December 16, 2025 • 28 mins
Subscriptions aren’t enough anymore. We dig into why the next wave of software winners are building full commerce platforms where payments are invisible to users yet central to growth. With NMI’s CMO Peter Galvin and Product Director of Developer Experience, Luis Peña, we unpack how vertical SaaS turns checkout into a native, on-brand experience that drives revenue, cuts churn, and opens the door to embedded finance.
We start with the big shift: horizontal tools are giving way to vertical platforms that automate every workflow and own the moment of payment. From dentist offices to gyms and home services, merchants want one system that books, bills, and gets them paid. Peter explains how integrated payments changes the business model - subscription fees plus payments monetization and new fintech lines like working capital - while strengthening loyalty through a consistent, secure merchant and consumer experience.
Luis takes us into the build. He shares a practical roadmap for developer-friendly adoption: onboard merchants within your app, collect card data with tokenization and design for webhooks, and exception paths from day one. We talk sandboxes, test suites that simulate real failure modes, and AI-friendly docs that make it easier for modern teams to ship quickly without cutting corners. Then we zoom out to the data advantage - interchange optimization, card mix insights, network tokenization, and benchmarking that inform pricing, conversion, and cross-sell strategies.
The takeaway is simple: treat payments as a growth engine, not a bolt-on. When software controls the workflow and the commerce flow, the product becomes stickier, the economics improve, and customers stop thinking about payments at all.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:06):
Hello and welcome to the Leaders in Payments Podcast.
I'm your host, Greg Myers.
Joining me today are two veryspecial guests from NMI, Peter
Galvin, the Chief MarketingOfficer, and Luis Peña, the
product director of developerexperience.
So thank you both for being hereand welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00 (00:22):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_02 (00:26):
So this episode is part of our Signal series where
we are cutting through the noiseto reveal what truly matters in
payments in FinTech.
Today we're recording part oneof a two-part series focused on
SaaS payments.
The title of today's episode isSaaS is Dead, Long Live SaaS
Plus Payments, a bold statementthat we will be unpacking today.
(00:47):
As the subscription-only SaaSmodel starts fading, today's
winners are building integratedcommerce platforms where
payments drive revenue, loyalty,and expansion.
We will be exploring how SaaS isbeing redefined by payments and
what it means for the nextgeneration of software
companies.
So, Peter, Luis, before we deepdive deep into this, Peter, do
(01:08):
you mind first can you walk usthrough your professional
journey and how you got to NMI?
SPEAKER_00 (01:13):
Sure, I'm happy to.
Thank you very much.
So, yeah, I uh I started out asa product manager actually.
I was um I was very interestedin computer technology.
And uh after graduate school, Idecided I wanted to go and
become a product manager andvery interesting at that time
where you really owned allcomponents of the product from
you know really being uh thefiguring out the specifications
(01:36):
to going all the way to go tomarket.
And product management has kindof changed and expanded over
that time into other areas likeproduct marketing, um, for
example, and and otherdisciplines.
Um, and through that journey, Iwas always interested in uh love
technology.
Um, and then if you kind of fastforward um and look at where I
ended up, um one of the one ofthe big shifts that I did see
(01:59):
was in um software as a service.
So going from client service tosoftware as a service and um
went to work for a companycalled Proofpoint, which was one
of the early um SaaS companiesfor email security.
And they were making thattransition from being a you know
a software company that soldsoftware to a subscription-based
SaaS company.
(02:20):
So those changes were quiteinteresting and exciting.
And so ever since then, I wasalways in uh security and in the
security marketplace as a chiefmarketing officer, um working
with uh a few different types ofSaaS organizations, mostly in
the security space.
And then um one of the lastcompanies I was with, uh, a
company called TALAS, did a lotof work with uh banks and credit
(02:44):
card companies and providedencryption services uh to those
types of uh types of companies,which led me to NMI and to get
more formalized into payments.
So instead of being in themiddle of the infrastructure for
um what I would consider youknow banking and and finding
fintech, uh I got more into theinfrastructure for providing
(03:04):
embedded finance for SaaScompanies.
So it seemed uh for me it's agood fit for both SaaS and for
uh the underlying uh technologyand also uh something new that
uh SaaS companies are trying toachieve.
SPEAKER_02 (03:18):
Okay.
Louis, same question for you, alittle about your professional
journey and how you got to NMI.
SPEAKER_01 (03:24):
Thanks, Rick.
Um yeah, so um I fell in lovewith software actually when I
was eight.
I wrote my first line of codeway back then on uh uh old IBM
machine, no hard drives, uh,dating myself a little bit here.
Um, but I just loved softwareand fell in love with software
way back then.
So um I went to undergrad uhhere in Orange County in
(03:45):
California.
I went to UC Irvine uh forcomputer science and then I
followed up with uh my graduatestudies there in business.
Um while I was in Orange County,I worked for 15 years in the
residential construction uhindustry focused on low voltage
construction, um a lot of firealarm, home security.
Um, and there I was able toautomate a lot of our software
(04:06):
and our processes.
There was a lot of manual thingshappening, a lot of fax
machines, a lot of paperworkthat was very manual.
So uh still able to buildsoftware for uh an industry that
really needed it.
Um, but then was also exposed toa lot of um, you know, SaaS
recurring revenue, especiallywith alarm and uh the reseller
white label branding model,which is very prevalent in the
(04:28):
the home security realm as well.
So um after my 15 years there, Idecided to double down in in
software, uh came to NMI about10 years ago now, joined uh via
one of their gateways, um, andspent nine years in engineering
here at NMI, uh building on anumber of our solutions and just
finishing up my first year inproduct management.
SPEAKER_02 (04:49):
Okay, great.
So, Peter, can you give ouraudience just a quick overview,
high-level overview of what NMIdoes?
SPEAKER_00 (04:56):
Sure.
NMI is a payments acceptanceplatform.
So we help um our partners, andthose partners are could be
independent sales organizations,fintechs, payment professionals,
and especially software and SaaScompanies uh provide payment
infrastructure for their clientsor their merchants.
And so today we have over uh4,000 partners that we work with
(05:19):
and over a million merchantsthat um use our platform to be
able to take a credit cardpayment either uh directly
through some kind of point ofsale system or embedded into uh
software.
And so that is truly what thecompany is able to do.
We do that as a white whitelabel service, which is very
unique in the marketplace.
(05:39):
We also don't go direct tomerchants, we only go through
these uh these partner channelsthat we've developed over time,
who basically build a solutionaround our product offering and
then deliver that solution to umtheir merchants um and work
directly with their merchants.
SPEAKER_02 (05:56):
Okay.
So, Peter, sticking with you,and we've talked about this.
So the subscription-only SaaSmodel is fading and payments are
becoming really a core growthengine for them.
So, what's fundamentallychanging about how modern SaaS
platforms create and capturevalue?
SPEAKER_00 (06:14):
Yeah, I think the challenge that you know SaaS
platforms have always had isthat um they always had to pick
one thing to be able to generaterevenue from.
So, you know, it could be a seatmodel, it could be a full
enterprise model.
And um, they were really limitedin the way that they could
deliver value.
I think the also the otherchange that we're seeing is we
(06:37):
used to see a lot of veryhorizontal platforms that
required a lot of integrationfor different organizations to
be able to integrate thoseplatforms into their um larger
enterprises.
