October 16, 2024 • 27 mins
Charlie Youakim is a serial technology entrepreneur with over a decade of experience driving fintech companies to success. He is the Co-founder, Executive Chairman, and CEO of Sezzle, a leading Buy Now. Pay Later platform that empowers consumers to gain financial freedom. Previously, he founded Passport, a pioneering software and payments service that transformed the transportation industry.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Twin Cities CEO you should know, powered by iHeartMedia.
It's CEOs you should know. I'm Adam West and Charlie
Yukim from CESEL. Welcome, thanks for having me tell me
a little bit about CESEL.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Sesel's what people call a buy now, pay later company,
but maybe a simpler way to think about it, as
I think of paying for interest free from a consumer's perspective,
almost like reverse layaway. So you're buying something for like
one hundred dollars, some jeans, and you just want to
budget over your next paychecks, so you pay twenty five
dollars today, two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, all interest free.
(00:36):
That's the product, and we're basically an online payment method,
sort of like a PayPal. Okay, I hear people say
like bnpl So yeah, that's okay, that's a BNPLS.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Perfect. Charlie. What's your background?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Well, my background engineer by education, but software developer right
out of school. Did that for about seven years, then
went to business school and I absolutely loved it. It
was a great time period for me. I had a
lot of fun, learned a lot and then right after that,
I've always thought about starting a business. Always had the
(01:08):
idea of being an entrepreneur, but knew no one that
had ever done it before. And it was actually a
global financial crisis two thousand and eight twenty ten. Couldn't
could it even get a job. So it's kind of
like the time to get into entrepreneurship. And that's when
I started my first company, a company called Passport.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Did you feel like you were built for that, like entrepreneurship,
because yeah, now I feel like I am, you know,
but at the time I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
At that time, I knew I kind of just wanted
to try it, and I was like, why not. Can't
get a job? Like had an idea, talked to my
cousin about it. He wanted to do it, and we
just kind of dove in.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
But why why says it? Why why the BNPL?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Well, it all kind of probably started with my prior company, Passport.
So Passport we did mobile payment apps for parking. We
actually did the we do the parking in Saint Paul's, Yes,
the Passport branded app, but we did white label like
park Chicago, Park Boston. So I learned how to build
pay a company, you know, from scratch basically, and then
we did that for five years and then I just
(02:02):
wanted to go after something bigger. I kind of viewed
parking as like, you know, I don't have you guys
seen like way more cars, like automation.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Of vehicles, yeah, and Phoenix and stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, so I kind of viewed like, maybe there's an
end to parking because of your car can just keep
on driving. Oh, you know, parking might be ending. So like,
let's try to stand payments, but go after something bigger.
And that's when I reached out to my co founder,
who I'm to business school with, Paul Paradis, and I said, hey,
you want to try something in payments but in retail,
And that's where it really got started. We didn't have
(02:30):
the right idea to start, but that's where the business started.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
That parking app is Suite. You know, it's changed the
game considerably, right because you don't have to worry as
much about totally. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Actually, I remember when we first went to Boston, so
we did park Boston. When we first went to Boston,
the guys that were touring us around in their cup
holders were just stacks of quarters. That was their parking
system in Boston. It was just stacks of quarters and
then when we did park Boston people, I just loved it. Yeah,
so changed the game.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah you save those for your laundry, I guess. Yeah.
So how is how's the BNPL space or how has
SEESYL changed since you started?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Well, when we first started, we had the wrong idea.
We were trying to do a different type of retail
payment at checkout, and then we saw fine ol pay
later taking off in Australia. There was a company called
after Pay just going wildfire, and I had gone to
Australia or Passport to see if that might be a
good market for US. So I kind of learned a
little bit about Australia and I kind of viewed it
(03:26):
as a USA South and we were talking about it internally.
It was like, if this is taking off, this bind
now pay later payment method for retail, it's taking off
in Australia, there's a damn good chance to go work
in the US. And so we adapted our model to
launch that we launched in August twenty seventeen, and it
was a rocket. I had a prior company to compare
(03:48):
it two. So I was telling the team like, this
is like something I've never seen it like this before.
And then it just that space took our business took off,
Competitors jumped in like wildfire.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
And it's just been a wild ride, absolutely wild. Why
do you think that is because it's not new, although
might be new to some people, right, why is that? Well,
buy not pay later, you know, layaway is not new. Yeah,
so lay away.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
You know, it's funny. When we launched the company, I
told my mom about it and she's like, we used
layaway for you guys, and so I was like, I
was like, what do you think of it?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
She's like, thumbs up.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So I got to endorse from from my mom and
I was like, oh, it makes you feel good about
the business. So people have been familiar with layaway, but
Layoway had its challenges and that merchants didn't want to
store away products and wait for people to come back and.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Cost of inventory right yeah yeah, and customers didn't want
to wait. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
So it's basically almost like an innovation on layaway that
a lot of people get the product up front.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Merchants didn't have to deal with it.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
We basically gave the money upfront to the merchant, they
had their sale, and then we just collected the payments
from the consumer. So that was like the innovation in
that kind of product. And then we also realized that
there was a niche that we were developing within payments
where a lot of people didn't want to pay with
credit cards.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
They had them.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So like our early user, they are actually users today
same that are the same, Like seventy percent have a
credit card, but they pay us back with debit with
their debit cards, so they actually just kind of park
the credit card.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
They don't want to use it.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
They would have not made the checkout otherwise, and then
when they saw the option to finance interest free at
the checkout, they chose to use Sezel. Otherwise they would
have just waited and not used their credit card. So
it's basically like a hybrid between like a debit card
credit card product. That's kind of driving a wedge in
there right now.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Is the cost for the retailers it cheaper than the
credit card?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
No, it's it tends to be more. So that's so
the pitch the retailer would be, hey, you're paying like
three percent for payment processing, worth three percent more we
cover your payment processing, So what's six percent? But for
that three percent more you get increased conversions, increased sales,
increased basket sizes, and it was so obvious. I mean,
(05:52):
we were selling to the small to medium sized businesses,
so these guys were not as sophisticated as like the
targets of the world. They weren't doing A B tests,
they didn't need to do a B tests. It was
that dramatic wow, like how much you help themself? How
do you differentiate yourself from other bnpls. Well, we've been
evolving that over time. So early on we're basically the
(06:14):
winners with the merchants that were smaller, Like we were
fantastic at this like smaller merchant getting them on board
with a lot of ease. On the consumer side, we're
the only player in the space that offers credit reporting.
