?
SPEAKER_01 (01:57):
Sure.
Best I can put it is I thinkPayRock is uniquely positioned
in the upper uh mid-market arenato be have size and scale, not
be a super tanker.
So we're still a little bit moreagile, I would say, than some of
our larger competitors.
And I would say that, you know,we grew up as a retail ISO.
So the agent ISO community andthat partnership is kind of in
(02:19):
our DNA and our blood.
And, you know, this before wehad a lot of our own proprietary
technology, you know, weoutsourced a lot of that to
third parties to provide thefood that those folks need to
eat over the agent ISOcommunity.
But now we've diversified quitea bit, gotten into a lot of the
ISV side.
So we do offer a lot of reallygreat technology for ISV
prospects and partners today tokind of help balance out our
(02:40):
portfolio.
So I would say whether you're anagent, agency partner in ISO
office or you're sophisticatedISV and you're looking for a
payments platform, I thinkPayrock is uniquely positioned
to handle a lot of differentneeds and provide a lot of great
cover and a lot of greatsupport.
SPEAKER_02 (02:54):
Okay.
Well, let's dive into the meatof the conversation.
So tell us about how yourproduct strategy has evolved
over the past, say, 12 to 18months.
SPEAKER_01 (03:03):
Yeah.
So I know you spoke to ourcoach, Jim O'Ruyman, right?
I call him coach benevolently.
So he uh himself and some of ourother leadership, Matt Austin,
our COO, and and my boss, CaseyConnolly, is our chief product
officer.
We developed a strategy.
This goes back to about 18months ago.
So you said 12 to 18 months thatfits right in line.
Where I mentioned Agent ISO,that's how we grew up, is that
(03:24):
retail ISO or retail ISOprocessor.
So we had a lot of differentthird parties that provided a
lot of different products.
And what we started to find aswe started scale was that we
were becoming inefficient inbeing able to deploy and support
a plethora of differentmerchant-facing products, right?
So the idea of kind of a coreproduct shift really came about
(03:45):
as a necessity, not only forPayrock to derive more
efficiencies, but also for ourpartners ultimately to be, we
want to be the best we possiblycan and support the
merchant-facing products that wewant to deploy and we want to
kind of funnel that traffic to.
And I think that's been themajor shift that we've had over
the last year, year and a halfhas been boiling it down to
(04:07):
still providing a lot of optionsand a lot of different
verticalized products, but alsobeing able to, again,
consolidate down to either whitelabel or proprietary
merchant-facing product that wecan better control our own
destiny and more efficiently andbetter support.
Okay.
Well, what core products hasPayrock launched over the last
year?
In the last year to 18 months,we've launched three, one of
(04:29):
which is uh Rock Terminal Plus.
Notice the ROC there, a littleplay on Payrock.
Uh Rock Terminal Plus, thatecosystem, which is everything
from your standalone devices allthe way through a mobile app, a
really nice user's portal.
It's kind of a a little bit moreof a generalized product from
processing, right?
It's not really geared for anyone specific MCC that can be
used across the board.
(04:49):
And then we get to some very,very focused and verticalized
products in our Rock Giving,which is our charity vertical uh
go-to-market merchant facingproduct, as well as Rock
Services, which is our firstforay into field services.
That was completely that wholeroadmap was developed by
Payrock.
And I've been very excited.
In fact, we're about to releaseour scheduling component to that
(05:10):
to allow us to go upmarket alittle bit, compete with some of
the likes of like the jobbers ofthe world and our service
titans, some of the big guys outthere.
So we're super pumped about whatwe've done.
And we're going to continue toverticalize.
I know that you spoke to ourCEO, Jim Overman, about that.
We're going to continue toverticalize and hone in so we
kind of make a smaller aperturefor some sales partners that
(05:31):
want to come on and from arecruitment standpoint and also
kind of being able to not changethe DNA, but be able to add
those folks that want to goafter those underserved or
emerging verticals that today wedon't have a lot of answers for.
SPEAKER_02 (05:43):
Okay.
So those vertical solutions, arethey primarily just on the
payment side or like youmentioned scheduling?
So are you kind of expandingthat beyond payments like other
software or other financialservices?
SPEAKER_01 (05:56):
Yeah.
So let me try to answer thatthis way.
So obviously we're a paymentsplatform, right?
Payments is always first andforemost in our mind.
But as the technology hasevolved over the last decade to
15 years, technology has gottencheaper, it's gotten better, and
it really entices businesses tobring in something that's going
to allow them to run theirbusiness.
So when we talk aboutverticalized sales, we go from
(06:19):
instead of a payments processingsale first, it's really a sales
cycle built upon the software.
So it's a software sell firstand a payment sell second, in my
mind, right?
And that does take some trainingand really, you know, having
partners really understand howto sell the product, who the
target audience is, right?
Because you're selling thatsoftware solution.
So to your point when you askedabout what are we doing with the
(06:41):
scheduling, the scheduling pieceis allowing that field service
software to become more holisticso that that operator can run
their business 360 and scheduletheir field service technicians,
for example, for that specificjob, that specific estimate,
that specific invoice, and beable to track that work through
the system and then have all thereporting in one place.
The idea is those operatorsdon't need to leave the software
(07:03):
to effectively run theirbusiness.
SPEAKER_02 (07:05):
Okay.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
So what does a product roll outfrom maybe ideation to launch?
What does that look like atPayrock?
What's sort of the standardplaybook?
SPEAKER_01 (07:14):
Well, it always starts with a business case,
right?
It also starts with our friendsover at sales.