And what's kind of exciting forus is that NMI also, one of the
things that we do is we reallyspecialize and focus on small
and medium-sized businesses andthose partners and software
(06:59):
companies that are um umproviding them services.
And so, what one of the bigchanges that's happened in SaaS
over the last few years isyou've really seen this move to
what we call vertical SaaS andvertical SaaS platforms.
So when you think about avertical SaaS platform, you
know, you have a SaaS providerwho is providing um, you know,
(07:20):
medical software, for example,to a doctor's office or dental
software, or could be a pet vetor for a hair salon or for um
dog boarding.
So there's a number of differentnew smaller vertical software
companies that are coming uminto the business.
And and really what thosesoftware companies have in
(07:40):
common is they're really tryingto help automate all of these
different processes, which wouldbe manual.
So if you think of the old daysof like just a plumber, for
example, you know, you'd have tocall, make an appointment, you
know, somebody would finallyshow up at your house between
eight and five, they deliver youan invoice, um, maybe they get
paid five, you know, paid by acheck, you know, 30 days later.
(08:04):
Um, what these vertical softwarecompanies have done is do this
all this automation.
And that's something, you know,that um Luis was talking about
in when in his earlierexperiences was really
automating that process.
So they've really digitallytransformed these businesses
that um are needed for thesesmall and medium-sized
businesses.
And they start usually with asubscription model that allows
(08:28):
them to provide some set ofservices.
But what they found over time isin any of those businesses,
those vertical B2B services,their consumers also want to
pay.
And so one of the benefits thatwe provide is being able to
embed those services into theirSaaS offering.
And the other part is that bybeing able to provide that
(08:50):
service for that doctor, forexample, to take a payment
through their that softwaresystem, that SaaS company can
also participate in theinterchange and in some of the
revenue that is created throughthat.
So not only are they makingmoney through their SaaS
subscription model, but they'realso able to find additional um
(09:11):
revenue streams throughinterchange.
We're also seeing that one ofthe challenges with small and
medium-sized businesses is thattheir their ability to access
working capital.
And usually if you think ofthis, that this is just one
example, but a lot of times whenthey're trying to access working
capital, there's, you know, theycan either go to their bank,
which could take 30 or 60 daysor even longer, and usually will
(09:33):
be denied.
Um, they may have to put up someserious collateral, like a
house, for example.
Or um they go and they manytimes just use their corporate
credit card, and the interestrates on those can be, you know,
20, 25%.
Um, one of the great thingsabout you know this industry is
because now these um now from aninfrastructure standpoint, you
(09:56):
can see all of the transactionsthat are occurring over the
credit card.
You can now um provide loansthat are very specific to that
um that individual merchant andprovide you know a much better
uh loan, uh better paymentterms.
Payment terms are based on thestreams of revenue that they're
getting from that um from thethat the um that's coming
(10:19):
through the credit cardpayments.
And so that you know, there'sadditional financial services
offerings that can be offered toum these uh their these clients
or merchants through these SaaScompanies from companies like
ourselves.
And so not only is there asubscription model and an
interchange model, but there'salso other fintech models that
(10:41):
um allow the SaaS company tobecome more of a financial
expert for their uh for theirmerchants or their clients.
SPEAKER_02 (10:49):
Okay, great.
So, Luis, over to you as SaaScompanies shift toward this
payments-driven model.
What are the biggest developerconsiderations that they need to
be thinking about sort ofearlier in the process?
SPEAKER_01 (11:04):
Yeah, so uh being that SaaS companies tend not to
be payments experts, they theyreally kind of need to
understand the lay of the landfrom their their processes,
right?
They need to understand that thepartner they're choosing matches
the way that they're developingsoftware themselves.
So um also they need to considerthe ways that the uh platform
(11:24):
will be able to integrate intothat which they've built, um,
and what parts of the journeysthey need to maybe consume
earlier, later, and then maybelike eventually.
There's there's an amount ofeffort related to each piece of
payments that you integrate intoyour software.
So being able to take thoseindependently and match them to
(11:46):
your own product roadmap.
So, for example, um, you need tolook at whether or not you have
no code components or low-codecomponents.
Um, for certain sections thatmaybe are not high frequency,
you maybe do very infrequently.
Maybe if you're boardingmerchants on your software, you
do that one time.
That's not a feature you need tobuild out in its entirety right
(12:06):
from the beginning.
But if payment acceptance andactually processing recurring
payments is something that iscore to your software, that's
something you might want tointegrate more tightly.
So finding a partner who hasthose options to be able to go
as deep or as shallow as youwant in each of the services you
need to bring into your softwareis gonna be very important.
(12:26):
That way you can match yourbuild timeline with your needs
as you uh continue in yourpayments journey and gain your
own experience as a softwaredeveloper with the way that
payments can actually help bringvalue to your organization.
So um additionally, you got tomake sure that you're picking
someone who can, like I said,make software the same way that
(12:48):
you're developing.
So if you're using AI tools, ifyou're using agents, um, making
sure that those agentsunderstand how to integrate that
platform and that it's it'skeeping up with the way that you
are integrating is is reallyimportant to make sure that
you're not finding hurdles orimpediments that you would have
(13:09):
been able to discover early onin the process.
SPEAKER_02 (13:12):
Okay.
Louis, sticking with you, when aSaaS platform evolves into this
more full commerce platform,what integration patterns or
technical building blocks reallybecome essential for supporting
that when they want to scaletheir business?
SPEAKER_01 (13:27):
Yeah.
So as again, they're notnecessarily payment experts.
They need to think about theirsoftware and how they're
incorporating the new journeysfor their merchants into it.
So, um, for example, you need tothink about merchant onboarding,
how they're applying for theseaccounts.
Um, you need to make sure thatyou have a way for them to do
that during your own onboardingprocess, to be able to have this
(13:49):
additional step that's in there.
Um, when you're bringing inpayment acceptance to be able to
have a way to securely get thatcard data, not on your own
system, so that you can stay outof scope from a PCI and a
compliance standpoint.
Um and then be able to managethose merchants, chargebacks and
all of the different things thatcome with the ongoing support.
(14:11):
So these are the areas you needto make sure you have built into
the process.
How deep you go depends on yoursoftware.
Um, additionally, uh when you'rethinking about maintaining your
own brand for the software thatyou've built, you need to be
able to bring in thesecomponents in a way that matches
your design system.
So if if you can apply yourdesign system across that which
(14:34):
you are consuming in a veryubiquitous way, um, it'll help
reduce your development time andit it sets up your platform for
a way to keep consuming theadditional payments products
that come in over time.
Um, to be a little bit moretechnical, you need to make sure
that you can handle uh you knowwebhooks and receiving them and
(14:54):
get the information back fromstatuses as to the way that the
payments journey may occur.
If you're doing ACH, things maynot be as real time as you might
say be in a credit card world.
So you need to make sure thatyou're handling all those
different scenarios and makingsure that you're not just
building for the happy case, butfor all of the exceptions that
(15:15):
are out there too.
And that's where having apartner that can walk you
through that which you don'tknow, not being a payments
expert, is gonna be really keybecause we've we've seen it time
and time again where people willthink that payments is really
straightforward and it can bewith the right partner, but if
you're missing some essentialsteps, you'll you'll be missing
uh a really important customerjourney that's only gonna let
(15:38):
your customers down in the end.
SPEAKER_02 (15:41):
Okay.
So, Peter, back over to you.
