In the era of digital shopping, the ability to accept digital payments are an absolute must. This is more than just accepting Visa and MasterCard electronically – it means offering new web-based payment methods like PayChex and PayPal. These newer forms of payment are modern business requirement for eCommerce websites and apps.

The most important part of any customer-business interaction is the Checkout stage. From traditional brick-and-mortar stores to the eCommerce enterprise, this is where people have to face how much they’ve spent. This make or break moment is even more pronounced in eCommerce, where shoppers can remove items from their cart without holding up other shoppers.

The aim of this post to today will be to cover a few key elements that should go into any payment gateway. Then we will wrap up with a brief look at the top 5 payment gateways, looking at the pros and cons of each.

User Experience is First

Don’t choose a payment gateway, choose a User Experience (UX). A payment gateway needs to make the payment experience better. It should not make the experience more difficult. It shouldn’t even really maintain the status quo. Let’s refer to the industry darling for an example: Amazon Express.

Amazon’s payment experience is so easy and seamless it’s almost too easy (hence the”accidently purchased this” feature!); it’s the UX example to which any eCommerce website should refer. The easier it is to buy something, the more money you will make; in fact a report from Analytics giant Bain and Company found that a 5% increase in customer retention resulting in a 95% increase in profits. Pretty good deal, right?

Security (duh)

All major payment gateways have security that is exceptionally robust. It’s kind of a requirement of the business! In other words, we won’t dive into this too much. If you go with pretty much any named brand you will be okay.

But if you’re thinking of an off brand gateway, the biggest red flag is if a gateway is putting the onus of security on you. Make sure that they are PCI compliant and that all payments go from the browser to the company’s own secure gateway – never over your own server! Really though, we recommend going with a verified payment gateway. This is one of the most important aspects of your business, if not the most important.

PayChex Bluepay

PayChex Bluepay is the underdog of the Payment Gateway world, but not due to quality issues. In fact, Paychex maintains an entirely inhouse sales team to help ensure high quality customer experiences. Despite this expensive approach, Paychex BluePay is still the one of the cheapest payment gateways out there. Bluepay also claims to have the highest data security in the industry, though this is hard to prove.

PayPal

If you have never heard of PayPal, you probably fell through a time portal in the 1980s and just found yourself here in 2017. First, welcome to the 21st century; remember that Trump guy who’s building all those hotels? Yea, he’s president now. Oh, and computers fit in your hand – sweet, right?

Kidding aside, PayPal’s reputation is well earned. ANd though they are a legacy tech company from the 90s, they’re still trying to grow with the times; a fact demonstrated by their recent acquisition of Braintree. Additionally, Paypal is supported on all web development platforms, making integration with existing platforms much more simple. While more expensive than Bluepay, it has 165 million users, making it pretty much a must for eCommerce sites.

Stripe

As an entrepreneur and not a developer, you may not have heard all that much about Stripe. Stripe focuses on attracting developers; something they do extremely well. They focus on creating new ways for companies to accept payment online whether through a mobile app or a subscription-based model.

Stripe is supported on most major eCommerce platforms, including Magento and Shopify. More importantly, Stripe is making a big push into the global market, an awesome opportunity for eCommerce businesses just getting started.

Amazon Payments

As referenced earlier, Amazon Payments is one of the best examples of how UX should be done in the industry. This API’s single greatest feature is it’s 1-click purchase option, which autopopulates a returning client’s information. As mentioned above, the easier it is to pay you, the more money your business will make.

Amazon Payments is supported by most major eCommerce platforms. While still more expensive than Bluepay, Payments has no setup fee and a smaller chargeback fee than other major competitors (such as Authorize.Net).

Square

This newer player in the Payment Gateway business was founded by industry legend and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. Square is slightly different than the other names on the list because it focuses mainly on small mobile, businesses like Food Trucks. Square’s emphasis is not on eCommerce. But we wanted to cover it anyways because its an web-based payment method.

Square allows users to make quick digital payments at Brick-and-Mortar location – Starbucks being a prime example of this. The Credit Card needs to be present, but the Square POS system is able to capture Credit Card info by a tap. More recently they’ve launched a Peer-to-Peer payment service, called Square Cash.

