Episode #231: All Things Sezzle with Charlie Youakim, Cofounder of Sezzle

All right, it's time for episode number.

231 with my friend Charlie Joachim, one of the co founders at Sezzle.

So today, if you guys have ever.

Had questions about alternative payment solutions, it's your chance to get all of your questions answered. Let's talk about your business strategy and.

The juicy details of what actually works.

From mainstream fashion to fashion on Main street and the entire ecosystem behind it. How do we scale your company and.

Do it with the balance and the.

Happiness that we all see Week? Let's hear from those insiders, experts, and strategists that actually make it happen. I'm your host, Ashley Alderson from the.

Boutique Hub, and I can't wait to chat.

Almost as common as accepting PayPal on your website today is accepting some sort of alternative payment solution. And one of the most common sources of alternative payment solutions in our industry is Sezzle. Now, in case you're not yet familiar with what that is, it's an opportunity for a consumer to purchase the good that they want from your website, pay in an installment plan, but yet get the good shipped to them immediately. And you, the boutique owner, get paid for that good immediately. So it's Sezzle that's giving the opportunity for this transaction to take place and processing those payment installments, much like a layaway plan in the meantime.

Now, when we very first met Sezzle.

A couple of years ago, the boutique Hub was still pretty new, and Sezzle was definitely brand new. And we thought, man, what a really cool opportunity. And we could see the pot in e commerce and in brick and mortar retail, and we thought, we've got to partner with a company like this. So probably one of the coolest parts of my job, you guys, is getting to meet companies like this and see them on the rise, but getting to build friendships with them along the way. So enter my friend Charlie Joachim, who is one of the co founders of Sezzle. It's been amazing not only to watch their company's journey and Charlie's journey, but to see the good that they're bringing to our industry. But, I mean, I've gotta be honest, they're also from the Midwest, So, you know, I'm a Wisconsin girl at the moment. I live about an hour out of Minneapolis, and this startup is based in Minneapolis, so I kind of have to root on the hometown team. Right, you guys, I'm so excited today for you to hear this story directly from Charlie about building the company Sezzle, what it means for retailers today, whether you're an E commerce retailer, a pop up retailer or have a brick and mortar store. You're going to hear more about our partnership and how alternative payment solutions have impacted our boutique, but also what's coming next.

And if you're a member of the.

Boutique Hub, I tell you what, there's some really good things coming next. For those of you who have a brick and mortar store, I want you to pay close attention. But also I'm going to tell you more at the end of the podcast about a huge opportunity where Sezzle and the Boutique Hub are going to partner for a huge Small Business Saturday promotion. Because we know how important it is to promote for consumers around the world to do business with independent retailers, especially on Small Business Saturday. So if you haven't had plans yet, big Small Business Saturday promotions and you want to maybe win a grand prize. In the meantime, stay tuned till the end of the show and I'll tell you what we've got coming up. But in the meantime, meet my friend, Charlie.

All right, guys. I know so many of you have had questions about Sezzle on your websites. So today I'm going straight to the source and I'm so excited because not only is Charlie Yuakim a co founder at Sezzle, but also a dear friend of ours at the Boutique Hub, and we've got some history together and a friendship that's evolved over the last couple of years. So, Charli, I'm so pumped that you' the show today.

Oh, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

You and I were just laughing. So our team, our Wisconsin Boutique Hub team, which I don't know how many of us came over there the other day, Was there like 10 of us, maybe?

Yeah, it was a big group.

Yeah, we all came over. Since you guys are in Minneapolis and we're not far from Minneapolis, we came over and had like a two company meetup and went to a Twins game and it was an absolute blast.

Totally, totally. Our team loved it as well. And just seeing everyone working together, we've been talking about this for so long. Two years ago, I think was the first time we mentioned the idea of going to a Twins game and to finally see it come to fruition was really great to see.

So cool. And to see your operation in person. For those of you who don't know, Sezzle has this really cool office space and headquarters. It's like you're walking into Google in downtown Minneapolis. There's like, what, a swing and mini golf and typical, like, startup headquarters, right?

Yeah. I wish we could take credit for it. We're basically Taking startup hand me downs here as we grow the company. So. So they actually, the company before us, had those swings in here and I gotta tell you, we love them. Like I even use them. I'm on phone calls and I'll sit down on swings and it's hard to beat. We really love it.

So cool to see, not just to see the space, but then to see the way that the team's grown and the way the company's grown. You know, when you and I first met and when we were first talking about going to a twins game together, you had come to the first boutique summit we hosted. And I think you came all by yourself. Right. You were just like the lone guy over there in a green Sezzle T shirt talking about, talking about payment solutions that nobody knew even existed yet to see how far it's come. That's unbelievable.