NMI works with a wide range ofISVs and vertical SaaS platforms
as we've been talking about.
What separates the softwarecompanies that successfully
embrace payments against thosethat maybe struggle to really
embrace payments?
SPEAKER_00 (15:59):
Well, I think that I think the most important thing
that the ISVs or SaaS companieshave have to think about is
really the merchant experience.
So the client experience is key.
And so back to kind of Lewis'spoint where you know if you're
building a product offering andit payments is a just an add-on
piece that you're gettingsomewhere that doesn't represent
(16:22):
your product, it doesn'trepresent your brand, it doesn't
have the same user experience,um, that's going to be a very
different experience for aclient.
And actually, in many cases, ifyou're taking a client somewhere
else versus embedding it intoyour software platform, those
clients may be very wary of, oh,where am I going?
Especially these days with youknow so so much um opportunity
(16:45):
around fraud.
So I think one of the one of thethings that you know software
companies really need to thinkabout is the ones that are
successful really think abouthow do you truly integrate it
into their overall platforms?
How do they make it part oftheir overall workflow?
How does that workflow end upgetting the um a you know a
(17:06):
client onboarded, both um fortheir software but also for
being able to take payments?
How does that happen?
How does that workflow happenall the way through to their the
end uh end consumer making thatpayment and making sure that
they are working with a partnerwho has has a really good
understanding of paymentsbecause most of these companies
(17:28):
they don't need to be paymentexperts, they're experts in in
building SaaS software, they'reprobably experts in their
particular vertical industry oror horizontal industry, but
payments is a very complicated,has a lot of compliance issues,
has a lot of regulatory issues,and making sure that you're
working with a company that canhelp you make that look seamless
(17:49):
so that the client, their endclient, that end customer
consumer has a has an amazingexperience all the way through.
And basically taking a paymentdoesn't feel any different than
anything else that they're doingon the platform is the way that
the mo that strategically allowssoftware companies to be the
most successful.
SPEAKER_02 (18:09):
Okay, I think that's a good segue into the next
question, sticking with you,Peter.
Um, you know, payments createsuh obviously a stickier, more
valuable relationship with theirend users.
How do you see embedded paymentsimpacting their churn, them
being able to expand, and theiroverall customer loyalty?
SPEAKER_00 (18:29):
Yeah, well, I think that's you know, it's back to as
you it's back to really customerexperience.
And I would say that that is acornerstone of of any kind of
product offering, is that boththe the partner or the SaaS
company in this case and the canthe end consumer have to have a
great experience.
And so having and also if you'reproviding a full service type of
(18:54):
platform, you know, you don'twant to just, for example, as a
software company provide onecomponent.
You want to provide as manycomponents as possible because
it makes it much harder forsomeone to switch, right?
If I'm a if I'm a if I'm a SaaScompany that has to integrate
with four or five differentthings to make everything work
together, and then my my my endclient has to go to three or
(19:15):
four very different lookinginterfaces, that's a bad
experience for that particularclient.
So the way that you knowpayments by in integrating and
embedding payments and alsointegrating and embedding other
fintech products provides thatyou know great consumer
experience all the way through.
(19:36):
And by having that greatexperience, then you know that
those SaaS partners that uhthose that are of ours aren't
gonna want to change from ourplatform as well as their
consumers aren't gonna want tomove to another platform because
of this the feature sets that ithas, the ease of use that it
has, the consistent experiencethat they're feeling.
(19:56):
And it allows those SaaScompanies to be much more
competitive.
And so when you at the end ofthe day, embedding payments, you
being able to use their ownbrand and not having a consumer
have to worry about is thisgoing to be a fraud issue?
Is this a challenge for me toactually put my payment
(20:17):
information in there?
Um is going to help them win andkeep more customers.
And if you think about certainkind of capabilities, you know,
there are certain businessesthat you want to be able to, you
know, if you think aboutsoftware companies that provide
gym memberships, right?
They really want to be able togo and be able to put my card,
(20:37):
give them my credit card, andthen just take my payment every
month.
And there's a lot of systemslike that where I don't want to
have to be able to go through aprocess where I have to
continually re-key in my creditcard information as a consumer,
but I can safely give my creditcard information to that, you
know, that dentist, that doctor,that hair salon.
(21:01):
And whenever I go there, theyjust automatically take that
payment and I can feel secureenough that they have my credit
card data, it's going to beprotected, it's going to be
valuable, and I never feel likeI've ever had to really make a
payment, and it's much morefrictionless.
SPEAKER_02 (21:18):
Okay.
So, Luis, over to you.
A lot of software leadersunderestimate the data story
behind payments.
So, what new insights becomepossible when SaaS platforms
control both the software andthe commerce flow?
SPEAKER_01 (21:33):
Yeah, that's a great question, Greg.
So, yeah, once a softwareplatform decides to be able to
monetize payments as opposed tohave a very like arm's length
relationship with it, um,there's there's a lot more that
becomes available to them.
Obviously, they can see um thebasic data that comes through,
they can see the volume, thetrends, they can you know
understand how their consumersare using their system.
(21:55):
But um, once they're monetizingpayments, there's different bits
of information that actuallybecome more important to them
than they would have otherwise.
So, for example, being able tooptimize for interchange becomes
very important.
And having the data tounderstand what types of cards
are being used on your platform,which ones cost you more, which
(22:15):
ones don't, if you want to tryto drive consumers towards the
use of certain cards to be ableto actually affect your bottom
line through interchangeoptimization, um, where you end
up with um higher rates ifyou're in recurring, if you
could improve those through someother additional tooling, um,
whether it's networktokenization or other
(22:35):
interchange optimizationproducts that are out there.
Um, and then additionally, asPeter was referencing before,
you you have data to be able tooffer and cross-sell products to
your merchant base.
So um being able to give themworking capital, um, being able
to see the volume that's comingthrough and understand that you
now are in a position to becomethat partner for your merchants.
(22:56):
You're not just a softwarethat's providing the the one
thing that you built, which isobviously very important, but
you are also now their theirpayments partner and that you
can provide them additionalservices that help them monetize
their own use of your system inaddition to um ensuring that you
are a full ecosystem for them.
(23:17):
Um so there's a lot of data, alot of cross-all that's
available.
Um you you'll be able to getaccess to data feeds with a lot
of partners so that you can dothis yourself, or you can rely
on the partner to provide thoseinsights for you.
Um, and then being able tobenchmark there's there's a lot
of data that helps youunderstand the health of your
(23:38):
business compared to otherswithin that same type of
industry or stage where you'reat, whether or not you're you
know, pre-seed or seed or seriesA, or if you're a more mature
company, there's there's a lotof data out there as to how
those companies can perform,especially when they're
integrating payments and howyou're benchmarking towards them
to give you insight as to howyou can better optimize your use
(23:58):
of payments as well.
So um it opens up a lot to beable to bring it in-house and
not have it be kind of like anarm's length relationship with
the third-party provider.
You you really want a partner toget you those insights to help
you um make your business moreefficient as well.
SPEAKER_02 (24:14):
Okay.
So, Louis, sticking with you,we've talked about sort of the
end user or customer experience.
Let's talk about the developerexperience because it's becoming
or is a strategic differentiatorfor some payments partners.
So, what ultimately makes aplatform developer friendly in a
way that really accelerates thatadoption for these SaaS
(24:35):
companies?
