Why Payments Were Broken and How One Founder Fixed It | Ep. 334 with Thomas Aronica Founder and CEO of Biller Genie

0:04Daniel Robbins:So, Thomas, you are in the payment space and you've done amazing things to really revolutionize your industry. But take me back to the moment when you realized that there's an issue and there's a problem that needed to be solved. Because I imagine the payment space, it's kind of an old space. I don't see a huge amount of technological breakthroughs coming through many companies that have been doing it for a while. But what were you doing in that moment that made you say, this is where I need to go? Yeah, so I got into payments in 06. So I got into payments before iPhones existed. And back in the days, like the old knuckle busters where you would have that clack and you would swipe the card.

0:48So, you know, it's obviously evolved, you know, pretty quickly. The pace of innovation just in payments and technology has grown really quickly. But back in those days where, you know, my business was kind of like separated into two main sort of, you know, let's call it segments. Right. We had like the traditional SMBs that, you know, we were selling everything to everybody. One day it was a shoe store. One day it was a lawyer. One day it was a, you know, web store that was wanting to take payments. And then, you know, another half of the business that was helping software companies build payment infrastructure.

1:20So that started out in the early days. It's like, you know, why was the healthcare software able to tell you that you had a$50 copay, but then the front desk person had to walk to the other side of their room to collect the payment and pull out the vanilla folder, staple a receipt to a paper, put it back in. Finally, kind of like didn't make any sense. So in the early days, it was like, why don't we put a payout button there and just swipe the card and do everything in one step, right? And I was like, you know, even through like 2015, 16, 17, we were doing some of that stuff. And that evolved into, you know, online portals and patient portals and then workflow automation.

1:54And so over the years, like we just kind of like, you know, built, you know, more payment infrastructure for other software companies. I was helping these guys build BuilderGene. I didn't even know it. But then all through that time, we still had thousands of SMBs that were asking us for ways to connect our online portals and our terminals that were on a desk to QuickBooks. And why do I have to do the work twice? Why do I have to swipe a card on a terminal and then pay a CPA to go input into my QuickBooks file? So we were trying to sell everything under the sun. We tried to productize other third-party solutions.

2:26We tried to solve that problem. People were literally asking us for it. We tried to find what was out there and solve that problem. Um, and nothing, we found that nothing worked, right? Like somebody that sent invoices, we could find a solution for, but if they were at the point of sale, it didn't work. Or if they were on QuickBooks online, you know, we were able to find a janky solution, but you know, QuickBooks desktop, you need a degree in rocket science to try to figure out how to connect it. And like, just nothing worked. It was like a bad experience for everybody. It was easier just to do their work twice.

2:55Um, and a buddy of mine, I'll never forget. It was like 2017, a buddy of mine, small time property manager had, uh, you know, 15, 20, doors that he managed. And he was doing that at QuickBooks. And I was talking about this integration that we had just done to this healthcare software. And he was like, man, if I had that at QuickBooks, that would be awesome. I was like, dude, that's when the light bulb went off. I was like, wait a second, we're already building this infrastructure. We're just doing it into other third-party software. Let's build it in a way that's totally agnostic and agnostic to the software, agnostic to the payment networks and payment infrastructure.

3:28And we could solve the problem that we know people are literally asking us for and been asking us for, you know, for a decade and, you know, really build something that met the need. So it wasn't like, you know, it was a software guy that woke up one day and had a new idea for a fresh game. It was, you know, it was like played up, you know, necessity drives invention.

3:44Daniel Robbins:So yeah, so it seems like you kind of had to throw spaghetti at the wall in terms of what was your core service offering. So you had to get clients, you get these clients in, you kind of do the things that you can do for them, but it's not like we're going to be this one thing yet. is I find like a lot of entrepreneurs, they don't really always know in the beginning exactly the exact service and offering you are is not really what you will become over time. It sounds like one of the clients had this need and then you realize like, okay, this is the thing. So now you figured it out. Now you know what the company is.

4:22Daniel Robbins:How do you then acquire the first companies? Yeah, well, so I would even say it kind of evolved after that, right? So like that was the first light bulb that was in 2018 or so we dropped the first line of codes like early 18 and even that was you know i came up with the idea on a friday on a monday i put on that for developer the next friday we had someone hired the next monday we were running code like in hindsight that's not the way to start this software company um but you know we first put the first product into market and our our first idea was let's give the software away for free so that way we can help drive the payments business that's where you know i had spent the last 15 years of my career so that was like the first, the real first idea was, you know, we're going to, we're going to build software.