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. And the boutique hub has been a big part of that. I mean, to see you guys grow as well along with us. I mean, it's pretty cool to see other founders. I mean, we basically started around the same time period, you know, not too far apart. And just to see both groups grow is really fun to see.

For me as a founder, man, I love it. That's what, you know, our motto is community over competition. Right. And I think about the most fun part of, you know, being a business owner and the most fun part of like going to these events and things that we host now is getting to meet up with the people we can collaborate with and that we've built genuine friendships with. Like, I think about you, I know you guys work with. Comments sold a lot too, and so do we. And we've got such genuine friendships with their team as well. Like, it's just so much fun to have this little like group of founders and co founders or boutique owners, people that we've worked with for any period of time and to see all that growth happen together.

Yeah, for sure. It's such an interesting dynamic E commerce growing at the same time too. Even the platforms that we, you know, leverage in our growth with, like Shopify as an example, to see them grow over time, I mean, it all kind of makes sense because we're doing all the right things and heading the right direction together.

Absolutely. And I mean, we often joke about Midwest being the best and that people are Minnesota nice. That's a real thing too, right?

Yeah, I totally think so. You know, I think we got a really hard working culture here in the Midwest. We've also got a lot of diversity in our company, we're talking about it before the podcast. You know, we definitely have a hard working culture here at Sezzle, and I think Midwest attitude has a lot to do with that too. I love it.

All right, so let's start kind of from the beginning. If someone doesn't know what Sezzle is yet, can you give me like a really short version? Because we're going to get into a ton of detail later, but so everyone's kind of on the same page. Let's talk about what it is, what it does, and then I want to talk about how it got started.

Yeah. People can think of us as like just a payment platform. So it's a system that a user would sign up for to make payments, generally online. We're coming to in store soon, but generally make a pay with a retailer. But what's unique about us is that we add an element of financing and budgeting into the purchase. So every time a purchase is made with Sezzle, we split up the purchase into four interest free installments. So we take 25% at the time of purchase and then equally space out for future payments once every two weeks for a total of four payments. And those are all automated. So the person checking out doesn't really have to think about it. They make the purchase and just it's all set. And then we make reminder. We have reminders come through to remind the customer about the upcoming payments. And we try to be as flexible as possible and we try to make it free for the customer as well.

So for people. I know I've heard you describe it this way. If people are familiar with the old layaway system.

Right.

It's kind of like reverse layaway, where customers can get their products right away and the boutique owner gets their money right away.

Exactly. It's definitely an advancement upon layaway. I think the user thinks about it in the same way as layaway. It's a way that you could budget for a purchase, but now you can get it today rather than having the retailer hold it, which I think helps both sides, the retailers. I think layaway kind of went away because it was so hard to manage for retailers. I think having to hold on to product and then if someone didn't show up, it was always a little bit of a pain. And then now the consumer also gets the product up front. So that solves that waiting game as well.

What does the process look like when a boutique signs up and they want to use Sezzle? And when a consumer signs up and wants to use it, kind of walk me through the nuts and bolts of how to get started on the platform.

So we know that boutique owners are busy with their everyday life and so what we've tried to do on our platform is make it as self serving as possible. So to sign up with us, the boutique owner would just have to come to sezzle.com, sign up as a merchant on our site. It's three forms that they'd fill out and we're actually going through a project right now to make that even realize that in some cases we can make improvements there. So it's a really easy form to sign up for them. And then once the boutique owner signs up, it goes into a queue on our team and we can typically get boutique owners live within 24 to 48 hours. So it goes through. We got a number of people applying every day and so that team gets a queue of applications. We take a look at the boutiques, at them to make sure that they're a great fit for what we do. And really typically all we're looking for is that you have a legitimate business. You know, we're not doing anything really beyond that. And then we, once you're able to sign up, we help you get your widgets. The widgets are these little advertisements that we put on your site to help you advertise our product to your consumers, to let them know about it. We help you put those on your website and then you should be, you know, generally live within 48 hours of signup. So we try to make it as easy as possible and we have instructions and checklists in our dashboard to help with that. And then on the consumer side it's way easier. Hopefully it should take 48 hours on the consumer side. So on the consumer side, the consumer sees Sezzle's pay option on your site and when they sign up it typically takes about a minute for a first time sign up. So outside of what you asked for in your checkout, we ask for phone number because we use that as the primary identifier for the user, their mobile phone number. And then we ask the user to sign up with a pin, a four digit PIN to secure their account. And then we ask for their birthday and then a payment card. So those are the basic elements that we asked for. So not much more than they would you would ask for outside of a normal checkout.