SPEAKER_01 (24:36):
Yeah, this is this is my favorite topic.
So, so thank you for thisquestion.
Um, you know, there's a lotthat's in here.
Um, it's not just about buildingAPIs and a software that that's
kind of table stakes at thispoint.
But um, as I mentioned before,it's really understanding how
developers build their softwareand then would integrate
payments into their stack.
So there's a lot of things tolook out for and a lot of things
(24:59):
that are now expected when youare working with developing or
integrating any type of softwarevendor out there.
So um, first is just their theirability to provide their service
in a multiple of different ways.
Um, whether or not you integratethem in a no code if you're just
doing a proof of concept.
Um, there's multiple stages insoftware development.
(25:21):
And sometimes you just need toprove an idea out.
So being able to bring in nocode or maybe very low-code,
lightweight options to get a POCout, to test some things, to be
able to maybe do some A-Btesting in a prep platform.
It's important that you don'tnecessarily need to go all in
and do a full build.
Um, while you're developing,having a sandbox available is
(25:42):
very crucial so that you have asafe place to test, safe place
to make errors, um, and that youhave developer guides and test
suites that really help youunderstand what all the
scenarios are that you need toreally deal with.
I alluded to it earlier that youdon't necessarily need to always
develop for the best case happypath, but robust and very
(26:07):
well-developed software thatgives a good customer experience
handles all of those exceptionsvery well.
They understand where thingsmight go wrong.
They understand that if atransaction's taking a lot of
time, it'll take give you aspinner and it'll let you know,
hey, like we're stillprocessing, don't refresh or or
or or um abandon this thistransaction.
(26:28):
Um, being able to handledeclines and prompt for another
payment, being able to handle umall of those different
exceptions and having testsuites that walk you through
those and a sandbox that cansimulate all of those exceptions
as well.
So you can test those in yourown software so that you're not
just building in in theory, butyou have a way to go through
(26:49):
each of those.
You can trigger error responses,you can trigger declines, you
can trigger um transactions thatmay take a long time, you can
simulate a lot of the bad casesso that your software is robust.
So um having those test suitesavailable in all of those test
scenarios is also reallyimportant from a developer
(27:10):
standpoint because that givesyou confidence that you are
building a robust, a robustintegration to a payments
provider.
Um, and then additionally, thesystems that give you feedback,
especially in that sandboxenvironment, where you can see
the calls that you've made tothe platform and you can
understand where you might havemissed something, you can get
(27:32):
guidance as to an error codethat you got and what was
missing so that you know how tocorrect it is is also kind of
really important.
So you get that live feedbackfrom the system as you're
constantly developing anditerating.
Um, and then finally, as Imentioned, just meeting people
where they are these days,making sure that your IDE that
(27:52):
is uh powered via AI is able tounderstand the documentation for
this uh this software platformand be able to properly
implement what you're trying todo.
Um you know, these developersagain, they're they might be new
to payments and they're going torely on the thoroughness of this
(28:15):
documentation and how well theAI agents they're using to help
them build their own softwarecan consume this documentation.
So um, you know, that I can goon into details about MCP
servers and and all thesedifferent types of components
that are out there, but it'sit's really just making sure
that the they're keeping up andthat they are really working
(28:37):
with you and feel as cuttingedge as you probably are as a
software developer.
You're building something veryimportant and very interesting
that is serving a need.
And those who you bring alonginto your own software need to
feel like partners who are doingthe same, that are on that same
level with you, iterating,building, keeping up with what's
the latest, and making sure thatthey're not creating a jarring
(29:00):
experience for your customersbecause that's important for you
to develop that cohesiveexperience for what you're
building.
And the partnerships you buildare very important to making
sure you deliver that thatcohesive experience.
So um, you know, I I again I cango on and on about what is what
is out there that makes a gooddeveloper experience.
(29:20):
Um, but I'm I'm listening tofolks all the time.
I'm hearing phone calls and justkind of getting all the
insights, and we'll we'll turnthings around pretty quick, but
I'm excited to see where thingsgo.
SPEAKER_02 (29:32):
Okay.
So, Peter, some SaaS founderstreat payments as a feature.
We've kind of talked about that.
Others see it as a strategicgrowth engine.
How should these SaaS foundersbe kind of reframing their
thinking from feature to growthengine?
SPEAKER_00 (29:48):
Yeah, and I think the I think that comes a lot
from the lack of knowledgearound payments.
You know, payments is acomplicated subject.
It's but you know, it'sdifficult to understand.
I think, I think there are somepeople that are um in the early
stages are very naive about whatdoes it really take to take a
credit card payment.
As a consumer, it seems like avery easy, simple process, which
(30:08):
is is designed to be.
But in the background, there'snot you know hundreds of things
going on to make sure paymentsget accepted, there isn't fraud,
pay, you know, people get paidand both sides get paid, and one
pays the other.
Um, so I think there has beenthe start, that was the starting
point for a lot of these, um, alot of these early founders.
(30:31):
But it truly is a strategicgrowth engine.
It truly is another componentthat they want to have within
their software stack, and theyneed to really think about, go
back and think about what istheir customer journey?
How is their customer take goingthrough the and using their
software all the way to the end?
And at some point in thatjourney, the customer, the
(30:53):
consumer is going to want tomake a payment.
And how do they make thatpayment as frictionless as
possible, as easy as possible,with the same experience that
impacts their brand, right?
And so, again, when you thinkabout consumers and how they
think, they think about brands,they think about companies
they're they they use and workwith every day.
(31:14):
And so having that same greatconsumer experience is
foundational for any kind ofgrowth for these SaaS companies
because they're the people thatthe companies that are figuring
it out, and I think many, manymore founders and many, many
more SaaS um folks are areunderstanding payments a lot
(31:35):
better than they ever hadbefore, and they understand the
strategic importance of it.
They just don't understand howto go about and doing it.
And so that's where otherpartners like ourselves come in
to really give them theinfrastructure and give them the
platform to be able to make thata strategic growth driver for
them to become more successful.
(31:56):
And so I really think theyshould rethink the reframing is
this is another part of whatshould just be a part of your
overall SaaS system that you'redeveloping.
Because at some point, someone'sgonna need to take a payment and
pay for something.
And you, as a SaaS provider,want to be in the middle of that
process and you wanted to makeit make sure that it feels like
(32:20):
part of your brand and part ofyour experience.
SPEAKER_02 (32:24):
Okay, so final question for both of you, and
Peter will stick with you.
If you had to make oneprediction about where SaaS plus
payments will be in five years,what's the headline?
SPEAKER_00 (32:36):
I think the headline is um the best, you know, for a
SaaS company, the best paymentexperience for any of their
consumers is the one they neverever had.
And what I mean by that is theycertainly don't know that they
don't feel like they're havingto do anything really difficult
or hard or different to makethat payment.
It's just as simple as pushing abutton and it just happens for
(32:59):
them as it does through theirentire product offering and
through that entire automationthat they've built for their
customers.
SPEAKER_02 (33:07):
Okay.
Louise, same question for you.
What's the headline?
SPEAKER_01 (33:10):
Yeah, I mean, similar to Peter, um, you know,
pay payments will becomeinvisible, right?
The the SaaS companies willstill, especially vertical SaaS,
focus on their their verticalsand you know, they'll be at a
position to be able to bringpayments in where it's it's not
even questioned.
It's it is invisible to the endconsumer.
