For the past 20 years, the payments industry has been only slightly affected by the digital revolution. Incredibly, 2019 just ended, and most payment processes still run at analog speeds. But that’s about to change, and Solid Number, a financial technology company, is part of the movement behind modernizing money. Welcome to payments 2020.
Solid Number partners with banks and businesses to provide a platform that can send and receive money at the speed of now.
As business owners and operators, Solid Number founders Adam Campbell and Michael Clark experienced firsthand the time-consuming nightmare of processing reimbursements, cutting and delivering checks, buying gift cards in bulk, and the inevitable mismanaging of cash in a business. Earlier as employees, they experienced the debilitating impact of delayed rewards, incentives or gifts for employees who work hard for a business. “One time I got a last-minute request to revise an entire pitch deck for a sales meeting happening the next day,” explained Michael. “So I stayed up all night to get it done. I sent the deck on, the deal was closed – and you know what I got? A ‘kudos’ email three weeks later. It was so demotivating, I never wanted to do something like that again.”
Nearly every great industrial transformation shares a familiar storyline: old vs. new, David vs. Goliath, slow vs. fast. No matter the narrative, the basic battle rages on.
The world of payments is like that too. By 2030, mankind will look back in disbelief that receiving money took days or weeks, processing wasn’t available instantly and gaining access to funds was limited by brickand-mortar bank hours.
Solid Number is a driving force behind building technology that focuses on transforming monetary disbursements – to run at the speed of real time, anytime.
Solid Number provides its customers with what they need: instant payments. “Whether they’re motivating sales reps with real-time spiffs or reimbursing employees instantly for business expenses, we love making our customers’ lives easier,” says Adam. “I’m still amazed at how fast we get money to our own people. Today I asked one of our employees to pick up some supplies on his way in, and I reimbursed him as soon as he gave me the receipts.”
The Solid Number platform isn’t only for employees or vendors – it’s also for their clients’ customers. “We’re learning how valuable customer incentives can be,” says Adam. “Companies are incentivizing their customers now by offering awards or gifts; why not send the customers cash instead of another type of incentive? The company pays either way, and the value loop can be closed instantly.”
Michael adds, “Its rewarding to hear from customers whose lives are transformed with as little as $5. Sometimes we don’t realize how motivating $5 at the right time can be. This is the real opportunity that businesses have, and we love delivering it. We’re living in a transformation economy. When you can transform people’s lives, they’ll love you forever.”
Since launching its product in August of 2019, Solid Number is eager to work with more companies and expand its reach in the United States. “We’re transforming the entire payments ecosystem,” Adam remarked, “and the key to making the transformation successful is our team. We call them ‘our gladiators’ – they show up every day ready to work hard to battle the status quo. We don’t grow or solve major problems for our customers without the right team with the right mindset – which is: Do what it takes to get the job done right.”
