Allison Barkley

When you hear the word developer-first payment processor, many people think of Stripe. At the 10,000-foot level, they market themselves similarly to Moov. But under the hood, we are not really direct competitors and solve very different use cases: 1️⃣ Stripe isn’t actually a payments processor. They use First Data to process their payments, charging higher fees (that pesky 2.99%) for ease of use. Moov is its own payments processor. Passing through our at-scale costs to customers and allowing them to build their own payments business via a rev share. 2️⃣ Stripe is focused on e-commerce and the last mile of payments. Moov is focused on omni-channel businesses that offer payments online and in person - supported by online technology. Think plumbers working in the Midwest that mainly receive offline payments. 3️⃣ Stripe is focused on letting online companies take payments. Moov lets companies build and monetize their own payments business. Look, if you’re thinking of payments processors and you’ve got us in the same bucket as Stripe, thank you. We’ll take it. But just know that we’re each very good in very different lanes. And Moov’s CEO has a better beard.

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Every year I deep dive into the annual BenchPress Report from The Wow Company. Here’s what stood out to me… The agencies with the highest growth rates are all doing 3 specific things: 1) They're using PSA (Professional Services Automation) software  This made perfect sense to me, because we saw the growth of our own customers at Teamwork.com‎ follow the same pattern. They started out asking us for basic task and project management features. Over time, growing firms started asking us for time tracking, utilization rates and profitability reporting–they wanted one tool that helped them manage the entire client work lifecycle. Generic project management just wasn't enough anymore. 2) They're reviewing gross margin (Monthly) It still seems crazy to me but among the firms with slower growth rates, only 65-75% of them are reviewing gross margin at least once per QUARTER–let alone once each month. How can you manage profitability if you’re not looking at your #’s all the time? So many service-based businesses fall in the trap of looking at their top line revenue as they try to scale. But if you aren’t keeping tabs on your actual profits, it’s tough to keep reinvesting profits into that future growth. 3) They're maintaining high utilization rates  The stats show a similar challenge we saw in our own State of Agency Operations Report. The agencies with slower growth rates struggle to hit the common industry benchmark of 60%+ for average overall billable utilization. The fastest growing firms were hitting billable utilization rates of almost 75%! That’s what the stats show.   Is there anything you typically see that fast-growing professional service firms usually have in common? #B2B #growth #professionalservices #clientwork #clientservices

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Building Propexo has taught me so much about multifamily PM software integrations: 1. Integrations are hard 🤯 If you're struggling to build an integration, you're not alone. I've spoken to many startups that spend 6 months on just a single integration. That's time and money not spent on high-value features & other strategic product capabilities. 2. Integrations enable GTM 🤝 Property owners and managers are increasingly demanding integrations as a prerequisite for doing business. If your product doesn't seamlessly integrate with the PM software they're already using, you'll find it difficult to close sales. 3. Integrations are costly 💰 Be prepared to spend tens of thousands of dollars upfront to access each API before you can start building an integration. Once it is built, you can finally start selling and making money to recoup the costs. Engineering time, lost sales, and upfront spending are massive challenges that can make or break a startup. That's our "why" at Propexo. We provide simple, effective integrations that allow proptechs to grow fast. #proptech #propertymanagementsoftware #integrations #founders #multifamily

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If you ask any sort of payments professional, they'll tell you that crystal clear billing descriptors are non-negotiable. At this point, it might seem like "drink more water" kind of advice. It's common sense that customers must know who's just charged their card. But common sense isn't always common practice. To this day, we see merchants who do hundreds of thousands in monthly transaction value, but their billing descriptors are completely unrelated to their brand's name. That's why, even though it's very basic, we always make sure our merchants' billing descriptors are on point. To get more advanced with it, merchants that have a large/diverse product catalogue can utilize dynamic descriptors to further increase clarity. For example: COMPANY NAME * PRODUCT NAME enabled with dynamic descriptors.