They access their wallets asthey normally would for any
(33:33):
other merchant.
Um, and it's it's really justbecomes table stakes for SaaS to
include it at any stage thatthey're at.
SPEAKER_02 (33:42):
Okay.
Well, I think that's a great wayto wrap up the show.
So thank you both for beinghere.
I know your time's veryvaluable, so I really do
appreciate you being on the showtoday.
SPEAKER_00 (33:50):
Thank you, Greg.
We really appreciate the time.
SPEAKER_02 (33:53):
Absolutely.
And to all you listeners outthere, I thank you for your time
as well.
And until the next story.
All right, before I hit stop,are we good?
Thought it was great, by theway.
SPEAKER_00 (34:04):
Yeah, I I think we're good.
Hello and welcome to the Leaders in Payments Podcast.
I'm your host, Greg Myers.
Joining me today are two veryspecial guests from NMI, Peter
Galvin, the Chief MarketingOfficer, and Luis Peña, the
product director of developerexperience.
So thank you both for being hereand welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00 (00:22):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_02 (00:26):
So this episode is part of our Signal series where
we are cutting through the noiseto reveal what truly matters in
payments in FinTech.
Today we're recording part oneof a two-part series focused on
SaaS payments.
The title of today's episode isSaaS is Dead, Long Live SaaS
Plus Payments, a bold statementthat we will be unpacking today.
(00:47):
As the subscription-only SaaSmodel starts fading, today's
winners are building integratedcommerce platforms where
payments drive revenue, loyalty,and expansion.
We will be exploring how SaaS isbeing redefined by payments and
what it means for the nextgeneration of software
companies.
So, Peter, Luis, before we deepdive deep into this, Peter, do
(01:08):
you mind first can you walk usthrough your professional
journey and how you got to NMI?
SPEAKER_00 (01:13):
Sure, I'm happy to.
Thank you very much.
So, yeah, I uh I started out asa product manager actually.
I was um I was very interestedin computer technology.
And uh after graduate school, Idecided I wanted to go and
become a product manager andvery interesting at that time
where you really owned allcomponents of the product from
you know really being uh thefiguring out the specifications
(01:36):
to going all the way to go tomarket.
And product management has kindof changed and expanded over
that time into other areas likeproduct marketing, um, for
example, and and otherdisciplines.
Um, and through that journey, Iwas always interested in uh love
technology.
Um, and then if you kind of fastforward um and look at where I
ended up, um one of the one ofthe big shifts that I did see
(01:59):
was in um software as a service.
So going from client service tosoftware as a service and um
went to work for a companycalled Proofpoint, which was one
of the early um SaaS companiesfor email security.
And they were making thattransition from being a you know
a software company that soldsoftware to a subscription-based
SaaS company.
(02:20):
So those changes were quiteinteresting and exciting.
And so ever since then, I wasalways in uh security and in the
security marketplace as a chiefmarketing officer, um working
with uh a few different types ofSaaS organizations, mostly in
the security space.
And then um one of the lastcompanies I was with, uh, a
company called TALAS, did a lotof work with uh banks and credit
(02:44):
card companies and providedencryption services uh to those
types of uh types of companies,which led me to NMI and to get
more formalized into payments.
So instead of being in themiddle of the infrastructure for
um what I would consider youknow banking and and finding
fintech, uh I got more into theinfrastructure for providing
(03:04):
embedded finance for SaaScompanies.
So it seemed uh for me it's agood fit for both SaaS and for
uh the underlying uh technologyand also uh something new that
uh SaaS companies are trying toachieve.
SPEAKER_02 (03:18):
Okay.
Louis, same question for you, alittle about your professional
journey and how you got to NMI.
SPEAKER_01 (03:24):
Thanks, Rick.
Um yeah, so um I fell in lovewith software actually when I
was eight.
I wrote my first line of codeway back then on uh uh old IBM
machine, no hard drives, uh,dating myself a little bit here.
Um, but I just loved softwareand fell in love with software
way back then.
So um I went to undergrad uhhere in Orange County in
(03:45):
California.
I went to UC Irvine uh forcomputer science and then I
followed up with uh my graduatestudies there in business.
Um while I was in Orange County,I worked for 15 years in the
residential construction uhindustry focused on low voltage
construction, um a lot of firealarm, home security.
Um, and there I was able toautomate a lot of our software
(04:06):
and our processes.
There was a lot of manual thingshappening, a lot of fax
machines, a lot of paperworkthat was very manual.
So uh still able to buildsoftware for uh an industry that
really needed it.
Um, but then was also exposed toa lot of um, you know, SaaS
recurring revenue, especiallywith alarm and uh the reseller
white label branding model,which is very prevalent in the
(04:28):
the home security realm as well.
So um after my 15 years there, Idecided to double down in in
software, uh came to NMI about10 years ago now, joined uh via
one of their gateways, um, andspent nine years in engineering
here at NMI, uh building on anumber of our solutions and just
finishing up my first year inproduct management.
SPEAKER_02 (04:49):
Okay, great.
So, Peter, can you give ouraudience just a quick overview,
high-level overview of what NMIdoes?
SPEAKER_00 (04:56):
Sure.
NMI is a payments acceptanceplatform.
So we help um our partners, andthose partners are could be
independent sales organizations,fintechs, payment professionals,
and especially software and SaaScompanies uh provide payment
infrastructure for their clientsor their merchants.
And so today we have over uh4,000 partners that we work with
(05:19):
and over a million merchantsthat um use our platform to be
able to take a credit cardpayment either uh directly
through some kind of point ofsale system or embedded into uh
software.
And so that is truly what thecompany is able to do.
We do that as a white whitelabel service, which is very
unique in the marketplace.
(05:39):
We also don't go direct tomerchants, we only go through
these uh these partner channelsthat we've developed over time,
who basically build a solutionaround our product offering and
then deliver that solution to umtheir merchants um and work
directly with their merchants.
SPEAKER_02 (05:56):
Okay.
So, Peter, sticking with you,and we've talked about this.
So the subscription-only SaaSmodel is fading and payments are
becoming really a core growthengine for them.
So, what's fundamentallychanging about how modern SaaS
platforms create and capturevalue?
SPEAKER_00 (06:14):
Yeah, I think the challenge that you know SaaS
platforms have always had isthat um they always had to pick
one thing to be able to generaterevenue from.
So, you know, it could be a seatmodel, it could be a full
enterprise model.
And um, they were really limitedin the way that they could
deliver value.
I think the also the otherchange that we're seeing is we
(06:37):
used to see a lot of veryhorizontal platforms that
required a lot of integrationfor different organizations to
be able to integrate thoseplatforms into their um larger
enterprises.
And what's kind of exciting forus is that NMI also, one of the
things that we do is we reallyspecialize and focus on small
and medium-sized businesses andthose partners and software
(06:59):
companies that are um umproviding them services.
And so, what one of the bigchanges that's happened in SaaS
over the last few years isyou've really seen this move to
what we call vertical SaaS andvertical SaaS platforms.
So when you think about avertical SaaS platform, you
know, you have a SaaS providerwho is providing um, you know,
(07:20):
medical software, for example,to a doctor's office or dental
software, or could be a pet vetor for a hair salon or for um
dog boarding.
So there's a number of differentnew smaller vertical software
companies that are coming uminto the business.
And and really what thosesoftware companies have in
(07:40):
common is they're really tryingto help automate all of these
different processes, which wouldbe manual.