There's a lot of feedback loopsthat we get.
We periodically will requestfrom sales, hey, what's the
feedback you're getting?
What are we missing in themarket?
What verticals do they want togo after?
We also look at a lot of theVisa MasterCard emerging and
underserved market reports,right?
Like what MCCs are are out therethat are being underserved
(07:36):
today.
And, you know, you look at yourTAM and your SNAM and your PSOM
and you work with sales and theyultimately sign off on, yeah,
let's get this out there.
Either we engage a third partyas a white label or we our own
proprietary technology, we wantto build something out.
And then you go into the skunkworks, right?
And you from the ideation side,you get the playbook and you
have your business case firstand foremost.
(07:56):
And then you start looking at aswag on how long it's going to
take to get out to market,right?
And do we feel like the marketconditions are going to be
consistent enough that at thetime that we're ready to release
that, we're still on a goodfoothold or good position for
that specific product launch.
If those all those answers areyes and we get agreement from
across the org, which sometimesis fun to do, right?
Then, you know, ultimately werun that all the way through a
(08:18):
commercialization.
And through that process, we gofrom a beta and pilot, we
collect feedback loops from bothmerchants and partners alike to
make sure that we're, you know,whatever little tweaks we have
to make along the way.
And by the way, that doesn'tstop on GA, general
availability, right?
That's something that continuesthroughout the life cycle of any
merchant-facing product atPayrock, and I imagine at most
processors.
SPEAKER_02 (08:39):
Okay.
Well, in the first episode ofthe series, as you mentioned
with Jim, he talked a lot aboutacquiring companies that help
drive scale.
But I assume there were somealong the way that had strong
products or core functionalitythat came along with that
company.
So can you speak to how youintegrated them?
What was sort of that process?
SPEAKER_01 (08:57):
Yeah.
So the process is when weacquire a technology through a
company.
By the way, I think there's beensomething like 18 acquisitions
in the last few years.
So it's been uh quite amaelstrom.
But first thing you do is youtake a look at what they've got,
right?
And you have to answer somequestions.
Do we already have a redundantproduct that's in place if it's
a merchant-facing product?
If so, you got to look at thePLs of both, also the market
(09:18):
viability, the age, theinfrastructure, the code base,
infosec pen testing, right, tomake sure it's solid.
And if all those things checkout, we adopt that.
Now, PayRock is in a uniqueposition because we do own our
own front door, being our thepayrock gateway, and then all
the way through our settlementside.
So we kind of own oursovereignty, so to speak.
So whatever product we choose toadopt has to go through all the
(09:39):
rigor of being connected to thepayrock gateway and making sure
it flows all the way through ourbilling and residuals and
settlement systems.
So it's there's a lot to unpackthere.
And I'll tell you that it hasbeen a challenge.
It's been a fun challenge, butnonetheless, it does, like I
said, with the growth thatPayrock's had, one of the
biggest challenges in my mind isexactly your point.
It's the integration of theproduct sets and not just the
(10:02):
products, but also the people,the culture, all the things that
goes with it.
But ultimately at the end of theday, I think Payrock's done a
very good job of evaluating allthe different toys in the toy
box that we've been giventhrough acquisition and done a
pretty good job positioningthose for our product portfolio.
SPEAKER_02 (10:14):
Yeah.
And what you just said, you madeit sound like it's relatively
easy, but there are plenty ofpayments companies in in this
space and other you knowindustries as well, that when
they make an acquisition, thatintegration, whether it is
culture, products, whatever,they don't do a very good job or
it's a challenge, or it takesthree times as long as they say
(10:36):
it's going to.
So I know that's that's got tobe challenging.
So it sounds like, you know,maybe after 18 times you guys
have gotten just kind of maybegood at it.
SPEAKER_01 (10:44):
Well, we're good, maybe and maybe lucky.
I'll take both.
So yeah.
It's fun though.
It really is.
It's a blessing to be able tohave all these opportunities and
be able to look at all thesedifferent products and and make
some of those strategicdecisions.
SPEAKER_02 (10:56):
Yeah.
And you know, Jim and I talkedabout this, like the solutions
today are so much different thanthey were 15, 20 years ago,
right?
Where you had the salespersonwith a terminal, and back then
there were three terminalmanufacturers, drove up to the
you know, strip center that hasthe dry cleaner and you know,
the same old kind of retailplaces, and they just go
door-to-door selling the samesolution.
(11:17):
That world's gone.
We don't live there anymore.
And, you know, it sounds likethe adaption or what you guys
have done to meet the needs ofmodern day merchants is really,
you know, what had to be done.
And it's been throughacquisition and kind of this
product strategy.
SPEAKER_01 (11:30):
Yeah.
And I think again, owning yourown sovereignty and not being
dependent upon third-partyvendors, you know, for your
product or your gateway, youknow, or settlement or building
residuals, all of it.
So kind of owning thatsovereignty makes does make put
us in advantage and makes it alittle bit easier because we
know what the end goal is goingto be at all times.
But yeah, to your point, backupused to be a knucklebuster, you
(11:51):
know, carbon copy.
You leave somebody, you know,now things are much different.
SPEAKER_02 (11:55):
Right.
So in this series, we've reallybeen focused on that transition
from what we've been talkingabout relying on vendors to
building your own products.
So let's look at that from thesales partner's perspective.
So, what changed most for theagents and the ISOs once you
standardized kind of on thiscore product strategy?
SPEAKER_01 (12:14):
Oh boy.
Well, I would say what changed,let's start with maybe the
negative outcomes, right?
