Banking on Information with Michael Ramsey co founder of Compaytence

In this episode, Michael Ramsey, co-founder of Compaytence, discusses the complexities of the global payments landscape and how his company assists online entrepreneurs in navigating these challenges. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the payment ecosystem, the value of consulting for scaling businesses, and the need for continuous adaptation in the face of change. The conversation also touches on the future of payments and the necessity of listening to customer needs to remain relevant.

Takeaways

• Michael's passion lies in helping online entrepreneurs sell internationally.
• There is a significant gap in the market for payment consulting.
• Compaytence focuses on operational soundness and risk management.
• Clients often face issues with funds being stuck or accounts being shut down.
• The company provides a comprehensive audit of clients' payment processes.
• Education is a key component of their service offering.
• Successful scaling requires understanding operational mechanics.
• Change is constant in the financial services landscape.
• Listening to customers is crucial for future success.
  
  

Entrepreneurs will always need support in scaling their businesses.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Global Payments Consulting
02:00 Understanding the Payment Ecosystem
04:40 Value Proposition for Online Entrepreneurs
06:52 Futures Thinking in Payments
09:51 Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Transcript

Rutger van Faassen (00:01.13)
Hello and welcome to another episode of Banking on Information today, my guest is Michael Ramsey, who is co-founder and Global Payments Consultant at Compaytence. Welcome to the podcast, Michael.

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (00:16.401)
Hey, well, thank you again for having me and look forward to our discussion today. Thanks again.

Rutger van Faassen (00:22.51)
Great. We will start with that very important question based on the book, Start With Why by Simon Sinek. Michael, why do you do what you do?

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (00:34.099)
Yeah, there's kind of several reasons around that. You know, I think with my experience that I've had, I worked at a large bank at Wells Fargo. I worked for a couple of different international payment startups and really I kind of fell in love with helping online entrepreneurs really sell internationally and break into global markets. But, you know, during that time, I found that it's very, very complex for, let's say a younger entrepreneur or some of that's just trying to get their feet wet into online global sales in general.

to really understand just the payment ecosystem as a whole and really understand it from a risk perspective and really having an operational soundness. So, you know, when I joined this business with the founder of the company who's based in Europe, I'm based in the US myself, we found this gap where we can kind of be that wedge and that true consultant to online international sellers and give them that expertise of 20 plus years of payments myself. And again, my business partner has roughly the same experience.

We can give them that insight, that guidance to allow them to not only operate the payment successfully, but scale and really grow globally. that's really the big reason why it's giving them the insights. And there's a major gap in the market where a lot of the vendors will be more transactional in nature, but we're partnering with a lot of these vendors, but we can be that wedge and really that true consultant to the business. So they can not only have success with whatever vendor they're selecting, but just success overall.

Rutger van Faassen (02:00.589)
Yeah. So you're passionate about helping online entrepreneurs in selling globally and taking advantage of the experience that you've had for many years together with your partner. That is a great reason to run this business. Now, what is it that you do? What is the typical use case that you solve for your customers? What is that exactly?

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (02:27.879)
Yeah, there's kind of three main core things that we do and it's kind of dovetailed a little bit. So when we first started the business and my co-partner or the founder started the business, it was really based on like PSP setup evaluation or negotiating fees or like benchmarking authorization rates. And we still do that, but now it's dovetailed into...

Helping clients get funds out if, let's say they scale fast and with a lot of the regulatory scrutiny with likes of Stripe, PayPal, Shopify payments, Klarna, really it could be anybody. A lot of clients come to us with a pain point of having funds stuck or on a major hold or even getting an account shut down. So what we'll do is we'll just look at it from an overall operational perspective. We'll go audit their website.

And again, our niche is focused on online sellers only. We don't do brick and mortar. And so we'll go through audit, make sure they're fully compliant with shipping policies, refund policies, ensure that it's a very good customer experience for their consumers to de-risk their business. So there's a lot of coaching involved with that. And we submit a packet to actually get the funds out from those providers or maybe reinstate the accounts. And along with that, we'll help them get a

Rutger van Faassen (03:33.548)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (03:48.413)
payment service provider, and we'll look at everything. We'll look at charge back alerts and front end fraud systems as well. So it's really the full gamut, but a lot of customers come to us with the need to get funds out to ensure that they have good liquidity, to be able to scale and operate efficiently with keeping the customer at the very top end of exactly what they're focused on. It's not just making money, but focused on customer experience first and foremost.

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (04:16.467)
So yeah, that's the main problem that we solve. Or problems, I should say.

Rutger van Faassen (04:17.045)
So.

Yeah, no. So helping funds that are stuck, get them out, make sure that there's a good customer experience, and basically coach these online entrepreneurs through the payment journey, right? Because they're probably very versed in what they do. They're probably very passionate about what they're selling, but they might not be as versed in the payments worlds and how everything works there. And that's where you come in.

