PayRange | Paresh Patel: The Quickest Way to Pay for the Things You Go Often

Summary

In 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

00:00

😀 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.

05:01

🚀 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.

10:02

🛠️ 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.

15:02

🌐 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.

Keywords

💡FinTech

FinTech, short for Financial Technology, refers to the integration of technology into financial services to make them more efficient, secure, and accessible. In the context of the video, FinTech is the main theme, with the interview focusing on innovative developments in this field, particularly in the unattended space.

💡Parrish Patel

Parrish Patel is the CEO of PayRange, an innovative company in the FinTech industry. His role and the company he leads are central to the video's narrative, as he discusses the company's mission, challenges, and achievements.

💡Mobile App

A mobile app, in this context, refers to a software application designed for mobile devices to provide specific services or functions. PayRange's mobile app is a key innovation that allows users to make payments at unattended retail points, eliminating the need for physical coins or cash.

💡Coin Hoarding

Coin hoarding is the practice of accumulating coins, often for specific purposes like using them at laundromats or vending machines. The video discusses how PayRange's mobile app addresses this issue by offering a digital payment alternative to physical coins.

💡COVID-19

COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an infectious disease caused by the most recently discovered coronavirus. In the context of the video, it is mentioned as a catalyst for rapid innovation and adaptation within PayRange, leading to the introduction of new features such as 'pay later'.

💡Innovation

Innovation refers to the process of introducing new ideas, methods, or products to improve or expand upon existing ones. In the video, PayRange is highlighted as an innovative company that continually enhances its services and products, such as adding a donation feature to support frontline workers during the pandemic.

💡Unattended Space

The term 'unattended space' refers to areas or locations where services or transactions occur without the direct supervision of a human attendant. This includes settings like vending machines, laundromats, and other self-service retail environments. PayRange operates in this space, providing payment solutions for these types of environments.

💡Payment Processing

Payment processing involves the transaction handling and security measures used to complete a payment. It's a critical component of financial technology and is the backbone of services like PayRange, which facilitates secure transactions between consumers and unattended retail points.

💡Community Service

Community service refers to the action of helping individuals, groups, or the community as a whole, often on a voluntary basis. In the video, PayRange's introduction of a donation feature demonstrates their commitment to community service by allowing users to contribute to frontline workers during the COVID-19 crisis.

💡Multi-Pronged Approach

A multi-pronged approach involves tackling a problem or challenge from multiple angles or aspects. In the context of the video, PayRange's strategy to serve consumers, machine operators, and communities simultaneously reflects such an approach, addressing the needs of all stakeholders involved in the unattended retail sector.

💡Small Ticket Commerce

Small ticket commerce refers to transactions that involve relatively low monetary values, typically in the context of everyday purchases. PayRange specializes in this area, focusing on facilitating payments for common, small-value purchases like those made at vending machines or laundromats.

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]