PYMNTS.com Leo Rocco - GoPago Interview

Transcription

1 PYMNTS.com Leo Rocco - GoPago Interview BEN Welcome. This is Ben Carsley of PYMNTS.com, and I am here today with Leo Rocco, CEO of GoPago. Thank you for your time today, Leo. LEO Thank you, Ben. Well, I m sure there are plenty of people in the industry that are already familiar with your company, but I find that there is really no better way to start off a podcast than to have someone as intricately as involved with a payments company as you are to explain the mission or goal in his or her own words. So to start us off, I d like for you to tell us what GoPago is aiming to do with or within the payment space, just kind of your thoughts on that. Sure, Ben. So here at GoPago, what we re looking to is we re looking to put all brick and mortar businesses in the cloud, making them more discoverable, right? And in doing that, we help modernize brick and mortar businesses at the point of sale. So it ll take advantage of a lot of the technologies that are available today by allowing consumers to browse or to pay from their smartphone, and by going ahead and modernizing the 1

2 merchants at the point of sale with a modern tablet-based point of sale system, that being GoPago. What happens is this line of differentiation between the physical and virtual world becomes blended, right? Where merchants are now discoverable, they re able to take advantage of a lot of what the online business such as Amazon and ebay have been able to do for several years, and really get them to a point in which they re able to go ahead and they re able to process more business via the online channel. And that s really what we re all about, is helping businesses modernize, get on the web, and to go ahead and streamline commerce. Well, I want to talk about that modernization from a merger perspective in a moment. But first, I want to bring up a really interesting comparison I ve seen you make, which is, you know, basically comparing the mobile payments revolution to the credit card revolution. So what are some of the similarities that you see that make you think that mobile has the potential to be that powerful? Sure. I mean, if you think back to the 50s and 60s, when the initial program around credit cards started in Fresno. I mean, the whole idea of, you know, Let s go ahead, let s sign up a bunch of merchants first, let s get them all on board, and let s go 2

3 ahead and get people this card so they re able to transact via the card. And we kind of have that that happening today, right? So even people initially were a little skeptical on, you know, is this card going to work? Is it safe? You know, cash is king. And that s been, you know, the main mechanism of conducting transactions. Well today, it s really evolved into having accounts in the cloud. So the card itself is just a mechanism to process transactions, versus, you know, I ve accessed my credit, which is in the cloud, via a mobile device, or via my laptop, or via my tablet. It really doesn t matter, because it s credit in the cloud, and it s available. So that s kind of where we re seeing this transition happening, and this evolution into how people will be conducting transactions, and how to go ahead and make, you know, make that overall process just so much more efficient. And long with that, by the way, what happens is the company s networks are created, then there are opportunities to go outside of interchange, and not have to go ahead and ride on those rails, and then have to pay the toll to the Visa, and the MasterCards, and what have you. So we re going to be seeing a lot more private networks created, you know, on the new rails as a result of connection between merchants and consumers via the mobile and the 3

4 Internet, really coming to fruition around creating that networkability. Well, that ties in perfectly to my next question, which is: let s say you have a merchant who s really looking to modernize, like you spoke about earlier, and wants to join this mobile revolution what do they need from a technological standpoint, and what does GoPago offer to meet those needs? Sure. No, I mean, that s a very good question. So what we ve seen, you know, early on, and merchants have either had a computer at their establishment, or they ve had a fax machine, or some other particular maybe even mobile device in some capacity, to connect them. What we re doing is we provide them a GoPago appliance. And that appliance is an Android tablet. And what it allows them to do is be connected to the Internet, and being able to go ahead and broadcast their products and services, thus being discoverable on a Google search, for instance. But that connectivity is key, right? That ability to be discoverable is key, right? You re able to take advantage of, you know, what the Amazons and the ebays have been able to do, right? By broadcasting and driving demand from a larger community, right? You know, truly what the Internet was invented for connecting people and 4

5 connecting businesses together. So we re able now to go ahead and do that by giving them this GoPago appliance. And that appliance then connects that. Well, I think the merchant appeal is obvious, then. But if we switch focus for a moment and talk about the consumers, you know, what does using a system like GoPago you know, how does that enhance a consumer experience? And why do you think mobile payments really improve shopping experience from that end of the spectrum? That is a great question. And it really comes down to the value that a consumer is able to gain through giving them back time. Time is precious, right? So if you look at, for example again, I like using the comparison of the credit card, because, you know, before there were credit cards, I would have to make sure that I have cash with me at all times. And, you know, whether it s me going to the bank, to go ahead and pull out the amount of cash that I have with me which also poses a security concern, you know, around theft and what have you and credit card, they just made it easier by being able to not have to carry cash around you, right? By going ahead and processing transactions, not having to worry about how did I run out of money, you know? So I m able go ahead and work through my daily 5