So we have a product called sesl up where if
you sign up for sesel you're not forced to be
in it, but after you sign up, we'll market sesl
(06:36):
up to you and say it's free if you want
to join, we'll start reporting your payments to the bureaus
and you can help build your credit score. Okay, yeah, yeah,
we're the only ones that do it, which I'm probably
that we're the only ones to do it. I'm glad
we have that differentiation, and I'll tell you why. One
of the reasons fifteen percent of the consumers it tends
to be a young consumer. Fifteen percent of the consumers
(06:57):
that sign up with us don't have a credit score.
So we really view it as like hitting our mission
and doing nothing nothing wow, no hit. They call it
no hit in the industry, no credit score, And so
we kind of viewed it as like along our mission.
Our mission is financially empowering the next generation. It's hitting
our mission giving these people a chance to build their
credit score up and enter their credit arena.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So you have it. Do you have an approval process
or how does that work? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So when you sign up through a merchant, is the
typical sign up path. You'd be going through your checkout.
You saw sesyl on the product page, so that you know,
pair of jeens you were looking at it said oh yeah,
or for interest free payments of twenty five dollars with
seesl Okay, and then you can click on that little
ad and find out more. And then at that point
the customers like I want to use Seesel, then they
(07:41):
look for us in the checkout, so they've already filled
in their information. They look for us in the checkout
like they kind of like they see PayPal in the checkout,
they sign up with us there. The merchant passes us
a lot of the information about the customer to speed
up the first time checkout, and then we'll ask for
things like your phone number if we didn't alader to get
it at, your email address, and your social security Now
(08:03):
it's basically regulatory requirement at this point, and then we
do a you know, basic like mostly fraud checks quite frankly,
but we do some credit checks, but mostly fraud checks,
just to make sure that you are who you say
you are.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Sure. Are there other benefits We touched on this a
little bit. Are there other benefits to using sesel Well, you.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Know, one of the main benefits early on for a
lot of consumers was well, a new payment method. But
then they would download our app and they would use
our app almost like a digital mall to find more
places online to shop with sesyl. Wow, And so it's
like a bit of a discovery like almost like you're
walking through digitally through a mall of America a club. Yeah,
where else can I use this? What other stores are
(08:44):
out there.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
What have you had challenges at all in rolling this out?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Well, it's been a whild ride. I mean, definitely challenges.
So I would say one of the challenges we've had
is competition. So you know, we had basically built the
company right through a tech boom, and so when we
launched that company I mentioned in Australia after pay they
were a public company. They had a two billion dollar valuation.
(09:10):
We were a twenty five million dollar company. We knew
they were coming, so we had like basically behem this,
So what that was one coming after pay Klarna from
Europe had a pretty large valuation. They were coming into
the space. There's a company called a firm who's one
of the founders of PayPal.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Found of that company was in our space. So we
had a.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Lot of big companies kind of diving in a lot
of competition.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
We did really well through it.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
But I'll tell you what I mean, I kind of
vised as playing in the big leagues all of a sudden,
is like my last company kind of felt like the
minor leagues. This company felt like we're in the pros.
And we went through a lot of competition, and then
we went through like that. You know, there's a tech
crash that occurred. Give an idea how that hit us.
At one point in our public company valuation, we were
at like a one point five billion dollar valuation. We
(09:58):
went all the way down the thirty eight million. Oh
and now we're back up at a billion, which is awesome,
that's great.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
High fives.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Actually it was yesterday, so the team was all celebrating about,
you know, getting back over that mark.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
But that's a that's a roller coaster. Wow. Do you
feel like you kind of grease the way for those
companies to feel better about being here in the States
or I think it helped. Yeah, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
We were the first to launch, so they got a
chance to take a look at us and look at
some of the other early entrants, but we were the
first entrant, so people took a look at it. I mean,
even Apple entered the space. Apple launched a buy out
pay later product, but then they pulled out right away.
PayPal has one, so there are a lot of big
players in the space, which actually makes me really proud
of our team. Yeah, we've done a great job basically
(10:42):
competing against really powerful companies and really carving out our niche.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Oh, good for you. I mean who wants competition, but
that that has to feel pretty rewarding totally.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
You know, actually a lot I think a lot of
entrepreneurs try to avoid competition. And I always one of
my early kind of recommendations entrepreneurs is, don't try to
invent something, just kind of join a space where things
are working, because competition, Quite frankly, it's kind of fun,
you know, as long as it doesn't get too crazy,
which we had we had a little bit crazy going on,
But it can be kind of fun because it gets
you up in the morning, like how can you beat them?
(11:12):
How can you out maneuver them? I'll strategize them.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Well, again, we talked about this a little bit, but
more like in the early days, I mean, go roll
back the clock to you know, whenever, what were some
of the biggest challenges that you had or times where
you thought this might not make it or maybe you
always felt like you'd make it.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Well, you know, I'll tell you, Like people realize it's
about starting companies early on. You have to sell everyone
on the business. I mean, you have to sell companies
you're paying so like you have a supplier, like hey,
we're worth your time. Yeah, yeah, you should please talk
to us. We want to use your product. Can we
pay you? You know that's unusual, right, Yeah, but when
you're at that stage, you have to sell new employees,
(11:50):
you have to sell suppliers, you have to sell partners
on your business. So that's always a challenge, kind of
get the getting out of the gate challenge. Our business
in particular, there's another challenge because there's a there's a
lot of money flowing through the business. Yeah, we're lending,
so you know, we're not just scaling a company. We
also have to borrow money from a third party to
(12:13):
use that to fund the loans that we're giving out
to consumers.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
That's challenging. So a lot of people early on were like, oh,
buy not.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Pay later, has low barriers to entry. I was always like,
why don't you try it? I don't think this is
this is my second company. Yeah, it's not an easy
company to scale up.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Say, if you want to take a big risk, yeah,
then you could let anybody in, right yeah, but yeah,
which we don't. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
But so getting the lending facility for our company that's
a challenge. And then just like you know, convincing the
team that you know, continue with the momentum. That's always
a continued challenge in terms of just scaling up a
business and innovating and making the right choices.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Speaking of team, I didn't know this. You have a
partnership with the Timerles Miniso Timberroles. How did you? How
did that come to be?