Need a Payment Gateway for your own eCommerce website? Give us a call at 408.805.0495/408.621.8481 – or click to contact us – for more information on which option works best for you.

We all have something about which we are extremely passionate, something we love more than almost anything else. Often we look at it as only a hobby, a pastime. But why do we stop there? Why don’t we go that extra leap to turn a passion into a potentially thriving business? Most success stories in the world of Entrepreneurship start with a love of something (usually more than just money – though that’s also certainly lovely!)

The answer here is complex, but basically it all boils down to fear. Most of us are (un)content working a 9 to 5, dreaming of doing what we love as opposed to what we’re actually doing. Why? Because it’s safe, because it seems as close to a guarantee as possible. We’re afraid of it not working out, of it ruining our passion, of it costing too much.

But we’re here to tell you that it can happen, that passion is one of the key elements to a successful startup in any industry. Passion is, in fact, the one necessary element to a successful venture. There’s a reason that passion and dedication are what every Venture Capitalist and Angel Investor look for before funding an operation.

Of course, passion isn’t the only thing an entrepreneur needs to launch a successful startup. There are the tools needed to survive in this world, including a business plan, a website, and a support network. For nearly two decades, SDI has helped turn passions into successful business. We know what a startup needs to survive and, more importantly, grow in a modern economy.

A Business Plan

So let’s start low tech, with a tool that business since the beginning of time used to help figure out exactly what their business needs: a plan. A properly made business plan is composed of 3 elements:

1. Research

It is always important to understand the market, the competition, and of course, the target population. It not only helps you nail down what exact problem you have; and of course what exact solution you need to succeed.

2. Organizational Structure

Communication has been the downfall of more than one startup and even well-established businesses. Creating a clear hierarchical structure from the get go let’s people know where they stand in your organization, to whom they report for what actions, and alternative routes of communication, if necessary. Having this established before you even launch will prevent future problems.

3. Goals and Growth

Startups often struggle because they fail to outline concise goals. More than that, many startups fail to establish what counts as a successful completion of a goal. IT may seem a bit like you are putting the horse before the cart, but this is more important than you might think. This is especially true if you want to get funding from outside sources, as most VCs and Investors want to know this information.

We understand this is a lot and, unfortunately, this is only scratching the surface. For more on how to create a good business plan, contact our startup experts.

As most people know, a website is roughly comparable to a physical store. It’s the face of your business, it’s where your customers peruse your wares and/or services, and it’s where you usually collect payment for said wares and services. In other words, you want your website to be beautiful, robust, and secure.

1. Design

Website design is one part science, 1 part art, and 1 part intuition. The best designers utilize the “User Centered Design” (UCD) method. UCD means exactly what it states: designing entirely from the perspective of the user. UCD has shown clear results in our own research, with improved visitor to user conversions, better engagement, and, ultimately, more money in your pocket.

2. Robust Code

Code is what makes your website a website. There’s literally no way to describe web development without talking about programming. So, it’s important to hire a top notch development team that can make your website as awesome as your business. Whether you decide to build a website using a CMS framework like Magento or WordPress or go from the ground up, make sure to thoroughly vet your developers!

3. Security and Encryption

Good security is a combination of good code, common sense, and, quite simply, luck. Closed Parameters, SSL Certification, and User Permissions are examples of good code (contact our security experts for more). Common sense is harder to nail down, but basically boils down to not clicking on every link that gets emailed to you. Luck is even more broad, but the idea here is that there are literally millions of websites. Most will go not only unhacked, but not even noticed by malicious entities. Are you unlucky? That’s where good code and common sense come in. Hackers can’t get in if you don’t leave an opening.

There is a lot more than just passion that goes into a successful startup. But passion is what lays the groundwork for everything else. More to the point, you can hire a business, design, programming, and security experts. But passion is the one thing you can’t outsource to other people.

Got a passion you would like to turn into a successful business? Give us a call at 408.805.0495/408.621.8481 – or click to contact us!