So if you think of the old daysof like just a plumber, for
example, you know, you'd have tocall, make an appointment, you
know, somebody would finallyshow up at your house between
eight and five, they deliver youan invoice, um, maybe they get
paid five, you know, paid by acheck, you know, 30 days later.
(08:04):
Um, what these vertical softwarecompanies have done is do this
all this automation.
And that's something, you know,that um Luis was talking about
in when in his earlierexperiences was really
automating that process.
So they've really digitallytransformed these businesses
that um are needed for thesesmall and medium-sized
businesses.
And they start usually with asubscription model that allows
(08:28):
them to provide some set ofservices.
But what they found over time isin any of those businesses,
those vertical B2B services,their consumers also want to
pay.
And so one of the benefits thatwe provide is being able to
embed those services into theirSaaS offering.
And the other part is that bybeing able to provide that
(08:50):
service for that doctor, forexample, to take a payment
through their that softwaresystem, that SaaS company can
also participate in theinterchange and in some of the
revenue that is created throughthat.
So not only are they makingmoney through their SaaS
subscription model, but they'realso able to find additional um
(09:11):
revenue streams throughinterchange.
We're also seeing that one ofthe challenges with small and
medium-sized businesses is thattheir their ability to access
working capital.
And usually if you think ofthis, that this is just one
example, but a lot of times whenthey're trying to access working
capital, there's, you know, theycan either go to their bank,
which could take 30 or 60 daysor even longer, and usually will
(09:33):
be denied.
Um, they may have to put up someserious collateral, like a
house, for example.
Or um they go and they manytimes just use their corporate
credit card, and the interestrates on those can be, you know,
20, 25%.
Um, one of the great thingsabout you know this industry is
because now these um now from aninfrastructure standpoint, you
(09:56):
can see all of the transactionsthat are occurring over the
credit card.
You can now um provide loansthat are very specific to that
um that individual merchant andprovide you know a much better
uh loan, uh better paymentterms.
Payment terms are based on thestreams of revenue that they're
getting from that um from thethat the um that's coming
(10:19):
through the credit cardpayments.
And so that you know, there'sadditional financial services
offerings that can be offered toum these uh their these clients
or merchants through these SaaScompanies from companies like
ourselves.
And so not only is there asubscription model and an
interchange model, but there'salso other fintech models that
(10:41):
um allow the SaaS company tobecome more of a financial
expert for their uh for theirmerchants or their clients.
SPEAKER_02 (10:49):
Okay, great.
So, Luis, over to you as SaaScompanies shift toward this
payments-driven model.
What are the biggest developerconsiderations that they need to
be thinking about sort ofearlier in the process?
SPEAKER_01 (11:04):
Yeah, so uh being that SaaS companies tend not to
be payments experts, they theyreally kind of need to
understand the lay of the landfrom their their processes,
right?
They need to understand that thepartner they're choosing matches
the way that they're developingsoftware themselves.
So um also they need to considerthe ways that the uh platform
(11:24):
will be able to integrate intothat which they've built, um,
and what parts of the journeysthey need to maybe consume
earlier, later, and then maybelike eventually.
There's there's an amount ofeffort related to each piece of
payments that you integrate intoyour software.
So being able to take thoseindependently and match them to
(11:46):
your own product roadmap.
So, for example, um, you need tolook at whether or not you have
no code components or low-codecomponents.
Um, for certain sections thatmaybe are not high frequency,
you maybe do very infrequently.
Maybe if you're boardingmerchants on your software, you
do that one time.
That's not a feature you need tobuild out in its entirety right
(12:06):
from the beginning.
But if payment acceptance andactually processing recurring
payments is something that iscore to your software, that's
something you might want tointegrate more tightly.
So finding a partner who hasthose options to be able to go
as deep or as shallow as youwant in each of the services you
need to bring into your softwareis gonna be very important.
(12:26):
That way you can match yourbuild timeline with your needs
as you uh continue in yourpayments journey and gain your
own experience as a softwaredeveloper with the way that
payments can actually help bringvalue to your organization.
So um additionally, you got tomake sure that you're picking
someone who can, like I said,make software the same way that
(12:48):
you're developing.
So if you're using AI tools, ifyou're using agents, um, making
sure that those agentsunderstand how to integrate that
platform and that it's it'skeeping up with the way that you
are integrating is is reallyimportant to make sure that
you're not finding hurdles orimpediments that you would have
(13:09):
been able to discover early onin the process.
SPEAKER_02 (13:12):
Okay.
Louis, sticking with you, when aSaaS platform evolves into this
more full commerce platform,what integration patterns or
technical building blocks reallybecome essential for supporting
that when they want to scaletheir business?
SPEAKER_01 (13:27):
Yeah.
So as again, they're notnecessarily payment experts.
They need to think about theirsoftware and how they're
incorporating the new journeysfor their merchants into it.
So, um, for example, you need tothink about merchant onboarding,
how they're applying for theseaccounts.
Um, you need to make sure thatyou have a way for them to do
that during your own onboardingprocess, to be able to have this
(13:49):
additional step that's in there.
Um, when you're bringing inpayment acceptance to be able to
have a way to securely get thatcard data, not on your own
system, so that you can stay outof scope from a PCI and a
compliance standpoint.
Um and then be able to managethose merchants, chargebacks and
all of the different things thatcome with the ongoing support.
(14:11):
So these are the areas you needto make sure you have built into
the process.
How deep you go depends on yoursoftware.
Um, additionally, uh when you'rethinking about maintaining your
own brand for the software thatyou've built, you need to be
able to bring in thesecomponents in a way that matches
your design system.
So if if you can apply yourdesign system across that which
(14:34):
you are consuming in a veryubiquitous way, um, it'll help
reduce your development time andit it sets up your platform for
a way to keep consuming theadditional payments products
that come in over time.
Um, to be a little bit moretechnical, you need to make sure
that you can handle uh you knowwebhooks and receiving them and
(14:54):
get the information back fromstatuses as to the way that the
payments journey may occur.
If you're doing ACH, things maynot be as real time as you might
say be in a credit card world.
So you need to make sure thatyou're handling all those
different scenarios and makingsure that you're not just
building for the happy case, butfor all of the exceptions that
(15:15):
are out there too.
And that's where having apartner that can walk you
through that which you don'tknow, not being a payments
expert, is gonna be really keybecause we've we've seen it time
and time again where people willthink that payments is really
straightforward and it can bewith the right partner, but if
you're missing some essentialsteps, you'll you'll be missing
uh a really important customerjourney that's only gonna let
(15:38):
your customers down in the end.
SPEAKER_02 (15:41):
Okay.
So, Peter, back over to you.
NMI works with a wide range ofISVs and vertical SaaS platforms
as we've been talking about.
What separates the softwarecompanies that successfully
embrace payments against thosethat maybe struggle to really
embrace payments?
SPEAKER_00 (15:59):
Well, I think that I think the most important thing
that the ISVs or SaaS companieshave have to think about is
really the merchant experience.
So the client experience is key.
And so back to kind of Lewis'spoint where you know if you're
building a product offering andit payments is a just an add-on
piece that you're gettingsomewhere that doesn't represent
(16:22):
your product, it doesn'trepresent your brand, it doesn't
have the same user experience,um, that's going to be a very
different experience for aclient.