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Actually, that's been a long while on your road. So
Paul parrotis my co founder. His first job out of
school was actually in sales at the Timberwolves. Oh wow,
which is kind of funny because he knows a lot
of people at the Timberwolves built today. So they knew
of us because we had founded the company in twenty
sixteen and we had scaled up pretty fast. Actually were
(13:20):
we were at that like one point five billion valuation
in twenty nineteen I think or twenty twenty, Ok, so
we got pretty high pretty fast, So they were aware
of us. They were already kind of talking to us
about the patch sponsorship at that time. It didn't really
make sense for us because we're still kind of scaling
the business up, but they stayed in touch. So Paul
stayed in touch with Dave king over at the Timberwolves,
(13:41):
who manages that patch, and they got on golf and
et cetera. Just stayed in touch and then our business
started to bay. We've basically started to improve a lot
of the business aspects. You know, we were at that
market cap going all the way down to thirty eight million.
We had to reconfigure the business and build things up,
and as we're doing it, the timing was just perfect.
(14:02):
So they David reached out to Paul again. They started chatting.
We were starting to really do great things with profitability
as a company and scaling the business up, and we
just thought it was perfect time because we wanted to
get more awareness for our product. If you look at
the byopaylator space, we're probably like number five in terms
of size, which doesn't worry me that my last company
(14:23):
we were last place. I think we overtook everyone and
became first over that time period. I think we can
do the same thing. But you have to make the
right calls at the right time, and so we've been
kind of quiet. But now we've got this. You know,
I give this analogy of like a lemonade stand, Like
we've got this lemonade stand that's just the best lemonade
on the block and now we want to make noise.
And the timing of the Timberwolves patch expiring with their
(14:46):
prior partner and this coming up with us trying to
make noise was perfect. And even though I'm a huge
Timberwolves fan, even though Paul's a huge Timberwolves fan, we
weren't making the decision to partner with the Timberwolves because
of that. We were making the decision because that organization
is a rocket ship right now. Yeah, and we kind
of view it as just perfect time. Timing was perfect.
(15:09):
We wanted the exposure. They're a team on the rise.
I mean, they went from like eight national TV games
to twenty six this year. They got Anthony Edwards, who's
like just everyone's favorite in a the NBA. So we
just love the timing.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
And just to be clear, when you say patch, I
mean you're saying the like what you see on the uniforms,
that's the deal, what you see on the uniforms. And
we just you know, there's awareness for us on a
lot of fronts. One is with.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Consumers because there's you know, worth fifth place and sort
of like the exposure and consumers.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
With buying not pay later.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
He's saying fifth place so worldwide in North America in
our space, you know, So we want to make sure
more consumers are aware of us merchants, so we partner
with merchants so them being awarenes of our product. And
then even just like investors because we're a public listed company,
just exposure to the brand, like this company, I've noticed
them now and so like even that helps you.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
And for you and everybody who works for you. I mean,
that must feel really good to see that, right, absolutely,
I mean that's kind of a hidden one. Like the
team just felt like they've worked hard over the last
two and a half three years to really get the
company in great shape. And I think it was a
big high five movement for a lot of people in
the company.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Especially this is our headquarters. Minneapolis is our headquarters, so
to have it be the Timberwolves, I think pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
That's awesome. Congratulations on that being here in Minneapolis. How
do you guys, what do you guys do in the community,
How do you affect the community?
Speaker 2 (16:31):
You know, I think that's probably you know, one area
we were working with working at the University of Minnesota
on scholarships and such. So that's one area we've been
working on things with working in the community. We had
to peel some things back when we were there was
a big profitability run for us. You know when I
mentioned that market cap swing from one point five to
thirty eight million, Yeah, we were burning cash like crazy.
(16:52):
So there's a time period there where we were tightening
the belts, yeah, and not spending anywhere. So we were
doing a lot more with the community probably three years ago.
Had to tighten our belts and basically get back to
building the baseline of the business. And then now I
think we're getting back to that space. This is where
the Timberwolves kind of played in. But you know, now,
what else can we do on the community side? I
(17:15):
think outside of Minneapolis as a community where I think
we do a great job with just community in general
is our product. Our product gives consumers across the United States,
you know, like large scale community access to credit. Because
if you look at what we do, we are average
fight Go score. I'm not sure people the listeners know
fight Go scores but as well as we do. But
(17:37):
six we have like an average fight Go score of
like six oh five. So these consumers in many ways
lack access to credit and to capital, and so we
I think in many ways our product helps young new
to credit, lower credit scores get access to capital. So
that's always just kind of behind the scenes. We feel
that we're really helping a lot of community across the
(18:00):
get access to a credit product. And do they I mean,
the thought is for them to stay with you for
a long time, right, I mean, even after they build up.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Credit a little bit. I would imagine absolutely.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I think naturally a lot of consumers don't like to
use credit cards. That's when I think about, like who
we're competing against. Of course, we have our players that
we compete against in our space, but when we really
think about who we're competing against, it's credit cards. And
you know, I always give this example in the holidays
because I think it really speaks to what our product
(18:31):
buy Now, pay Leader and paying Forward does for consumers
versus a credit card in the whole. We actually just
had a meeting about this today. In the holiday periods,
we tend to tighten up. We put up the barricades
because we don't want customers to overspend. See the way
our business works, we don't make money on consumers when
they build up a balance and can't pay it back. Yeah,
(18:52):
and spend it and revolve and pay you thirty six
percent APR every month. Yeah, that's the credit card industry.
So if you overspend in the holidays, I think they
call it a win because you're a revolver for the
next five years.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
That feels icky, doesn't it. It's definitely definitely our business.
If you overspend in the holidays, we've got a problem
because the way that business works is if you don't
aren't able to make a payment to us on your
payment plan, we stop you. We don't let you make
the next order.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
So awesome.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah, So it's basically I think one hundred percent alignment
with repayment with the customers. So, you know, I think
that's a big differentiator that a lot of people don't
know about, that we are a better option than a
credit card for these consumers.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Do you guys only have an app or do you
have a physical card as well?
Speaker 2 (19:40):
We only have a virtual card. We have a card,
but it's virtual, gotcha. It's this new age now where
we've just chosen not to ship a card. Like customers
loaded into their Apple wallet, into their Google wallet from
our app. So you download our app, you sign up
for you know, maybe one of our subscription products where
you can use Fine not Payler or anywhere. You get
avirtual card and you just push it to your Apple Wallet.
(20:03):
And we've had some requests for consumers, can you ship
me a card? We haven't done it yet. Yeah, probably will,
but it just seems like, I don't know if you
guys use Apple pay, Google Pay.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
I don't use any cards anymore. Really, Yes, it's so convenient.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I don't even bring my wallets sometimes I just have
my mobile phone. Yeah, I do it myself and I'll
just walk up, grab coffee and just tap my phone.