You do have many, many differenttypes of DNA in the sales
channels.
And some folks really like someof the disparate third-party
vendors and products that wehad.
And they were maybe not so happyabout that.
So the first challenge was withthe partners is getting them on
(12:34):
board, right?
It's communication,communication, communication,
not ripping anything out fromunder their feet, giving them
plenty of time to digest it,really putting our teams to work
to get them to train and hey, wewill be sunsetting X, but we're
going to be promoting Y.
And here's why you should take alook at this and get them
involved early on trainings, QAsessions.
Make sure they understand thatyou know how it's market parity
(12:57):
to what they were sellingbefore, or maybe even market
leading compared to what they'reselling before.
That to me was the most, let'sjust say, challenging and
crucial part of the process isgetting that buy-in from those
sales partners.
And then I would say on thepositive side of the things,
what they're experiencing is,again, better efficiencies,
right?
Better support.
They have now when they whenthey call in or they work with
(13:19):
their advocates or their productsales lead team and they need
those SMEs to come in andexplain or help them close a
deal or do some furthertraining.
It's we're honed in becausewe're not dealing with, you
know, we were kind of a masterof none.
We've got some great people, butwhen you've got 60 different
merchant-facing product optionsout there with devices and
software, everything else that'sout there, it becomes really
tough as an organization to bereally damn good, excuse my
(13:41):
language, at supporting anddeploying some of that.
So I think that was the mostpositive effect for our
partners, our sales partners, isbeing able to have better
support and more efficiencieswithin payroll.
SPEAKER_02 (13:51):
Okay.
Well, I think you answered thisnext question a little bit, but
I want to double-click on it.
So how did you keep the ISOs andthe agents informed about sort
of the new strategy and therollout of the products?
SPEAKER_01 (14:03):
Yeah.
So we're always striving to bebetter, but it's always
communication, communication,communication.
When you think you'vecommunicated enough, you need to
probably make sure you do itagain on repeat.
So it started months and monthsearly, right?
We start sometimes up to sixmonths away.
We'll we'll message, we'll say,you know, this is coming, stay
tuned.
And that can be a multitude ofdifferent ways.
(14:24):
It's sometimes it's it's in theleadership sales calls, right?
With those partners.
It's emails, it's newsletters,it's every way we can possibly
get to people, we're gonna getto those people, right?
So again, anytime in thisbusiness you think you're
overcommunicating, you're not,right?
It's because not everybody readstheir emails or they show up to
a phone call.
But also we have a really,really talented product sales
(14:44):
team.
Those folks are dedicated to bethe firewall for that agent or
partner to come in to be able tosit down virtually at their desk
and walk through what thatproduct is, why we might be
sunsetting, what we're releasingto replace that, all those great
things, and then provide allthat training for them almost on
demand, as well as all therecordings.
And I'll also say that we'vedone a very good job over the
(15:06):
last 12 to 18 months of taking agood look at what we have been
doing for sales training anddoubling and tripling down on
that.
And now we're completingfull-blown sales training
modules that are all virtual.
We use a lot of great technologyhere at Payrock, which really,
if you were to be a brand newpartner that came in from Mars
and never ever been in thebusiness before, you could
understand what the product is,who the target audience is, what
(15:28):
pricing methodologies areemployed by it, what the costs
are, and how to really get outthere in the market.
So hopefully it answers yourquestion.
SPEAKER_02 (15:35):
Yeah, absolutely.
So what was the economic upsidefor both the sales partner and
for payrock with executing thestrategy?
SPEAKER_01 (15:44):
Yeah, the bottom line to margins is anywhere
between 8 and 11% on every newmerchant, new mid that you put
on payrock proprietary or whitelabel.
So if it's if it's I if it's acore product, generally
speaking, everybody involvedstands to make just a little bit
more money.
But again, I think monetary isalways a good conversation to
have.
But I think really supportingand really helping out over your
(16:06):
vintage, you know, protectingattrition.
If you look at vintage two,vintage three, you go out right
after that first year thatsomeone signs up the longevity
of the account because we'resupporting that product better
and we're again we're moreefficient.
All those things kind of cometogether.
So yes, the monetary piece isnice.
Eight, eight to eleven percentis always great to have on the
bottom line.
But I think the efficiencies andthe support is what probably
(16:28):
number one and number tworeasons why we did what we did.
SPEAKER_02 (16:30):
Okay.
So we've looked at it, theproduct strategy from the sales
partner's perspective, the ISO'sthe agents.
So let's look at it from themerchant perspective.
And I know that's sort of yourcustomers' customers a lot of
times, but what is the realvalue for the merchants?
What do they really see in froma value perspective out of this
strategy?
SPEAKER_01 (16:49):
Yeah, I mean, I hate to be short on that answer, but
it's it's the same kind ofbenefits that our partners get,
right?
It's when they get on the phoneand they've got they need to
troubleshoot something or theythey need to know something
about the software they'reemploying or the device they're
employing, whatever to run theirbusiness.
Our teams are just better at itbecause we have less to focus
and say graceover.
(17:09):
We have we're very concentratedon what our core product set is.
And again, we now become amaster of those products instead
of a master of none when youhave 30, 40, 50, right?
So it's I think that samebenefit applies.
And again, just by the organicripple effect of having people
that are just better SMEs atwhat they're supporting with
(17:30):
these products, you're gonna geta better merchant outcome.
You're gonna outcomes, you'regonna get short call resolution
times, one call resolutiontimes, you're going to increase
the longevity of the account.
