← Founder's Story
Founder's Story
Why Payments Were Broken and How One Founder Fixed It | Ep. 334 with Thomas Aronica Founder and CEO of Biller Genie
00:19:34
Daniel Robbins sits down with Thomas Aronica, founder and CEO of Biller Genie, to unpack how a decade of hearing “why do I have to do the work twice” turned into a fintech that automates accounts receivable for businesses. Thomas shares how the idea sparked from years building payments infrastructure for software companies and seeing SMBs struggle to connect payments to QuickBooks. They also dive into the brutal founder moments behind the scenes, including raising money right as COVID hit and being 90 minutes from not making payroll before an investment landed.
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Transcript33 lines
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Tom (Builder Genie Founder)
Foreign.
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Interviewer
So Thomas, you are in the payment space and you've done amazing things to really revolutionize your industry. But take me back to the moment when you realized that there's an issue and there's a problem that needed to be solved. Because I imagine the payment space, it's kind of an old space. I don't see a huge amount of technological breakthroughs coming through many companies that have been doing it for a while. But what were you doing in that moment that made you say, this is where I need to go?
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Tom (Builder Genie Founder)
Yeah, so I got into payments in OH6. So I got into payments before iPhones existed and back in the days, the old muffle busters where you would have that clack and you would swipe the card. So it's obviously evolved pretty quickly. The pace of innovation just in payments and technology has grown really quickly. But back in those days where, you know, my business was kind of like separated into two main sort of, let's call it segments, right? We had like the traditional SMBs that, you know, we were selling everything to everybody. One day was a shoe store, one day it was a lawyer, One day was a, you know, web store that was, you know, wanting to take payments. And then, you know, another half of the business that was helping software companies build payment infrastructure. So that started out in the early days as like, you know, why was the healthcare software able to tell you that you had a $50 copay, but then the front desk person had to walk to the other side of the room to collect the payment and pull out manila folder, staple receipt to a paper, put it back in file encounter, like didn't make any sense. So in the early days it was like, why don't we put a payout button there and just swipe the card and do everything in one step, right? And I was like, you know, Even through like 20, 15, 16, 17, we were doing some of that stuff. And then that evolved into, you know, online portals and patient portals and then workflow automation. And so over the years, like, we just kind of like, you know, built, you know, more payment infrastructure for other software companies. I was helping these guys build Builder Gene. I didn't even know it, but then all through that time, we still had thousands of SMBs that were, you know, asking us for ways to connect our online portals and our, you know, the terminals that were on a desk to QuickBooks. And why do I have to do the work twice? Why do I have to swipe a card on a terminal and then pay a CPA to go input into my QuickBooks file? So we were trying to sell everything under the sun. We tried to productize other third party solutions. We tried to solve that problem. People are literally asking us for it. We tried to find what was out there and solve that problem and we found out nothing worked, right? Like somebody that sent invoices we could find a solution for, but if they were at the point of sale, it didn't work. Or if they were on QuickBooks Online, you know, we were able to find a janky solution. But you know, QuickBooks Desktop, you need a degree in rocket science to try to figure out how to connect it. And like, just nothing worked. It was like a, a bad experience for everybody. It was easier just to do their work twice. And a buddy of mine, I'll never forget, it was like 2017, a buddy of mine, small time property manager, had, you know, 15, 20 doors that he managed. And he was doing that at QuickBooks. And I was talking about this integration that we had just done to this healthcare Software. And he was like, man, if I
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Interviewer
had that QuickBooks, that would be awesome.
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Tom (Builder Genie Founder)
I was like, boom. That's when the light bulb went off. I was like, wait a second, we're already building this infrastructure. We're just doing it into other third party software. Let's build it in a way that's totally agnostic and agnostic to the software, agnostic to the payment networks and payment infrastructure. And we could solve the problem that we know people are literally asking us for and been asking us for a decade and really build something that met the need. So it wasn't like, you know, the software guy that woke up one day and had a new idea for a fresh game. It was, you know, it was like plate of, you know, necessity drives invention.