And I think our consumer's kind of feeling about it
the same way. And if you don't have to deal
with shipping cards and envelopes or whatever, win win. So
we've kind of stuck in the virtual realm. But people
do get a card just virtual.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Yeah, you probably see a little better in real time
what you're doing, and you know, as far as debt
or what they owe you or whatever. Totally it's all digital. Yeah,
the product is all digital. So we talked about what
you do in the community. Do you have charity partners
this time?
Speaker 2 (20:48):
We do not that you know, we have charity matching
in the company. Okay, you know, so like you know,
if people want to, but there's no specific charity that sazl.
I'm not a big believer in like creating like a
corporate focus on a specific charity. So what we do
in the company is when you donate to a charity,
we'll match and that way we let the team kind
(21:09):
of pick their charities and we contribute.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
So in the your entrepreneur obviously we talked about that,
you got a lot of experience. If somebody came to
it to you for advice to start up a similar company,
hopefully not another BNPL, but something in that space, what
advice would you give them?
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Well, I wouldn't advise in fintech at the moment, not
because I'm trying to reduce competition in my space, but
actually just because there's been a big, like seed change
in terms of investment, because fintech just took off like
a rocket pre COVID, and then during COVID it took
off even further, and then now there's like just I
would say, a ton of regulatory pressure. The pendulums like
(21:52):
kind of swung the other way. A lot of companies
that we're doing you know, maybe some things that we're
probably not so right, you know, kind of a bad
name for things in fintech, and that's kind of killed funding.
But generally when I talk to entrepreneurs, because I don't
think you just have to stick to fintech, you know,
I actually love the idea of doing different kind of
companies in the future too. But what I tend to
(22:13):
tell entrepreneurs is, don't think you have to invent something,
because I think a lot of people think I've got
to invent something new like Uber or Airbnb, something no
one's ever done before. I tend to think that business
is just fun. The hardest part of starting a company
is finding product market fit replicate in many ways, just
(22:34):
watch what's taking off, maybe in another country, maybe in
the US. If you see something starting to take off
and you think it's interesting, latch on because the most
fun part is actually the scaling and that there's still
trust me, there's still tons and tons of challenges in
building a business. But if you can remove ninety eight
percent of the problems at the start, which is your
(22:55):
product may not even sell, get rid of it. Just
find something working and do it.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Can you differentiate just a little bit absolutely, Yeah, that's
that's what you would do.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Over time, you try to find your niche so launch,
you know, almost like cut the corner, find out what's working,
cut the corner, get to that point as fast as
you can, and then now listens to the customers, listening
to the stakeholders. What can I adapt, what can I add,
what can I change to maybe get an edge? And
that's what I would do.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah. Well, yeah, you mentioned ride sharing and that's you know,
that's probably a good example of differentiating, right yeah, totally
kind of different, but still a little bit the same. Yeah. Yeah.
Long term for Sezel, what are your goals? What do
you want to do?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Well, we want to win, I'll tell you that's one
of our One of our core values in the company
is being driven to succeed and we got a lot
of people in the company that like to win, so
we want to take over and win the space. In
terms of what we want to do for consumers and merchants,
our focus right now, over the last two years has
been basically building out, find out, pay later, like all
(23:58):
the options of it. Now we're going to be focusing
on shopping because consumers really think about it as a
shopping product too, So like you know, features you might
see in honey, like the honey products of old that on,
like chrome as an extension, we want to pull lot
of those features into our app so that you can
use them on a hole because I don't know if
people realize this. People used to shop on laptops and desktops.
(24:23):
Now in our business, ninety percent of the shopping is done.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
On a mobile phone.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
And if you're on a mobile phone, those products don't exist,
like coupon, yeah, compare price comparison tools. So we're going
to add a lot of those features into our app
to really you know, create a great ecosystem, provide a
lot more value to our shoppers in terms of what
they can use, and then just keep on building. So
buy now, pay later. It's early days. I think we're
going to keep on eating into the credit card space
(24:52):
and and so we're kind of just riding this wave.
And as we're riding the wave, we're kind of trying
to like, you know, push our elbows out a little
bit to in.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Against the competitors.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
At the same time, but then these innovative new features, Yeah,
like we were talking about just what else can you
do that might be innovative or different or differentiate yourself
to continue to grow.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
How far down the road do you see that all
that happening, like five years, ten years, Where do you
see yourself? Then?
Speaker 2 (25:15):
I think it's probably we always I think in five
year kind of timelines. Okay, so I think this is
like the next five years is the space is growing,
We're trying to gain space in the space. And then
this innovation with shopping and shopping feature set, that's probably
the next five.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Years for us. Where do people start with sesyl? Just
top online? What's the best way to app store? Yeah,
if you want to go to our website sesel dot com.
But I think people tend to interact to us with
us first in the app stores. Now, okay, so they
just download the apps, sign up, check out all the
places you can shop with us, check out, paying for
you know, even for you know, our I would say
(25:50):
our customer base is more mid to low income that's
who usually targets the product. But it's really free financing. Yeah,
you know, it's free time value of money. And that's
how I used my first credit card. We didn't have
rewards back then. Yeah, so now free bag or whatever.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, Yeah, that would be it, like, you know, ten
dollars as you sign up on the way to McDonald's.
But now it's really just about for that, you know,
for more affluent customers, time value of money, So why
not So we have some of that going on too.
But yeah, download the app, check it out, sign up
and see where you can use it.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Anything else you want people to know about Cecil.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
You know, I think we're really proud that we're a
local Minnesota company, you know, definitely, So that's one that
we're proud of.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I think we've covered a lot of actually the.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Timberwolves ones really pumped about, and actually we're just you know,
i'd say what we're really proud about right now is
that it feels like we're on the cusp of a
good to great. You know, there's this concept and entrepreneurship
of good to great and I think that's kind of
where we are right now, and it feels really good.
I always ask this just in case, are you guys hiring?
Are you looking for people? And if so, how do
(26:52):
they find you? We always are. Yeah, so we've got
a hiring page. I don't remember the exact you are all,
but if you look seesyl jobs. I'm sure you'll find it,
and we're really i would say hiringly across the board,
but especially with DEV.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
We're very tech enabled.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I try to get tech everywhere in the business and
so if you're a software developer out there looking for
a job, yeah it let us know.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
But what other areas too? Awesome Charlie, you came from CECIL.