And because we're also hyperfocused on continuing to enhance
these products, we're gonnaconstantly give them new, better
features to keep up with thetimes and the technology that
those small businesses,medium-sized businesses, and
(17:52):
enterprise businesses demand.
So I think it's all of thosethings.
SPEAKER_02 (17:56):
Okay.
So at that merchant level, howdo you know the strategy is
being successfully executed?
SPEAKER_01 (18:02):
Well, data, data, data, right?
Again, any after GA is just thefirst part.
After that, it's constantlymonitoring how are we selling
this?
Are we being successful?
What do our revenues and marginslook like?
And also, I think the mostimportant piece that we have is
my teams actually go out andwork with the sales partners to
many of them will willingly giveus a feedback loop on their
(18:23):
experiences, maybe deals theywon, the deals they lost, the
feedback they gave themerchants.
And in many cases, if they giveus permission to do so, we're
engaging with those merchantsdirectly.
So we're taking that input, thatfeedback right back to us
digitally, or sometimes it couldeven be a phone call, right?
A live phone call and say, Hey,would you talk to us for a
little bit?
What, you know, what's thatfeedback?
So constantly pumping thatfeedback all the way through
(18:44):
from sales and deployment, allthe way back through product.
I think that we've got a prettygood mousetrap and a pretty good
handle on how our partners andhow our merchants ultimately are
feeling about any givenversion-facing product set.
SPEAKER_02 (18:54):
All right.
Well, I'm gonna go off script alittle bit here because I really
want to maybe talk about thefuture.
Like where do you see from yourlens, where do you see the
industry headed from a productperspective?
I know you know we talk aboutstable coins and we talk about
AI and those kind of things, butyou're in the day-to-day sort of
what do you see as the future ofkind of the industry and where
(19:16):
it's headed and how is Payrockthinking about that from a
product perspective?
SPEAKER_01 (19:20):
Well, you know, we've been saying for a long
time that at some point the uhstandalone payment devices for
card present transactions willlikely start to decline.
While that hasn't beensignificant, it is starting to
happen with the advent of thetap to glass on bring your own
device, right?
Whether it's an Android phone,an iOS phone, which Payrock has.
And that that's that that's partof it.
The the greater piece that I seeis just the distillation of
(19:43):
technology, right?
So in the payment space, we alsohave a lot of consolidation
that's happening.
The big guys keep gettingbigger.
And so that allows a lot ofopportunity for agile companies
like PayRock that have scale butalso have agility to be able to
employ said technology into thatpayments ecosystem.
But at the end of the day, Ithink we're gonna be more and
more becoming software-led salesand not processing.
(20:04):
I think the days of justcollecting a statement, you
know, and doing the statementanalysis and getting a pricing
methodology that makes sense forthat merchant and for the
partner.
And that's great.
We're gonna do that forever, butI really feel like that's really
enabled by the software.
And I think that's the biggestchange that I'm seeing is that
standalone processing isdefinitely on the decline.
Today, everything's in some kindof a software SaaS model,
(20:27):
whether you it doesn't matterwhat MCC you're talking about,
right?
Let me look at restaurants, forexample.
That's the most oversaturatedMCC in all of the country.
And it is blanketed by software.
When was the last time you're ata restaurant and they had no
point of sale?
A long time ago, right?
But I know I'm not giving my ageaway here.
When I was young, it used tohappen all the time, right?
So we talked about the knucklebusters earlier, right?
So that's what I see.
(20:48):
I see payments becoming a lotmore consolidated with
technology.
SPEAKER_02 (20:52):
Okay.
Well, James, this has been anamazing conversation.
I just wanted to close out theshow by seeing if there's
anything that we might havemissed or any closing thoughts
you had.
SPEAKER_01 (21:00):
No, uh again, just blessed to be in the in the
ecosystem and having a greattime doing it.
And uh yeah, at Payrock, we loveour core products and we're
continuing to serve our agentsand partners and our sales
distribution channels uh as bestwe possibly can.
SPEAKER_02 (21:13):
Okay.
Well, I think that's a great wayto wrap up the show.
So thank you so much for beinghere.
I know your time is veryvaluable, so I really appreciate
you being on the show today.
Thank you, Greg.
And finally, to all youlisteners out there, I thank you
for your time as well.
And until the next story.
SPEAKER_00 (21:27):
Thanks for tuning in to Focus Build Win, a special
series exploring how Payrock'sfocus on core products drives
alignment, growth, and lastingpartner success.
To explore more resources andinsights, visit
www.payrock.comslash agentopportunity.
Welcome to Focus Build Win, a special three-part
series that dives into howPayRock turned a focused core
product strategy into a growthengine.
Across three conversations,we'll explore how the company is
leveraging acquisitions,building products that scale,
and aligning sales, recruiting,and partner teams to win.
SPEAKER_02 (00:21):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments Podcast.
I'm your host, Greg Myers.
This is the second episode inour three-part series titled
Focused and is being brought toyou by Payrock.
In the first episode, I had thepleasure of speaking with Jim
Oberman, the CEO of Payrock,about how focusing on a core
product strategy really becamePayrock's growth engine.
Today I'm honored to have as myspecial guest, James Derby, the
(00:44):
EVP of Merchant Facing Productat Payrock.
James and I will be discussingPayrock's product strategy,
commercialization, and why thiscore product strategy is so
impactful for sales partners andfor merchants.
So, James, thank you so much forbeing here and welcome to the
show.
Thanks, Greg.
Appreciate you having me on.
So before we dive into thetopic, let's talk a little bit
about you and Payrock.
