#swipely

[seanlane]

Deciding it's time to get back in the swing of things with the blog.  Catching up with something that Venture for America asked me to write in January 2014 for the incoming class of 2014 VFA Fellows...

[kaler]

Flying Lessons

I remember how it felt to take off for the first time, alone and in command of a small airplane. It was both thrilling and terrifying. Upon landing, I was drenched in sweat and grinning from ear to ear. For my entrepreneur friends reading this, I imagine this may be somewhat similar to the feelings you have on the flight deck of your own business.

While I don't fly regularly today, I often use my pilot training in business. I thought I would share four flight lessons that have been particularly helpful to me in the pilot’s seat:

The Emergency Checklist; Remaining Calm

The Four C's

Bad Instruments

Takeoffs & Landings

[seanlane]

Here's an article I wrote in the Huffington Post about the big impact that organizations like Venture for America and Swipely can have.

[suryaray-blog]

Swipely hits its stride combining payments, analytics and loyalty

#SuryaRay #Surya Swipely began life as a way for consumers to share their credit card purchases, similar to Blippy and Facebook’s controversial Beacon feature. Then, Swipely switched it up and worked to help deliver deals and loyalty points to consumers. Now, the Providence, RI company started by former TellMe founder Angus Davis is finding its groove as a merchant-facing service that processes card payments and delivers data analytics and marketing tools. The company for the last six months has competed against big payment processors and merchants acquirers like Bank of America, First Data and Chase Paymentech. But instead of trying to compete on lower fees, it supplies data analytics, marketing and loyalty services that are built off credit card swipe transactions. This gives merchants valuable tools to break down sales trends, better identify their best customers and reach out to loyal or lapsed customers through email marketing and retention tools. In the six months since Swipely moved to this model of combining payments, analytics and marketing, it has processed $250 million in payment volume. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to big competitors. But the solid growth shows that Swipely may be on to a business model that works. And now the company is expanding its offering for its merchants to help them get even more insights and forge a better relationship with their customers. With Swipely Winter ’13 update, Swipely is now able to provide spending data on individual users, so a merchant can see what its top users are doing in real-time and cater to their needs. Previously, Swipely offered trend and aggregate spending data, but now it can provide a CRM tool complete with customer profiles for merchants. Swipely is also offering next-day settlement through a partnership with American Express. Merchants can use Swipely’s newly tablet-optimized dashboard to receive more detailed sales data, such as hourly sales trends, multiple location information and daily sales reports that include social media interactions. And Swipely is opening up its service to 20 more point of sale systems. Davis said Swipely is now where it needs to be, competing in the massive $70 billion payments market. He said the landscape for pure loyalty startups is bleak, something Google also seemed to acknowledge with the recent closure of Punchd. By bundling in payments, Swipely can displace an existing cost for merchants and replace it with free marketing and analytics tools for businesses. He said most businesses are not getting any real data insights from their payment processor. “We give merchants the ability to understand their sales data. You can now understand your customers in ways you couldn’t before,” said Swipely. “We’re bringing analytics to Main Street.” What makes Swipely attractive is that the company matches whatever fees that a previous payment processor offered so there’s no added cost to try it out. And it works with most existing hardware so it doesn’t require any new point of sale upgrades. Davis said the company only has a few hundred customers, who are doing an average of $1 million in annual card transactions. But he expects his customer base to skyrocket in 2013 as merchants learn about the service and he’s quadrupling his sales team to handle the demand. I think Swipely made a smart move in finding the right fit for its card swiping technology. Many merchants are still struggling to better understand their customers and could use the tools Swipely offers. Some mobile payment services like Square offer simple analytics, but they don’t always appeal to bigger merchants who have sunk a lot of money into existing hardware. Swipely, which has raised $8.5 million to date, also works with some mobile point-of-sale applications like Lavu POS. The product shows that the credit card is still valuable to merchants and consumers even with the rise of mobile payments. Despite a bunch of iterations, Swipely may have finally found an approach that sticks. http://dlvr.it/2fdnzR @suryaray

[seanlane]

Swipely It Is!

After being accepted to Venture for America, the next step was to begin the matchmaking process to determine which start-up company I would work at during my two year Fellowship.  Following a series of interviews and site visits with a variety of Venture for America's partner companies, I was fortunate enough to receive an offer from Swipely, a loyalty rewards company based in Providence, RI.

                                        Swipely's service provide businesses, especially "main street merchants," with a program that "turns credit and debit card transactions into a business’ direct marketing engine."  In essence, businesses can better understand their customers in a simple, powerful way using Swipely's direct marketing program.  Once you learn just a little bit about Swipely and the services the company provides, it's a no-brainer for consumers and businesses alike.  

Learn more about my new job placement and Swipely's services at swipely.com and swipelyworks.com.

[amexopenforum]

Who says you can't get something for nothing? With Swipely, customers can earn points and cash back rewards just for using their credit and debit cards at local businesses.

(via Promoting Customer Loyalty With Swipely)

[suryaray-blog]

Swipely Beefs Up Its Credit Card-Based Loyalty Programs

Once a service for simply sharing purchases, Swipely is contining its evolution into a credit-card based loyalty program for small businesses wi… http://dlvr.it/1MbVb1