PayRange | Paresh Patel: The Quickest Way to Pay for the Things You Go Often
Summary
TLDRIn this interview, Parrish Patel, CEO of PayRange, discusses the company's innovative journey in revolutionizing the unattended retail sector. Initially addressing the issue of coin hoarding with a mobile app, PayRange swiftly adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic by introducing features such as 'pay later' and donations for frontline workers. Patel shares insights on the company's multi-faceted approach to serving consumers, machine operators, and communities, emphasizing the importance of simplicity and speed in their design process. He also highlights the trend in FinTech towards self-sustaining businesses that solve real problems and the focus of PayRange on capturing everyday high-frequency, small-ticket purchases while maintaining consumer anonymity and security.
Takeaways
- 💡 PayRange is an innovative company in the unattended retail space, focusing on solving payment issues for small ticket transactions.
- 📱 They released a mobile app designed to eliminate the need for coin hoarding, especially for laundromat usage, and quickly adapted it with a 'pay later' feature during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- 🔄 Parrish Patel, PayRange's CEO, has a deep background in the vending industry, which inspired him to create a solution for cashless consumers facing machine payment challenges.
- 🤝 The company serves three sectors: consumers, machine operators, and communities, with a multi-pronged service approach to address the needs of each group.
- 🚀 During the COVID-19 crisis, PayRange rapidly innovated by introducing features like purchase authorization for declined cards, on-demand settlements for merchants, and a donation feature for frontline workers.
- 💰 They raised nearly $50,000 in a short time to help over 2,000 frontline workers, demonstrating the willingness of consumers to contribute to a good cause.
- 📈 PayRange has become a leading brand in the unattended space by focusing on small ticket commerce, which has been largely overlooked by other financial technology companies.
- 🛠️ The design process for PayRange's product involved observing consumer interactions with machines and ensuring the app was simple, intuitive, and fast to use.
- 🌟 A guiding principle for PayRange is to make the payment process so straightforward that consumers can complete a transaction in seconds without cognitive overload.
- 🔍 Parrish noted that trends in FinTech are moving towards solutions that address real problems consumers are willing to pay for, and that can be self-sustaining businesses.
- ✅ PayRange's future roadmap involves expanding to capture everyday purchases, aiming to be a secure and private payment method, effectively replacing the need for cash in small transactions.
Q & A
What is the main problem that PayRange aims to solve with their mobile app?
-PayRange aims to solve the problem of cashless consumers who are unable to make purchases from unattended retail machines due to not having the exact change required.
How did the COVID-19 pandemic influence PayRange's product development?
-The COVID-19 pandemic led PayRange to quickly initiate a 'pay later' feature on their app and further innovate by adding a donation feature to support frontline workers.
What inspired Parrish Patel to start PayRange?
-Parrish Patel was inspired to start PayRange after a personal experience of not having the exact change to use a vending machine, despite having a credit card and a cell phone.
How does PayRange serve multiple sectors with its solutions?
-PayRange serves consumers by providing a convenient payment method, machine operators by offering solutions like on-demand settlements, and communities by facilitating features like donations for frontline workers.
What is the guiding principle behind PayRange's design process?
-The guiding principle behind PayRange's design process is to make the payment process as simple, fast, and intuitive as possible, leveraging existing consumer knowledge to minimize the learning curve.
How does PayRange's approach to FinTech differ from other companies in the space?
-PayRange focuses on addressing the specific needs of small and micro ticket payment spaces that have been largely overlooked by other companies in the FinTech industry.
What are the unique challenges that PayRange faces in the unattended retail segment?
-The unique challenges include dealing with very small transactions at a high frequency, ensuring security and privacy, and providing an anonymous payment option similar to cash.
How does PayRange plan to expand its services beyond unattended retail?
-PayRange plans to expand by capturing more everyday purchases, such as parking, car washes, and tipping, aiming to become a large network for high-frequency, small-ticket transactions.
What was the outcome of PayRange's donation feature for frontline workers during the COVID-19 crisis?
-The donation feature allowed consumers to add a donation to their purchase, raising almost fifty thousand dollars in a short amount of time to help over 2,000 frontline workers.
What is the analogy Parrish Patel uses to describe PayRange's position in the market?
-Parrish Patel likens PayRange's position in the market to how Amazon started with books and then expanded into various other areas.
How does PayRange maintain consumer privacy during transactions?