(01:05):
So if you don't mind, tell ouraudience a little bit about
yourself, your professionaljourney, and your role at
Payrock.
SPEAKER_01 (01:10):
I will just stick to the current role here at Payrock
and a little history.
I spent about 23 years on thePOS side for hybrid retail and
restaurant, got into the paymentside of it mainly as a POS
provider and payments asobviously necessity of the POS
space.
Got to great relationship builtwith Payrock over the years.
And in 2018, I was actually anacquisition of Payrock.
So that's how I came on board.
(01:31):
And since then, as you probablyhave ascertained, we've we've
had some growth spurts, and I'vegotten the pleasure of working
in in multiple departments,multiple job descriptions as
we've grown.
So I've done everything from theAgent ISO channel as one of the
executives there all the waythrough now today, running
commercialization and merchantfacing product.
SPEAKER_02 (01:48):
Okay.
So for those that may not befamiliar, can you give us a
quick overview of what PayRockdoes and sort of their role that
they play in the paymentsecosystem?
SPEAKER_01 (01:57):
Sure.
Best I can put it is I thinkPayRock is uniquely positioned
in the upper uh mid-market arenato be have size and scale, not
be a super tanker.
So we're still a little bit moreagile, I would say, than some of
our larger competitors.
And I would say that, you know,we grew up as a retail ISO.
So the agent ISO community andthat partnership is kind of in
(02:19):
our DNA and our blood.
And, you know, this before wehad a lot of our own proprietary
technology, you know, weoutsourced a lot of that to
third parties to provide thefood that those folks need to
eat over the agent ISOcommunity.
But now we've diversified quitea bit, gotten into a lot of the
ISV side.
So we do offer a lot of reallygreat technology for ISV
prospects and partners today tokind of help balance out our
(02:40):
portfolio.
So I would say whether you're anagent, agency partner in ISO
office or you're sophisticatedISV and you're looking for a
payments platform, I thinkPayrock is uniquely positioned
to handle a lot of differentneeds and provide a lot of great
cover and a lot of greatsupport.
SPEAKER_02 (02:54):
Okay.
Well, let's dive into the meatof the conversation.
So tell us about how yourproduct strategy has evolved
over the past, say, 12 to 18months.
SPEAKER_01 (03:03):
Yeah.
So I know you spoke to ourcoach, Jim O'Ruyman, right?
I call him coach benevolently.
So he uh himself and some of ourother leadership, Matt Austin,
our COO, and and my boss, CaseyConnolly, is our chief product
officer.
We developed a strategy.
This goes back to about 18months ago.
So you said 12 to 18 months thatfits right in line.
Where I mentioned Agent ISO,that's how we grew up, is that
(03:24):
retail ISO or retail ISOprocessor.
So we had a lot of differentthird parties that provided a
lot of different products.
And what we started to find aswe started scale was that we
were becoming inefficient inbeing able to deploy and support
a plethora of differentmerchant-facing products, right?
So the idea of kind of a coreproduct shift really came about
(03:45):
as a necessity, not only forPayrock to derive more
efficiencies, but also for ourpartners ultimately to be, we
want to be the best we possiblycan and support the
merchant-facing products that wewant to deploy and we want to
kind of funnel that traffic to.
And I think that's been themajor shift that we've had over
the last year, year and a halfhas been boiling it down to
(04:07):
still providing a lot of optionsand a lot of different
verticalized products, but alsobeing able to, again,
consolidate down to either whitelabel or proprietary
merchant-facing product that wecan better control our own
destiny and more efficiently andbetter support.
Okay.
Well, what core products hasPayrock launched over the last
year?
In the last year to 18 months,we've launched three, one of
(04:29):
which is uh Rock Terminal Plus.
Notice the ROC there, a littleplay on Payrock.
Uh Rock Terminal Plus, thatecosystem, which is everything
from your standalone devices allthe way through a mobile app, a
really nice user's portal.
It's kind of a a little bit moreof a generalized product from
processing, right?
It's not really geared for anyone specific MCC that can be
used across the board.
(04:49):
And then we get to some very,very focused and verticalized
products in our Rock Giving,which is our charity vertical uh
go-to-market merchant facingproduct, as well as Rock
Services, which is our firstforay into field services.
That was completely that wholeroadmap was developed by
Payrock.
And I've been very excited.
In fact, we're about to releaseour scheduling component to that
(05:10):
to allow us to go upmarket alittle bit, compete with some of
the likes of like the jobbers ofthe world and our service
titans, some of the big guys outthere.
So we're super pumped about whatwe've done.
And we're going to continue toverticalize.
I know that you spoke to ourCEO, Jim Overman, about that.
We're going to continue toverticalize and hone in so we
kind of make a smaller aperturefor some sales partners that
(05:31):
want to come on and from arecruitment standpoint and also
kind of being able to not changethe DNA, but be able to add
those folks that want to goafter those underserved or
emerging verticals that today wedon't have a lot of answers for.
SPEAKER_02 (05:43):
Okay.
So those vertical solutions, arethey primarily just on the
payment side or like youmentioned scheduling?
So are you kind of expandingthat beyond payments like other
software or other financialservices?
SPEAKER_01 (05:56):
Yeah.
So let me try to answer thatthis way.
So obviously we're a paymentsplatform, right?
Payments is always first andforemost in our mind.
But as the technology hasevolved over the last decade to
15 years, technology has gottencheaper, it's gotten better, and
it really entices businesses tobring in something that's going
to allow them to run theirbusiness.