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Traditional software tech moats are eroding. This is a conversation thats pretty hot amongst founders and investors right now. It's happening for two reasons: 1. There has been an explosion of SaaS tooling over the last 10 years. You can buy vs. build almost every part of the stack right now.  2. AI makes it faster and easier to create the pieces you ~do~ have to build.  What does this mean for the future? Most top tier founders are embracing this reality. They are realizing that future moats are all around who your customers are and the value you are providing to them. I love how Adrian Alfieri is going all in on this concept. Verbatim isn't the first to help create content for teams, but they are the first to make their site all about their customers. We will see more of this in the future.

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When working with accounting teams in Silicon Valley there is never enough funding available to hire local available skilled people to do all the work that is required as quickly as investors expect. I have often been hired because the investors and founders weren't getting the answers they needed, or there were many accounting/finance mistakes that had caused the investors/founders to lose trust in their accounting leaders. There is also usually a breakdown in communication, timelines and reliability. But, when I have been engaged I find the root cause is usually tied back to capacity constraints. My new teams have always needed more resource help and always been stuck working long hours doing manual tasks that are required to get accurate complete accounting/reporting. I believe that AI can help mitigate this resource constraint. "AI for Finance" is very similar to outsourcing manual accounting tasks to an AI; it adds value, but the change must be part of a structured transformation: BASIC: The first stretch of time from when I am hired, until my first board meeting, is usually 1 week or up to a month and this time period requires me to dive in, "listen & learn" and analyze data to understand the facts of what is happening. Based on those facts I work with the team to develop a financial model that is the baseline of truth for the board meeting. STANDARDIZED: Next I analyze the close calendar and apply LEAN methodologies to remove waste from the process; this helps me validate and understand what is happening while identifying quick wins. I empower the local controller and finance team to prioritize their time and availability on the value add activities that only they can do. RATIONALIZED: We implement quick win technology solutions and accounting modules that are often already being paid for by the company, but haven't been fully deployed or adopted (e.g. PR/POs), then we look at the remaining manual activities and figure out how to do these items in the most efficient way possible... The solution next includes adding experienced resources from other low cost regions around the world outside of Silicon Valley. The global companies I often work for usually already have different teams in different countries, but they often are siloed and they haven't load balanced work processes across the teams to remove resource constraints. In every situation the local Silicon Valley resources start out feeling threatened, but they quickly see I am able to remove their constraints, double or triple their team size without adding net cost to the budget. I next mentor the local Silicon Valley team and teach them how to be a manager; in most scenarios the local team expand their careers outside of book keeping and are able to get into more strategic things. DYNAMIC: This is where AI can help finance teams additionally automate efficiencies. Where will the balance land between applying AI and applying low cost remote People Intelligence?

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Is legacy technology holding your funding platform back? 👉 Here's a hard truth: While small businesses move at lightning speed, many funding platforms still operate like it's 2010. Last month, I met a funder who took 2 weeks to process a simple business loan. Their team was drowning in paperwork. But here's what happens when you embrace digital transformation: • 75% faster loan processing • Happy clients who get funds in days, not weeks • Less paperwork, more actual work • Smart automation that catches what humans miss Just last quarter, we helped a funding platform: → Cut processing time from 14 days to 3 days → Save $50K monthly on manual operations → Double their client satisfaction scores The secret? It wasn't just about adding new tech. We created a smart mix of: • AI-powered risk assessment • Cloud-based document processing • Real-time client updates • Automated approvals for qualified leads Best part? Their team now focuses on what matters - helping small businesses grow. What's holding your funding platform back? Let's talk about transforming your operations into a growth engine that your clients will love. Drop a "👋 " below or DM me if you'd like to see how we made this happen. #FinTech #DigitalTransformation #BusinessFunding

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I wonder how a majority of SAAS companies who price based on seat licensing will adjust to an A.I. Agent model. Today a business would look like this: 12 Support Agents @ $30/month = $360/month With A.I. Agent - it could look like: 3 Support Agents @ $30/month = $90/month AI Agent(s) @ $xx/month ? The 3 Support Agents would only be required to handle escalations from the A.I. agent I don't see how they justify "seat licensing" for A.I. but they will try.

