Transforming Rural Payment Processing: An Interview with Austin Mac Nab of VizyPay

In this interview, Austin Mac Nab shares the story of VizyPay, a leading fintech company revolutionizing payment processing for small businesses in rural America. You’ll be inspired by Austin’s journey from a challenging childhood to bootstrapping VizyPay.

How much revenue and profit does the business generate?

VizyPay increased its revenue by 18% in 2023 to $21.5 million and is projected to bring in $26.5 million in 2024. 

Tell us about yourself and your business.

My story begins in California, where my mom immigrated from Vietnam. My parents divorced when I was five years old and she later remarried a bad man who forced us to move to Iowa. My mother worked six days a week as a seamstress and my stepfather rarely left the couch, as my mother slaved to provide for him and myself.

My biological father was across the country in the Marine Corps, leading me to step up and become self-sustaining at a young age. When I was 10 years old, I made my first income from various jobs such as dragging a push mower around my Cedar Rapids neighborhood, offering to cut people’s grass, and selling my mother’s homemade egg rolls door-to-door every night until well after the sun went down.

However, all the money I made went right back to my mom. 

Dedicated and loyal at only 13, I promised my mom I would do what I could to provide for her the way she always has for me. I was tired of watching my mother be verbally and emotionally abused, so I gave her an ultimatum: to leave her husband and move back to California with me, or find my dad and drive there alone. She agreed to move with me, leaving our life in Iowa behind.

From there I worked different jobs providing for us until I moved out at 17, and returned to Iowa to work in credit card processing for the first time. I immediately delved into the industry and was persistently the top salesperson, breaking many records. 

After working in the industry for 11 years, I approached an acquaintance about bootstrapping a new company and ultimately cofounded VizyPay in 2017 with Frank Pagano. This was a big risk, as I was putting all my savings into a new company that could either thrive or fail.

The years I spent working with some of the bigger fintech companies, I saw the good, the bad, and the ugly and learned basically what not to do. That drove me to establish VizyPay as a fintech that does things differently.

VizyPay was created because we realized small business owners were being taken advantage of by giant corporations, their accompanying hidden fees, and complicated programs that didn’t fit their small business needs.

Now, eight years later, VizyPay is a leading payment processing fintech disrupting the industry with transparent, simple, and honest services. VizyPay specifically caters to the needs of small business owners in rural America and works to be the voice for them. Headquartered in Waukee, Iowa, the fintech is building programs and services that address common pain points of rural small business owners.

How does your business make money?

VizyPay sells its payment processing technology and hardware to more than 12,000 small to medium-sized businesses in rural America. Its revenue sources include partnership sales, the sale of the cash discount program, and its dual pricing program.

The cash discount program is offered on a low month-to-month subscription that allows businesses to process unlimited credit card transactions and offset up to 100% of processing fees. VizyPay makes a small amount off of the flat fees. Together with VizyPay’s unique cash discount 2.0 program and the dual pricing program, VizyPay merchants save businesses millions. VizyPay also lends mobile card readers and payment terminal options to merchants for fast and simple payments on the go.

Merchants pay a base fee and monthly subscription for the hardware. Card readers include CloverGo, SwipeSimple, and Dejavoo’s P-line. In the past year, VizyPay’s cash discount program and the cash discount app for Clover have saved entrepreneurs $30 million in processing fees.

What was your inspiration for starting the business?

Frank and I realized there was a growing issue facing small business owners in rural areas. They struggle with accommodating, affording, and understanding new payment technologies and are often bogged down with credit card processing fees that are inconsistent month-to-month.

Major legacy payment processor companies pay little attention to the needs of small businesses, requiring small businesses to use expensive technology and complex software, which many mom-and-pop shops simply cannot afford and is operationally overkill.

Sympathizing with these merchants and dedicated to being the voice for the small business owner, VizyPay purposely focuses on these merchants’ needs by introducing them to simplistic payment technology with a low cost of entry. It believes small businesses deserve payment technology and support optimized for them and delivers solutions that allow entrepreneurs to avoid up to 100% of unnecessary processing fees. 

How and when did you launch the business?

Joining forces with my neighbor and Managing Partner Frank Pagano and a silent partner, we fully bootstrapped or invested $197,000 of our own money into VizyPay in 2017, to build programs and services that catered to the needs of small business owners.

Frank was a successful small business owner who understood what needed to be done differently. Together with my experience in payments, our combined knowledge created a fintech that prioritizes transparency, culture, and support of small business owners.

Since then, VizyPay has amassed about 12,000 small business merchants in all 50 states all while remaining completely self-funded and owner-controlled. 

How is the business funded? 