So when we talk aboutverticalized sales, we go from
(06:19):
instead of a payments processingsale first, it's really a sales
cycle built upon the software.
So it's a software sell firstand a payment sell second, in my
mind, right?
And that does take some trainingand really, you know, having
partners really understand howto sell the product, who the
target audience is, right?
Because you're selling thatsoftware solution.
So to your point when you askedabout what are we doing with the
(06:41):
scheduling, the scheduling pieceis allowing that field service
software to become more holisticso that that operator can run
their business 360 and scheduletheir field service technicians,
for example, for that specificjob, that specific estimate,
that specific invoice, and beable to track that work through
the system and then have all thereporting in one place.
The idea is those operatorsdon't need to leave the software
(07:03):
to effectively run theirbusiness.
SPEAKER_02 (07:05):
Okay.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
So what does a product roll outfrom maybe ideation to launch?
What does that look like atPayrock?
What's sort of the standardplaybook?
SPEAKER_01 (07:14):
Well, it always starts with a business case,
right?
It also starts with our friendsover at sales.
There's a lot of feedback loopsthat we get.
We periodically will requestfrom sales, hey, what's the
feedback you're getting?
What are we missing in themarket?
What verticals do they want togo after?
We also look at a lot of theVisa MasterCard emerging and
underserved market reports,right?
Like what MCCs are are out therethat are being underserved
(07:36):
today.
And, you know, you look at yourTAM and your SNAM and your PSOM
and you work with sales and theyultimately sign off on, yeah,
let's get this out there.
Either we engage a third partyas a white label or we our own
proprietary technology, we wantto build something out.
And then you go into the skunkworks, right?
And you from the ideation side,you get the playbook and you
have your business case firstand foremost.
(07:56):
And then you start looking at aswag on how long it's going to
take to get out to market,right?
And do we feel like the marketconditions are going to be
consistent enough that at thetime that we're ready to release
that, we're still on a goodfoothold or good position for
that specific product launch.
If those all those answers areyes and we get agreement from
across the org, which sometimesis fun to do, right?
Then, you know, ultimately werun that all the way through a
(08:18):
commercialization.
And through that process, we gofrom a beta and pilot, we
collect feedback loops from bothmerchants and partners alike to
make sure that we're, you know,whatever little tweaks we have
to make along the way.
And by the way, that doesn'tstop on GA, general
availability, right?
That's something that continuesthroughout the life cycle of any
merchant-facing product atPayrock, and I imagine at most
processors.
SPEAKER_02 (08:39):
Okay.
Well, in the first episode ofthe series, as you mentioned
with Jim, he talked a lot aboutacquiring companies that help
drive scale.
But I assume there were somealong the way that had strong
products or core functionalitythat came along with that
company.
So can you speak to how youintegrated them?
What was sort of that process?
SPEAKER_01 (08:57):
Yeah.
So the process is when weacquire a technology through a
company.
By the way, I think there's beensomething like 18 acquisitions
in the last few years.
So it's been uh quite amaelstrom.
But first thing you do is youtake a look at what they've got,
right?
And you have to answer somequestions.
Do we already have a redundantproduct that's in place if it's
a merchant-facing product?
If so, you got to look at thePLs of both, also the market
(09:18):
viability, the age, theinfrastructure, the code base,
infosec pen testing, right, tomake sure it's solid.
And if all those things checkout, we adopt that.
Now, PayRock is in a uniqueposition because we do own our
own front door, being our thepayrock gateway, and then all
the way through our settlementside.
So we kind of own oursovereignty, so to speak.
So whatever product we choose toadopt has to go through all the
(09:39):
rigor of being connected to thepayrock gateway and making sure
it flows all the way through ourbilling and residuals and
settlement systems.
So it's there's a lot to unpackthere.
And I'll tell you that it hasbeen a challenge.
It's been a fun challenge, butnonetheless, it does, like I
said, with the growth thatPayrock's had, one of the
biggest challenges in my mind isexactly your point.
It's the integration of theproduct sets and not just the
(10:02):
products, but also the people,the culture, all the things that
goes with it.
But ultimately at the end of theday, I think Payrock's done a
very good job of evaluating allthe different toys in the toy
box that we've been giventhrough acquisition and done a
pretty good job positioningthose for our product portfolio.
SPEAKER_02 (10:14):
Yeah.
And what you just said, you madeit sound like it's relatively
easy, but there are plenty ofpayments companies in in this
space and other you knowindustries as well, that when
they make an acquisition, thatintegration, whether it is
culture, products, whatever,they don't do a very good job or
it's a challenge, or it takesthree times as long as they say
(10:36):
it's going to.
So I know that's that's got tobe challenging.
So it sounds like, you know,maybe after 18 times you guys
have gotten just kind of maybegood at it.
SPEAKER_01 (10:44):
Well, we're good, maybe and maybe lucky.
I'll take both.
So yeah.
It's fun though.
It really is.
It's a blessing to be able tohave all these opportunities and
be able to look at all thesedifferent products and and make
some of those strategicdecisions.
SPEAKER_02 (10:56):
Yeah.
And you know, Jim and I talkedabout this, like the solutions
today are so much different thanthey were 15, 20 years ago,
right?
Where you had the salespersonwith a terminal, and back then
there were three terminalmanufacturers, drove up to the
you know, strip center that hasthe dry cleaner and you know,
the same old kind of retailplaces, and they just go
door-to-door selling the samesolution.
(11:17):
That world's gone.
We don't live there anymore.
