What's Actually Changing

All right, Ryan. So now we're going to talk about what's been changing in the more recent, you know, payment landscape. So bring us up to speed, maybe starting first with mobile providers and card safety. Yeah, there's really three major trends happening in this space today that, interestingly enough, Whym's completely not a part of, which is really cool because we're doing something very unique. The first thing they talk about is, you know, Google Pay, Apple Pay have really changed the world on how we buy things. Yeah. And the funniest thing is that they've done like a very small sliver of the job of payments. And it

really begins all the way at the very beginning when you give them your card information for the very first time. They are basically taking that information and tokenizing it and turning it into something that can never be stolen. I love that about my Apple card. My card number was actually stolen. And the ease that I didn't have to replace my card and it took, you know, a really simple phone call to actually have everything fixed. It was amazing. Right. You know? Yeah. I mean, there's, especially when you have the card itself from Apple, there are some moments when it can be taken, but Apple has

some amazing technologies to just really, they just keep the same card you had and they swap it all out. It's really cool. Such a great experience. When you're in the digital world though, the card that the merchant gets from Apple is never the real card. It's never the true data. It's always some version of it, especially tailored to that transaction or to that merchant, which means that if anybody goes, you know, there's a famous hack a little while back to Target where millions of cards were stolen. In today's world, if you were, everyone was paying with Apple Pay, Google Pay, and, you know, Target's whole

database was stolen again, they would get no data of value there that they could use anywhere else. And so that really was a really cool safety measure that they brought to the world. The way they get paid is back in those deeper layers of the technology stack way after the 2.9% price paid, you know, in the moments when the banks and everyone's are making the transaction to see who gets their cut of everything. That's when they've kind of established how they make money. Yeah. And so they don't establish that all the way at the front, which makes them, you know, a really nice partner to

basically every payment processor you've ever met. Yeah. And so there's really no payment processor who won't work with them. It only improves their capabilities as a payment processor to keep your transactions as safe as possible. Yeah, their card technology has really kind of paved the way for a lot of partners like Whym. Exactly. So we're actually, you know, just kind of putting in market the ability to onboard into your text-to-pay account with using a one-click experience from Apple Pay or Google Pay. Yeah, you don't have to give us your shipping address, you don't have to give us your credit card information, you don't have to

give us anything. And you will not only make the purchase, but you will also onboard into one account all in one button press. Yes. Which is amazing. Yes. And so, you know, in that moment, Ryan, maybe you can talk a little bit about, you know, from Whym's technology, how are we actually partnering, you know, with Apple Pay and Google Pay, you know, around our own security from our database layer? Yeah. So what we really like about Google Pay is what we just said. They give us a card that is uniquely tailored to us as a payment processor on behalf of our merchants. And then when

we use that with our merchants, the merchants gave a specialized token from us that's unique to them. And so we can use this new tokenization technology at every layer of our integration and make sure that there's no way that if someone even got at our data, that they could take the card information and misuse it. Which is really important. That's incredible. In addition to that, though, Apple Pay, Google Pay long ago took your address, they took your billing information, all the credentials and security around verifying your information. So you don't have to spend any time doing that when you use it on Whym now. You

can literally find the things you want to buy, one button press and make that purchase. And even if you've never met one before, you're all set up and you're ready to go. That's right. And I love, I always love when you tell that part of the story, because I think it really does create a lot of trust and confidence with consumers, you know, and as, as different marketing and sales channels evolve, right, you know, marketers and heads of growth, heads of retention, they're always looking for these new costs of acquisition channels that we've talked about a lot before, right? You've got to find that new

channel. Today, that new channel is SMS, right? Because you can acquire a dollar, acquire a phone number for less than a dollar, maybe. And then you can have access, one-to-one access to your customers, which is really, really unique, right? And so now, as this industry is really evolving, it's very important for a payment specialist like Whym, right, with a payment architect like you, to be able to come into this new space, very similar to what we saw in the very early days of e-commerce, right, with PayPal. And, you know, I think they did an incredible job of, you know, with the e-commerce landscape, you know,

