Interview with Bryan Johnson, Braintree

Bryan Johnson: At Braintree, we’ve always cared deeply about the quality of our work and our customers’ experiences. We’ve done it because it’s the right thing to do, not because it was a calculated investment. To deliver on this, we sought out highly capable, creative, and driven people, who are always expensive and hard to find.

With that said, over the years, 99% of new business has come from word of mouth, which I largely attribute to the quality of our people working to create an excellent experience for our customers. Plus, we love the gushing love letters we regularly get from our customers.

 

Bryan Johnson: When problems arise, our team members discuss the issue with their peers. They have all the tools and power to resolve problems themselves and don’t need to get approval from anyone. In fact, I don’t think a customer has ever asked for an escalation--a remarkable tribute to those working on some very complex problems.
Regarding doers, some people like to roll up their sleeves and get to work while others prefer to watch and direct. We’re small and bootstrapped and spend our precious money on those who like to roll up their sleeves.

Bryan Johnson: I started the business selling merchant account services. It required very little money to start ($10,000) and allowed us to generate revenue from day one. We quickly gained a solid customer base and had enough cash flow to expand. The lack of outside capital taught us to be frugal, hire slowly, and exercise caution as we grew the business.
I am not suggesting that companies who take funding don’t do those things, but people can behave differently when it’s not their money.

Bryan Johnson: Nearly all our new business comes from word-of-mouth, so we apparently had more people saying nice things about us! The difficulty with predicting our growth is that unlike advertising campaigns which have predictable response rates, we grow as fast as people refer us and as soon as they need our services. The variable in our control is how consistent we are in creating a referral-worthy experience. That’s what we focus on and it’s working very well for us.

midVentures: What steps do you take as an entrepreneur to ensure that you are growing?

Bryan Johnson: For growth, we’ve focused on improving what we know already works. Word of mouth cuts both ways and we all know how far a single bad customer experience can spread. Maintaining this consistency in the payments industry is unbelievably hard because we don’t control everything. Sometimes it feels like we’re navigating a gauntlet. We take responsibility for our mistakes and our customers have been very gracious with us when we’ve messed up.

The key to our growth is living up to our reputation and trying to inspire new merchants to tell others about us by treating them as we like to be treated.

midVentures: You say you hire people who can wear several hats, but at what point can you trust and allow that your employees will do your company justice?

Bryan Johnson: We trust people from the onset because we hire congenial people who are familiar with our environment, our objectives and our expectations. For example, because we believe that traditional management in small companies is an unnecessary tax, we expect everyone to run their own show, and do an exceptional job.
People who fit naturally do our company justice, stay true to our principles, and maintain the exceptional quality of work we’ve built our reputation on. In addition to very strict hiring guidelines (that we recently wrote about in VentureBeat), we only hire those whom genuinely connect and identify with us. A lukewarm application has a low probability of survival.

Bryan Johnson: It’s relatively easy in our industry because the industry is plagued with unscrupulousness. For example, we don’t hide fees from our customers. We don’t bury important terms and conditions in the fine print. We would rather lose an opportunity than tell a half-truth to win it. We sincerely try to do the right thing and I think people recognize that. Honesty was a founding principle and it’s integral to who we are.

Bryan Johnson: There’s been a lot of chest-thumping lately about the best place for a tech start-up. Tech companies can be built nearly anywhere. Some places have clear advantages over others because of talent density, funding availability, network openness, depth of expertise, etc.
Utah is a remarkable tech-friendly place for a start-up. There is an abundance of talent with lower relative wages. Chicago offers big city benefits but there’s also more intense competition for those resources. Minus the unbearably cold weather, I love building a company in Chicago.

Bryan Johnson: I think that you do need to love what you do in some form. I’m not passionate about payments, but I am passionate about how to run a business. Love and passion will always drive further and faster than ambivalence.

midVentures: Do you feel that you fell into this business based on your past experience or that you sought it out?

Bryan Johnson: On our third birthday, I wrote a blog post comparing entrepreneurs to surfers. Some surfers just go out to the local beach, some scout their options, and others search all over the world for the beaches that offer the best and biggest waves. Sometimes surfers grab the first wave (opportunity) that comes their way, while some wait more patiently.
Sometimes an unsuspecting small wave turns out to be much better than initially suspected, but that’s rare. Usually surfers who chase the biggest and best waves end up crashing and burning, but sometimes they nail it. Sometimes the way a surfer rides the wave is so compelling that they become the subject of conversation, not the wave. Surfers get on their boards knowing the risk of failure. When they crash, they get right back up and do it all over again. That’s how one becomes good at surfing, and that’s the beauty.

Braintree caught a wave at a local beach that has turned out to be better than I could have ever imagined.

Bryan Johnson: Portability is increasingly important for both consumers and businesses and we’ll see more of it.

We initiated credit card data portability because merchants were in a serious bind. All their stored credit card data was being held hostage, and in the majority of the situations, they were blind-sided. We wanted to level the playing field and allow merchants to choose service providers based on merit, not restrictive business practices.

Bryan Johnson: Our current goals are to: Become the undisputed, #1 recommended payment gateway provider by software developers. Be recognized by our customers as the best payments provider in the industry. Become a magnet for talented doers. Be a force for good in the world.

There is more to life than revenue and profit.

Bryan Johnson: We believe that we’ve just scratched the surface around the value we can create in payments. Today, we provide a suite of services that help businesses process credit card payments, reduce their compliance burden and increase security.

We’re currently enhancing our core, but we are also looking to expand our relevance to other areas of business. We have a great team so there is no shortage of compelling options.