And, you know, it sounds likethe adaption or what you guys
have done to meet the needs ofmodern day merchants is really,
you know, what had to be done.
And it's been throughacquisition and kind of this
product strategy.
SPEAKER_01 (11:30):
Yeah.
And I think again, owning yourown sovereignty and not being
dependent upon third-partyvendors, you know, for your
product or your gateway, youknow, or settlement or building
residuals, all of it.
So kind of owning thatsovereignty makes does make put
us in advantage and makes it alittle bit easier because we
know what the end goal is goingto be at all times.
But yeah, to your point, backupused to be a knucklebuster, you
(11:51):
know, carbon copy.
You leave somebody, you know,now things are much different.
SPEAKER_02 (11:55):
Right.
So in this series, we've reallybeen focused on that transition
from what we've been talkingabout relying on vendors to
building your own products.
So let's look at that from thesales partner's perspective.
So, what changed most for theagents and the ISOs once you
standardized kind of on thiscore product strategy?
SPEAKER_01 (12:14):
Oh boy.
Well, I would say what changed,let's start with maybe the
negative outcomes, right?
You do have many, many differenttypes of DNA in the sales
channels.
And some folks really like someof the disparate third-party
vendors and products that wehad.
And they were maybe not so happyabout that.
So the first challenge was withthe partners is getting them on
(12:34):
board, right?
It's communication,communication, communication,
not ripping anything out fromunder their feet, giving them
plenty of time to digest it,really putting our teams to work
to get them to train and hey, wewill be sunsetting X, but we're
going to be promoting Y.
And here's why you should take alook at this and get them
involved early on trainings, QAsessions.
Make sure they understand thatyou know how it's market parity
(12:57):
to what they were sellingbefore, or maybe even market
leading compared to what they'reselling before.
That to me was the most, let'sjust say, challenging and
crucial part of the process isgetting that buy-in from those
sales partners.
And then I would say on thepositive side of the things,
what they're experiencing is,again, better efficiencies,
right?
Better support.
They have now when they whenthey call in or they work with
(13:19):
their advocates or their productsales lead team and they need
those SMEs to come in andexplain or help them close a
deal or do some furthertraining.
It's we're honed in becausewe're not dealing with, you
know, we were kind of a masterof none.
We've got some great people, butwhen you've got 60 different
merchant-facing product optionsout there with devices and
software, everything else that'sout there, it becomes really
tough as an organization to bereally damn good, excuse my
(13:41):
language, at supporting anddeploying some of that.
So I think that was the mostpositive effect for our
partners, our sales partners, isbeing able to have better
support and more efficiencieswithin payroll.
SPEAKER_02 (13:51):
Okay.
Well, I think you answered thisnext question a little bit, but
I want to double-click on it.
So how did you keep the ISOs andthe agents informed about sort
of the new strategy and therollout of the products?
SPEAKER_01 (14:03):
Yeah.
So we're always striving to bebetter, but it's always
communication, communication,communication.
When you think you'vecommunicated enough, you need to
probably make sure you do itagain on repeat.
So it started months and monthsearly, right?
We start sometimes up to sixmonths away.
We'll we'll message, we'll say,you know, this is coming, stay
tuned.
And that can be a multitude ofdifferent ways.
(14:24):
It's sometimes it's it's in theleadership sales calls, right?
With those partners.
It's emails, it's newsletters,it's every way we can possibly
get to people, we're gonna getto those people, right?
So again, anytime in thisbusiness you think you're
overcommunicating, you're not,right?
It's because not everybody readstheir emails or they show up to
a phone call.
But also we have a really,really talented product sales
(14:44):
team.
Those folks are dedicated to bethe firewall for that agent or
partner to come in to be able tosit down virtually at their desk
and walk through what thatproduct is, why we might be
sunsetting, what we're releasingto replace that, all those great
things, and then provide allthat training for them almost on
demand, as well as all therecordings.
And I'll also say that we'vedone a very good job over the
(15:06):
last 12 to 18 months of taking agood look at what we have been
doing for sales training anddoubling and tripling down on
that.
And now we're completingfull-blown sales training
modules that are all virtual.
We use a lot of great technologyhere at Payrock, which really,
if you were to be a brand newpartner that came in from Mars
and never ever been in thebusiness before, you could
understand what the product is,who the target audience is, what
(15:28):
pricing methodologies areemployed by it, what the costs
are, and how to really get outthere in the market.
So hopefully it answers yourquestion.
SPEAKER_02 (15:35):
Yeah, absolutely.
So what was the economic upsidefor both the sales partner and
for payrock with executing thestrategy?
SPEAKER_01 (15:44):
Yeah, the bottom line to margins is anywhere
between 8 and 11% on every newmerchant, new mid that you put
on payrock proprietary or whitelabel.
So if it's if it's I if it's acore product, generally
speaking, everybody involvedstands to make just a little bit
more money.
But again, I think monetary isalways a good conversation to
have.
But I think really supportingand really helping out over your
(16:06):
vintage, you know, protectingattrition.
If you look at vintage two,vintage three, you go out right
after that first year thatsomeone signs up the longevity
of the account because we'resupporting that product better
and we're again we're moreefficient.
All those things kind of cometogether.
So yes, the monetary piece isnice.
Eight, eight to eleven percentis always great to have on the
bottom line.
But I think the efficiencies andthe support is what probably
(16:28):
number one and number tworeasons why we did what we did.
SPEAKER_02 (16:30):
Okay.
So we've looked at it, theproduct strategy from the sales
partner's perspective, the ISO'sthe agents.
So let's look at it from themerchant perspective.