-PayRange acts as a firewall between the consumer and the merchant, processing transactions securely without requiring consumers to share personal information like phone numbers or email addresses.
What is the future roadmap for PayRange in terms of product development?
-The future roadmap for PayRange involves expanding to capture more everyday purchases, focusing on small ticket, high-frequency transactions, and enhancing security and privacy features.
Outlines
😀 Introduction and Company Overview
In this opening paragraph, Dale Lazich interviews Parrish Patel, CEO of PayRange, a company innovating in the unattended retail space. They discuss how PayRange started with a mobile app to solve coin hoarding issues and quickly pivoted to add a pay later feature and donation option during the COVID-19 crisis. The conversation also touches on how PayRange serves consumers, machine operators, and communities through its multi-pronged approach.
🚀 Rapid Innovation and Crisis Response
This paragraph delves into PayRange's rapid innovation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company released three key features: 1) Authorizing purchases even if a consumer's card was declined due to insufficient funds, 2) Allowing merchants to receive settlements on-demand via debit card, and 3) Introducing a donation feature where consumers could add a donation to support frontline workers. The company was able to raise nearly $50,000 in a short time, demonstrating the community's willingness to help during the crisis.
🛠️ Design Philosophy and User Experience
Parrish shares his design philosophy and process for creating an intuitive and user-friendly product. He emphasizes the importance of simplicity, leveraging consumers' existing knowledge, and minimizing friction in the payment process. The guiding principles were to make the app very simple, fast, and intuitive so users could make a payment within 15 seconds without needing instructions or a complex setup. The goal was to make the payment process second nature to users, while still providing additional features like dryer completion notifications if desired.
🌐 Future Vision and FinTech Trends
In the final paragraph, Parrish discusses the future roadmap for PayRange and key trends in the broader FinTech market. He sees PayRange evolving beyond unattended retail to become a network for everyday purchases, such as parking, car washes, and tipping. These transactions are typically small, high-frequency, and require elements of security, privacy, and anonymity. PayRange aims to capture more of these everyday purchases and serve as a digital cash replacement by acting as a firewall between the consumer and merchant to maintain anonymity. Parrish also notes a trend of FinTech companies focusing on sustainability and solving real problems that customers are willing to pay for.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡FinTech
💡Parrish Patel
💡Mobile App
💡Coin Hoarding
💡COVID-19
💡Innovation
💡Unattended Space
💡Payment Processing
💡Community Service
💡Multi-Pronged Approach
💡Small Ticket Commerce
Highlights
Parrish Patel, CEO of PayRange, discusses the innovative mobile app designed to solve the problem of coin hoarding for laundromat users.
The company quickly introduced a 'pay later' feature during the COVID-19 pandemic to accommodate changing consumer needs.
PayRange has added a donation feature, allowing users to contribute to funds supporting frontline workers.
Patel's career in unattended retail began at age 17 with a single soda machine, which grew into a full vending company.
The idea for PayRange came from a personal experience of not having the exact change to use a machine, despite having other forms of payment available.
PayRange serves three sectors: consumers, machine operators, and communities, with a multi-pronged service approach.
During the COVID-19 crisis, the company released new features weekly to support each of their consumer segments.
PayRange raised almost fifty thousand dollars in a short time for frontline workers through their donation feature.
The company has become a leading brand in the unattended space by focusing on innovation and addressing the needs of small and micro ticket payment spaces.
PayRange's design process is centered around simplicity, leveraging existing consumer knowledge, and creating an intuitive app experience.
The guiding principle for the app is to make the payment process so simple that consumers can complete it in 15 seconds without needing instructions.
PayRange aims to minimize the time users spend in their app, focusing on the efficiency of the payment process.
Patel observes consumer interactions with machines to inform the design of PayRange's product, focusing on their behavior and decision-making.
The company is focused on capturing everyday purchases, which are typically small ticket and high frequency.
PayRange provides security, privacy, and anonymity in transactions, acting as a 'firewall' between the consumer and the merchant.
The company's future roadmap involves expanding to capture more everyday purchases and acting as a cash replacement with added security and privacy.
PayRange's approach to FinTech is to solve real problems that consumers and merchants are willing to pay for, focusing on sustainability and self-sufficiency.
Patel emphasizes the importance of creating a product that fits the needs of all stakeholders in the small ticket payment space.