5:01We're going to solve this problem. We're going to give it away for free. And we put it out to market. We had, you know, uh, you know, pretty instant following, you know, we were getting picked up by some of the big, um, you know, CPA firms, my colleagues, and, you know, kind of like frenemies in the industry, people that were competitors, but friends that we met through conferences were, were trying to resell it. Um, and then the, the, the, the second real, you know, light bulb moment, which kind of turns us into what we are today and where the story really starts is end of 2019, we had started doing a few awards and I actually met PNC.

5:33PNC Bank came over to us and said, we love what we're doing. You know, there's, you know, and obviously for this, our business customers, you know, really are interested in what you've got here, but we're not going to sell under your tiny little brand, right? We're PNC, we have our own business. So that was when the second real life book went off. And it's like, wait a second, this isn't a freeware. This is a SaaS business. So let's, you know, let's kind of like decouple payments, decouple the payment infrastructure. So that way we can partner with any payment provider and allow them to, you know, kind of augment their own real paying strategy.

6:07So, you know, that kind of like showed us the light in early 2020, which everybody remembers what happened in early 2020. That's when we decided we're going to change the whole business model. And there's a whole story behind that. You know, we kind of deep coupled it, turned it to a SaaS product and really spent the better part of the next two years, you know, to really build the tools and solutions for partners who can use it to distribute and augment their own strategies. you know that was really kind of like that's the true birth of Bill or Janie you know early 2020.

6:42Daniel Robbins:Yeah it's crazy I think it was like the six-year anniversary a couple days ago of the announcement of what happened six years ago it's kind of insane to think that was six years ago everything changed so I have this idea and I want to understand what you think about this so the ability to create applications with vibe coding software, Claude, it's obviously coming down to almost next to nothing, right? You can vibe code software. It doesn't mean it's 100 % perfect, but you can create something that can be usable for almost next to nothing. I'm wondering how many companies have to take a similar approach that you did where their core offering is not the front end to the customer, but they provide like a free service to the customer.

7:28Daniel Robbins:And then that kind leads the customer then into the company, or maybe they get a percentage of something on the back end, like payments. But I've been thinking about this lately, creating software on the front end just to get people to use it and always remember your name. Or maybe that generates some sort of revenue, which seems like a similar approach that you had to take in the beginning. What do you think about that? Yeah, I think, look, AI is, I think, exciting and scary at the same time. I have a few perspectives on just like like vibe coding in general but we've done it ourselves i mean i'm sitting here you know building tools for myself that i didn't think was possible you know years ago um but you know like there's i think going to be a an advent of like micro solutions right like you could build small little tools that help solve small little problems and you know maybe that becomes you know you give away you know in our world you give away a free invoicing tool that that helps to drive you know visibility and drive people in solve some problems that way they don't need to build it themselves.

8:29But I think that there's going to be a world where the need for comprehensive SaaS solutions is going to shift perhaps a little bit more upmarket and the more sophisticated small business is going to maybe build, if they just need an invoicing tool, they're going to be able to build a simple one themselves. I mean, it solves a small little need. But what we're seeing is that the resiliency behind it is where you need the sophistication into like an engineering team, right? Like you could build a little app, but the second you change a character from a lowercase to an uppercase, the whole thing explodes.

9:05So like, how do you make it resilient? How do you make it like, you know, useful for the market? You know, I think that's a, you know, a whole different story. But, you know, I do see a world where, you know, SaaS companies are offering, you know, free tools to drive visibility and bring people in. But, you know, I think that, you know, the players that are going to win are going to create experiences like the days of just slapping on a you know an ai you know we could draft an email for you um i mean that's like table six these days you know i think be able to do financial forecasting like anybody anything that's like written in a textbook like that's gonna be disrupted right like if it's in a textbook and an ai or a human career from an ai i could just do it faster anybody's going to be really able to build that but to create experiences like to make it real goal.

