People still write billions of paper checks per year. Even with more convenient payment options available, checks are still necessary in certain situations. So Checkbook.io aims to give people a way to pay by check without going through the hassle of writing and tracking paper payments.
To learn more about this business and how it’s trying to disrupt the industry below in this week’s Small Business Spotlight.
What the Business Does
Offering digital checks.
Founder PJ Gupta told Small Business Trends, “We offer businesses and individuals the ability to send checks digitally instead of mailing out paper Checks. We are integrated with accounting platforms like Quickbooks, AccountingSeed etc. and offer an easy to use RESTful API for integration.”
Business Niche
Providing a simple experience.
Gupta says, “Our user experience is different than any other payment processor. We make it easy as cake for recipient to receive funds. We specifically don’t ask the recipient to create yet another username and password or download yet another app.”
How the Business Got Started
Due to a desire for disruption.
Gupta was writing a check to a gardener a few years back and wanted a way to do away with paper checks once and for all. He eventually started the company in an incubator in 2015.
Biggest Win
Working with a large client.
Gupta explains, “We distributed more than one million digital checks for a large e-commerce/rebate company in southern California within 2 days with 70% costs savings over paper checks! They had a deadline to meet and sending out more than a million paper checks would’ve taken months and costed over $1.50 per check with postage and delivery. They connected with us online and we turned the whole project around with startup efficiency i.e. days and weeks instead of months. Their customers were delighted with digital checks. No more waiting for USPS mail for a week, no more printing or scanning check, the funds were transferred to the recipient’s bank account directly. This provided us with validation that our online system can scale to millions so we can deal with large clients.”
Biggest Risk
Entering a tough industry.
Gupta says, “Relationships with processing banks are huge risk because if they perceive you to be lax in Customer AML (Anti Money Laundering ) all the business will come to a standstill.”
Lesson Learned
Get some help.
Gupta adds, “I did have a few people interested in joining as founding team but they couldn’t for personal reasons. [If I could do it all over again] I would’ve spent more time looking in my “circle” to find someone to join me.”
How They’d Spend an Extra $100,000
Rewarding the team.
Gupta says, “[We would] Give it as bonus to the most deserving worker.”
Favorite Quote
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.” – Teddy Roosevelt
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Images: Checkbook.io, PJ Gupta