Student Loans have helped millions of people in the United States achieve a college education (including many of us at SDI), especially since 2006. As of the end of 2016, over 43 million people have student loans. But there is of course, a significant downside to Student Loans: debt. Often, massive untenable debt.

If you take those 43 million Americans with student loans, they also have an average of $30,000 in debt. Overall, Student Loan debt (as of 2016) accounted for a grand total of 1.4 trillion dollars, or roughly 7.5% of the national GDP. This massive debt is not only burdensome to the holders, but represents a danger to the American economy, as it reduces the amount people can invest in the market.

But we live in a world of exceptionally clever people, people who are willing to tackle problems head on. Even better, the modern tools of tech help us fight problems with industries like Financial Services better than ever before. The perfect example of this is the Finances Services Startup, Social Finance Inc (more commonly known as SoFi).

SoFi has made some pretty big waves in the world of student loans and, more recently, the financial services industry overall. They recently raised another half billion in funding, placing their overall value at $4.3 billion – well above the “Unicorn” mark. While SoFi itself isn’t based off a tech platform in the way that SnapChat is; but recently they acquired Zenbanx, which is absolutely an online financial services platform.

While SoFi is clearly changing the game, it got our developers thinking – what else can tech do to disrupt the financial services industry? There’s clearly a market for this; after all SoFi went from a startup to a company worth over $4 billion in about 5 years. Zenbanx was itself was bought for about $100 million.

Plus, you don’t have to stop with Student Loans (SoFi certainly hasn’t); we’re living in banner times for the financial services, with the stock market higher than it has ever been. Right now, most casual investors are leery, waiting to see how it all pans out. But soon, ordinary Americans will again be drawn to the stock market and investing in general.

Hence, we have a problem (old models of financial services), and we have an opportunity (the rise of Stocks and Investing). Let’s take a look at some ways that tech can help provide a solution – and how a clever entrepreneur may take advantage.

Risk Management and Investment

Artificial Intelligence is capable of collecting, analyzing, and reporting upon untold gigabytes of data. More than that, AI learns and improves from every interaction with data (as we all wish we could!). This means it can learn to identify better metrics, better tests. But most importantly, AI is capable of running thousands of statistical models simultaneously, with slightly different variables.

In the realm of Financial Services, AI can help judge the health of an investment opportunity. It can tell a trader how risky an investment is and can even determine the level of investment a trader should make to get the biggest bang for their buck. AI can even run those models to predict the future health of an investment – using more variables than you can even imagine.

This idea isn’t anything new in the world of Finances – in fact exceptionally smart people get paid millions and millions of dollars to do just this. This position was recently immortalized by the hit show This Is Us, where one of the main characters uses weather prediction to judge agricultural yields. However, as smart as those people are, they aren’t an AI.

Security

Financial services also encompasses revolutionary ways of payment. We’ve already seen this some of these changes in the last few days (some of us are still old enough to remember what cash feels like). Today, most US Americans probably use a debit card more than anything and we all know that there were some growing pains there.

Tech really stepped up to the plate, with increased security – though admittedly that chip is a damned nuisance. That being said, Debit cards are on their way out. Android Pay, Apple Pay, Venmo, Square Cash – these are the payment methods of the future. Already, many retail locations, such as Starbucks, accept some sort of digital payment

They offer improved security through a process called tokenization (reach out to our developers to learn more about this) to help protect your money from hacked retailers. While some “Digital Wallets” can pose a security risk if a phone is lost or stolen, it’s generally a simple process to remove a devices security from any internet device.

Plus, a traditional wallet poses even more of a risk. A digital wallet means you can lock down all your credit cards with single click. With a wallet you have to cancel all your cards individually. You don’t even have to cancel your cards, always an annoying process.

Creating a better wallet isn’t the only way tech can make your money safer. The cloud, while often knocked, is actually quite a bit more secure than physical hardware. Not only does it prevent potential location-based hacks, but it’s easier to spot tampering (i.e. hackers) and to instantly update a cloud server’s security infrastructure. Don’t believe this? Visa and MasterCard are already on the cloud.