9:53Like there's one thing to create an app that could send an invoice. There's another thing to log in and see, you know, Dan's face talking to you saying like, how do you want it? What do you want it to look like? Let me help you create the invoice. Who do you want to send it to? How can I follow up with you? Right. So like the experience of humanizing AI and making it more of a, an interactive experience. I think the people that do that really stand to win.

10:14Daniel Robbins:Well, I can't wait because I use, you know, when I invoice, I have to type, But if there was an AI avatar that talked to me, I feel like I would use it. That's fascinating. It might become my therapist. I think I know someone. Can I help you with that? I'm afraid I might become my therapist. That's what fascinates me about avatars. I feel like it doesn't really matter what it's used for. People will just, as they feel they're more human-like, they will kind of move over. I was reading something. It was an app about something. But people seem to use it as their therapist, but it's not, it's, it's just a chat bot.

10:55Daniel Robbins:But they were as they, it's like, they automatically go into this, like, well, you know, I'm kind of feeling down today. Let me just talk to the chat bot because it feels like a human, but it's also not human. So it's not going to judge me. You know, how, what do you think about this? How we're interacting with AI. It's like, we really, you know, technology moves faster than we can adapt. and we don't i don't think we can really tell what's like human or not yeah especially at the at the pace right now um you know the the the adaptation i think is also going to be generational too right like we're we're even talking about like is there a you know a gen x millennial and gen z you know sort of uh interface and you interact with it a little bit differently so i think that you know that that's going to naturally evolve but like you know the the open ai is the anthropics of the world have started to already lay the foundation just in the last two years of what it's like to interact with tools like this.

11:51I think it's just an actual evolution, right? Like I think that, you know, 10 years ago, we were watching Back to the Future. And if you ever said that you're going to have a flying car, people thought you were crazy. And maybe we don't have flying cars, but we have a Tesla that could drive you, you know, across the world, across the country without, you know, you haven't touched the steering wheel. So, you know, probably if you'd ask people 10, 15 years ago, if that was possible, I thought, you know, you're crazy. So, you know, if we think about what 5, 10 years from now could look like, I think the world's gonna be a really different place.

12:26Daniel Robbins:I was just watching Uber is just doing these promotional videos. It's starting in Dubai, then it's coming to LA, then I think New York City, I could be mistaken, where it's a drone. it's like a helicopter drone that it can get you like 10 minutes would normally take two hours it's unmanned and it's actually uber and they're like you could you'll be able to use the app to actually call this thing and so they did a flight with it was i forget what show it was on they were like they wanted to promote it so they go in the guy goes in and it takes them somewhere i'm like wow like what a time to be alive yeah i was in dubai a year or two ago and they're like they're building infrastructure into roadways to charge the cars as the cars are driving so like imagine just like car the uber never stops it's just like it's always on the road doesn't need to even recharge so it's uh it's pretty wild the world that we're uh that we're living in i know the only thing is we move so fast that i don't know if we're recharging right that's the thing as humans like we i you know i need to be healthier sleeper i need to recharge myself because I get too wrapped up in things.

13:31Daniel Robbins:But let's go to the, I think we've all had those scary moments as entrepreneurs where like you start to get momentum and then boom, the rug is pulled out, something happens. It seemed, I mean, that could be like an every other day thing sometimes. But was there a moment for you where you were like, everything was, you're cruising up, everything was great, rug got pulled and you're like, I don't know if I even want to do this anymore. Man, so many over the years. I mean, more than I can, you know, more than I can kind of remember, I think at all, you know, my, my story starts similar years where it's, you know, I was in a, I remember my, my first business in, in 06 was in my closet of my two bedroom apartment in Miami.

14:09I ripped the walls down and that was, I had a CRT monitor and that was my first, you know, office. Um, but, uh, you know, look, um, you know, we, we, we rebranded the company, I told you in, in 2020, um, you know, we, we went out, we were starting to like, think about how we raise some money do we you know do we do a seed round um early 2020 like january february we had uh like a little seed round that we were trying to raise for um it was all friends and family like those are my college buddies that were you know going to put you know 10 grand here 20 grand there and you know try to raise some money that way um and then you know that monday hit in march and boom like everybody lost 50 percent of their you know portfolios overnight it was like tom like the last thing we could do is keep you money right now um so imagine Like we, we started to try to, you know, raise a time that was just like, you know, it's just an impossibility.