Thanks for being here and that's awesome. Continued success to you.
Thanks for having me Twin City CEO. You should know.
Get more at our website keyword CEO
This is Twin Cities CEO you should know, powered by iHeartMedia.
It's CEOs you should know. I'm Adam West and Charlie
Yukim from CESEL. Welcome, thanks for having me tell me
a little bit about CESEL.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Sesel's what people call a buy now, pay later company,
but maybe a simpler way to think about it, as
I think of paying for interest free from a consumer's perspective,
almost like reverse layaway. So you're buying something for like
one hundred dollars, some jeans, and you just want to
budget over your next paychecks, so you pay twenty five
dollars today, two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, all interest free.
(00:36):
That's the product, and we're basically an online payment method,
sort of like a PayPal. Okay, I hear people say
like bnpl So yeah, that's okay, that's a BNPLS.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Perfect. Charlie. What's your background?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Well, my background engineer by education, but software developer right
out of school. Did that for about seven years, then
went to business school and I absolutely loved it. It
was a great time period for me. I had a
lot of fun, learned a lot and then right after that,
I've always thought about starting a business. Always had the
(01:08):
idea of being an entrepreneur, but knew no one that
had ever done it before. And it was actually a
global financial crisis two thousand and eight twenty ten. Couldn't
could it even get a job. So it's kind of
like the time to get into entrepreneurship. And that's when
I started my first company, a company called Passport.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Did you feel like you were built for that, like entrepreneurship,
because yeah, now I feel like I am, you know,
but at the time I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
At that time, I knew I kind of just wanted
to try it, and I was like, why not. Can't
get a job? Like had an idea, talked to my
cousin about it. He wanted to do it, and we
just kind of dove in.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
But why why says it? Why why the BNPL?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Well, it all kind of probably started with my prior company, Passport.
So Passport we did mobile payment apps for parking. We
actually did the we do the parking in Saint Paul's, Yes,
the Passport branded app, but we did white label like
park Chicago, Park Boston. So I learned how to build
pay a company, you know, from scratch basically, and then
we did that for five years and then I just
(02:02):
wanted to go after something bigger. I kind of viewed
parking as like, you know, I don't have you guys
seen like way more cars, like automation.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Of vehicles, yeah, and Phoenix and stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, so I kind of viewed like, maybe there's an
end to parking because of your car can just keep
on driving. Oh, you know, parking might be ending. So like,
let's try to stand payments, but go after something bigger.
And that's when I reached out to my co founder,
who I'm to business school with, Paul Paradis, and I said, hey,
you want to try something in payments but in retail,
And that's where it really got started. We didn't have
(02:30):
the right idea to start, but that's where the business started.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
That parking app is Suite. You know, it's changed the
game considerably, right because you don't have to worry as
much about totally. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Actually, I remember when we first went to Boston, so
we did park Boston. When we first went to Boston,
the guys that were touring us around in their cup
holders were just stacks of quarters. That was their parking
system in Boston. It was just stacks of quarters and
then when we did park Boston people, I just loved it. Yeah,
so changed the game.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah you save those for your laundry, I guess. Yeah.
So how is how's the BNPL space or how has
SEESYL changed since you started?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Well, when we first started, we had the wrong idea.
We were trying to do a different type of retail
payment at checkout, and then we saw fine ol pay
later taking off in Australia. There was a company called
after Pay just going wildfire, and I had gone to
Australia or Passport to see if that might be a
good market for US. So I kind of learned a
little bit about Australia and I kind of viewed it
(03:26):
as a USA South and we were talking about it internally.
It was like, if this is taking off, this bind
now pay later payment method for retail, it's taking off
in Australia, there's a damn good chance to go work
in the US. And so we adapted our model to
launch that we launched in August twenty seventeen, and it
was a rocket. I had a prior company to compare
(03:48):
it two. So I was telling the team like, this
is like something I've never seen it like this before.
And then it just that space took our business took off,
Competitors jumped in like wildfire.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
And it's just been a wild ride, absolutely wild. Why
do you think that is because it's not new, although
might be new to some people, right, why is that? Well,
buy not pay later, you know, layaway is not new. Yeah,
so lay away.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
You know, it's funny. When we launched the company, I
told my mom about it and she's like, we used
layaway for you guys, and so I was like, I
was like, what do you think of it?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
She's like, thumbs up.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So I got to endorse from from my mom and
I was like, oh, it makes you feel good about
the business. So people have been familiar with layaway, but
Layoway had its challenges and that merchants didn't want to
store away products and wait for people to come back and.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Cost of inventory right yeah yeah, and customers didn't want
to wait. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
So it's basically almost like an innovation on layaway that
a lot of people get the product up front.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Merchants didn't have to deal with it.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
We basically gave the money upfront to the merchant, they
had their sale, and then we just collected the payments
from the consumer. So that was like the innovation in
that kind of product. And then we also realized that
there was a niche that we were developing within payments
where a lot of people didn't want to pay with
credit cards.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
They had them.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So like our early user, they are actually users today
same that are the same, Like seventy percent have a
credit card, but they pay us back with debit with
their debit cards, so they actually just kind of park
the credit card.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
They don't want to use it.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
They would have not made the checkout otherwise, and then
when they saw the option to finance interest free at
the checkout, they chose to use Sezel. Otherwise they would
have just waited and not used their credit card. So
it's basically like a hybrid between like a debit card
credit card product. That's kind of driving a wedge in
there right now.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Is the cost for the retailers it cheaper than the
credit card?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
No, it's it tends to be more. So that's so
the pitch the retailer would be, hey, you're paying like
three percent for payment processing, worth three percent more we
cover your payment processing, So what's six percent? But for
that three percent more you get increased conversions, increased sales,
increased basket sizes, and it was so obvious. I mean,
(05:52):
we were selling to the small to medium sized businesses,
so these guys were not as sophisticated as like the
targets of the world. They weren't doing A B tests,
they didn't need to do a B tests. It was
that dramatic wow, like how much you help themself? How
do you differentiate yourself from other bnpls. Well, we've been
evolving that over time. So early on we're basically the
(06:14):
winners with the merchants that were smaller, Like we were
fantastic at this like smaller merchant getting them on board
with a lot of ease. On the consumer side, we're
the only player in the space that offers credit reporting.