Gotcha. So when those consumers sign up, is there any like credit check or what's the back end process look like? Can any consumer sign up and start using Sezzle?

Yep, any consumer can Sign up and start using us. So what we do is we pass the user through a fraud check, really, just to make sure that we think it's a legitimate transaction. And then at that point we put it pull in multiple data elements, you know, based on everything we can see about the consumer and the transaction. And then that's how we assign a limit to the user in our system. And basically, if it's not a fraudulent transaction, or if we don't think it's a fraudulent transaction, the user's gonna be able to check out with us. Right now our approval rates are 85%. So that'll give you some sort of sense of approval rates for our product versus what like a credit card approval rate would be, which is, you know, more in like the 30% range.

Gotcha. And what is the usual limit, the credit limit that consumer has on Sezzle?

Well, it ranges anywhere from, you know, 300 on the lower end of things to, you know, upwards north of 1,000, you know, but I think typical limits are around $500.

Perfect. So I know you had some of this data when we were over visiting your team, and I was really kind of taken aback by this. But really the core mission behind a lot of what you guys do is teaching financial responsibility. And I didn't know that you had such a strong mission. I guess I don't know how I missed that part, but I found the stats that you shared to support that really, really eye opening about the trends in consumer commerce right now. So can you talk a little bit about that mission of financial responsibility and what that means to consumers?

Yeah, so our mission is financially empowering the next generation. And it really stems from where we started the company. So we started the company when we saw the data point that young consumers here in the US Were paying with debit in higher volumes than ever before. And if you think about that from the retailer side of things, it's not necessarily a good story, because when people are paying with their debit card, they're thinking about, I can only spend so much today because of my budget on my debit card. And that's where we help a little bit on the retailer side, we give that consumer purchasing power today. But what's happening, we've learned on the consumer side, is that since the downturn in the economy in 2008, there's been a lot of legislative changes. And some of those, we believe, are for really good reasons. The legal age for getting a credit card, for instance, changed from 18 to 21. And it was also made illegal for credit card companies to market on college campuses. So if you're as old as I am, you got a credit card when you're 18, and some people handled it well and some people didn't. And if you really didn't handle it well, you got into a lot of credit card debt and potentially even a bankruptcy. So not a good starting point financially. And so we think we're the perfect replacement for that situation. So a young consumer that doesn't have a lot of experience, they can apply for us, and then we're going to give them a starting line. And as they prove out their ability to use our product, we're going to grow it. And the reason we say, you know, that financial empowerment mission, we think we hit on right away because we're giving that young consumer a chance. In the vast majority of cases right now, these young consumers are getting turned down for credit cards. They're not even getting a chance to prove themselves out. So we think we're giving them a chance now to basically show that I'm credit worthy. And then what our plan is in the future is, and we're not here yet, but I don't have kids at this age, but if I did have kids at this age, I would want them to start building their credit score out because it's important to your financial future. And so what we're trying to do as a company is start to layer in financial education and credit building into our product to get our consumers to the next level. Because imagine like you've used this a few times. You know what you're doing now. Now our if it was my kid, I'd be saying, hey, it'd be smart for you to start building your credit. So we're kind of viewing that in that paternal way towards our consumer because many of our consumers are younger. Hey, it's time that you start building your credit score. So that's where we want to get to as a company. And if we can't get there directly, we're going to refer that customer into products that can help them, too. So that's how we're thinking about it, you know, where we are today and where we're going. But we already think we're accomplishing the mission in some ways because of we are financially empowering this consumer. We're helping them get a little purchasing power today and doing it in a really safe way because they can't spin up a balance and get into a lot of credit card debt like the prior generations with credit cards, where some.

People did have that problem, man, I appreciate that so much. And I think that education is going to be such a huge factor. Like you talked about going forward, providing that one stat that you guys shared while we were there was that I think it was like 30% of millennials have a credit card, and the rest are using debit cards. And the reason why is that millennials and I guess Gen Z now fear credit card debt more than they do death, more often than they do death. Right? Because they've seen older sisters or whatever. I had an older sister that got into terrible credit card debt, and she scared the daylights out of me. So I would be your ideal customer, right? Because then I didn't want a credit card in college because I saw what she saw, what my parents went through, and I was like, I'm never going to do that. And that's what your consumers today, they're in that exact same boat, right?

