Alysson Smith is the Co-Founder and CEO of the sports and recreation payments software provider Flexible. She shares how focusing on a niche market has been such a big part of her Fintech journey. 

Three things in this episode that we dive into. 

1. Challenges that Sports and Recreation providers are facing
2. Simplifying the complexity of collecting fees and paying out to the right parties
3. How focusing on a specific niche market is the formula for success.

Learn More about Flexibl at http://www.goflexibl.com/

Sponsors: 

Railz: Gain access to a foundational data network to build the future for your financial technology company or financial institution. Free access at https://bit.ly/railz6free 

They understand what's being reconciled when it's

being reconciled, what it's attached to, and where the correct APIs

and helping them embed that within the reporting and reconciliation

that they're offering within or that they have within the software

Alison welcome to the show.

It is fabulous to have you on.

I'm really excited to understand what Flexibl is doing in the marketplace and

how focusing down on a very specific niche has helped you accelerate growth.

Thanks Tedd, for having me here on your podcast.

You and I have had chance to talk a little bit

and get to know each other.

I'd really like for you to take some time, to just help us understand.

What was, the striking point that got you into financial technology?

my background is in a software technology space working

for a couple of different quick growing startups here in Montreal.

Most recently I was head of partnerships for a sport and recreation

e-commerce business here, and we served everything from your local

gymnastics to cheerleading club.

All the way most recently to working with park and rec departments and

municipal departments that offer a wide array of different sports and a lot of

what I did and partnerships, and some of my even prior speaking engagements

that I've done was how to leverage technology for the world of sport and

rec and how to better business manage.

Tools and how to make their whole buying process more frictionless with

the use of technology and a reoccurring theme in that is, is payments.

And that relationship between payments software, the end user

experience, as well as the The business experience behind it really?

On my downtime with my horse my dog going out, I'm a huge outdoor fan.

It led me to mull it over quite some quite a little bit and really think

that there had to be a better solution in terms of, again, leveraging payments

for a specific vertical that really.

Needed a different approach to payment.

how did that time being out in the outdoors?

I was going to say wilderness, but that's probably not fair, but out in

the woods, out in the outdoors that, that time spent out there with that,

having that ability for it to get that clarity of thought, when you're doing

those things, how did that impact you?

Thinking this can be done better and.

What was that aha moment that made you go, oh my gosh, if I just did this,

this and this, it would solve these issues that I'm seeing in this market.

I don't know if I really had a aha moment.

Exactly.

It was multiple steps that led to it.

Talking about it with multiple people that kind of led to okay,

there, there's something here and there's a different way.

There's a different approach that's necessary.

And I'll start by talking if by talking about the.

Big challenges that I saw one as looking at the space and, from my

perspective as head of partnerships and one of the big challenges I saw was

As a software provider in the world of sports and recreation, so that providing

those e-commerce capabilities, the purchasing behavior and the purchasing

journey is different from that of buying a regular merchandise online.

It's not the same as buying your t-shirt online.

There's a lot more complexity behind that purchasing journey.

And that as a software provider in the space, you have to adapt

to, and some of those frictions and some of those differences are

being able to Do age restriction.

So you can't, register your kid for a certain activity if they're not

of a certain age or they require a certain membership in order to

register for a certain activity.

And then the more complex you get with that, the more complex

payments is intertwined with it.

You have to be sure you're providing.

Refunds within the platform you're providing subscriptions, you're providing

installment plans and that list goes on.

That was one challenge that where a payment provider who knows the

space and who can cater the use cases to the space has one advantage

over somebody who's very generic.

Two is the reality.

Merchants.

The reality of organizations in this space that the sports and recreation, a lot of

the times you're talking to merchants who are nonprofits, who are run by volunteers.

Not necessarily focused on business management, they're focused on providing

an activity to their community and it needs to be as seamless as possible.

It needs to be.

Easy software functionality because the staff is not always the same.

And as a second layer to that, even the ones that are running for

profit businesses are often running it out of a passion for the sport

out of, I love the sport that I do.

I'm passionate about it, and I want to provide.

That sport to my community and the best way possible.

In that same way, a lot of the times business becomes a second focus to them.

Because again, they're just so passionate and it's all about the

community that they're serving.