And actually, in many cases, ifyou're taking a client somewhere
else versus embedding it intoyour software platform, those
clients may be very wary of, oh,where am I going?
Especially these days with youknow so so much um opportunity
(16:45):
around fraud.
So I think one of the one of thethings that you know software
companies really need to thinkabout is the ones that are
successful really think abouthow do you truly integrate it
into their overall platforms?
How do they make it part oftheir overall workflow?
How does that workflow end upgetting the um a you know a
(17:06):
client onboarded, both um fortheir software but also for
being able to take payments?
How does that happen?
How does that workflow happenall the way through to their the
end uh end consumer making thatpayment and making sure that
they are working with a partnerwho has has a really good
understanding of paymentsbecause most of these companies
(17:28):
they don't need to be paymentexperts, they're experts in in
building SaaS software, they'reprobably experts in their
particular vertical industry oror horizontal industry, but
payments is a very complicated,has a lot of compliance issues,
has a lot of regulatory issues,and making sure that you're
working with a company that canhelp you make that look seamless
(17:49):
so that the client, their endclient, that end customer
consumer has a has an amazingexperience all the way through.
And basically taking a paymentdoesn't feel any different than
anything else that they're doingon the platform is the way that
the mo that strategically allowssoftware companies to be the
most successful.
SPEAKER_02 (18:09):
Okay, I think that's a good segue into the next
question, sticking with you,Peter.
Um, you know, payments createsuh obviously a stickier, more
valuable relationship with theirend users.
How do you see embedded paymentsimpacting their churn, them
being able to expand, and theiroverall customer loyalty?
SPEAKER_00 (18:29):
Yeah, well, I think that's you know, it's back to as
you it's back to really customerexperience.
And I would say that that is acornerstone of of any kind of
product offering, is that boththe the partner or the SaaS
company in this case and the canthe end consumer have to have a
great experience.
And so having and also if you'reproviding a full service type of
(18:54):
platform, you know, you don'twant to just, for example, as a
software company provide onecomponent.
You want to provide as manycomponents as possible because
it makes it much harder forsomeone to switch, right?
If I'm a if I'm a if I'm a SaaScompany that has to integrate
with four or five differentthings to make everything work
together, and then my my my endclient has to go to three or
(19:15):
four very different lookinginterfaces, that's a bad
experience for that particularclient.
So the way that you knowpayments by in integrating and
embedding payments and alsointegrating and embedding other
fintech products provides thatyou know great consumer
experience all the way through.
(19:36):
And by having that greatexperience, then you know that
those SaaS partners that uhthose that are of ours aren't
gonna want to change from ourplatform as well as their
consumers aren't gonna want tomove to another platform because
of this the feature sets that ithas, the ease of use that it
has, the consistent experiencethat they're feeling.
(19:56):
And it allows those SaaScompanies to be much more
competitive.
And so when you at the end ofthe day, embedding payments, you
being able to use their ownbrand and not having a consumer
have to worry about is thisgoing to be a fraud issue?
Is this a challenge for me toactually put my payment
(20:17):
information in there?
Um is going to help them win andkeep more customers.
And if you think about certainkind of capabilities, you know,
there are certain businessesthat you want to be able to, you
know, if you think aboutsoftware companies that provide
gym memberships, right?
They really want to be able togo and be able to put my card,
(20:37):
give them my credit card, andthen just take my payment every
month.
And there's a lot of systemslike that where I don't want to
have to be able to go through aprocess where I have to
continually re-key in my creditcard information as a consumer,
but I can safely give my creditcard information to that, you
know, that dentist, that doctor,that hair salon.
(21:01):
And whenever I go there, theyjust automatically take that
payment and I can feel secureenough that they have my credit
card data, it's going to beprotected, it's going to be
valuable, and I never feel likeI've ever had to really make a
payment, and it's much morefrictionless.
SPEAKER_02 (21:18):
Okay.
So, Luis, over to you.
A lot of software leadersunderestimate the data story
behind payments.
So, what new insights becomepossible when SaaS platforms
control both the software andthe commerce flow?
SPEAKER_01 (21:33):
Yeah, that's a great question, Greg.
So, yeah, once a softwareplatform decides to be able to
monetize payments as opposed tohave a very like arm's length
relationship with it, um,there's there's a lot more that
becomes available to them.
Obviously, they can see um thebasic data that comes through,
they can see the volume, thetrends, they can you know
understand how their consumersare using their system.
(21:55):
But um, once they're monetizingpayments, there's different bits
of information that actuallybecome more important to them
than they would have otherwise.
So, for example, being able tooptimize for interchange becomes
very important.
And having the data tounderstand what types of cards
are being used on your platform,which ones cost you more, which
(22:15):
ones don't, if you want to tryto drive consumers towards the
use of certain cards to be ableto actually affect your bottom
line through interchangeoptimization, um, where you end
up with um higher rates ifyou're in recurring, if you
could improve those through someother additional tooling, um,
whether it's networktokenization or other
(22:35):
interchange optimizationproducts that are out there.
Um, and then additionally, asPeter was referencing before,
you you have data to be able tooffer and cross-sell products to
your merchant base.
So um being able to give themworking capital, um, being able
to see the volume that's comingthrough and understand that you
now are in a position to becomethat partner for your merchants.
(22:56):
You're not just a softwarethat's providing the the one
thing that you built, which isobviously very important, but
you are also now their theirpayments partner and that you
can provide them additionalservices that help them monetize
their own use of your system inaddition to um ensuring that you
are a full ecosystem for them.
(23:17):
Um so there's a lot of data, alot of cross-all that's
available.
Um you you'll be able to getaccess to data feeds with a lot
of partners so that you can dothis yourself, or you can rely
on the partner to provide thoseinsights for you.
Um, and then being able tobenchmark there's there's a lot
of data that helps youunderstand the health of your
(23:38):
business compared to otherswithin that same type of
industry or stage where you'reat, whether or not you're you
know, pre-seed or seed or seriesA, or if you're a more mature
company, there's there's a lotof data out there as to how
those companies can perform,especially when they're
integrating payments and howyou're benchmarking towards them
to give you insight as to howyou can better optimize your use
(23:58):
of payments as well.
So um it opens up a lot to beable to bring it in-house and
not have it be kind of like anarm's length relationship with
the third-party provider.
You you really want a partner toget you those insights to help
you um make your business moreefficient as well.
SPEAKER_02 (24:14):
Okay.
So, Louis, sticking with you,we've talked about sort of the
end user or customer experience.
Let's talk about the developerexperience because it's becoming
or is a strategic differentiatorfor some payments partners.
So, what ultimately makes aplatform developer friendly in a
way that really accelerates thatadoption for these SaaS
(24:35):
companies?
SPEAKER_01 (24:36):
Yeah, this is this is my favorite topic.
So, so thank you for thisquestion.
Um, you know, there's a lotthat's in here.
Um, it's not just about buildingAPIs and a software that that's
kind of table stakes at thispoint.
But um, as I mentioned before,it's really understanding how
developers build their softwareand then would integrate
payments into their stack.
So there's a lot of things tolook out for and a lot of things
(24:59):
that are now expected when youare working with developing or
integrating any type of softwarevendor out there.
So um, first is just their theirability to provide their service
in a multiple of different ways.
Um, whether or not you integratethem in a no code if you're just
doing a proof of concept.
Um, there's multiple stages insoftware development.
(25:21):
And sometimes you just need toprove an idea out.
