A new Bay Area startup company, saySquare, is redesigning payments in Latin America. Its platform allows small businesses to accept payments using text messages like a mobile point of sale (POS). With their solution, users and merchants won’t need specialized hardware or smartphones to receive payments.
Small businesses in developing countries have many obstacles that don’t allow them to grow. One of those main obstacles is the lack of trust that the banking sector has in small businesses; this is reflected in the lack of access to POS devices that streamline small business sales and move them into highly competitive markets.
saySquare is an alternative payment method that will allow small business in Latin America to grow. Specifically, saySquare offers a mechanism to receive payments through a platform using SMS on any cell phone with any mobilecarrier in a country – safely and quickly.
saySquare’s main office is in San Jose and its second office is in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where the need and inspiration for the tech solution originated.
The inspiration happened when Cristian Espinoza, one of the founders of saySquare, was running late to a meeting back home in Honduras. He stopped at a small taco shop on his way to the meeting. When he was about to pay, the cashier told him that she didn’t have change for a large bill, so Cristian tried to pay with his credit card. Unfortunately, the cashier didn’t have a POS either. Frustrated, Cristian had to leave without his tacos and with an empty stomach. Most importantly, the taco shop lost a sale.
The saySquare founders realized that this sort of thing happens often in Honduras and similar places with many small businesses. They felt that there had to be a better way to use technology and allow anyone, anywhere, to accept payments. They decided to do something for the sake of hungry taco lovers and small businesses everywhere.
As native Latin Americans, the saySquare team saw that there was a great need to support the small business sector, and saw that they could do so through today’s technology.
Who are your role models? “As an entrepreneur, we find inspiration in many people in the startup world. However, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square and co-founder of Twitter, stands out.”
What’s the best thing about being an entrepreneur? “You get to meet a lot of brilliant people and you learn from them. You learn more from experiencing entrepreneurship than from reading books about entrepreneurship.”
What’s the best advice that anyone has given you? “#hacelopue – it’s slang that people use in Honduras that means “stop talking about it and just do it.” When we started hearing this, it motivated us to focus on saySquare and take action to complete it.”
What advice would you give to others? “Don’t be afraid of taking a leap of faith. Don’t be afraid of failure, because you learn more from failure than from following the risk-free path.”
Edward Avila is the co-founder and CEO of Manos Accelerator, a mentorship-driven accelerator program that provides education, business resources and guidance for start-up companies led by Latinos.