I look at, everything that you're talking about, and

that is the general dichotomy of a, professional in that specific

functionality versus an operator, someone who operates the business.

I can only imagine how difficult.

COVID and all the different things that came around that how much

more difficult that made it for those passionate professionals.

It forced them further and further into the operational side of the house.

Help us understand like what that looked like for you guys and how

did, you see that as an opportunity?

It's still a very much evolving world in terms of

technology for sports and recreation.

Back at three years ago, when I was, again in head of partnerships,

there were still organizations that we were talking to that were using

pen and paper to take registrations online, where they would have, yeah.

For people were lining up outside to sign their kid up for camp

and taking cash and check.

Now push that forward to COVID where that one wasn't a possibility and their

entire businesses had to shift to.

Okay how do I do this online?

How do Y one make sure that I can register people online and

even provide sports online?

Like we've seen a huge shift in that since the start of COVID is being

able to take your gym class at home.

it's really propelled that space to understanding the need for technology

and the need for online capabilities, payments, and other tenfold.

So it's just pushed, it increased that need since COVID, and that's where I saw

a there's even more of an opportunity here and it's, and this is the time to really.

To really go after it and help provide the space with better

tech for what they're doing.

They get forced into that business operational and

having to figure out how to run the business more efficiently.

And then I can only imagine that getting the technology that

they need in a timely manner.

It's somewhat difficult, how is Flexibl, helping them be more

Flexibl in managing their business?

Yeah, so we want to, again, I touched on this a little bit earlier.

Some of the challenges I was talking about, one of the reoccurring challenges

as a software provider in this space, that's both recurring for the software

provider in the space and helping serve the merchants in this space.

Simple use cases, reporting and reconciliation.

We've spoken in ton of different software companies who have sometimes space having

to do reconciliation for their merchants, their themselves every month, and helping

them understand how their payments as rec are reconciling how the batches work.

And that's a very specific use case that as only being.

Sports and recreation specific.

We can help the software providers make sure that they're leveraging

that properly and providing something seamless to their merchants so that

it's not a constant headache for them.

That's one simple Use case or one simple scenario we're Flexibl

is doing things differently.

Another use case that we see often in the states of sports

and recreation is split payouts.

So oftentimes you go register your child for their hockey for hockey team.

There's oftentimes I'm using hockey Canadian here.

I wasn't gonna say anything.

Oftentimes you're going to be registering your kid for hockey club.

Oftentimes that hockey club has, or as a user, you're also

paying dues to the association.

So either the club has to send association dues up to, or the club

up to the association, or the parent has to do two types of registry.

So we're helping software providers in this space be able to do that

seamless split payout between the club, the Federation, and an easy

experience for the parent where they don't have to see any of that.

So those are just two easy use cases in, in the space that we see.

We can help software providers leverage would be again, where we see there's a

specific need for sports and recreation.

One of the things that I noticed about Flexibl and, you've

touched on it multiple times.

Is how focused and narrow you got.

you're very narrowly focused in, on the sports and rec side of the house.

How do you see that?

Benefiting your direction, your ability to deliver compared to another

solution provider that may me more broad that's Hey, anybody that has

a payments or a financial technology need, we'll be able to solve for that.

how do you see that, narrowness of focus, benefiting what you

can deliver directly to them.

that's interesting in terms, of the way you've positioned it,

I'll get out, I'll go back to my experience as partnerships

in this space is payments is core to any vertical specific.

And payments is core to a lot of e-commerce in general.

I truly believe that when you're looking for, Partnerships solutions.

you're looking for people who are best in breed in what they do.

If I was looking for somebody who wanted to do email marketing.

I would look for somebody who does email marketing specifically.

Well, in that, in that space, , again, if you're looking at a certain market

and you want to look for people who are solving the specific pain points in the

market that you're looking at, you don't want something that's, super generic.

as software providers in the space the journey of integrating payments

is in my view, quite complex.

And you can go from offering just a hosted payment page to really fully

embedding payments within your offer.

Software in sports and recreation need to be, helped along that journey as

to how to get from point a to point B.

And I don't think there's any generic payment processor out there.

That's going to do that and understand the nuances at each of

those space for a world that, that specific as sports and recreation.

So I believe that within those spaces, you're looking , for somebody

that's going to help you with one specific use cases help you along

that journey help you leverage.