Transcripts
[Music]
welcome to FinTech forward I'm Dale
Lazich and today I'll be interviewing
Parrish Patel CEO of pay range an
amazingly innovative company that's
doing incredible things in the
unattended space crash thank you so much
for joining us today
I'm happy to be here thanks for having
me it's really been exciting for me to
cover your company and I noticed that in
February of this year you came out with
a mobile app that it was designed to
address the problem of coin hoarding
because you know so many people will
collect their quarters so that they can
go to the laundromat and you came out
with a mobile app where they no longer
have to do that but then the kovat 19
thing happened and you very quickly
initiated a pay later feature on that
app and then you went on to continue to
innovate now you've even added a
donation feature so that people can help
the people who are on the frontlines and
it's amazing to me how quickly you do
these enhancements and innovations and
I'd like to know more about that but
first tell me about pay range what what
inspired you to start the company again
Dale happy to be here
so I've actually spent my entire career
in the unattended retail segment many
years ago when I was 17 years old I
started of any machine company as a way
to pay for school I started with just
one single soda machine placed it out on
location and the reason I chose vending
was I wanted to go to school go on to
college but I didn't want it to do
whatever I was going to do to track from
pack my actual schooling so having a
vending company allowed me to service
the machines you know when I needed to
in between breaks in school or whatnot
but still remain
focus on the actual school after that I
finished a transition from being a
vending operator to a vendor side where
I'm actually solving the payment side of
things now how did you get the idea for
pay range so it was really interesting
when I ran my vending machine company
one of the things that I had been
watching was my consumers becoming
increasingly cashless and you know we
would buy a set of machines place them
out in a location and if you stood back
and watch you would watch that fewer and
fewer users were actually able to make
payment to make a purchase demand wasn't
the problem the reality was they just
didn't have a dollar in two quarters to
make a purchase or whatnot and one day I
actually became what it might consume
similar to one of my consumers I was
actually driving with my kids in the
backseat late at night and my tire
pressure warning light came on and I
pulled into a gas station I had three
quarters and the Machine needed four to
activate their machine and at that point
I realized there was another big problem
here in the sense that it wasn't the
fact that I didn't have money to
activate the machine it wasn't that I
didn't have a credit card
I had everything except for I just
didn't have that extra quarter and so it
kind of dawned on me that what I really
needed to do was find a way to
communicate with that machine and so the
kind of the inspiration for the idea
came along right then at that moment
when I had my cell phone I wished I
could just put my credit card in there
and tell the Machine I had money and so
that's when I started solving for this
problem the other thing that's
interesting too is that as you've grown
the company you're really you mentioned
in some of our interviews that you
really serve three different sectors you
serve consumers you serve the Machine
operators and you serve the communities
how did your company evolve into that
multi pronged service approach so I
think for
it was somewhat of a natural fit because
we run a multi-party market system if
you will if you just sir in our business
if we were just to serve the consumers
that wouldn't really be addressing the
needs of the full market if we just
served the vending operators or the
laundry operators the merchants in our
case that wouldn't solve it either and
so what we realized we had to take a
multi-pronged approach and that actually
was never more true than recently with
this kovat crisis as you mentioned at
the beginning we've been innovating
quite heavily and in just a matter of
about four or five weeks each week we
were on releasing a feature for each one
of our consumers that are each one of
our segments the first feature we
released was for our consumers which we
said basically hey if your card got
declined because of insufficient funds
we're going to go ahead and authorize
that purchase anyways because we know
you need to do laundry or whatnot and so
we release that feature the following
week or so we released another feature
aimed at our merchants which allowed
them to receive their settlements on
demand
it's called push to card basically they
can get their settlement sent directly
to their debit card 24/7 365 days a year
and you know we realized hey they need
if they need money to make payroll or go
buy some supplies or truck needs work
and whatnot we wanted to be able to
immediately send them their settlement
so they could take care of that so that
was the second feature for our merchants
and then the third feature for the
community was this donation feature we
just talked a little bit about basically
what we did was we allowed our consumers
the ability to add on to their existing
purchase a donation of 1 5 10 25 or 50
dollars to go fund of frontline workers
basically we realized during this time
that frontline work health care workers
were really impacted in the sense in a
lot of cases they're having to do much
more laundry than ever before and that
can kind of get expensive
and and sometimes they're at the
hospital or medical clinic without