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (04:26.749)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (04:40.679)
Right.

Rutger van Faassen (04:47.775)
How do your customers, when you talk to them, how do they tell you that? How do they get value from the services that you provide? What do they usually tell you?

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (04:58.375)
Yeah, it's really stemmed off of just sheer referrals. We have a couple different partner ecosystems that we work within. And a lot of these partners and clients are dealing with similar issues. And a lot of them are scaling. And a lot of our clients too, they're between that 100,000 a month to let's say 200, 300,000 a month. And they start to scale aggressively. And that's where they run into problems.

So the value is really just teaching them just the fundamentals of really taking it to the next level because a lot of these guys are great marketers. They're great at some of the other mechanics on the front end and driving traffic to the website, making those conversions. But the operational deficiencies are where we can help fill in the gaps. And that's where they see the value. Once we fix the problem and we offer like 90 days of support in most cases with our Reserve Recovery Program is that

Now they're equipped to deal with this like for the rest of their journey, right? And so we've seen clients that started at hundred grand a month with us that are doing, you 2 million a month. So it's been great to kind of help them in the beginning. And that's where the value is. It's that they're learning all of these operational mechanics, the payments side of things, the risk and understanding like risk tolerances with each bank and payment method without having to just kind of hack their way through it or be stuck.

Rutger van Faassen (06:23.147)
Yeah. So you're really that trusted advisor that helps them to get unstuck and to help them scale their business to that next level. That is very, very valuable. Now, I like to do this thing called Futures Thinking, which is we don't know what the future is going to bring, but we can always think about a possible future. So if you think 10 years out, 20 35, what is the payment landscape for online

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (06:32.794)
Exactly.

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (06:38.547)
Is it?

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (06:45.363)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (06:49.235)
Mm-hmm.

Rutger van Faassen (06:52.579)
entrepreneurs look like. Can you paint us a picture of what you think a possible future could look like?

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (06:58.611)
Yeah, that's a million dollar question there. think that even the best in the payments world probably doesn't know what that looks like with AI and all these different blockchain technologies and various payment methods. You know, I think for me, you know, when I first came into this journey and I worked at, you know, various different startups is

For me, it's following the problems and seeing what problems my customers are dealing with. Now the landscape could be completely different in a year, five years or 10 years. It's really just listening to your customers and then following the problems. So like the road mapping perspective is that, you know, we've kind of dovetailed now to our Reserve Recovery program. We're also doing entity setup services and we just launched an academy that is actually free. And then we have an upgraded version as well.

We're hearing what our customers are telling us and a lot of it's just around the education side of it. Regardless of the landscape, it's us just kind of following problems with those online sellers and it's hard to predict what those problems are going to be in 10 years. And I think if you fall in love with the problems versus falling in love with a solution that we may bring to life, I think that's going to be the better focus for us instead of just trying to figure something out, right? And that could be useless in 10 years, who knows?

Rutger van Faassen (08:16.275)
Yeah.

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (08:17.61)
So I think just keeping your ear to the ground as an entrepreneur and just really just looking at the core problems. How can we fix this and make our customers lives easier? And if we continue to do that year over year, over month, year over year and 10 years, it could be a completely different business model. Who knows?

Rutger van Faassen (08:29.863)
Mm-hmm.

Rutger van Faassen (08:33.597)
Yeah, that's an interesting answer. So you basically say, don't know, 10 years out is quite far, right? And you're right, there's lots of moving parts, AI, blockchain, lots of sort of customer behavior changes. But it is very interesting how you then sort of say, hey, well, to get ready for it is to basically always be ready, always be listening, always be figuring out what your customers are struggling with and then helping them along the way. Is that the way to get ready for

Any possible future?

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (09:05.639)
Yeah, I think, you if you look at it, mean, change is inevitable, right? The one thing that's constant is change. And, you know, I've seen so much change throughout my career in financial services. And I think it's changing now more than ever. And I think that's always said every year that passes, it seems like, but it really is. And I think you have to be dynamic as an entrepreneur or a founder of a company and just, you know, understand that there's going to be change and pivoting and things like that. But I think the core of what we look at is

Rutger van Faassen (09:09.811)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (09:35.559)
How can we help our business customers succeed in scale? And we just continue to focus on that with our vision and then also look at the additional problems that all of these clients are dealing with. And again, it's gonna kind of roadmap us naturally in a way.

Rutger van Faassen (09:51.229)
Yeah, so lots of things will change in the next 10 years, but there will always be entrepreneurs that need scaling and that need help with solving problems around payments. I think that's a great point to wrap it up. Thank you, Michael, for being on the podcast today.

Michael Ramsey - Compaytence (10:08.622)
Absolutely. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.

Rutger van Faassen (10:11.672)
And thank you everyone for listening. This is Banking on Information and until next time, choose to be curious.