What can that transaction do?

How can I get increased?

My revenue with was better leveraging that transaction across

that journey of embedded payments.

you mentioned embedded payments.

What does embedded payments mean to you and how do you see it differentiating the.

Other providers out in the marketplace.

from my perspective, I see Flexibl as being that an enablement platform for

the sports and recreation softwares , to connect to, these very complex payment

rails that are in the background, but in a way that, that helps them manage, the

functionality that you mentioned before.

How do you see that being embedded and what is the

difference from your perspective of embedded versus invisible?

I like where you're going with that one.

In embedded versus invisible . There are a couple of different ways to look at this.

if I go back to thinking about everything that the software provider

in this space is offering to their customers, it's in is probably somewhat

common in many different industries.

focusing on who that consumer is, the merchants themselves, They

don't want to have to go to multiple different places to get their reports.

Let's say they don't want to have to go to multiple different places

if they have to issue a refund.

So that merchant portal that you say is something that as you go along your

payment journey is often extracted in the world of sports and recreation.

They're trying to centralize everything into that software.

So that the merchant only goes within that software to do whatever they need to do.

To me, that's embedded.

If you're making it completely invisible, then you're talking about really a

step beyond that, where the merchant, when they're doing, let's say their

application, do they're only seeing.

The software provider themselves.

They're not seeing who they're opening a merchant account with and that's a

different level in itself, if we're going that far into embedded payments.

But most of the software providers in the world of sports and

recreation are at least looking at.

Take all those functionalities that would exist in a merchant portal

and really put it all in one place and make sure that experience is as

seamless as possible for the merchant.

And that's priority number one.

But that does in itself require a lot of development time on the software side.

And it requires a lot of understanding of steam it's on the software side.

Truthfully, not always very common there.

They're there to offer functionalities for business management.

They're not there to offer functionalities for payments.

And that's where Flexibl can come in and provide those payment functionalities

for the world of sports and recreation and how best to integrate that into

their software and not having to say.

A ton of money and a ton of hours on trying to understand those payment

functionalities and how to bring it into their software to make that

seamless experience for the merchant.

So that's a huge differentiator when you're targeting sports and recreation.

And while we're talking about that payment journey in itself,

how are you making the.

That process, that experience, which if you were to go, traditional

provider can be cumbersome, can be, can take a long time to get through.

You may be handed off to three or four people.

You may have to go to three or four different systems to get the data.

How has.

Flexibl streamlining that for the software providers to speed up the process for

them , to get to revenue a lot faster.

I'm going to say we understand the space.

So obviously we can relate to what they're going to, which in

and of itself is different from where, the rest of the market is.

We partnered with a company, who's really built all the infrastructure behind us.

They have built us the prefabricated house that we needed for sports and

recreation, and we are going in and, adding on the bits and pieces to

make it more specific to the industry we're serving like reporting and

reconciliation, split payments, dashboards with data, for information

that the ISVs really needs to see.

We're looking at leveraging the payment data, as well as industry data.

so that the ISV could have the potential go provide, very specific

information and data to their merchants that would help them grow.

So we see that as a value add that definitely no other payment

provider is doing, within the space.

That's our vision for where we want.

And again, adding on value adds that are specific to the industry and specific

to helping the software providers in the merchants in the space grow.

it's interesting, with my time, in this space, ISV has transformed

from all of its different meanings, and it's always fun to listen to the

perspective of newer software providers in the space on how that is positioned.

It used to be somebody that.

That you didn't want to work with because you lost control of what

was going out into the market.

Then it became with it's somebody who you want to partner with,

but hold really, really close.

And what's really been interesting over the past three, maybe five years, it

has become that extension where it's almost what I would describe as like

the Intel inside model, where you're like, Hey, you are serving, you're

serving the direct end user, but we want to make it easier for you.

So you ISV independent software vendor, you are going to

independently provide the software as a vendor to our mutual customers.

And I'm going to help you power the payment side of it.

And it's been really interesting that it's moved to that piece of it.

And then as we were talking about the invisible payments side of the house.

Now it's moved to the next step where that software provider, that ISV software

providers you mentioned now is how do I make it look, feel, taste, smell as if

I am that financial service provider.

So it's been really interesting to see that journey , and see how

folks , like yourself, that are.

Adding on additional value propositions to the very robust

payment data that is there today.

plus the knowledge and the specificity of the industry and merging those two

together so that when there is a software company and partnering with them to that

knows the financial piece of it and being able to put those two pieces together.

I find that very interesting and I see that being a different approach.

I really like the, narrowed niche market, because what I see a lot of companies do

is, they say, I can do this for anybody.

anybody that has recurring experiences or anybody who needs

to have a registration process.

And then what that does from my perspective is it leaves the,

end user to go well, do, do I fit into that box or do I do.

and so it just, it adds question to whether or not that solutions for them.

And what I like about what you've done is you've said I'm going to remove all

of these questions of whether or not this is right for me, or if it's for me.

And you said, this is for sports and rec.

And so now everybody's in sports and rec.

They're like, oh yeah, yeah, that's me, that's me.

A llows them to raise their hand a lot easier.

You, you mentioned something that's super interesting

right now and going back to that invisible portion of it, and this may

be slightly controversial, , but coming from the world of software in the space

and e-commerce , Kind of always saw payments as being slightly invisible and

the merchants purchasing the software for the capabilities that it brings.

Not purchasing the software for the payment revenue that's there,

it's a layer behind, behind the software that the merchant itself

doesn't see and doesn't care about.

as a payment in the space, you have to be, you have to acknowledge

that and you have to be okay.

How do I help the software provider?

One make things easy for them.

Provide functionality to the merchants that are different from

what's else out there on the market.

And how do I then.

Also helps them grow.

How can I be not only different in the right now, but how will I continue to be a

good partner and add value in the future?

walk us through the journey of how Flexibl will touch the lives of the customer

making the payment, the merchant that is accepting the payment, the software

provider that is enabling all of that, how Flexibl is managing that piece of it

to the time that the merchant gets their money and the software reconciles, it.

Walk us through that full journey so we can understand , What that feels like.

Yeah.

For sure.

So speaking again, I guess in the, from the consumer side, we want to

make it as seamless as possible.

So they, when they're registering for an activity to have all of the

payment functionalities, as they see it and it be the software,

making it as seamless as possible.

So whether they're registering, whether it be subscriptions or installments

or just a regular checkout that be as seamless as possible, whether they're

looking to do card present or card, not present, all those offers should be on

the table for the software to be able to provide when you're talking about

the software itself, but we want to make sure that their journey is easy.

So whether they're looking and they're new to the space , how do we get them

to a point where it's more embedded and more invisible in terms of what they're

doing, and cater that approach with them and work with them on that journey.

. Reporting and reconciliation it for sure, depends on where they are within that

payment journey and how embedded they are.

But we want to be able to say, okay, you are on this journey.

We're either going to provide you the reports that you need for your

merchants, that they understand.

What's being reconciled when it's being reconciled, what it's attached

to and where the correct APIs and helping them embed that within the

reporting and reconciliation, excuse me, that they're offering within or

that they have within the software.

So . It's really about like that handholding process, depending on where

they are within their own journey of payments making it seamless for them.

And then adding on value adds in the future in making it

as easy as possible for them.

Fantastic.

I love it.

And I know I've mentioned this a couple of times, but I love how specific

you've gotten how you're leveraging technology that exists in the marketplace

to accelerate the delivery of this.

It's super important that you've done these things because a lot of times

software companies will promise a lot of things to deliver, but then fall

down when it comes time to execute and actually bring it to market.

The way that you've approached it.

Allows you to provide that value a lot faster and a lot easier.

I want to commend you on that and then, and thank you for joining today.

Is there anything that you want to share with the audience?

If I were to share one last thing is that, in terms of my

journey within the payments world.

I see it as just trying to make things more approachable, seeing payments

in a different perspective, seeing it through the eyes of the software.

It's the future of, vertical, specific software is where payments needs to

be able to help them grow and be the behind the scenes partner offer specific

things to help accelerate that growth.

Alison, thank you so much for taking time out

to go through this with us.

We really appreciate it.

Look forward to all the things that Flexibl is working on, and can't wait to

have you on again when we start to dive into the analytics side of the house.

Thanks a lot, Tedd.

Thanks a lot for having me on.