they gave consumers, first of all, they gave them a unified login. You set up a relationship once with PayPal, and then you could use that across lots of different merchants over e-com, right, which was really important. But they established themselves as this brand of consumer trust and confidence that was a complete specialist within payments that could partner with everyone else in the landscape. And I've just loved looking at that example historically, you know, to kind of model, you know, model the way that we've approached messaging and conversational commerce, which we believe is the next wave of digital sales. I hate that saying this makes me

sound old, because I don't like, I feel like I'm that old. But I remember a world where nothing was purchased online, right? Everything was bought in-store, in-person, etc. And PayPal arrived on the scene just when that was becoming increasingly more important. But how has, you know, online made it possible for some random guy in another country you've never met to sell you something, but how could you trust him? Yep. How could you trust that that guy was going to take your card information, that he was going to treat it with safety and security and professionalism, that he was going to actually get the product you

ordered? How could you trust some random person on the internet? PayPal made that possible. Yeah. And you needed this new technology and this new brand and this individually separate organization to establish that trust the customer on behalf of the merchant and then figure out how to trust the merchant themselves. And then they could basically say, because we're here, you're going to be safe. You're going to be fine. Absolutely. Yeah. And that is something that we've kind of learned is missing in the new messaging space. It is. It's really missing. And, you know, it's been interesting, this journey that we've been on to really have, you

know, we started the company having those direct interactions, doing, you know, tens of thousands of tests with consumers to say, how can we meet you in this channel and help you transact with a brand or business and create trust and confidence and just a lot of A-B testing around, you know, how to do that with consumers. And I think that advantage that we had as a first mover in the space, particularly with payments, because there's so many places now, so many pieces of software that you can use to send messages. And that's really fantastic. Actually, there's over like 500 pieces of software now that can

either host your mobile phone number or aggregate your DMs from Twitter or Instagram. And Whym has decided to be the Switzerland of the entire space, right? We're here to power. What's special, you know, kind of about the story that we're building now is it's not only payments. We've used payments as our wedge to the industry. But now we're starting to think about, well, how can we create even more convenience and reduce friction within cart building or really to simplify product selection, right, for the consumer? And then how can we package all of that up, rebuild it, you know, and program that out through messaging for

the consumer again? And so I think, you know, it's exciting to see how the space is evolving. We've talked a little bit about messaging and card safety, you know, what's going on with like faster checkouts? And what's happening with e-com? Let's talk about that for a little bit. Yeah. So, you know, faster checkouts, Apple Pay, or sorry, not Apple Pay, PayPal, you know, they're the granddaddy of faster checkouts, right? You'd make an account with someone, and then you could take that account from merchant to merchant to merchant, regardless of where you can make a purchase. Then they made a decision that changed the whole industry

forever. They decided to verticalize and become a bank. And when they did that, they began competing directly with other payment processors. And that was through that acquisition of Braintree, correct? Braintree, yeah. Okay. And once that happened, you could no longer have PayPal on a stripe or on a variety of other processors because that was a competitor and they weren't going to be able to build those relationships. This left green pastures for someone else to move into the market and provide the exact same service. And so faster checkouts, you know, fast bolt, those kinds of brands, that's the first place they moved in when they decided

to try and fill in the space of payments. Got it. The thing is that at the same time, Apple Pay and Google Pay are showing up and they're saying, you don't really necessarily need to solve the problem that way anymore. And so now there's competing solutions for how to solve the problem of, can I trust the person I'm buying from and can I pay it? And so that, you know, e-commerce, the evolution in e-commerce, the focus on the e-commerce checkout cart page is really interesting. It's cool that it's getting faster, but what we've kind of noticed in it as a company is that customers are

