The Executive Interview Series provides readers with exclusive insights from movers and shakers in the payments industry. The Payments Industry is under continuous transformation, as such this series provides diverse perspectives on everything from strategy to payments technology and to the future of the industry.
In this interview, TSG’s Market Intelligence team-member Alex Ferguson sat down with Zuza CEO, President, and Founder Danny Mikhail to learn more about what he and Zuza have been hard at work on since our last interview over two years ago.
Background: Danny’s passion for entrepreneurism began at the age of 13 and has since realized growth and success in multiple facets of the business world. As a teenager, he had success as a day trader in technology stocks, which served as the launching pad to future endeavours. At 18, he was the youngest Papa John’s franchisee in company history, and eventually owned and managed multiple locations across the state of Michigan. In his early 20s, Danny founded and served as CEO of a financial technology company that saw tremendous growth under his creative leadership, boarding thousands of customers nationwide before eventually being acquired by Alvarez & Marshall Capital. Currently, he serves as CEO & President of Zuza, a business management platform helping merchants expand their businesses. Zuza has quickly grown across North America, with thousands of users ranging from hotels, restaurants, retailers and health and beauty.
Q. TSG’s Alex Ferguson
Danny, the last time we interviewed you over two years ago was during the height of the uncertainty of the COVID 19 pandemic in the summer of 2020. How has the bounce back from the pandemic been thus far for Zuza?
Danny Mikhail
The pandemic highlighted weak points in people’s businesses, and we were prepared to fill those gaps. We experienced 600% growth during that time. Businesses had to go online, and our ecommerce, online ordering and marketing tools helped businesses thrive when others were left scrambling. We don’t want to do it again, but the pandemic helped strengthen our business.
Q. TSG’s Alex Ferguson
One development we’ve seen a lot of recent marketing around is Zuza’s SuperApp. Tell me more about this initiative and how this offering from Zuza is different than other offerings on the market.
Danny Mikhail
Our mission is to create one platform with endless possibilities. Our Super App is loaded with features so businesses can reduce the number of apps they use and save money on fees. On average, Zuza replaces 10 software, which makes everything more streamlined. People love being able to see their business from one dashboard no matter where they are. We recently added QuickBooks integration, QR ordering and payments, and our new marketplace is going to allow developers to build new merchant tools. Our Super App is getting more and more feature-rich and almost every tool is available without added fees. Merchants love it.
Q. TSG’s Alex Ferguson
Zuza and Payroc announced a strategic partnership late last year to offer BloomPOS, a point-of-sale system focused specifically on health & beauty personal services. Tell us more about this partnership and BloomPOS’ strength compared to other like competitors competing in the same verticals.
Danny Mikhail
The beauty of the Zuza Super App is it works across 25+ verticals, or it can be configured to work in a very specific niche. Payroc is one of the industry powerhouses and we were thrilled when they selected us for the Health & Beauty sector. We collaborated with their amazing product team and launched BloomPOS.com.
The Zuza software comes loaded with features that helps them grow in this sector: calendar and online appointments, notifications and reminders, marketing & promotion tools, customer management, and gift and loyalty programs. It really has been one of our fastest growing verticals.
Q. TSG’s Alex Ferguson
Zuza recently announced the rollout of a QR ordering feature at stadiums and large entertainment venues. What have you been seeing in the way of adoption and merchant sentiment for the growing trend of QR codes in payments?
Danny Mikhail
We built our QR ordering and payment tool so it would work the same in small settings or large venues like stadiums. We wanted something that would be powerful enough for our partners to pursue any accounts they wanted with just one software solution. The adoption has been remarkable, and merchants are finding new ways to use the feature to better serve their customers and increase revenue. It’s been a win-win for everyone.
Q. TSG’s Alex Ferguson
Similarly, Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) functionality has also been a recent addition to the Zuza SuperApp functionality set. Tell us more about what you’ve been seeing in the way of adoption and demand for BNPL.
Danny Mikhail
Buy Now Pay Later has become a needed tool for merchants. Over half of Gen Z has used it to make a purchase and it’s projected to grow exponentially through 2030. Our Pay As You Go feature lets merchants create custom payment plans to give customers the flexibility to pay for large expenses over time. It gives merchants flexibility without having to utilize any 3rd party apps or servicers.
Q. TSG’s Alex Ferguson
Recently Zuza made an announcement at WSAA in Huntington Beach about the new Zuza Marketplace store, can you tell us about that and how you see that helping Zuza going forward?
Danny Mikhail
Zuza Marketplace is giving merchants a safe and trusted platform to find new apps to help them run their businesses. Developers can build custom apps that work within the Zuza Ecosystem and offer those to merchants. It allows developers to make and sell tools that are tailored to specific businesses and integrate other software that businesses may already be using. For example, our Connect App integrates QuickBooks into the Zuza platform and imports all the key data points into QuickBooks automatically. We are going to be building more tools like that and we are excited to see what our trusted 3rd party developers come up with too.
Q. TSG’s Alex Ferguson
Zuza is unique in its sales approach of being a POS/software provider selling directly to ISOs rather than direct to merchants. While being a complimentary solution to ISOs rather than a competitor is very much a part of the founding vision of Zuza, are there any plans to dive deeper into merchant acquiring or payment facilitation in the foreseeable future?
Danny Mikhail
The ISO is an extremely important and valuable partner for us and one that we will continue to prioritize. Our white label solution is designed to give ISOs control over their own business so they can manage and grow their own brand. Merchant acquiring is always an option for our business, but we are focused on building powerful software and growing our ISO relationships. We strongly believe that Zuza is needed to give our ISOs and Banks the technology they need to survive against other software companies trying to steal their clients and revenues.
Q. TSG’s Alex Ferguson
What’s next for Zuza? What next feature or opportunity is targeted next on the strategic roadmap?
Danny Mikhail
Our mission is to create a Super App that allows merchants to run their business from one platform. Our Marketplace store is going to be an incredible new part of that letting developers leverage the platform and integrate new tech into the platform. We are laser-focused on providing solutions and tools to businesses that make them run better. You can expect a lot of new features announced as we continue to innovate and find new ways to help merchants.