Yeah, totally. Some of that probably speaks to how much they fear death, which isn't a lot at their age. But, yeah, I think they've also seen what happened, the downturn in the economy. They're still at that age where a lot of these millennials saw that effect on their family, probably saw older siblings have trouble. And that's where I think the consumer loves our product so much. It gives them the purchasing power, but it also does it in a way that they feel safe. And, you know, it's funny, in our product, if a customer gets to a point where they start to fail on upcoming payment, we actually lock them out of the product. And that's one of the dynamics of the product. They can't use us once they get into a problem spot. And I watch our consumer reviews like a hawk. You hardly. I mean, I don't know if I've ever seen that complaint that you've locked me out at this point. I think our customer actually appreciates it. Like, they actually want us to stop them from purchasing, like, once they've gotten too far. And I think it's because of that, fearing of credit card debt, they can't get in trouble. They can't get into deep trouble with our product.

I'm just so glad that we're having this conversation, because I think for someone who may not yet be familiar with your company and your mission, and I know your team said that they've heard this feedback, too. And I've heard this from boutique owners, if they don't yet understand this type of payment solution at first glance, some of them say, well, why would I want to give Someone who maybe doesn't have credit or has gotten in trouble with credit cards. Why would I want to give them another solution that could just get them further into trouble? Like, am I enabling a poor spending habit by a consumer?

I think you're spot on. It's actually the complete inverse that we're enabling a much smarter purchase behavior. And when we talk to retailers that bring that up, what we generally say is, think about it from our perspective as a company. If the consumer doesn't pay us back, we are in a world of hurt. So we're financially incentivized to make sure that we're giving these payment plans to consumers that can pay us back, so we're in complete alignment with making responsible purchase behavior happen. So whereas credit card companies, it's on the flip side of it, they're incentivized to get a customer into a debt trap where they're paying a lot of interest on a revolving balance. So we're the payment product, the credit product that you should really think is the right one for your customer.

Man. Do you think? We were kind of chatting about this a little bit before the podcast, but I just find it so fascinating to see the rise in consumers using this type of payment solution and just to wonder where it's going to go in the next five years. To me, this is something that's as big or will be bigger than PayPal. Talk to me about, where do you see the future of this type of payment solution going?

We think this has got massive potential here in the United States and elsewhere. When we started the company, we saw and heard stories about how powerful installments were in Latin America and South America. Since that time, we've had further conversations. I was speaking to a young gentleman who was actually located in Berlin, of all places, but he was Brazilian, and I was asking him about payment plans and installments in Brazil and what it was all about. He said, everyone in Brazil pays with installments. It's like it is the way to pay. And we can start to see this installments trend basically proliferating internationally. And I think we're really just on the front end of it here in the United States. And you can see it in the consumer's viewpoint towards our product. At least I can. When we read our reviews, if you want to say, see what the consumer thinks about our products, we have a lot of reviews that are public. You know, you could go check out our reviews on trustpilot, on Facebook in our app stores, and you can see what the customer thinks about it. They Just love this way to pay. So I think it's just in the front end and yeah, it's going to be a major payment method going forward.

Totally agree. So I'm going to ask you a touchy question on that topic. And you and I have also talked about this. Just like Visa and MasterCard and whatever, all these other cards are listed on a site together. Do you see the future where multiple payment solutions are listed together?

Most definitely. We see this as becoming a new age credit card network and that's why we're so focused on making it as consumer friendly as possible. I mean, I think it's just a win win to focus on the consumer benefits of this because as we make it more and more consumer friendly, it actually makes that consumer more likely to check out with retailers that enable the product. So we're so heavily focused on making the consumer fall in love with it because we do foresee a future where there is a Visa MasterCard and there are multiple versions of our type of system installed with retailers. And in that situation, we want our product to be the first choice.

Perfect.

I think that's helpful because there's a lot of people that are bombarded with solutions or questions about do you have this solution or that. And I like that you've embraced the idea of community and collaboration and giving options versus it's me versus them. So that's definitely appreciated.

We were talking about this a little bit before the call. I kind of view businesses like a tennis match and we know there's gonna be competition and our job is to make the best product so that retailers and consumers choose us first. That's what drives us.

So let's talk about back to the product a little bit. I know in retail specifically, a lot of the feedback I've heard from stores that use sezzle is they have an increased average order value and increase conversion rates. Right. Because it's so much simpler for people to stay logged in and to pay at a lower price point. So can you talk about some of the data that you've seen too? What's happened to retailers when they've started to use this product?