spending less and less time on your website, more and more time on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and whatever other famous platform appears tomorrow. Yeah. And so you're, the more and more we invest in this space and the more and more customers are leaving it and spending less time there, the less likely you're going to have a strong return on investment. I mean, it's really kind of lost its efficiency as well. You know, it's, I noticed myself as a consumer, like every different, um, brands website that I go to heavily focused on design, which is really great. I love design, but I don't know really where the

product I'm looking for has been merchandised. Yeah. You know, I, there's a particular brand, I won't really name them, but kind of a big D2C, um, personal care and body brand. And every time I have to think about going and buying this product again, I can't figure out if they've assorted it under body or fragrance or, you know, body care, like deodorant, it's, it's lost and there's no search button. So I think consumers, you know, they're faced with this. The reason the 56 clicks are happening, right. Is because there's information architecture and some of, you know, some of the, um, simplicity and efficiency of trying

to find the thing that you're looking for, if you're not Amazon and don't have a search button, right. Is, is this, um, you know, how do I find it? Where do I find it? How do I get the answers that I'm looking for in order to validate my purchase or, you know, make sure I found kind of the right thing. And so I think we've seen a lot of that contributing to the inefficiencies within, um, that we've seen with e-commerce because we know industry statistics will say that, uh, you know, your checkout page, right. If you get all the way, if you get your consumer

all the way there, it's still only converting for you at one to 2%, right. Which is why SMS has this amazing potential because you've got 98% open rates. You've got 30% click-through rates. We are taking that 30% click-through rate and all that attention in that moment. And you're funneling it back to this thing that, you know, only performs for you at one to 2%. Yeah. Right. And so it's just, I think that's the question we, or, you know, kind of the thing we talk a lot about is like, there's gotta be something better. How do we capture that impulse buy or that intent to buy?

Well, and I think the other thing that, you know, we've really learned at least, you know, I've really come to learn about this space. It's actually really obvious when you think about it as a consumer behavior experience, when you're scrolling, I think we've mentioned this before actually early in this video, but as you're scrolling through your TikTok feed or whatever, and you see an ad that's interesting to you, you're not likely in the shopper's mindset right now, but you're still interested in that thing. And so calling it an impulse buy is probably the wrong word because the only buy that will work in that moment

is an impulse buy. That's right. But not everybody is ready for an impulse buy. However, that person may be really interested in you and just hasn't given you the time and diligence they want to give to close that deal. Absolutely. And brands without, you know, you know, one of my behaviors that I've learned that I've been doing is I'll see a brand on, on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, wherever. And then I'll try to go find them on Amazon. Yeah. Because I don't want to buy D2C because I'll forget. Yes. And so if I can't find them on Amazon, the next best thing is to take a

picture and I can't, so I'll screenshot or something and it ends up in my screenshot role and I never look at my screenshot role and I completely forget the brand that I just met. And so Whym is saying, Hey, there are so many opportunities here to not only engage with that customer if they want to engage right now, but also just capture their intent and help them come back to you and give them the tools that they need to find you again, to re-engage, to continue the research they want to do and ultimately close the deal. Yeah. Without having that heavy lift of memory, which

we talked a little bit about before. And that really is the beauty of the Amazon multi-merchant cart, right? Yeah. Which I think is, is, um, you know, it's really, it is kind of a magical experience. Exactly. You know, when you, when you break it down and analyze it like we have is like kind of nerdy, you know, this like nerdy, like let's dig into this experience. Um, just kind of going back, you know, one more, um, one more step to sort of what the, the last thing of what's been changing. I think there was another, um, around alternative payment methods for buy now, pay later

and any other things that come top of mind for you. You know, what is the role of these APMs in the market today? Yeah. I mean, they're, they're also solving a very important problem that I think we haven't, we've, we have taken a long time to come to a solution for. So really happy that they're in the market and that is, Hey, I have this product. It's, it costs a thousand dollars and selling that D to C I've already got to get 56 impressions across the line and the consumer's got to, you know, because it's a thousand dollar purchase, the consumer has to make a