So we have a product called sesl up where if
you sign up for sesel you're not forced to be
in it, but after you sign up, we'll market sesl
(06:36):
up to you and say it's free if you want
to join, we'll start reporting your payments to the bureaus
and you can help build your credit score. Okay, yeah, yeah,
we're the only ones that do it, which I'm probably
that we're the only ones to do it. I'm glad
we have that differentiation, and I'll tell you why. One
of the reasons fifteen percent of the consumers it tends
to be a young consumer. Fifteen percent of the consumers
(06:57):
that sign up with us don't have a credit score.
So we really view it as like hitting our mission
and doing nothing nothing wow, no hit. They call it
no hit in the industry, no credit score, And so
we kind of viewed it as like along our mission.
Our mission is financially empowering the next generation. It's hitting
our mission giving these people a chance to build their
credit score up and enter their credit arena.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
So you have it. Do you have an approval process
or how does that work? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So when you sign up through a merchant, is the
typical sign up path. You'd be going through your checkout.
You saw sesyl on the product page, so that you know,
pair of jeens you were looking at it said oh yeah,
or for interest free payments of twenty five dollars with
seesl Okay, and then you can click on that little
ad and find out more. And then at that point
the customers like I want to use Seesel, then they
(07:41):
look for us in the checkout, so they've already filled
in their information. They look for us in the checkout
like they kind of like they see PayPal in the checkout,
they sign up with us there. The merchant passes us
a lot of the information about the customer to speed
up the first time checkout, and then we'll ask for
things like your phone number if we didn't alader to get
it at, your email address, and your social security Now
(08:03):
it's basically regulatory requirement at this point, and then we
do a you know, basic like mostly fraud checks quite frankly,
but we do some credit checks, but mostly fraud checks,
just to make sure that you are who you say
you are.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Sure. Are there other benefits We touched on this a
little bit. Are there other benefits to using sesel Well, you.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Know, one of the main benefits early on for a
lot of consumers was well, a new payment method. But
then they would download our app and they would use
our app almost like a digital mall to find more
places online to shop with sesyl. Wow, And so it's
like a bit of a discovery like almost like you're
walking through digitally through a mall of America a club. Yeah,
where else can I use this? What other stores are
(08:44):
out there.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
What have you had challenges at all in rolling this out?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Well, it's been a whild ride. I mean, definitely challenges.
So I would say one of the challenges we've had
is competition. So you know, we had basically built the
company right through a tech boom, and so when we
launched that company I mentioned in Australia after pay they
were a public company. They had a two billion dollar valuation.
(09:10):
We were a twenty five million dollar company. We knew
they were coming, so we had like basically behem this,
So what that was one coming after pay Klarna from
Europe had a pretty large valuation. They were coming into
the space. There's a company called a firm who's one
of the founders of PayPal.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Found of that company was in our space. So we
had a.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Lot of big companies kind of diving in a lot
of competition.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
We did really well through it.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
But I'll tell you what I mean, I kind of
vised as playing in the big leagues all of a sudden,
is like my last company kind of felt like the
minor leagues. This company felt like we're in the pros.
And we went through a lot of competition, and then
we went through like that. You know, there's a tech
crash that occurred. Give an idea how that hit us.
At one point in our public company valuation, we were
at like a one point five billion dollar valuation. We
(09:58):
went all the way down the thirty eight million. Oh
and now we're back up at a billion, which is awesome,
that's great.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
High fives.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Actually it was yesterday, so the team was all celebrating about,
you know, getting back over that mark.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
But that's a that's a roller coaster. Wow. Do you
feel like you kind of grease the way for those
companies to feel better about being here in the States
or I think it helped. Yeah, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
We were the first to launch, so they got a
chance to take a look at us and look at
some of the other early entrants, but we were the
first entrant, so people took a look at it. I mean,
even Apple entered the space. Apple launched a buy out
pay later product, but then they pulled out right away.
PayPal has one, so there are a lot of big
players in the space, which actually makes me really proud
of our team. Yeah, we've done a great job basically
(10:42):
competing against really powerful companies and really carving out our niche.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Oh, good for you. I mean who wants competition, but
that that has to feel pretty rewarding totally.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
You know, actually a lot I think a lot of
entrepreneurs try to avoid competition. And I always one of
my early kind of recommendations entrepreneurs is, don't try to
invent something, just kind of join a space where things
are working, because competition, Quite frankly, it's kind of fun,
you know, as long as it doesn't get too crazy,
which we had we had a little bit crazy going on,
But it can be kind of fun because it gets
you up in the morning, like how can you beat them?
(11:12):
How can you out maneuver them? I'll strategize them.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Well, again, we talked about this a little bit, but
more like in the early days, I mean, go roll
back the clock to you know, whenever, what were some
of the biggest challenges that you had or times where
you thought this might not make it or maybe you
always felt like you'd make it.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Well, you know, I'll tell you, Like people realize it's
about starting companies early on. You have to sell everyone
on the business. I mean, you have to sell companies
you're paying so like you have a supplier, like hey,
we're worth your time. Yeah, yeah, you should please talk
to us. We want to use your product. Can we
pay you? You know that's unusual, right, Yeah, but when
you're at that stage, you have to sell new employees,
(11:50):
you have to sell suppliers, you have to sell partners
on your business. So that's always a challenge, kind of
get the getting out of the gate challenge. Our business
in particular, there's another challenge because there's a there's a
lot of money flowing through the business. Yeah, we're lending,
so you know, we're not just scaling a company. We
also have to borrow money from a third party to
(12:13):
use that to fund the loans that we're giving out
to consumers.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
That's challenging. So a lot of people early on were like, oh,
buy not.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Pay later, has low barriers to entry. I was always like,
why don't you try it? I don't think this is
this is my second company. Yeah, it's not an easy
company to scale up.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Say, if you want to take a big risk, yeah,
then you could let anybody in, right yeah, but yeah,
which we don't. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
But so getting the lending facility for our company that's
a challenge. And then just like you know, convincing the
team that you know, continue with the momentum. That's always
a continued challenge in terms of just scaling up a
business and innovating and making the right choices.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Speaking of team, I didn't know this. You have a
partnership with the Timerles Miniso Timberroles. How did you? How
did that come to be?