Yeah, you definitely see an immediate lift. And I think the reason you see that is just that it's purchasing power and it's just the confidence and safety the consumer feels in checking out this way when it initially shows up. But I think what happens subsequent to that is we also continue to help with conversion because, and I'm so focused on the product internally, we want to keep the consumer basically logged into the product, if possible, because we want it to be an easier subsequent checkout. And the viewpoint I always think about is Uber, like Uber or Lyft. When you use that app, it just keeps you logged in. And no one ever complains about that. Do you? I mean, it's just like fantastic. It's easy. And so we want to make our product as easy as possible for the customer to use. And then what we think that helps with on the retailer side is your customer who's going to check out when they see our button and they know they're already, they're going to have this easy checkout. For them, it's just, they just push that button for sezzle and confirm and it's a checkout. Whereas if they were going to go through another checkout process, now they've got to go fumble for a card. You know, their kid distracts them for a moment, they drop their phone, they go on to the next project and then maybe they forgot about that purchase or they make that purchase somewhere else. And so that's where I think subsequent we benefit both the consumer because it's easy because that consumer wanted to make that transaction, but it also, we help the retailer because we help with conversion.

Yeah, I have to pause right here because I feel like if there's one thing I could just shout from the rooftops. As someone who's a retail educator, it's that, that if you don't have not just, you know, obviously credit card checkout, but if you don't PayPal as an option, because some people are die hard PayPal, and if you don't have sezzle as an option or payment solution as an option, you're really missing the boat. Because I'm the person that you said I'm distracted by my kids or I'm distracted by something, or half the time my purse is out in the car, so I don't have a credit card on me. So if there isn't some other alternative that I can quickly log into and pay, then you've lost me as a customer 100%.

And Paul Paradis, one of my co founders, will tell you he's done a lot of research on this. There's a lot of data that says the more payment methods that you add to your site, generally the better. I'm sure there's some sort of point where it starts to go inverse because of the NASCAR appearance of your site. But there might be someone that's a PayPal user that wants to use PayPal and they like that checkout there Might be someone that likes Amazon pay and they like that checkout. They want to use that checkout. And then the same for Sezzle as well. And so our viewpoint is that it's generally better to have more payment options available on your site.

How do you suggest your boutiques or any type of retailer? Because I know you're not just in apparel, you're in a number of different verticals. But how do you suggest retailers that use Sezzle train their customers on the product beyond just installing the widgets?

You know, they could tell them about it on social or through basic email campaigns to their customer about the availability. Because usually what happens is once the availability is known to the customer base that frequents their stores, they'll see an immediate spike in purchase behavior, especially here around the retail time period. You know, it's funny, when we started the company and moved into this payment method, I actually talked to my mom about what we were doing just to kind of get her viewpoint on it. And she's like, charlie, I totally love this because when you guys were kids, we used to shop with layaway and it totally reminds me of layaway. And that actually like created the thumbs up for me in terms of if mom likes.

Your mom approved it.

Yeah, mom approved. So we can. But it also makes me think, especially now, we're having this podcast right before the holiday period. And now would probably be a great time to let a retailer customer base know about the availability because it would definitely help with purchase behavior around the holidays.

Do you have data on new customers that use Sezzle, like what percentage of them return and continue to use it as a payment method?

Yes, we don't have it on a retailer specific view, but we do monitor our repeat usage over time. And it's a very sticky product for the customer. Like they. I mean, it's our goal to make them fall in love with it. And they tend to really love the product and continue to use it once they've signed up for it. And what we do know is that it does increase purchase frequency at the retailer. So we've seen that data point that once signed up on Sezzle, a user that uses Sezzle will purchase more frequently with the same retailer, which I think is a strong pitch to adding it for a retailer on their site. And it makes sense. I mean, I think that's the same reason why the big box retailers do private label credit cards. You know, while we don't necessarily believe in the credit card model per se, because we have a different model, but that purchasing power that is given to that user enables them to purchase more frequently. I think we're seeing the same dynamic with our product.

I forgot to ask you this at the beginning, but I really. Because I know someone's going to message me and have this question if they aren't yet familiar. What's the payment structure for a boutique? What does it cost them to use Sezzle? How's that work?

Yeah, so to sign up with us, it's 6% to process 6% plus 30 cents. If you have higher volumes than a typical boutique or you consider yourself a high volume retailer, let's talk to our sales team because we do offer discounts for higher volumes. And so that's the cost of process. And when I talk to someone about that cost, it's more, it's like 3% more than it would cost to process online. But keep in mind with that 3% we're taking on losses, we're taking on the borrowing of the funds to make these purchases happen. So that's the extra cost that we have as a company. But then in terms of thinking about it, the mindset of as a retailer, what I usually say is if your margins are greater than 6%, it's a no brainer because we're driving more volume through every month or every week. And so if you know, and typically if you're in fashion apparel, your margins are much, much higher than that. So it's really about driving more to the bottom line as a business owner because of the. We will definitely drive more throughput. And so in terms of how we make payouts, we've made iterations of that over time. Now a retailer that signs up with us has next day availability for payouts if they have manual payouts, if they're automated, a three business day payout schedule. We also offer the ability for a retailer to earn interest with the payout balance that they carry with us. It's a unique benefit that we offer. Our viewpoint is let's share with our network if we can. We have to either borrow from a bank or another entity. So if we can share in the upside with the retailers that we work with, why not? And so we also offer that benefit to the merchants that sign up with.