much larger decision in interacting with me. And then these payment providers, at least the ones that we're thinking about at the moment, you know, they're basically saying, Hey, don't make it the thousand dollar decision, make the $250 a month for four months decision. Yeah. And that makes that decision far simpler for the buyer. And what the merchant gets out of that is that they don't have to set that up all by themselves. And the buyers don't have to have like 5,000 different merchants. They've got, you know, these relationships with where they basically have to finish paying these bills to all these people with the singular

providers centralizing that situation. Then the buyers have a little more control over understanding who they still owe and how fast they need to pay them and all that kind of stuff. So these technologies are really great because it really breaks down the decision, makes it easier decision to make. And, you know, customers want your product. So they're just struggling to make that big leap. So it helps them make a smaller leap and still get what they want. Yeah. I love the way that you describe that, Ryan, because, you know, one thing that we spend in the process of talking to brands and businesses that are

either considering using Whym or using Whym today is to think about their channels, their customers as different sort of segments as well. So you think about selling and you think about selling through, you know, a store, you think about like a physical store, you think about selling direct to consumer through your e-com store, and you might be working with Amazon. You might decide, you know, to kind of go to these other channels to, you know, broaden your omni-channel, right? Like a mix. And so what I love about what you just said about buy now, pay later is that it's a payment solution that's geared at

aiming, like it's geared toward creating value for the consumer in a way that didn't exist before. And so if you think about your experience as a consumer, you know, in that discovery moment, you might buy and try a product once, right? And that's like a segment or a slice of your customers at the very maybe loyalist, right? So from like least loyal, just trying it to most loyal, you've got the subscriptions, right? You've got people that are just, okay, I'm going to, I'm all in, I'm all in, I'm going to buy over and over month over month for this. And so that's like subscription. And

that really took off. And then people have experienced subscription fatigue. And then buy now, pay later has come in and, you know, really carved out another really important slice of that customer stack where, and I even remember when my partner bought a Tesla, he bought a Tesla for a hundred, the commitment was a hundred dollars, which is, you know, which is so amazing because like you said, it breaks down that experience. And so Whym is really intense on finding some of what we call those like forgotten experiences, right? Where you're texting your friend or your partner about something you saw because you're not ready to

buy it, or you're taking a screenshot or you bought it, but you don't remember that you bought it, or you have to take the effort to go back online, create a cart, buy it again, but you don't want to be locked into a subscription. And so that's really how I see alternative payment methods really boiling down is it's creating that value in that particular slice. And you might be all of those things, but for different brands, right? One, you might want to buy once my, my, you might want to buy over time, you know, and things like that. And so I think that's how, one

of the really important things of how the industry is evolving, would you agree? And, and why there's more room for additional alternative payment methods to be built? Well, I mean, so everyone's solving a different piece of the payments pie. And honestly, there's, there's so many places where it's just not great. And, you know, it took forever, you know, it's taken forever for the, you know, a variety of places in our lives in different countries and other places too, but in the United States, you know, restaurant checkout technology hasn't changed in a very long time. Meanwhile, like in Europe, you're sitting at the restaurant table and

the person walks up and they swipe, they swipe it right in front of you and hand your card right back. Like we should have had that. They made me a little bit nervous when that first started happening to me. Yeah, you just tapped the guy who walks by, you know? And so we don't get that, like we haven't evolved there, but you know, clearly that evolution is important and necessary and we should, we should do it. Yeah. It's just, we've had, we've struggled to solve this space, but there are a variety of spaces that have remained unsolved. And so calling these, all these companies, payment

companies is a very broad term, right? They're all solving unique little things that happen to involve payments. In our particular case, we're saying there's this, there's this giant gap of time between when the customer first meets you and when they actually want to deal and actually transact with you. And you should find a way to capture that moment better for them and for you as a merchant. And Whym is saying, we're focusing on that. Yep. While other people are saying, we're focusing on helping a customer make a big purchase decision feel smaller. That's right. And you know, and so everyone's solving something, but you can