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Early stage fundraising has been an absolute dumpster fire lately. Startups failing, fire sales, VC's closing up shop. But there's good news... PitchBook just dropped some gold. It's a must see for early stage companies. Here's why: 1. Deal counts are slightly outpacing 2023, landing around 2017 levels 2. Median funding round sizes are up slightly from 2023, with Early Stage VC seeing a larger increase (+19%) than Seed Stage (+4%) 3. Median pre-money valuations increased from 2023, with Early Stage VC up 29% and Seed Stage up 8% 4. Exit counts are remaining flat from 2023, while Exit values are up sharply and have returned to 2017 levels 2023: We've lost cabin pressure. Oxygen masks on. Start praying. 2024: WE ARE SO BACK??? Not quite. Exit counts still need to increase and VC funds need to reverse trend and recapitalize their war chests. We'll get there (fingers crossed). If you like this and want more takes and angles to win in medtech, join our newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gBWZcKDD - it's free and you'll get smarter. Thanks to PitchBook for the excellent data preview! #venturecapital #seedstage #seriesA #seriesB #fundraising #medicaldevice #medtech #XOmedtech #NVCA

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What does your sales conversion rate look like at your accounting firm? 🤔 Too many firm leaders talk about "crushing it" and "doing great" but not enough data to really know how well you're stacking up. This is why I loved having Patrick Dichter come on the Jetpack Workflow "Growing Your Firm" podcast to talk about ACTUAL NUMBERS. Here's his data ... 10 discovery calls ⏩ 4 proposal call ⏩ 2 clients Early on, he realized he had a repeatable process and was able to double revenue within 12 months of acquiring his first firm. In the interview, we talked about his sales process, pricing, how he built more inbound acquisition (all his clients come from inbound) and much more. Take a look at the comments for the full interview 👇 #JetpackWorkflow #GrowingYourFirm #accounting #sales

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A lot of other gateways and processors charge monthly SaaS fees. Sometimes something as small as $10 a month to clients that process hundreds of millions in payments. I don’t get it. Nobody likes fees. Fees equal friction. And friction equals one more reason for a client to leave. It's like banks charging for paper statements. Like, I get that you're focused on getting your costs down, and you think everybody should do electronic statements. But do you really want to get rid of my grandfather, who just has tons of cash sitting there because he's retired, in order to make $10. Or do you want to hold on to his deposits? Back to Moov’s strategy - Giving a client access to our SaaS portal so they have more transparency and feel comfortable driving more volume, costs us zero dollars incremental per customer. Why would we charge for it? You charge for the moments you create value - like accepting a payment. Not for the elements that make it easier to self-serve on your platform and drive more volume. That said, to all our competitors, ignore this post. Fees are great ;) #DigitalPayments #Partnership #VerticalSaaS

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I've seen Fintech CFOs obsess over tier-based pricing. Little did they know, they just let their vendor off the hook. 😅 You think you're being clever, negotiating those volume discounts. But here's the uncomfortable truth I've learned after years in the trenches: Your vendor doesn't care if their tool actually works. They just want you to send more API requests. A lot more. I once saw a client ask for volume discount, not realizing they’ll still be ROI negative. But hey, at least they got a discount on all those API calls, right? 🙃 Here's what smart Fintechs do instead: They make their vendors work hard to get paid. Every. Single. Month. Performance-based pricing isn't just a buzzword. It's about aligning incentives. I've seen it work wonders: ✅ Success fees tied to fraud prevention KPIs ✅ Guaranteed performance thresholds ✅ Holistic ROI-based pricing models Your vendor is under-performing? Suddenly, it’s them that are working overtime to deliver results. Funny how that works, huh? Look, I get it. Tier-based pricing looks great on a spreadsheet. But we know that reality is that performance changes month over month. And someone needs to be with their finger on the pulse, fine-tuning the system. That has a cost of its own. You're not just buying API calls. You're investing in protection for your business. Make sure your vendor has skin in the game. Otherwise, you might find yourself paying less... For a whole lot of nothing.

