Founder and CEO of PayRange I Serial Entrepreneur I Shaping the Future of Self-Service Commerce
Portland, Oregon
Joined September 2011
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When a business moves from cash to digital payments, the obvious changes are technical:
Transactions become easier to record.
Reconciliation improves.
Money becomes more visible and accountable.
But transformation also changes incentives. Someone may lose control over a process they’ve managed for years. An informal workaround may disappear. A role may become less important. In some cases, more visibility may expose financial leakage that was previously difficult to see.
Before deciding that a digital transformation is failing, ask a less comfortable question: Who benefits from the old process staying exactly as it is? Those people may be some of the most vocal critics of the new system.
#DigitalTransformation #ChangeManagement
Entrepreneurs often look for big markets, but they should also look for small frustrations that happen at scale. That’s what makes underserved industries so interesting. They’re full of old processes people have accepted for years simply because nobody has built a better option.
But when a small problem repeats often enough, solving it can become a very large business. What problem has your industry learned to live with simply because no one has built a better alternative?
#Entrepreneurship #Innovation
Cash isn’t free; its costs are simply hidden throughout the operation.
That’s one of the biggest misconceptions I’ve seen in cash-heavy industries.
There’s a belief that because digital payments come with a visible processing fee, they’re obviously more expensive.
All of those things cost money. They’re just spread across different parts of the business.
So we can’t think of it as cash versus a processing fee. It’s the fully loaded cost of cash versus the fully loaded cost of digital payments.
Once an M&A transaction closes, leaders still have to bring two companies together. That work is where the combined company actually gets built.
My own experience in that process has taught me to focus on five things: Culture, Clarity, Communication, Consistency, and Customers.
Poor communication creates confusion.
Inconsistency makes it harder to build one culture.
Internal confusion becomes visible to customers.
That’s why I don’t think of integration as combining two companies. You’re integrating the things a company is made of.
#MergersAndAcquisitions #BusinessStrategy
Consumers don’t really change their expectations across industries. If they can order food in seconds, transfer money from a phone, or pay with a tap, they notice when another experience isn’t as slick.
Don’t burn your energy keeping up with the competition. Keep up with your customers instead. Modernization starts by understanding the standard your customer is setting, not just the standard your industry has historically accepted. #CustomerExperience #DigitalTransformation