Tech can prove disruptive to this industry in more ways than the ones laid out in this post. There are dozens of ways that tech can help, including marketing and growth. Interested in starting your own Financial Services startup?

Then give us a call at 408.805.0495/408.621.8481 – or click to contact us!

New advancements in tech, such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, have revolutionized everything from cars to marketing. If there is one thing that is an undeniable truth in this world, it’s that everything generates data. This isn’t a new concept; since the beginning of time people have used observation to create better ways of living: where prey is and isn’t, what grows when, even what burns hotter.

In the intervening millennia since Homo habilis first realized a rock was more effective than it’s hand, the data hasn’t changed at all. Oak still burns in basically the same way it’s burned since time began. What has changed is our ability to percept and report upon data being generated. We don’t just know how oak burns differently than pine, but we can figure out how much hotter it burns, what chemicals are being produced, even how long each fuel lasts.

Today, AI allows us to study data down to minutia. We can test every change, compare millions of sets of variables, and see how each change impacts the our system. We see this happening with Home AI Software Systems like Alexa and Google Home: these Home AIs become better at predicting what we want, but only after being exposed to our typical habits.

So when we have all this data and now have the capability to understand it more thoroughly, why have we not applied this to HealthCare? Healthcare is one of the most important issues in the world – and not just because we’re in a bit of a transitory period as we await word from the Trump Administration.

Healthcare bisects all aspects of life. Everything we do impacts our health. Every decision, every choice, changes our bodies – for better or worse. In other words, this is all data we can collect and analyze.

To some degree, this is something we’ve known for a long time. This knowledge has resulted in the rise of what the healthcare industry calls Learning Health Systems (LHS). A recent article in TechCrunch pointed out that there are currently efforts to revamp the extant LHS infrastructure. As the author points out though, these efforts largely attempt to work within existing systems and don’t take advantage of our ability to analyze the world around us.

So let’s dive deeper into how the Cloud, AI and Machine learning can help revolutionize Healthcare through Learning Health Systems.

“Collective Intelligence” and The Cloud

In the years since they hit the streets, Google’s autonomous cars have gathered over 300 years worth of driving experience. The couple million miles they’ve driven, they’ve collected more data than a human could – in several lifetimes. This is done because they act together: when one vehicle is exposed to a new scenario, they all are.

This can be easily applied to a global LHS network, creating systems that are continually improving upon ways to deliver improved care. This is especially useful when it comes to health, because every human body responds differently to different stimuli. Research and treatment that was once geographically isolated can now be shared around the world – in real time.

Through the Cloud, Healthcare providers can create sharing systems that build instantly off one another’s work. Not only that, but Cloud systems can turn standard delivery into a global experiment. A provider in Los Angeles can only pull information from a small pool of diabetics, generally not enough for a verifiable experiment. But the dozens of diabetic patients receiving daily care in LA can be combined with data from a hospital in London, or Mumbai.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

The power behind AI is not it’s ability to collect and analyze data. Any old computer can do that to some degree of effectiveness. AI takes it a step further: it takes all that data – and then predicts what might happen next. It helps people input different steps, to see how each step might impact the end result.

In Healthcare, AI can help providers determine more effective – and cheaper – ways of delivering healthcare. It can see how a change might impact the system overall. When combined with Machine Learning, AI can determine how to run a better healthcare system. After all, one of the biggest issues in healthcare is the cost: even Obamacare (the ACA) can be expensive for those who don’t qualify for subsidies.

Modern Tech can change this. It can point the way to lower costs without lower the quality of service. More than that, the Cloud and a global LHS Network can analyze how different providers operate. This is important because it means that clinics won’t have to experiment constantly with alternative ways of providing care: it’s already been done by someone, somewhere.

Change Healthcare Now

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

To anyone born in the United States, this phrase is pretty much second nature. These inalienable rights are not achievable without the an underlying level of basic health. One of the biggest obstacles to a universal health care system is the expense. Most nations want to see their citizenry healthy, but if a government cannot fund itself, then it collapses.