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I speak to SaaS vendors every day (well not Sundays). Most of them are breaking card industry compliance by not understanding PCI requirements correctly. Yeh it's true, and I'm not just talking about the micro SaaS guys. Here's where most SaaS vendors are wrong — They think because they're inserting fields provided to them by the gateway, they do not have to worry about PCI compliance. They're wrong. For example, the software triggers the payment workflow and what's to stop a SaaS vendor or hacker from redirecting that payment flow somewhere else... All SaaS vendors with a payment feature enabling their merchants to accept cards must at least self-assess or be audited. If you have less than 300k of transactions via your product you can self-assess via a SAQ-D questionnaire. If you have more than 300k of transactions via your product you will have to be PCI DSS Level 1 compliant and be assessed by an auditor annually. 300k isn't a very big number when you're talking about a SaaS platform. Now, compliance can be made easier by saying all our transactions go via these hosted fields and this is the part of our product that is in scope. That starts to become exponentially difficult if you work with multiple gateways. Unless you have an aggregated checkout from someone like Shuttle that is... Hit me up if you need to know more, knowledge is power, or at least the best way not to get fined. #payments #saas

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ARR is more than MRR * 12. If you talk, plan, and execute from an Annual Recurring Revenue perspective, you typically have either a) annual agreements or b) annual upfront payments. Or both. Monthly Recurring Revenue is used to describe businesses that have month-to-month arrangements with its customers. It’s possible for a single company to have both types of recurring revenue. Think: online self-serve tier vs. sales-led plans (i.e., “call for pricing”). The value of those revenue streams and their associated cash flows is different which is why they are typically reported separately. Do you use ARR or MRR to describe your business? Are you using the right one? #saas Jay Nathan GrowthCurve

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Well said! Partnership programs (if executed properly) drive faster close ratios, on top of reduced CAC. Many top execs don't have the patience and understanding for the program to mature with over oversrutization of intial numbers. It takes time to create and grow a successful channel!

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Thoughts after mashing through a bunch of work on a Sunday If you're running a startup... (def: early stage company that wants to grow, ship at a high velocity with a small team, steal market share from slow boring incumbents, etc) You gotta go hard And your company values are a big part of it. I'm not talking about "posters on a wall" with surface level bullshit platitudes like "have integrity" I'm talking about the real stuff that actually defines how you work And if you have the courage to write them You have to have the courage to honestly ask yourself if you're living them Because the truth is that your team will never be MORE bought in than you are And if you're hiring good people, they'll sniff out self-doubt a mile away Sometimes before you even smell it (it's like body odor, nobody ever smells themselves lol) Live it. Do the extra. Go hard. Be who you told them you'd be. Plus a little extra. And when it sucks...remember You asked for this (if you're a founder) MV

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We are still overlooking the wealth data in our tech stack. 3 CROs from Owner, Xero and Apollo share on leveraging data in three ways; - Build an efficient SMB go-to-market strategies. - Drive revenue growwth and retention - Outmaneuver the competition CRO, Owner .com, Kyle Northon When Kyle got hired he realized most of the leads generated by BDR had high churn. From his SaaSOpen presentation, he shared three ways they overcome this and build an efficient SMB GTM. 1. Focused on customer quality as much as they did on the quantity 2. Invested heavily in data to help reps be maximally productive 3. Scaled the segments and channels that made economical sense. CRO, Xero, Ashley Grech On a discussion with SaaStock CEO Alex, Ashley shared insghts that really drive revenue and retention. 4. On growth, you don’t need to connect to your customers only when something negative or positive happen in businesses. Consider building the relationship when there are not fires to put out. 5.On conversion, test early, test often A few days after the sign up, reach out to help pospects onboard if they haven't. The team tested if sign ups would pay $100 or get help exporting invoice data on Xero, to Ashley's surprise they were willing to pay. CRO, Apollo io, Leandra Fishman To scale in a competitive space, you need to understand the market in out and zero in on the edges. For Apollo, it was; - ease of use - ease of set up While most rivals were Sales-led, Apollo went with PLG motion and it paid off. 6. Highlight the core differences with otjer vendors when on demo calls upfront. Cause, they have probably checked them out as well. 7. Ensure the time to value is a short as possible to capture buy in early on. TL:DR; Insights on growth from 3 CROs. P.S; Hit the 🔔 to get daily insights on proven product marketing.

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