Us and what percentage?

So currently it's at 8% as an interest rate, which is fantastic compared to what you might make in the bank. So if you're. Not every retailer is in this situation, not every merchant has a situation where they're cash flow rich. But if you are, if your business is really cash flowing quite well, it's a great place to park some money, man.

I don't think that there's a lot that know about that, so I'm really glad that you mentioned it. One thing I want to mention too, because I know many of you that are listening are boutique hub members. And so we do have special pricing if you're a boutique hub member as well, and quicker payouts because we've negotiated that and you all have been verified right as legitimate businesses ahead of time. So there is a perk for you there too.

Yeah, for sure. I forgot about that. Ashley, thanks for mentioning that.

You bet. One more question I know I get often is you guys have a great partnership with Comet Sold now too, like we mentioned and I know there's been some questions on why do I need is it two accounts or how does that work? If you have both say Shopify and comment Sold, you have to install the widget both places or you have to have two accounts both places. Can you walk me through that?

Yeah. By the way, that partnership has been wildfire. It's been so much fun to watch how fast that's grown. I think it's working so well. But yeah, I think that right now there is this downside that you have to sign up twice, but we're fixing that. So we're creating the ability to merge accounts and to sign up once, essentially, or manage multiple accounts within one login in our dashboard. So that's a project. I'm in a lot of these project meetings and that's one of the projects that's where being worked on right now.

Perfect. Is there anything you would say of the boutiques that you work with that you find to be most successful on the platform? Is there anything you feel like they have in common?

You know, I think getting it out there socially is a big item. I would say that you see retailers that work with our merchant success team do quite well. Our merchant success team here is really driven to try to help drive engagement. We have, you know, we're starting to approach a million users as active users and so we have this store directory and I think the user also we have this affiliate aspect to us that's starting to grow where the user that is the end user of Sezzle is starting to go to our store directory and search to discover new stores. And so making sure that you get your store tile up with us in our directory and making sure you categorize it properly and you can talk to our team here to make sure that you do that well. But that's also a Key ingredient, I would say, because then making sure your imagery is fantastic on that store tile, because it's really about attracting the consumers that are browsing that. So I think that would be another key ingredient to success as well, because I think we're seeing around 3 to 5% of our sales coming through our store directory now, somewhere around that range. So, yeah, that's a big driver of traffic.

We were talking about this during our meeting that we had with your team while we were in Minneapolis, that there's some collaboration to be had on your store directory, but then also on boutique style, that's our shopping platform and that we're actually going to be putting because we in our shop, the best boutiques. Facebook group, which is consumer shopping boutiques. I bet five to six times a day we see consumers saying, hey, I'm looking for, you know, something to wear to this wedding this weekend, but I prefer you have Sezzle. So we're going to be putting this Sezzle, like, widget or a sign or something on the boutique style profiles so that consumers can come in and search there as well. Says little specific stores.

Wow, that's so cool to hear for me, quite frankly. But, yeah, I mean, I think that basically speaks to how much the consumer loves the ability to pay this way.

Awesome. All right, let's switch gears a little bit, because as a founder, I'm always fascinated by founder stories, and I know this isn't your first rodeo, so to speak. So talk to me, Charlie, about you had a company before this, and then there's two co founders with you of Sezzle. I want to hear the backstory of how this got started.