VizyPay has been completely bootstrapped from day one.

How did you find your first few clients or customers?

For the first three to four months, I went door-to-door, getting about 20 new clients per month. Then, I went back to the office to lead underwriting, tech support, customer services, and recruiting for the majority of 2017.

VizyPay’s initial five-year projection in revenue was $1.6 million by the end of 2022 and ended up surpassing that with around $18 million by the end of 2022. The biggest lesson I learned was whatever amount of money you think you need to start a business, double, if not triple, that number to set yourself into a good, flexible spot. 

What was your first year in business like?

Launching a business is not for the weak. The experience of launching VizyPay took a lot of grinding, sleepless nights, and stressful months. We started very small with just a few desks, and we had to navigate different roles until we built our team, but through our hard work, we built momentum a lot faster than we thought. We disrupted the space, recruited a lot of good, hard-working people, and were able to make a real impact on our merchants while staying 100% owner-funded and controlled. 

What strategies did you use to grow the business?

Something I learned early on from the launch is to not underestimate the power of marketing, especially social media. It’s free! Our team utilized LinkedIn, posting several times a week, which made us feel and look bigger than we actually were. People saw us on their feeds and learned about our services, our work culture, and our small business-focused approach.

Through this, we were able to attract customers and talent faster than we would’ve otherwise. We also leverage public relations, which is another great tool to expand our reach and get the right audience familiar with VizyPay. Through those efforts, the media and our potential clients know about us and understand our unique story, sharing it with the world. 

Also, I would emphasize the importance of company culture. Without our staff, we wouldn’t have a business. We embody our company culture full-heartedly, practice full transparency, and believe in the “work hard, play hard,” mentality. We support each other’s families, and priorities, and encourage them to bring their authentic selves to work. With this, the company has been able to achieve so much success. 

What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome?

My biggest challenge was learning everything myself. I had to be CEO, accountant, sales director, customer support, shipping, everything, initially. However, my second greatest challenge was letting that go. I had to trust that I put the right individuals in these roles, knowing they were going to do the job just as well as I would have. 

Every startup goes through challenges, but we prioritized always being willing to learn, grow and fail. Through the bumps in the road, we have gotten the opportunity to absorb and master how we work with each client and improve the relationship and in doing so, we keep our client numbers growing.

What have been the most significant keys to your business’ success?

I encourage our team to remain very active on social media. Each team member is asked to post once a day on their social media platforms, no matter what it is. Having a strong social media presence has helped us show our clients our openness and passion for wanting to help them with their businesses and goals. We celebrate our client’s wins, what’s happening at VizyPay, what our employees are dedicating their time to, and more. But, it’s important to note we show them that we’re human and that we have friends, family, and lives outside of work. 

VizyPay also targets a niche audience, creating unique offerings specifically tailored to small businesses. This has been a key to our success. Merchants struggle with affording, upgrading, and understanding new payment technologies, but our merchants get transparent pricing, personal customer and tech support, and innovative payment technology. Legacy payment processor companies pay little attention to the needs of small businesses, especially those outside of major metro areas, requiring small businesses to use expensive technology and complex software, which many cannot afford. 

Also, working to grow a company/small business truly humanized me and the team. 

Tell us about your team.

Company culture has been a key pillar of its business model since its founding, acknowledging that individuality and employee satisfaction trickle down to the merchants the company serves. Part of VizyPay’s uncomparable culture comes from its collaboration and teamwork efforts, its unique hiring practices and DEI priorities.

Attending cross-country trade shows together, professional development trainings, hosting weekly themed happy hours, company events and more, has encouraged socialization and friendship among employees.

VizyPay supports its staff at all levels and encourages authenticity from everyone. VizyPay has a team of 93 people, ranging from full-time employees and 1099 sales contractors. 

What separates your business from your competitors?

VizyPay isn’t the typical fintech. With its focus on small businesses in rural America, the company is bringing robust payment technology to a segment historically underserved by this industry. Its transparent approach to payments is influencing the wider payments industry and adding much-needed diversity. VizyPay’s values and drive are helping small businesses – the economic driver of the U.S. economy – upgrade their capabilities and keep more of their hard-earned money. Money that is ultimately reinvested back into the communities these small businesses serve. 

What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs?

If you are not willing to risk it all, don’t become an entrepreneur. You have to invest the time, dedication, and perseverance to bring a business to fruition. You need to commit 100% and make it your sole focus.

What are your future plans for the business?

VizyPay has no plans of slowing down anytime soon. We will continue to excel as a leader in the payments and fintech space and expand our services to more small merchants in rural America, helping to improve their bottom lines.