So being able to bring in nocode or maybe very low-code,
lightweight options to get a POCout, to test some things, to be
able to maybe do some A-Btesting in a prep platform.
It's important that you don'tnecessarily need to go all in
and do a full build.
Um, while you're developing,having a sandbox available is
(25:42):
very crucial so that you have asafe place to test, safe place
to make errors, um, and that youhave developer guides and test
suites that really help youunderstand what all the
scenarios are that you need toreally deal with.
I alluded to it earlier that youdon't necessarily need to always
develop for the best case happypath, but robust and very
(26:07):
well-developed software thatgives a good customer experience
handles all of those exceptionsvery well.
They understand where thingsmight go wrong.
They understand that if atransaction's taking a lot of
time, it'll take give you aspinner and it'll let you know,
hey, like we're stillprocessing, don't refresh or or
or or um abandon this thistransaction.
(26:28):
Um, being able to handledeclines and prompt for another
payment, being able to handle umall of those different
exceptions and having testsuites that walk you through
those and a sandbox that cansimulate all of those exceptions
as well.
So you can test those in yourown software so that you're not
just building in in theory, butyou have a way to go through
(26:49):
each of those.
You can trigger error responses,you can trigger declines, you
can trigger um transactions thatmay take a long time, you can
simulate a lot of the bad casesso that your software is robust.
So um having those test suitesavailable in all of those test
scenarios is also reallyimportant from a developer
(27:10):
standpoint because that givesyou confidence that you are
building a robust, a robustintegration to a payments
provider.
Um, and then additionally, thesystems that give you feedback,
especially in that sandboxenvironment, where you can see
the calls that you've made tothe platform and you can
understand where you might havemissed something, you can get
(27:32):
guidance as to an error codethat you got and what was
missing so that you know how tocorrect it is is also kind of
really important.
So you get that live feedbackfrom the system as you're
constantly developing anditerating.
Um, and then finally, as Imentioned, just meeting people
where they are these days,making sure that your IDE that
(27:52):
is uh powered via AI is able tounderstand the documentation for
this uh this software platformand be able to properly
implement what you're trying todo.
Um you know, these developersagain, they're they might be new
to payments and they're going torely on the thoroughness of this
(28:15):
documentation and how well theAI agents they're using to help
them build their own softwarecan consume this documentation.
So um, you know, that I can goon into details about MCP
servers and and all thesedifferent types of components
that are out there, but it'sit's really just making sure
that the they're keeping up andthat they are really working
(28:37):
with you and feel as cuttingedge as you probably are as a
software developer.
You're building something veryimportant and very interesting
that is serving a need.
And those who you bring alonginto your own software need to
feel like partners who are doingthe same, that are on that same
level with you, iterating,building, keeping up with what's
the latest, and making sure thatthey're not creating a jarring
(29:00):
experience for your customersbecause that's important for you
to develop that cohesiveexperience for what you're
building.
And the partnerships you buildare very important to making
sure you deliver that thatcohesive experience.
So um, you know, I I again I cango on and on about what is what
is out there that makes a gooddeveloper experience.
(29:20):
Um, but I'm I'm listening tofolks all the time.
I'm hearing phone calls and justkind of getting all the
insights, and we'll we'll turnthings around pretty quick, but
I'm excited to see where thingsgo.
SPEAKER_02 (29:32):
Okay.
So, Peter, some SaaS founderstreat payments as a feature.
We've kind of talked about that.
Others see it as a strategicgrowth engine.
How should these SaaS foundersbe kind of reframing their
thinking from feature to growthengine?
SPEAKER_00 (29:48):
Yeah, and I think the I think that comes a lot
from the lack of knowledgearound payments.
You know, payments is acomplicated subject.
It's but you know, it'sdifficult to understand.
I think, I think there are somepeople that are um in the early
stages are very naive about whatdoes it really take to take a
credit card payment.
As a consumer, it seems like avery easy, simple process, which
(30:08):
is is designed to be.
But in the background, there'snot you know hundreds of things
going on to make sure paymentsget accepted, there isn't fraud,
pay, you know, people get paidand both sides get paid, and one
pays the other.
Um, so I think there has beenthe start, that was the starting
point for a lot of these, um, alot of these early founders.
(30:31):
But it truly is a strategicgrowth engine.
It truly is another componentthat they want to have within
their software stack, and theyneed to really think about, go
back and think about what istheir customer journey?
How is their customer take goingthrough the and using their
software all the way to the end?
And at some point in thatjourney, the customer, the
(30:53):
consumer is going to want tomake a payment.
And how do they make thatpayment as frictionless as
possible, as easy as possible,with the same experience that
impacts their brand, right?
And so, again, when you thinkabout consumers and how they
think, they think about brands,they think about companies
they're they they use and workwith every day.
(31:14):
And so having that same greatconsumer experience is
foundational for any kind ofgrowth for these SaaS companies
because they're the people thatthe companies that are figuring
it out, and I think many, manymore founders and many, many
more SaaS um folks are areunderstanding payments a lot
(31:35):
better than they ever hadbefore, and they understand the
strategic importance of it.
They just don't understand howto go about and doing it.
And so that's where otherpartners like ourselves come in
to really give them theinfrastructure and give them the
platform to be able to make thata strategic growth driver for
them to become more successful.
(31:56):
And so I really think theyshould rethink the reframing is
this is another part of whatshould just be a part of your
overall SaaS system that you'redeveloping.
Because at some point, someone'sgonna need to take a payment and
pay for something.
And you, as a SaaS provider,want to be in the middle of that
process and you wanted to makeit make sure that it feels like
(32:20):
part of your brand and part ofyour experience.
SPEAKER_02 (32:24):
Okay, so final question for both of you, and
Peter will stick with you.
If you had to make oneprediction about where SaaS plus
payments will be in five years,what's the headline?
SPEAKER_00 (32:36):
I think the headline is um the best, you know, for a
SaaS company, the best paymentexperience for any of their
consumers is the one they neverever had.
And what I mean by that is theycertainly don't know that they
don't feel like they're havingto do anything really difficult
or hard or different to makethat payment.
It's just as simple as pushing abutton and it just happens for
(32:59):
them as it does through theirentire product offering and
through that entire automationthat they've built for their
customers.
SPEAKER_02 (33:07):
Okay.
Louise, same question for you.
What's the headline?
SPEAKER_01 (33:10):
Yeah, I mean, similar to Peter, um, you know,
pay payments will becomeinvisible, right?
The the SaaS companies willstill, especially vertical SaaS,
focus on their their verticalsand you know, they'll be at a
position to be able to bringpayments in where it's it's not
even questioned.
It's it is invisible to the endconsumer.
They access their wallets asthey normally would for any
(33:33):
other merchant.
Um, and it's it's really justbecomes table stakes for SaaS to
include it at any stage thatthey're at.
SPEAKER_02 (33:42):
Okay.
Well, I think that's a great wayto wrap up the show.
So thank you both for beinghere.
I know your time's veryvaluable, so I really do
appreciate you being on the showtoday.
SPEAKER_00 (33:50):
Thank you, Greg.
We really appreciate the time.
SPEAKER_02 (33:53):
Absolutely.
And to all you listeners outthere, I thank you for your time
as well.
And until the next story.
All right, before I hit stop,are we good?
Thought it was great, by theway.
SPEAKER_00 (34:04):
Yeah, I I think we're good.
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