Yeah, so I'm not. Ashley and I were chatting before the podcast here, and my idol is Jeff Bezos in terms of how he's built Amazon and everything he thinks about, even about innovation. And it's funny, he said someone interviewed him and said, are you that typical entrepreneur? And he's like, no, I didn't have the lemonade stand. And I was the same way. I'm like, I didn't have the lemonade stand. I think I always wanted to do something big, but I didn't know how to do it. And my dad was an immigrant, came here from the Middle east when he was, like, 26 years old. Married my mom. They had a family of. I'm one of six. And I think I basically saw them work so hard and that kind of what created, like, my energy. My dad was basically the American dream, I always say. And so I went on to do some Software development, my first job. And I was always tinkering with new ideas, didn't know how to launch them. And then I went to business school in 2008. That's actually where I met my co founder, Paul Paradis. We went to business school together. And then out of business school, I started my first company. It was a company called Passport and we did mobile payment apps for parking. And I just learned a ton the hard way about how to start a business. I mean, we almost failed probably a couple times. And I think the key I learned in building a business is just listen to your customer like your customer is. I always say now that the secret to success is common sense. If your customer wants something and you hear it over and over and over from different customers, you better start building it because that's what they want. And if you, it's like amazing when you build what they want, you find more. That's why I say it's common sense. And so built that company up. And when we started the company, we were probably the fifth or sixth player in the space. A lot of people told us we didn't have a chance. And it just took a lot of grit and listening to the customer. And then we eventually started to win big deals. We did Park Chicago, Park Boston, the Green Pea in Toronto. And then you may have actually seen Passport installed because it's what we install in smaller cities as our brand. And moved on from that company in 2016 to start Sezzle and actually pushed out of that company just so people know. Like, I've dealt with all types of entrepreneurship type stories, but I always, even though I was pushed out of that company, I wanted to keep on this trail of entrepreneurship because I loved it so much. And that's when I reached out to Paul. So I was always trying to recruit Paul at Passport, but couldn't get him to move down to Charlotte. And then so I reached out to Paul when we were starting Sezzle and you know, he was a key ingredient to starting the company. Because I really think it's important you have co founders when you build a company out and have a strong founding team. And so Paul said he was all on board. We started to get momentum with building the product, fundraising, and then we brought on Killian, Killian Bracke, who came on early in our first year as well, a really young tech superstar. And then that's basically who I view as the early founding team. That's our founding team and basically set the core for our company for success. And that's really how we got to where we are today and how I've evolved as an entrepreneur. So it's been a long road and taken most of it with lumps, but second time around is a little bit easier, that's for sure.

Especially in terms of the massive growth you've had. How many employees are there now at Sezzle?

So we currently have around 100 employees between full time and part time. We've got a lot of interns that help us as well. We're right on the light rail here in Minneapolis, so we've got a ton of interns that join us from the University of Minnesota, which we love.

That is amazing. When you are thinking about, like, what you have to share with other entrepreneurs, is there, like, a piece of advice you wish you would have known earlier that you wish more entrepreneurs understood?

Oh, you know, that's a good question. You know, I think it's amazing what grit and just determination will get you as an entrepreneur. And, you know, don't expect things to happen overnight. But I would say the number one thing I tell entrepreneurs is you've got to be all in. You can't haves it. And I know that's hard for some entrepreneurs. You know, if you have a couple of kids and you know, it's a struggle to make ends meet today, it might be hard to start a company. You know, I was never in that situation, so it's hard for me to speak to it. But I know that whenever I've started a company like that company is like the baby. You know, it's like you have to give all into it. And I've had the luck of having a fantastic wife that supports me 100%. She's helped with growing Sezzle and, you know, helps to support me every way which way possible. And I don't have kids yet. We don't have kids yet, so that we haven't had another kid. You know, like, the company is the kid. So I would just be ready to be all in. It just takes so much work and so much effort. And, you know, there's all those stats about how many companies fail. And I was always that cocky person in my last company and thought like, oh, that's not me, it's someone else. And then I almost failed a couple times at that company. So it started to say, okay, it's harder than I thought to start a company. And then I also, I think some other learnings I've had is you have to have an awesome team, so you can't do it by yourself, no matter how confident you are you've got to have a fantastic team. So I've kind of boiled it down to you've got to have a great idea or a great product, you've got to have a great team and then you got to have some capital behind you to really build something really powerful. And that's probably my main learnings of what I've in building a company. We also follow something that I learned at business school which I think is not, not common practice, but I think someone, it's something I'd love to talk about because I think it's an important one. And it's a stakeholder approach towards building a company. And that's a. I bet most people haven't heard of it. And the idea is you have to think about your stakeholders in the business and who like basically who matters most in growing the company. And for us at Sezzle, it's the shopper, it's the merchant, it's our team here, it's the investors who have put money behind us and then it's the community. So those are our five stakeholders. And our goal or the way I look at leading the company here is for all those stakeholders. My goal is to make them all love us. And it's hard to do because sometimes when you give in one place you take from another place and they're not always in balance and you're always juggling them all, but they're always in the back of your mind. When you're building things, I think you tend to make the right decisions. And community is kind of the most oddball one that I think people have struggled with. But I always say it's if you're wearing a Sezzle shirt in downtown Minneapolis or some other city, do people have a strong opinion of that company in a good way? And that's really like what we think of with community. And so I think if you're a boutique owner out there and you're thinking about building your business, I think, you know, having those types of mindset around grit and determination and you know, thinking about the stakeholder approach because your stakeholders probably, you know, suppliers would be in there. That's not mean, that's not one for us, but, but for you it might be. And just thinking about like how to make everyone that interacts with your business happy is generally like a great long term strategy.