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Actually, that's been a long while on your road. So
Paul parrotis my co founder. His first job out of
school was actually in sales at the Timberwolves. Oh wow,
which is kind of funny because he knows a lot
of people at the Timberwolves built today. So they knew
of us because we had founded the company in twenty
sixteen and we had scaled up pretty fast. Actually were
(13:20):
we were at that like one point five billion valuation
in twenty nineteen I think or twenty twenty, Ok, so
we got pretty high pretty fast, So they were aware
of us. They were already kind of talking to us
about the patch sponsorship at that time. It didn't really
make sense for us because we're still kind of scaling
the business up, but they stayed in touch. So Paul
stayed in touch with Dave king over at the Timberwolves,
(13:41):
who manages that patch, and they got on golf and
et cetera. Just stayed in touch and then our business
started to bay. We've basically started to improve a lot
of the business aspects. You know, we were at that
market cap going all the way down to thirty eight million.
We had to reconfigure the business and build things up,
and as we're doing it, the timing was just perfect.
(14:02):
So they David reached out to Paul again. They started chatting.
We were starting to really do great things with profitability
as a company and scaling the business up, and we
just thought it was perfect time because we wanted to
get more awareness for our product. If you look at
the byopaylator space, we're probably like number five in terms
of size, which doesn't worry me that my last company
(14:23):
we were last place. I think we overtook everyone and
became first over that time period. I think we can
do the same thing. But you have to make the
right calls at the right time, and so we've been
kind of quiet. But now we've got this. You know,
I give this analogy of like a lemonade stand, Like
we've got this lemonade stand that's just the best lemonade
on the block and now we want to make noise.
And the timing of the Timberwolves patch expiring with their
(14:46):
prior partner and this coming up with us trying to
make noise was perfect. And even though I'm a huge
Timberwolves fan, even though Paul's a huge Timberwolves fan, we
weren't making the decision to partner with the Timberwolves because
of that. We were making the decision because that organization
is a rocket ship right now. Yeah, and we kind
of view it as just perfect time. Timing was perfect.
(15:09):
We wanted the exposure. They're a team on the rise.
I mean, they went from like eight national TV games
to twenty six this year. They got Anthony Edwards, who's
like just everyone's favorite in a the NBA. So we
just love the timing.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
And just to be clear, when you say patch, I
mean you're saying the like what you see on the uniforms,
that's the deal, what you see on the uniforms. And
we just you know, there's awareness for us on a
lot of fronts. One is with.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Consumers because there's you know, worth fifth place and sort
of like the exposure and consumers.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
With buying not pay later.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
He's saying fifth place so worldwide in North America in
our space, you know, So we want to make sure
more consumers are aware of us merchants, so we partner
with merchants so them being awarenes of our product. And
then even just like investors because we're a public listed company,
just exposure to the brand, like this company, I've noticed
them now and so like even that helps you.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
And for you and everybody who works for you. I mean,
that must feel really good to see that, right, absolutely,
I mean that's kind of a hidden one. Like the
team just felt like they've worked hard over the last
two and a half three years to really get the
company in great shape. And I think it was a
big high five movement for a lot of people in
the company.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Especially this is our headquarters. Minneapolis is our headquarters, so
to have it be the Timberwolves, I think pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
That's awesome. Congratulations on that being here in Minneapolis. How
do you guys, what do you guys do in the community,
How do you affect the community?
Speaker 2 (16:31):
You know, I think that's probably you know, one area
we were working with working at the University of Minnesota
on scholarships and such. So that's one area we've been
working on things with working in the community. We had
to peel some things back when we were there was
a big profitability run for us. You know when I
mentioned that market cap swing from one point five to
thirty eight million, Yeah, we were burning cash like crazy.
(16:52):
So there's a time period there where we were tightening
the belts, yeah, and not spending anywhere. So we were
doing a lot more with the community probably three years ago.
Had to tighten our belts and basically get back to
building the baseline of the business. And then now I
think we're getting back to that space. This is where
the Timberwolves kind of played in. But you know, now,
what else can we do on the community side? I
(17:15):
think outside of Minneapolis as a community where I think
we do a great job with just community in general
is our product. Our product gives consumers across the United States,
you know, like large scale community access to credit. Because
if you look at what we do, we are average
fight Go score. I'm not sure people the listeners know
fight Go scores but as well as we do. But
(17:37):
six we have like an average fight Go score of
like six oh five. So these consumers in many ways
lack access to credit and to capital, and so we
I think in many ways our product helps young new
to credit, lower credit scores get access to capital. So
that's always just kind of behind the scenes. We feel
that we're really helping a lot of community across the
(18:00):
get access to a credit product. And do they I mean,
the thought is for them to stay with you for
a long time, right, I mean, even after they build up.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Credit a little bit. I would imagine absolutely.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I think naturally a lot of consumers don't like to
use credit cards. That's when I think about, like who
we're competing against. Of course, we have our players that
we compete against in our space, but when we really
think about who we're competing against, it's credit cards. And
you know, I always give this example in the holidays
because I think it really speaks to what our product
(18:31):
buy Now, pay Leader and paying Forward does for consumers
versus a credit card in the whole. We actually just
had a meeting about this today. In the holiday periods,
we tend to tighten up. We put up the barricades
because we don't want customers to overspend. See the way
our business works, we don't make money on consumers when
they build up a balance and can't pay it back. Yeah,
(18:52):
and spend it and revolve and pay you thirty six
percent APR every month. Yeah, that's the credit card industry.
So if you overspend in the holidays, I think they
call it a win because you're a revolver for the
next five years.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
That feels icky, doesn't it. It's definitely definitely our business.
If you overspend in the holidays, we've got a problem
because the way that business works is if you don't
aren't able to make a payment to us on your
payment plan, we stop you. We don't let you make
the next order.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
So awesome.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah, So it's basically I think one hundred percent alignment
with repayment with the customers. So, you know, I think
that's a big differentiator that a lot of people don't
know about, that we are a better option than a
credit card for these consumers.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Do you guys only have an app or do you
have a physical card as well?
Speaker 2 (19:40):
We only have a virtual card. We have a card,
but it's virtual, gotcha. It's this new age now where
we've just chosen not to ship a card. Like customers
loaded into their Apple wallet, into their Google wallet from
our app. So you download our app, you sign up
for you know, maybe one of our subscription products where
you can use Fine not Payler or anywhere. You get
avirtual card and you just push it to your Apple Wallet.
(20:03):
And we've had some requests for consumers, can you ship
me a card? We haven't done it yet. Yeah, probably will,
but it just seems like, I don't know if you
guys use Apple pay, Google Pay.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
I don't use any cards anymore. Really, Yes, it's so convenient.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I don't even bring my wallets sometimes I just have
my mobile phone. Yeah, I do it myself and I'll
just walk up, grab coffee and just tap my phone.