And I know that's sort of yourcustomers' customers a lot of
times, but what is the realvalue for the merchants?
What do they really see in froma value perspective out of this
strategy?
SPEAKER_01 (16:49):
Yeah, I mean, I hate to be short on that answer, but
it's it's the same kind ofbenefits that our partners get,
right?
It's when they get on the phoneand they've got they need to
troubleshoot something or theythey need to know something
about the software they'reemploying or the device they're
employing, whatever to run theirbusiness.
Our teams are just better at itbecause we have less to focus
and say graceover.
(17:09):
We have we're very concentratedon what our core product set is.
And again, we now become amaster of those products instead
of a master of none when youhave 30, 40, 50, right?
So it's I think that samebenefit applies.
And again, just by the organicripple effect of having people
that are just better SMEs atwhat they're supporting with
(17:30):
these products, you're gonna geta better merchant outcome.
You're gonna outcomes, you'regonna get short call resolution
times, one call resolutiontimes, you're going to increase
the longevity of the account.
And because we're also hyperfocused on continuing to enhance
these products, we're gonnaconstantly give them new, better
features to keep up with thetimes and the technology that
those small businesses,medium-sized businesses, and
(17:52):
enterprise businesses demand.
So I think it's all of thosethings.
SPEAKER_02 (17:56):
Okay.
So at that merchant level, howdo you know the strategy is
being successfully executed?
SPEAKER_01 (18:02):
Well, data, data, data, right?
Again, any after GA is just thefirst part.
After that, it's constantlymonitoring how are we selling
this?
Are we being successful?
What do our revenues and marginslook like?
And also, I think the mostimportant piece that we have is
my teams actually go out andwork with the sales partners to
many of them will willingly giveus a feedback loop on their
(18:23):
experiences, maybe deals theywon, the deals they lost, the
feedback they gave themerchants.
And in many cases, if they giveus permission to do so, we're
engaging with those merchantsdirectly.
So we're taking that input, thatfeedback right back to us
digitally, or sometimes it couldeven be a phone call, right?
A live phone call and say, Hey,would you talk to us for a
little bit?
What, you know, what's thatfeedback?
So constantly pumping thatfeedback all the way through
(18:44):
from sales and deployment, allthe way back through product.
I think that we've got a prettygood mousetrap and a pretty good
handle on how our partners andhow our merchants ultimately are
feeling about any givenversion-facing product set.
SPEAKER_02 (18:54):
All right.
Well, I'm gonna go off script alittle bit here because I really
want to maybe talk about thefuture.
Like where do you see from yourlens, where do you see the
industry headed from a productperspective?
I know you know we talk aboutstable coins and we talk about
AI and those kind of things, butyou're in the day-to-day sort of
what do you see as the future ofkind of the industry and where
(19:16):
it's headed and how is Payrockthinking about that from a
product perspective?
SPEAKER_01 (19:20):
Well, you know, we've been saying for a long
time that at some point the uhstandalone payment devices for
card present transactions willlikely start to decline.
While that hasn't beensignificant, it is starting to
happen with the advent of thetap to glass on bring your own
device, right?
Whether it's an Android phone,an iOS phone, which Payrock has.
And that that's that that's partof it.
The the greater piece that I seeis just the distillation of
(19:43):
technology, right?
So in the payment space, we alsohave a lot of consolidation
that's happening.
The big guys keep gettingbigger.
And so that allows a lot ofopportunity for agile companies
like PayRock that have scale butalso have agility to be able to
employ said technology into thatpayments ecosystem.
But at the end of the day, Ithink we're gonna be more and
more becoming software-led salesand not processing.
(20:04):
I think the days of justcollecting a statement, you
know, and doing the statementanalysis and getting a pricing
methodology that makes sense forthat merchant and for the
partner.
And that's great.
We're gonna do that forever, butI really feel like that's really
enabled by the software.
And I think that's the biggestchange that I'm seeing is that
standalone processing isdefinitely on the decline.
Today, everything's in some kindof a software SaaS model,
(20:27):
whether you it doesn't matterwhat MCC you're talking about,
right?
Let me look at restaurants, forexample.
That's the most oversaturatedMCC in all of the country.
And it is blanketed by software.
When was the last time you're ata restaurant and they had no
point of sale?
A long time ago, right?
But I know I'm not giving my ageaway here.
When I was young, it used tohappen all the time, right?
So we talked about the knucklebusters earlier, right?
So that's what I see.
(20:48):
I see payments becoming a lotmore consolidated with
technology.
SPEAKER_02 (20:52):
Okay.
Well, James, this has been anamazing conversation.
I just wanted to close out theshow by seeing if there's
anything that we might havemissed or any closing thoughts
you had.
SPEAKER_01 (21:00):
No, uh again, just blessed to be in the in the
ecosystem and having a greattime doing it.
And uh yeah, at Payrock, we loveour core products and we're
continuing to serve our agentsand partners and our sales
distribution channels uh as bestwe possibly can.
SPEAKER_02 (21:13):
Okay.
Well, I think that's a great wayto wrap up the show.
So thank you so much for beinghere.
I know your time is veryvaluable, so I really appreciate
you being on the show today.
Thank you, Greg.
And finally, to all youlisteners out there, I thank you
for your time as well.
And until the next story.
SPEAKER_00 (21:27):
Thanks for tuning in to Focus Build Win, a special
series exploring how Payrock'sfocus on core products drives
alignment, growth, and lastingpartner success.
To explore more resources andinsights, visit
www.payrock.comslash agentopportunity.
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