Enhancing Venmo for Seamless Transactions

Pankaj Jain

CLARIFY:
1. Is there a specific goal in mind? You choose.
2. Do you want to focus on the consumer or the business? You choose.
VENMO BACKGROUND: Venmo is a mobile payment service owned by PalPal. Its mission is to make transfers and transactions easy. There is an individual consumer aspect and a business aspect. Users create an account and use a Venmo balance for transactions They can link bank accounts, debit cards and credit cards to the account or use Venmo Mastercard. Paying via bank account or debit card is free but credit cards are charged 3% for each transaction. Venmo also allows businesses to set up online profiles to accept payments and is used with Hulu, Uber Eats and Poshmark. Businesses do not need a big payment system to accept payment via Venmo in a store.
GOAL: In regards to improvement, I’d like to focus on the business profile aspect of Venmo and increase the number of business profiles on the app.
USER GROUPS: Within the business sector, there are a few user groups to consider. I would like to focus on small businesses, as they likely do not have sophisticated payment systems set up / could use Venmo
1. Small business: Few employees (maybe only 1). May be running business in individual home. Revenue under $200M. Business may not even be profitable depending on how early it is.
2. Medium business: Under 1000 employees. Revenue between $200M – $500M.
3. Large business: May have global presence. May have tens of thousands of employees. Revenue of $500M+.
USER PAIN POINTS: I’d like to focus on user pain points in the payments space:
1. Make a Payment:
  1. Bills are expensive.
  2. Manual process to send check.
2. Receive a Payment:
  1. Payments are delayed.
  2. Must remind customers to send payment.
  3. Hassle to send customers bank account information.
  4. Business is running paycheck to paycheck.
3. Track AP / AR:
  1. Does not have good system to track AP / AR expenses. Many bills / payments.
  2. Manual expense management.
  3. Needs a way to manage cashflow better.

PRIORITIZE PAIN POINTS:

Theme	Pain Point	Impact to User
Make a Payment	Bills are expensive.	Medium
Make a Payment	Manual process to send check.	Medium
Receive a Payment	Payments are delayed.	High
Receive a Payment	Must remind customers to send payment.	High
Receive a Payment	Hassle to send customers bank account information.	Low
Receive a Payment	Business is running paycheck to paycheck.	High
Track AP / AR	Does not have good system to track AP / AR expenses. Many bills / payments.	High
Track AP / AR	Manual expense management.	High
Track AP / AR	Needs a way to manage cashflow better.	Medium

SOLUTIONS: I’d like to focus on thie high impact pain points.
1. Automatic Payment Reminders: Automatic payment reminders to customers to send payments. Payments to reminder could include 1 click venmo button to make a payment to business.
2. Payment Late Reminders: Automatic payment reminders to customers when bills are late. Business could implement a surcharge for late payments (10% fee) too.
3. Automatic Payments: Business could set up automatic payment pulls (with user consent) with select account / manage centrally.
4. Cashflow Insights: Venmo could build cashflow tool to help business see better insights into cashflow.
5. Expense Management: Venmo could build expense management system to help businesses with expenses. Could include upload receipts and invoices, etc. Automatic tagging of venmo payments to expenses.

PRIORITIZE SOLUTIONS: Given the prioritization, I’d focus on payment reminders. Given that automatic payment reminders and payment late reminders are similar, Venmo could build a wholistic payment reminder solution for businesses.

Solution	Impact to User	Cost to Venmo
Automatic Payment Reminders	High	Low
Payment Late Reminders	High	Low
Automatic Payments	Medium	Medium
Cashflow Insights	Medium	High
Expense Management	High	High

METRICS:
1. % change to business profiles after roll out of payment reminder solution
2. # of businesses who set up payment reminders
3. # of payment reminders sent / business
4. # of payment reminders sent in total
SUMMARY: I’d begin building payment reminders for Venmo that businesses could set up, which would help businesses receive payments / ideally help them with float. Given Venmo’s broad individual consumer base, the more businesses see Venmo as a tool for helping them manage their payments – particularly getting paid – the more businesses are likely to sign up for a Venmo business profile, which helps us with our goal of increasing business engagement.

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