call us all payments companies if you want. But at the end of the day, we're really are solving very unique challenges in this space. I think it does actually help shape up really why fintech is such a, you know, such a big category growing overall, right? Because from an investor standpoint, from an industry standpoint, it's like, well, how could there possibly be room for all of these different types of technologies? But, you know, to your point, Ryan, I think everyone is looking to improve that end customer experience or taking their own slice and saying, this is a big enough problem that I can own 10%

of the market by solving that. Right. And even if you look at Klarna, Afterpay, Affirm, these are billion dollar companies all built in the same space. And so Whym is, Whym is actually the first company pioneering in our space. We're the very first company that basically has said, go ahead and send your message from anywhere you want. Right. Anywhere you want. You can send it over SMS. You can use multiple providers to do that. Like a mass message, you know, provider that you want to send essentially SMS ads through, right? You've probably got customer service. You've got your DM channels. And I think Whym, you

know, as sort of the Switzerland of the space has done a really good job of saying, you know what, we can come in and just find this really interesting space to kind of wedge and create value for brands and businesses and for the consumers as well. A really good way to, you know, tie that all in a bow and just say, here's what Whym does is, you know, a brand, you know, I have some, I have a brand in mind, but I'll just tell a story about any brand who decides, Hey, I'm going to hit the market. And I'm going to, I, you know, I

know all my customers are somewhere online, likely in social media. I'm going to try Instagram. And while I'm at it, I might try some Twitter. Right. And so imagine if you build your entire storefront and all your, you mean to start reaching and selling, selling to their customers. You're going to market, you're going to market on those platforms, but then you also need to build where the customers are going to go to buy product. You know, Instagram provides a channel specialized ability to sell right inside channel. But imagine you build your entire plan around that channel, but you're testing out Twitter and it turns out

Twitter is moving all of your traffic that all of the customers that you're really connecting with happen to be connected with you on Twitter and not Instagram. Well, you can't necessarily make them jump Twitter to Instagram to buy, right? That doesn't work that way. And if you acquire them over in one channel, you've already paid that cost of acquisition. Exactly. So the headache or, you know, the, the double up on paying that acquisition to sort of access that customer's, um, payment information or what, like you've already onboarded them. You don't want to go through the friction of doing that again, you know? So. And so

Whym is basically saying, build your commerce solution, the application of your payment in one place with us. And then no matter where you meet your customer, we'll work there too. That's right. And if you meet your customer on Twitter one day and then they hit your drift bot the next day, and then they hit you on discord the next day, and then they text you the next day, that account and that, that solution for checkout follows not only you, but also your customer, wherever they end up. You're no longer having to make a choice as a brand of a business, like kind of where to

funnel that, you know, traffic, which I think is, is really, really important. Actually, Ryan, you know, we've met a lot of amazing companies, um, adjacent in our space. And I think that's one of the new rules of, of building, um, some, you know, uh, something to either sell or, or transact with payments or cart technology is that you have to give brands and businesses the convenience of being able to use that across lots of different layers. There's just, there's so much to choose from and you've got to be able to, like you said before, like meet your customer, um, where they're at. So, uh, great.

I, a couple of things I want to talk about are kind of the major players. You know, we can, we get asked this a lot, you know, who are the major players in your space and how are you different? We touched a little bit on Apple, right? And we've talked about how they're, they're a partner and they're unlikely to, um, to really build the same type of application that Whym is building, even though they have iMessage and they have this stack to support partners like this. Um, is there anything else that you would offer as far as like, you know, how to think about the

ways in which Whym will continue to partner folks like Apple and Google in the future? Yeah. I mean, Apple and Google, we believe will be partners forever. They're just, they've positioned themselves to be the Switzerland of card holder data. And that makes it very nice for any payment processor or application payment to be a partner with them. So I really don't think that there's a significant threat from that side. I really think that that's going to be a partnership that we're going to enjoy and want to enjoy for a very long time. Thank you. Thank you.