6 routine, not having to worry about not having enough cash on me. Now mobile, it s taking it even a step further, right? It s saying, Well, you know what? Now the overall concept of a queue now goes away. Because if I let s say I m getting my coffee, like a habitual get my coffee every day I can order that coffee on the phone, pay for it, and then the café will let me know when my coffee is ready. So what that allows me to do is better plan my day, I [get time back?], I m able to work through my day in a much more friction-free way, and and that is valuable. And that s where we really see mobile payments going. It s not just about loading credit on the phone, and tapping to go ahead and transfer funds. That s not valuable, right? What s valuable is getting time back. What s valuable is being able to skip the line, and then being able to go ahead and take advantage automatically of services that may be available on demand, or products which may be less expensive. Or offers which just may be available based on my behavior or purchase pattern. Right. Well, that s a great example of some of the value-added proposition that comes with mobile payments. I think you did a nice job explaining there. But this is obviously a hugely competitive space right now. So that being said, what do you 6

7 feel truly separates GoPago from others who are trying to accomplish pretty similar goals? You know, why is GoPago specifically really the future of mobile payments? Sure. Yeah, I think it s a few things. I mean, number one, we have an outstanding team. We have some of the best and brightest folks in the world working on helping us drive this solution to market. And, you know, for folks from Microsoft, and Google, and Facebook, and IBM, 2e ve all come together to really drive this technology forward and the solution forward. So folks that have architect systems, you know, for some of the largest companies out there the ebays, the Amazons, Intel, Cisco you know, we re composed of these people. So we know how to build enterprise software, you know? Like, other companies out there who you know, there are some companies that are that are just trying to, you know, work out of their garage to go ahead and create a mobile payments network. Well, that s a little more sophisticated than that. And in addition to having the best and brightest people, you know, we have relationships with some of the world s largest financial institutions, one of which is JPMorgan Chase. They re an investor in the company; they re a strategic partner; they ve been incredible to go ahead and really work with. You know, they are extremely 7

8 knowledgeable around payments, obviously, and and it s just been an outstanding relationship. And that really helps us around distribution, you know. Chase has 5,500 branches. They have 20,000 business bankers. They have 4 million merchants on their network. They re an outstanding partner, right? In addition, we have a relationship with one of the country s largest telcos, Verizon. You know, we just closed a relationship with them. We re there going out there and selling GoPago, training more than 2,000 of their sales reps out there in the marketplace. And we re also working with some extremely large technology companies on partnership opportunities, which is extremely exciting. But so those are just a few examples of really what differentiates us in the marketplace and why we have a very good chance of being a prominent player. Well, that s great, and congratulations on those partnerships. That s very encouraging to hear. But now that we have a solid background on what GoPago is all about, before I let you go, can you share with us any upcoming programs or projects that you re working on for the next quarter or two? Or simply outline some goals that you have for this company, just for 2013? Sure. You know, I mean, the business is focused on executing on the Chase and Verizon relationships. Those are two really key 8

9 relationships force around distribution. And they re primarily focused on small-medium business. We have an internal sales force that s focused on enterprise customers, such as you know, customers like Aramark, for instance, and Live Nation. So for several others that that we re pursuing. But mainly, it s driving the execution, the business, you know, driving distribution out there in the marketplace. It s also evolving our platform with a release of our SDK, and in our marketplace that we re looking to go ahead and include within the GoPago framework, allowing other developers to develop applications on top of GoPago. So businesses can go ahead and leverage specific pieces of software or solutions that take the GoPago solution just even a step further for that vertical. And we re just going ahead and making the solution even more connected. We have a component coming that it s all about social media aggregation. So merchants don t have time to go to the web and look up their Facebook fan page. They don t have time to look at the Google Plus page, or even to go ahead and handle the Twitter feeds. So we re looking to go ahead and then incorporate a social media aggregator within our appliance, so it allows merchants to better communicate in a much more friction-free way with their followers and their fans. 9

10 Well, you know, it s pretty clear to me that there s no more explosive or dynamic area in payments than mobile. So hearing from a company who s innovating and having success in this space is always great for our listeners. And I thought today served as a really nice introduction to GoPago for anyone who wasn t yet quite familiar with your brand. And Leo Rocco, CEO of GoPago, we thank you for sharing your experience with us here today. Thanks, Ben. Thank you for the opportunity. And looking forward to, you know, really driving this out in the marketplace. We re extremely excited. 10