Bill.com CEO René Lacerte explains how fee differentials incentivized early users to migrate from paper checks to electronic payments.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
BILL's direct competitors are not regulated money transmitters
“The part that I think becomes a moat competitively is we move money and it's regulated and we do it well. I don't know any of our competitors that are actually regulated that know how to, we have regulators in our shop all the time.”
Insight
Financial platforms only earn the right to monetize payments through software excellence
“We don't get to do your payments unless you love the software that you just talked about. Like we are a software government. We have to make a great experience. We have to make it so that when you're going between buildings, you can actually pay a bill if you …”
Insight
Lacerte: Scaled fintechs must own infrastructure because bank partners cannot keep up
“If you're trying to, we wanted the ability to be able to do any type of payment because that's what customers needed. You have to, you know, make sure that you're owning that infrastructure. Versus you're lying on some third party in the bank that's going to h…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Non-AI SMB spend per customer has been flat for three quarters
“What we've seen this year is more stabilization in the last maybe three quarters. And so I call this the wait and see economy. This is, nobody's investing for growth the way they were three years ago, which is crazy. People were just investing, investing. Obvi…”
Opinion
Toast is fundamentally a software company despite its payment revenue mix
“I think they are a software company. I think they, again, they earned the right to do essentially clear all the restaurant's revenues because they have great software.”
Insight
Founders must define a viable business model before acquiring customers
“Like you don't wait to build the business model. Don't wait to say, Oh, I get the customers. They will come and I'll figure it out. No, have your model. Maybe you don't charge it first, but have a model that says, okay, at this price point, I'm going to be abl…”