15:00So we went from, you know, man, we got this run covered. We did this in two weeks. This is awesome. We're going to be able to run to like, boom, the next day it's like, holy shit, we have no money. How are we going to, you know, grow the business? And, you know, that, that happened, you know, a few times over those next few years. I mean, I remember, um, you know, we, we, I'm very proud to say we never laid off anybody. We never had a riff. We, you know, kind of held a couple of little breaks that, that helped us along the way. So we were able to like kind of maintain our growth. But there were a few times I remember there was one, like there was one Friday in particular where we were, you know, hoping to have an investment come in.

15:35And we were I mean, we were down to we were down to we had there was no gas left in the tank. Like there was no money to pull from. Like I had no money left. My business partner had no money. Like there was just no money to pull from it. We were you know, we were we were basically like hours away from having to lay off FSF. Like we had the letters written. We had like all the payrolls, like, you know, we had everything ready to go. And if we didn't get an investment in like, I think two hours, you know, like we said at Friday, five o 'clock, if we can't, you know, if we don't have money and like we can't pay people on Monday, then, you know, fortunately, you know, we had an investment hit like 3.30.

16:11I mean, like, I don't think our staff knew that it was like 90 minutes away from having to change the entire business and turn it into a lifestyle business. you know and that that happened you know a few times throughout the the i'm ever calling you know a buddy of mine um you know midway probably through like 21 being like i can't make payroll on there like can you spot me 50 grand so that way i can you know keep the doors open because otherwise what do i do you know there there's there's been a lot of stories like that where

16:37Daniel Robbins:you know so tom so what do you think i mean because if if you tell if you took somebody if you took Tom, you said, hey, Tom, you're going to start this business. It's going to be going great. Shit's going to hit the fan. Everything's going to fall apart. 90 minutes before, you're going to be saved. If you told somebody how the roller coaster was going to be, do you think you would still continue to be an entrepreneur? And if so, what is the drive? What do you think keeps people in it? Do you think it's the ignorance of not knowing what's going to happen? Or it's just because you know you just love pain yeah that sounds good to say gluttony um you know i i don't know sometimes like i i'm like i scratch my head i'm like look i don't i don't think i'm employable at this point like i think i would drive anybody crazy that that's you know tried to try to employ me but i think that there's some just inherent drive to want to achieve you know it's not like there's some there's some thrill in the chaos like we you know we call it whack-a-mole like i feel like i'm every day i'm just like fighting to fight and i'm trying to like solve problems and as soon as i plug one hole it's like five more holes spring open and you know even like i like i you know i talked to my my therapist and i'm like you know and she's like you've been saying every 90 days it's going to get better for the last five years you know like it's like 90 days from now it's going to be better 90 days to get better just 90 days there's more problems um you know so you know i i think that there's a perspective where the the the thrill in the constant change and the constant movement and the fast pace.

18:11Like some people love it. Some people are terrified by it. Um, they're like, I naturally, um, you know, enjoy that fast pace. I enjoy the cost of pivoting. Um, you know, I necessarily enjoy, you know, things coming down to the next 90 minutes. And I try to avoid that as much as possible and try to build systems and processes to prevent it from happening. Uh, but at some point, you know, you achieve a homeostasis. Like what I found over my career is there's, you know, there's been like, you know, three or four times where I've gotten to a period of like, things are calm, it's peace, there's homeostasis.

18:40And what do I do? I start a new business and I just do it all over again.

18:43Daniel Robbins:That's why I think, you know, there's always this thing like, are you born an entrepreneur or not? Can anyone do it? I think anyone can do it. But I think this, the character traits that you just mentioned are the ones that some people are inherently born with. And they had that's, that's my opinion. but Tom this has been great man I learned a lot I love the stories you got to have you back on I want to hear some more stories about what's happening but if people get in touch with you how can they do so yeah you know look websites buildergenie.com so you know anytime we're here my personal email is tironica at buildergenie.com feel free to reach out I'd love to connect with anybody we're here we've got some cool stuff coming down the pipe so you know maybe next time that we're together there'll be some more cool news to share.

19:31Daniel Robbins:Awesome. Thanks, Tom. Thanks for your time today. Appreciate it, Dave. If you like the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening.