• David Sharp, President at PaySimple


• 23.07.2018 11:31 am

President of PaySimple, David Sharp, speaks with Financial IT about PaySimple's key moments, future plans, challenges and trends of the industry. 

Financial IT: What are some key moments about PaySimple and its mission?

David Sharp: Since we formed PaySimple in 2006, our mission has been to deliver a SaaS platform to small and medium-sized businesses that simplifies the way they collect payments from their customers and empowers them with technology to make their businesses more efficient. Many of the solutions in market are focused principally on the payments vs. the businesses’ valuable customers. We built a highly customer-centric platform providing rich insights to businesses about their customers allowing them to not only accelerate their cash flow, but grow even faster.

Our powerful billing software is flexible, allowing business owners to accept all of the payments methods their customers want to use (credit cards, debit cards, ACH debit, eChecks), wherever they are (in-person, online, digital invoicing, from a mobile device). We’re delivering technology solutions to small and medium-sized businesses that historically was only available to Fortune 1,000 businesses at a price point they can afford with the simplicity they require.

In October 2016, PaySimple received a $115M investment from Providence Strategic Growth (PSG). The investment has propelled the build-out of a service commerce platform, known as EverCommerce, which enables businesses to automate payment acceptance, market services, and increase retention and revenue.

Financial IT: What makes PaySimple unique among its competitors?

David: There are approximately 20 million service-based businesses in the United States. Most payment processing companies have built technologies that serve retail, restaurant and eCommerce organizations, leaving the unique needs of service businesses unmet. We designed PaySimple to address the unique needs of service-based businesses with the powerful, flexible payment acceptance capabilities they need to achieve their full potential.

Unlike many solutions, we are able to evolve with businesses as they grow. By supplying business owners with a vast array of payment acceptance options, integration capabilities with our flexible Application Programming Interface (API), and award-winning Customer Success Management, our business clients can scale their businesses with us throughout their lifecycle. Additionally, as their business grows, we encourage them to integrate payments data into other business-critical apps like accounting and marketing tools to further power their marketing efforts.

Financial IT: What are the issues and challenges you are facing while providing the solution?

David: As a software company that facilitates payments, we are highly-focused on protecting sensitive consumer and merchant-processing data and as such we take security incredibly seriously. Most recently, we’ve gone above and beyond to meet FinCEN’s new Beneficial Ownership Rule requirements by collecting additional information from all beneficial owners of a company applying for a merchant account. One of the greatest benefits we’re able to offer our business clients is the peace of mind of utilizing a Level 1 PCI DSS compliant technology while using our service so they can focus on their passion of running their business.

Financial IT: Going forward what are the key trends emerging in the industry?

David: Payments are no longer an isolated service for SMB’s; they want to connect payments with the other solutions they use to drive their business forward. A key trend we’re focused on is helping our business clients connect the rich data set they develop in the PaySimple platform to marketing tools, survey tools, accounting tools and any other peripheral software solutions they use to run their businesses and serve their customers.

Nowadays, people realize the richness and value of leveraging their payment data to grow their business. Fortune 1,000’s have been using payments data to grow for years and now small and medium-sized businesses are realizing they can do the same with the PaySimple solution. We will continue to evolve our connected solutions to allow our customers to leverage seams in their business to cross sell, upsell and grow even faster while providing extended value to their customers.

Financial IT: What is next for PaySimple?

David: PaySimple is laser-focused on increasing the delivery of our technology to business owners through partnerships, integrations and EverCommerce subsidiary cross-sell programs, effectively replicating our commerce enablement framework across a vast array of service-based verticals. We’ve recently enabled commerce for companies like Profit Rhino, a flat-rate price book tool and improveit 360, a CRM for home improvement professionals. Soon, we’ll be releasing an integration that will allow customers of MarketSharp, a CRM for contractors, to provide best-in-class vertical software combined with best-in-class commerce enablement.

David Sharp, PaySimple's President, joined PaySimple in 2007 and is passionate about helping PaySimple’s customers, employees and investors realize their full potential with the simplicity and flow that PaySimple’s commerce enablement platform brings to the marketplace. David has 21 years of experience in the payments and software industry, including eight years as Vice President of the Western Region for Global Payments. During his career, he has led business development for payment network processing, agent bank and ISO programs, as well as a variety of alternative payment solutions. David served as a non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Army following graduation from the Defense Language Institute and holds a BBA in International Business from the University of Georgia.