having time to even go get a lunch or
anything and they may need to purchase
something from the vending machine and
so in either case we wanted to address
this group and to our surprise a bit we
were astonished that we were able to
raise almost fifty thousand dollars in a
very short amount of time helping over
2,000 frontline workers and these were
consumers who were making a dollar-fifty
purchase and adding twenty-five dollar
donation to it anonymous they don't even
know who they're helping but they were
doing it so it was really heartwarming
to our team that they were able to do
that I also noticed that as you're
growing and scaling your company you've
really become a leading brand in the
unattended space what do you attribute
to that growth and what's fueling it
yeah no that's absolutely true one of
the things about this space that we're
in what we call small ticket commerce
it's largely been left behind in terms
of innovation from a lot of other larger
companies out there the car networks the
processors all these other players and
the financial technology space haven't
really addressed the needs of the small
and micro ticket payment space and we
came about it with deep domain
experience as I mentioned I've got over
twenty years as an operator so I learned
the customers I learned how the machines
work I learned about the space and their
problems and then we used a lot of that
information to develop a product that
goes to the heart of the core issues for
all of the segments the consumers the
merchants and the communities and so
what we're doing is we're building a
product that we feel fits the needs of
all the key stakeholders in this space
and it's a difficult space because it
has some inherent complexities and
hearing problems you're dealing with
very small transactions transactions
that could be 25 cents 50 cents a dollar
fifty two dollars and very high
frequency our average consumer does
somewhere around 200 transactions a year
with us and so you're dealing with its
small tickets a very high frequency
those are different needs there than
somebody who's just using a credit card
at a restaurant for example and so we
had to make sure that we were innovating
and solving not only the payment problem
but also the overall experience it's not
just the payment that we're solving for
we're looking for how do we make this
experience actually better and and
that's key and so because of that we
feel we're getting closer and closer to
becoming a solution that's universally
recognized in a small ticket space
whether it be bending laundry amusement
car washes even those air air machines
and vacuum cleaners and so we're having
a lot of fun doing it you mentioned
earlier that you've spent time in the
wild observing people interacting with
machines and you've had your own
experience as an end-user interacting
with vending machines tell me about your
design process so actually going back to
my days as a vending operator that's
exactly what I had done was I I'd sit 20
30 feet away from the Machine and just
watched consumers interact with a
machine you pay attention to things like
you know where do their eyes go what do
they read when they're making a
selection how long does it take them how
do they figure out what they want to
purchase do they read the stickers on
the machine and you know all of those
kinds of things kind of played a role in
how we designed our product and one of
the things that I did when I started
this company very early on was set some
guiding principles one of which was we
had to be make things very simple and
this is not to say that consumers can't
figure out complex things or they're
dumb it's a matter of time when somebody
is in front of a machine if they had to
redo ten steps to make a payment to a
machine it's never gonna work and so one
of our guiding principles was to make it
very very simple very easy very fast we
also looked at figuring out how we could
leverage existing knowledge that
consumers have because if you could
leverage existing knowledge that
consumers have what
whatever they're interacting with
something outside of the vending space
then we don't have to train them on that
so we don't have to teach them how to do
that so a lot of things you'll see about
our app is it's very intuitive if
somebody could literally download the
app and in 15 seconds make a payment
there doesn't have to be instructions
there and and there doesn't have to be a
checklist of things you need to do or
very complex setup doing the first time
we wanted you to be able to walk up to a
machine download the app and make a
payment in 15 seconds so a lot of our
design process is about how do we remove
friction away from this how do we remove
extra steps how do we remove extra words
on the screen anything that we put extra
there as actually cognitive overload is
in some senses right like they have to
think about it and what I had kind of
strived to do with our engineering team
is how do we make this so simple that
people really don't even have to think
about it we want them to do it as a way
of second nature and in some cases even
early on when I was talking to some of
our investors they didn't quite
understand what we were trying to do
because at the time when I was starting
that building to happen easily which was
five six years ago a lot of app
development was about maximizing the
amount of time a consumer spends in your
app right because you wanted that screen
time and so you wanted to have different
ways to engage them you wanted them to
be in the app and and in fact the more
you could kind of I don't want to say
clutter their experience but put things
in their way the more you kept them
engaged and and I was saying the exact
opposite of six years ago I would say I
want them to launch the app and make a
purchase without even thinking about it
I didn't even want them to spend an
extra three seconds if they didn't have
to I wanted to be second nature and I
wanted to minimize the amount of time
they spent in our app and so it kind of
started backwards from the very early on
but we kind of held true to that today
we try to make sure nothing gets away in
the in the actual purchase process if
that's all somebody wants to do but if
they want additional fee
like for example they want to know how
long until their dryer is complete we
want to make those things available that
rich experience but we just don't want
it to get in the way of the actual
purpose of what they're doing which is
to make a payment tell me what what
trends are you seeing in FinTech
especially in the unattended FinTech
market and what do these trends reveal I
think that overall in the broader
FinTech community I think for the last
you know four or five years a lot of
innovation has come into the FinTech
space for sure there is innovation in
all kinds of spaces related to payments
for you know cross-border payments
virtual currencies to all kinds of
vendor b2b pipe payments there's been a
lot of innovation all the way around
what we are seeing though is how how do
we look at the problem are we creating a
solution to a real problem that exists
our consumers or merchants or whoever
your customers are willing to pay for
that and can you make money with that I
think that for a long time there was a
lot of money in the FinTech in terms of
a VC community where you know you didn't
really have to make that much money you
didn't really have to make money if you
could build market sure and just try to
own this space given what we're seeing
right now it's hard to see where all of
that is gonna go but one thing is clear
is that if you're building a business
that can self sustain can make money on
its own you know obviously in a better
spot than if you're reliant on outside
capital because then there's a lot of
risk factors associated with it so one
of the trends that I do see is that
companies fintax are trying to figure
out how do I get to the point where I'm
a little more self-sufficient and not
just giving away my product or my
solution and and am i solving a problem
that someone is actually willing to pay
for as you look ahead are there any
interesting things on your on your
product roadmap how are you planning to
participate in
future of FinTech if we kind of go back
to what pay range is about fundamentally
it's even not about unattended retail
although that's where we kind of got
started we kind of view unattended
retail like books were to Amazon 23 24
years ago that's how they got started
and then they kind of expand into all
kinds of stuff what we're funding that
fundamentally about is this being a
large network for everyday purchases
things that people purchase on a high
frequency basis right things that are
non bill payment non you know it's not
you going to buy a refrigerator but this
is about everyday payments from parking
to car washes to tipping the valet to
the shoeshine person at the airport to
whatever it could be and so these are
generally small ticket purchases they're
usually high frequency the average
consumer is probably doing three four
five hundred transactions a year for
these everyday purchases if you will and
we want to capture more and more of
those things and so our future roadmap
is all about capturing everyday
purchases and there are things that are
unique about everyday purchases that we
uniquely solve for one as I've already
mentioned they're typically small ticket
but there are other issues related to
that tube typically you want some
element of security you want some
element of privacy and anonymity you
know one of the key benefits of cash is
that it's anonymous once you pay
somebody you don't have to exchange any
personal information you don't have to
give them your name you don't have to
give them your phone number you don't
have to give them your email address
there's really no way they can get back
to you and in a lot of reasons people
pay cash or for anonymity or limiting
the exposure right and the risk
associated with that transaction and
that's kind of what pay rings does in a
lot in a you know a lot of ways we're
like a firewall between the consumer and
the merchant when a consumer engages
with pay range they make a trends
action all by our namesake with the
merchant who's in range of them but they
don't have to share any information they
don't give the merchant their phone
number they don't give the merchant
their email or the credit card number or
any of that kind of stuff the only thing
that you share with the merchant is
you're in physical range of that
merchant we process that transaction and
we do it securely we limit your exposure
we maintain your anonymity and in a lot
of ways we're a cast replacement because
of that it's it's way mine I love your
analogy between Amazon and books and pay
range and unattended mm-hmm
thank you so much I've really enjoyed
this chat today thank you for having me
again
[Music]
[Music]
関連動画をさらに表示
Bitcoin Rewards & Banking. Fold App is bridging the gap!
M&M के कैसे रहे Q1 Result, कंपनी के Group CFO Amarjyoti Barua से जानिए आगे का Growth Outlook
CLOCKWORK Webisode #2: How Ray Alimurung’s transformational leadership shaped Lazada Philippines
Want to Succeed in Business? Find a Problem to Solve | Anthony Tan and Amane Dannouni | TED
Tally Solutions: A Journey of Innovation and Growth
The 'New' Motorola Solutions Is Taking On the Critical Need for Safety | At Barron's
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)