LHS networks, combined with AI, the Cloud, and other new technologies can point the way to delivering more significantly cheaper services for all people. But someone has to take the first step. Someone has to step up the plate and show the world that this can be done. How do you do it? Contact an expert development team with the skills to make it happen.

So how about it? Want to save the world and get rich while doing it? Give us a call at 408.805.0495/408.621.8481 – or click to contact us!

The United States, along with other “developed” nations are in an economic transitory period: We are slowing moving from a Skills or Manufacturing based economy, into a Knowledge-based one. In fact, our last post covered in detail how to be successful in this new economy, so feel free to read more about how software ownership might be the ticket to future financial success.

But there’s a difference between owning a software license and launching an entire tech startup. Owning a piece of software, while financially enriching isn’t as labor intensive as running an entirely new business. This is especially true in today’s economy, where the competition is fierce and plentiful.

Financing, launching, and running a startup is necessarily hard. With over 20 years of experience in the tech sphere, we’ve heard every scheme there is about how to make it easy. Here’s the simple truth – it’s never going to be easy. This is true at least until you’ve established yourself through years of hard work, and possibly beyond that.

Startups of all types require passion, dedication, and, perhaps most of all, dead presidents (i.e. cold hard cash). It’s never a simple proposition. But let’s be honest here – for those who possess the entrepreneurial spirit, simplicity is damned mundane. We do this because we’re passionate and dedicated people. Unfortunately, while we possess the previous two traits in spades, for those of us just getting started, the cold hard cash is harder to come by.

However, funding and running a startup doesn’t have to wind up with you in the Looney Bin – or make you feel like you’re dealing with the devil. There are plenty of ways to mitigate potential risks, to guide your tech startup without the stress and hair pulling. Let’s talk about a few ways to help preserve your sanity while making your venture the next SnapChat like success.

It’s All About the Business Plan

Yea, it’s like the least sexy thing ever. Creating a successful startup doesn’t begin with the cool things, like a CodeIgniter platform. Like all winning ventures, you have to start with the foundations. You need to establish the following:

a. The service and/or solution you offer. You need to make this explicit and extraordinarily clear. You want to get this to the point where you can walk up to a random person on the street and be able to explain to them what you do in 30 seconds or less.

b. The hierarchy of your business. Even if you’re currently the only person who works for your startup, eventually you will need more staff. Figure out short and long term plans for staffing, including who reports to whom. This is important because it improves communication and can help prevent personnel conflicts.

c. Long term goals and growth stages. Be clear about what you need goals you have for the future, as well as what indicates when you have completed said goal.

d. The Launch. Probably the single most stressful time in the life of any fledgling startup is when it moves from beta to actual launch. It’s the time of 18 hour days and hungry bellies. It’s the time when you either make it – or you don’t.

e. Metrics. We live in a world of data. It’s like The Matrix, but without all of the cool “I know kung fu” parts. More than one compnay has been sunked by not understanding the best way to measure that data. So research the nest metrics to use. Keep in mind this can range from very general metrics to something as specific as your sector, or even just your own business. Think on this long and hard, because it might be the best way to sustain and grow your startup.

Creating a decent Business Plan isn’t only about establishing a clear path for your startup to follow. It may very well be the single best way to attract the attention of potential funders. Venture Capitalist Firms and Angel Investors aren’t usually looking for some revolutionary idea. While disruptive businesses are doing well right now, it’s far more important to potential funders to know that you’re in it for the long haul.

Creating a solid business plan shows investors that you have thought about this long and hard. It shows that you’ve done your research, that you’ve thought about how to progress in both the near and far future. Not only does it show strategic planning, but VCs love established metrics. It makes it easy to see how well a startup is doing – judged by the founders own standards.

An excellent business plan is only part of the story though. Entrepreneurs must also plan how to market your product (that’s a whole other can of worms); they must plan how to grow their business, how to eventually get to an IPO (or sell the company), and so on. There are a lot of pitfalls that the newcomer can fall into; maybe it’s better to hire a guide!