Man. Charlie, that says a lot about you as a person and you as a leader. And I know you have an awesome team cause I had the opportunity to meet them, but they're very lucky to have an awesome leader like you, too, that has that type of vision because it says a lot to the integrity that you have about how you're going to take care of them and your community and like you said, your stakeholders, all five groups of your stakeholders.

Well, thanks, Ashley. I appreciate it.

You bet. So, last question, kind of on that note, I know you're right in the thick of it, right? You're right in the middle of explosive growth with just huge opportunity ahead of you. But I always ask our guests this question, and I think this is relevant today, too. You know, when you look, once you and your wife have kids and you've got grandkids, you know, many years down the road and sezzle sold or gone public or whatever, you know, the route is, what is the thing that you hope your grandkids say about the life that you led and what you created in this lifetime? Like, what's the future legacy that you want to leave behind?

Oh, that's a great question. I always hope that they would think that I really pushed myself and, you know, accomplish something that was hard to do. Like, people always ask, like, you know, why do you start businesses? Like, what's your goal? And I kind of. So I got pushed out of my last company. I loved every minute of it, by the way. Like, it was big challenge. Got pushed out of it, and I started another company. And people are like, why'd you do that after what just happened to you? And it's like, I think it's funny, like, once you've done it, or at least once I've done it, I can't do anything else. And I think it's sort of like in it to climbing a mountain. Like, why do people climb mountains? You know, get that Alex Holden guy that climbs rock faces without a rope. I'm not sure if that's smart, but it's like, why does he do that? And I think it's because the challenge and it's because it's so challenging when you get to the other end of it or get to success, it feels really, really good. And, you know, I think I saw my dad come here with nothing in his pocket and grow a family and have the American dream. And I think that that was probably really challenging. And I'm sure he was really fulfilled by it. And I think that for me, is what I hope. My grandkids think that. Oh, wow, look at all the challenges that he pushed through and was able to have a lot of success. So that's what I hope at least.

Oh, man, spot on. Well, Charlie, thanks again. I really appreciate your time today and the message and and it's pretty cool to watch this from the sidelines. So congratulations to you and Paul and Killian, your entire team, and thanks for letting us be a part of your journey.

Thanks, Ashley, and congrats to you too.

Thank you so much. Hey, guys.

I hope you love this episode and learn a ton about alternative payment solutions, but also what it means to teach today's youngest generation about financial responsibility. I think that's a pretty cool statement to make and I cannot wait to see where this industry is continues to grow in the future. Now, I mentioned that we have a cool collaboration coming up with Sezzle, so I want you guys to check out the link that I have in the show notes. We have a huge Small Business Saturday promotion that we're going to be running the entire month of November. And what we're going to be doing is rewarding both consumers who choose to shop with Sezzle on your website, but also the boutiques that use Sezzle in their business. So we've got several winners we're going to be choosing. There's going to be a landing page set up the entire month of November where we're featuring all of the boutiques on Boutique Style, which is a part of the boutique hub that carry Sezzle. So you're going to want to make sure that if you carry Sezzle that your profile on Boutique Style is highlighting it. Anyone who shops with those boutiques throughout the entire month and checks out with Sezzle is going to be entered to win 5, $500 cash giveaways. So the landing page is going to tell you all about those giveaways and how to enter. Now, for all the boutiques that are participating, if someone shops with you and uses Sezzle through the entire month of November and lets us know about it during the giveaway, we're going to choose five boutiques to have $500 cash giveaways. So there's an opportunity for you guys to grow your business this month not only by using using Sezzle as a payment solution, but also in the cash that you're going to get back simply because you're a small business and we want to team up to give back to you during one of the most important shopping months of the year. If you guys have questions, send me your thoughts on Instagram. I almost said tweet me, which would be weird because I don't use Twitter. So send me your thoughts on Instagram @ajalderson or @bustiquehubbusiness also @suzzle and then.

Check out the landing page that we've.

Got for you in the Show Notes Notes. We'll be posting about it throughout the entire month of November between the Boutique Hub Sezzle and also Boutique Style. Enjoy you guys. You guys definitely deserve it this month and we cannot wait to reward you all month long.

Hey guys, thank you so much for.

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