CEO, Swipesum
In which sector is your company most closely aligned?
Fintech
What does your company do?
We specialize in mid-sized to larger businesses where accepting payments gets complicated. Often times there are multiple softwares payments needs to integrate into, unique billing and hardware needs, and support tends to be a nightmare in this industry. This leaves companies with overpriced inadequate solutions. Merchant Services is complicated on purpose, and we solved that! We act as a fractional Chief Payments Officer, sourcing the best solutions at the lowest costs, do the hard work to get everything setup, and long term customer services.
How long has your company had a presence in St. Louis?
We moved the business to St. Louis in 2018 because of Arch Grants, and the local investor base.
What makes the St. Louis region an ideal home for your company/organization? Why do you choose to operate your business here?
Early in the idea stage, we aligned ourselves with what St. Louis was trying to build with tech economic development. We thought that if we could get a whole city behind us, our business could skyrocket, and it did. The majority of our investors are St. Louis locals. We have several known companies as clients, who gave us a chance early on and have happily stayed with us. The talent pool has been a blessing, and we have filled all of our needed roles with great Team Members.
What has been the most valuable resource (person, tool, organization) for helping your company grow? How did you find it? How do you utilize it?
There is no question that the Arch Grants organization has been the most valuable resource. Before we had our first local investors, winning an Arch Grant was the seal of approval to book those meetings. They gave us a network of local business leaders and connections, that we could not have built on our own. The City has actively taken a role in making sure Swipesum not only succeeded but thrived.
What advice would you give new tech companies that are trying to navigate the current market?
Focus on revenues over everything.
What new practice or policy did you put into place over the pandemic that has positively impacted your company?
The pandemic really destroyed our pipeline, because we were targeting to broad of a customer base. It really helped define our ideal customer profile. We have spent the last 2 years only going after only our ideal customers and the monetary rewards have been a blessing.
Tell us about the next big thing in your technology sector. How will this affect your business?
We’re in an industry that’s constantly evolving, a lot of innovation is focused around the point of purchase and payment processing. Completing a purchase with a card will only get more simple, We will see major innovation in: AI and facial recognition, most software companies becoming a payment processor, and brands creating their own software to run their business and accept payments.
What is the accomplishment you are most proud to share from 2022?
We had multiple profitable months and see a clear path to profitability.
What exciting development is on the horizon for your company in 2023?
We have several new technologies being released that will drastically reduce the cost of accepting payments.
How can people learn more about your company or get involved in what you are doing?
Visit Swipesum.com or just shoot me an email at michael@swipesum.com