And I think our consumer's kind of feeling about it
the same way. And if you don't have to deal
with shipping cards and envelopes or whatever, win win. So
we've kind of stuck in the virtual realm. But people
do get a card just virtual.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Yeah, you probably see a little better in real time
what you're doing, and you know, as far as debt
or what they owe you or whatever. Totally it's all digital. Yeah,
the product is all digital. So we talked about what
you do in the community. Do you have charity partners
this time?
Speaker 2 (20:48):
We do not that you know, we have charity matching
in the company. Okay, you know, so like you know,
if people want to, but there's no specific charity that sazl.
I'm not a big believer in like creating like a
corporate focus on a specific charity. So what we do
in the company is when you donate to a charity,
we'll match and that way we let the team kind
(21:09):
of pick their charities and we contribute.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
So in the your entrepreneur obviously we talked about that,
you got a lot of experience. If somebody came to
it to you for advice to start up a similar company,
hopefully not another BNPL, but something in that space, what
advice would you give them?
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Well, I wouldn't advise in fintech at the moment, not
because I'm trying to reduce competition in my space, but
actually just because there's been a big, like seed change
in terms of investment, because fintech just took off like
a rocket pre COVID, and then during COVID it took
off even further, and then now there's like just I
would say, a ton of regulatory pressure. The pendulums like
(21:52):
kind of swung the other way. A lot of companies
that we're doing you know, maybe some things that we're
probably not so right, you know, kind of a bad
name for things in fintech, and that's kind of killed funding.
But generally when I talk to entrepreneurs, because I don't
think you just have to stick to fintech, you know,
I actually love the idea of doing different kind of
companies in the future too. But what I tend to
(22:13):
tell entrepreneurs is, don't think you have to invent something,
because I think a lot of people think I've got
to invent something new like Uber or Airbnb, something no
one's ever done before. I tend to think that business
is just fun. The hardest part of starting a company
is finding product market fit replicate in many ways, just
(22:34):
watch what's taking off, maybe in another country, maybe in
the US. If you see something starting to take off
and you think it's interesting, latch on because the most
fun part is actually the scaling and that there's still
trust me, there's still tons and tons of challenges in
building a business. But if you can remove ninety eight
percent of the problems at the start, which is your
(22:55):
product may not even sell, get rid of it. Just
find something working and do it.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Can you differentiate just a little bit absolutely, Yeah, that's
that's what you would do.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Over time, you try to find your niche so launch,
you know, almost like cut the corner, find out what's working,
cut the corner, get to that point as fast as
you can, and then now listens to the customers, listening
to the stakeholders. What can I adapt, what can I add,
what can I change to maybe get an edge? And
that's what I would do.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah. Well, yeah, you mentioned ride sharing and that's you know,
that's probably a good example of differentiating, right yeah, totally
kind of different, but still a little bit the same. Yeah. Yeah.
Long term for Sezel, what are your goals? What do
you want to do?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Well, we want to win, I'll tell you that's one
of our One of our core values in the company
is being driven to succeed and we got a lot
of people in the company that like to win, so
we want to take over and win the space. In
terms of what we want to do for consumers and merchants,
our focus right now, over the last two years has
been basically building out, find out, pay later, like all
(23:58):
the options of it. Now we're going to be focusing
on shopping because consumers really think about it as a
shopping product too, So like you know, features you might
see in honey, like the honey products of old that on,
like chrome as an extension, we want to pull lot
of those features into our app so that you can
use them on a hole because I don't know if
people realize this. People used to shop on laptops and desktops.
(24:23):
Now in our business, ninety percent of the shopping is done.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
On a mobile phone.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
And if you're on a mobile phone, those products don't exist,
like coupon, yeah, compare price comparison tools. So we're going
to add a lot of those features into our app
to really you know, create a great ecosystem, provide a
lot more value to our shoppers in terms of what
they can use, and then just keep on building. So
buy now, pay later. It's early days. I think we're
going to keep on eating into the credit card space
(24:52):
and and so we're kind of just riding this wave.
And as we're riding the wave, we're kind of trying
to like, you know, push our elbows out a little
bit to in.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Against the competitors.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
At the same time, but then these innovative new features, Yeah,
like we were talking about just what else can you
do that might be innovative or different or differentiate yourself
to continue to grow.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
How far down the road do you see that all
that happening, like five years, ten years, Where do you
see yourself? Then?
Speaker 2 (25:15):
I think it's probably we always I think in five
year kind of timelines. Okay, so I think this is
like the next five years is the space is growing,
We're trying to gain space in the space. And then
this innovation with shopping and shopping feature set, that's probably
the next five.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Years for us. Where do people start with sesyl? Just
top online? What's the best way to app store? Yeah,
if you want to go to our website sesel dot com.
But I think people tend to interact to us with
us first in the app stores. Now, okay, so they
just download the apps, sign up, check out all the
places you can shop with us, check out, paying for
you know, even for you know, our I would say
(25:50):
our customer base is more mid to low income that's
who usually targets the product. But it's really free financing. Yeah,
you know, it's free time value of money. And that's
how I used my first credit card. We didn't have
rewards back then. Yeah, so now free bag or whatever.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, Yeah, that would be it, like, you know, ten
dollars as you sign up on the way to McDonald's.
But now it's really just about for that, you know,
for more affluent customers, time value of money, So why
not So we have some of that going on too.
But yeah, download the app, check it out, sign up
and see where you can use it.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Anything else you want people to know about Cecil.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
You know, I think we're really proud that we're a
local Minnesota company, you know, definitely, So that's one that
we're proud of.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I think we've covered a lot of actually the.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Timberwolves ones really pumped about, and actually we're just you know,
i'd say what we're really proud about right now is
that it feels like we're on the cusp of a
good to great. You know, there's this concept and entrepreneurship
of good to great and I think that's kind of
where we are right now, and it feels really good.
I always ask this just in case, are you guys hiring?
Are you looking for people? And if so, how do
(26:52):
they find you? We always are. Yeah, so we've got
a hiring page. I don't remember the exact you are all,
but if you look seesyl jobs. I'm sure you'll find it,
and we're really i would say hiringly across the board,
but especially with DEV.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
We're very tech enabled.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I try to get tech everywhere in the business and
so if you're a software developer out there looking for
a job, yeah it let us know.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
But what other areas too? Awesome Charlie, you came from CECIL.
Thanks for being here and that's awesome. Continued success to you.
Thanks for having me Twin City CEO. You should know.
Get more at our website keyword CEO
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.