Or Give us a call at 408.805.0495/408.621.8481

Every day we get one step closer to true AI. Every day, AI, the Internet of Things (IoT), and increasingly more so actual Robots are growing sophistication. As technology becomes more advanced, it slowly creeps into our everyday lives, replacing humans at simple (and not so simple) tasks.

Sure technological advances almost always result in job loss in one sector. But prior to the digital era, humans were still needed for most tasks. What do we do in an age when the AI can write the hard hitting journalism? When Robots can not just build, but design? What happens when consumers can order groceries with a verbal command, and have it delivered by a drone?

Much of this is already taking place and this conversation is happening everywhere. Most economists and Industry Tycoons are asking some form of following questions: in world where everything is automated, what happens to humans? What happens to basic capital generation? How does the average worker make money in world where basic jobs are gone?

This is a legitimate question – after all, with mechanical automation replacing a human workforce, unemployment will be around 90-95%. How will anyone make money in world where the biggest cost (labor) is essentially eliminated? How will people make money in the future without these jobs we see as the core of our economy?

Ideally, this would mean that all of humanity finds peace, that robotic innovations eliminate hunger and disease, that every human on the planet becomes free of want. Without hunger or thirst, with all needs met, humans can feel free to pursue whatever makes them happy.

Or we could be realistic. The whole basis of our economic system is that humans want more than just their basic needs met. What people value changes from person to person, from culture to culture, but at the end of the day, everybody wants something more than just a full belly and warm bed.

Some people believe that this will drive even further the wealth inequality gap. Others, such as Elon Musk, argue for the need to humanity to embrace cybernetics as a legitimate evolutionary path. But we wanted to take a different angle to the central question here: how will people make enough in a world where most human labor (from manufacturing to designing, and even to actual programming) is non-existent?

We wanted to look at this and see what are the practical, actionable steps that can be taken. What can entrepreneur do to ensure their own wealth generation in a changing world? More importantly, how can it be done by the average person, the most vulnerable group to these changes in the Labor Market?

The answer is simpler than one might expect: Software. Imagine if someone knew what routes the railroads in the 19th century would take, before the railroad companies themselves knew? Buying up the land would cost pennies – and could be sold to the railroads at exorbitant prices.

That’s where we are with Robotics, AI, and the IoT. It’s quite clear that the economic future lies in owning software and hardware (as opposed to property). If you can’t control the production itself, control the means. In this case that means custom built software.

Software controls all, a fact with which our programmers are exceptionally familiar. But the ideal venture would be something that grows with the times. Because software is different than property in that it’s easy to update, to add extensive value, to grow with the times. This is important because it means that the owner would be able to generate a sustainable cash flow.

So if software is the key to Future wealth, what are the features needed to create a successful product? Let’s take a look:

• The Cloud

This seems like a weird non-sequitur, but having a cloud-based system is vital. Not only is it more secure, but it means more rapid deployment of updates and features (and thus the ability to rapidly deliver enhanced value). If you want your business to be nimble, fluid, and able to respond quickly, you must be on the Cloud.

• Machine Learning

The entire premise of modern AI is that it records and analyzes user data in order to become smarter. Digital Personal Assistants like Siri, or the more recent Home AIs utilize Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to become more sophisticated, to grow in value every time they’re used.

• Robust Marketing Strategy

This is nuts and bolts stuff. Some programming stuff (i.e. SEO), but as it becomes clearer that software is the next gold mine, the market will become thick with competition. You have to hit the ground running with a robust marketing campaign, even if you’re a B2B service.

• A Clear Message

As we mentioned in the above point, the market for software will become flooded. The best way to avoid this problem is to identify what exact problem you’re attempting to tackle (Start small, grow big), figure out precisely how you’re going to solve it – and then boil it down into a 30 second speech (AKA an Elevator Pitch) that’s clear, concise and explains the benefits you offer. Focus on those benefits – people don’t care how cool your model is. They want to know what they get out of it.

So want to get started but not sure how? Give us a call at 408.805.0495/408.621.8481 – or click to contact us! We offer a free consultation, so we’ll even help flesh out some killer business ideas. Look forward to talking to you soon!