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Interviewer
So yeah, so it seems like you kind of had to throw spaghetti at the wall in terms of what was your core service offering. So you, you had to get clients, you get these clients in, you kind of do the things that, that you can do for them. But it's not like we're going to be this one thing yet because I find like a lot of entrepreneurs, they don't really always know in the beginning exactly the exact service and offering you are, is not really what you will become over time. It sounds like one of the clients had this need and then you realize like, okay, this is the thing. So now you figured it out, now you know what the company is. How do you then acquire the first companies?
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Tom (Builder Genie Founder)
Yeah, well, so I would, I would even say it kind of evolved after that. Right. So like that was the first light bulb that was in 2018 or so. We dropped the first line of codes like early 18. And even that was, you know, I came up with the idea on a Friday. On a Monday I put out an ad for developer. The next Friday we had someone hired. The next Monday we were running code. Like in hindsight, that's not the way to start the software company. But you know, we first put the first product to market and our first idea was let's give the software away for free so that we could help drive the payments business. That's where, you know, I had spent the last 15 years of my career. So that was like the first, the real first idea was, you know, we're going to, we're going to build software, we're going to solve this problem, we're going to give it away for free. And we put it out to market. We had, you know, you know, pretty instant following. You know, we were getting picked up by some of the big, you Know, CPA firms, my colleagues and you know, kind of like frenemies in the industry. People that were competitors, but friends that we met through conferences where we're trying to resell it. And then the second real light bulb moment, which kind of turns us into what we are today. And where the story really starts is end of 2019, we had started doing a few awards and I actually met pnc. PNC bank came over to us and said, we love what we're doing. There's an obvious need for this. Our business customers really are interested in what you've got here, but we're not going to sell under your tiny little brand. We're pnc. We have our own business. So that was when the second real light bulb went off and I was like, wait a second, this isn't a freeware, this is a SaaS business. So let's, you know, let's kind of like decouple payments, decouple the payment infrastructure. So that way we can partner with any payment provider and allow them to, you know, kind of augment their own real payment strategy. So, you know, that, that kind of like showed us the light in early 2020, which everybody, you know, remembers what happened in, in early 2020. That's when we decided we were going to change the whole business model. And there's a whole story behind that. We kind of deep coupled, it turned into a SaaS product and really spent the better part of the next two years to really build the tools and solutions for partners who can use it to distribute and augment their own strategies. That was really kind of like, that's the true birth of builder Genie, early 2020.
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Interviewer
Yeah, it's crazy. I think it was like the six year anniversary a couple days ago of the announcement of what happened six years ago. It's kind of insane to think that was six years ago. Everything changed. So I have this idea and I want to understand what you think about this. So the ability to create applications with Vibe coding software, Claude, it's obviously coming down to almost next to nothing, right? You can Vibe code software, doesn't mean it's 100% perfect, but you can create something that can be usable for almost next to nothing. I'm wondering how many companies have to take a similar approach that you did where their core offering is not the front end to the customer, but they provide like a free service to the customer and then that, that kind of leads the customer then into the company or maybe they get a percentage of something on the back end like, like payments. But I'VE been thinking about this lately, like, like creating software on the front end just to get people to kind of use it and always remember your name and. Or maybe that generates some sort of revenue, which is, seems like a similar approach that you had to take in the beginning. What do you think about that?
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Tom (Builder Genie Founder)
Yeah, I think, look, you know, AI is, is, is, you know, I think, exciting and scary at the same time. You know, I, I have a few perspectives on just like, like vibe coding in general, but we've done it ourselves. I mean, I, I'm sitting here, you know, building tools for myself that I didn't think was possible years ago. But there's, I think, going to be an advent of microsolutions, right? Like you could build small little tools that help solve small little problems and maybe that becomes, you give away, in our world, you give away a free invoicing tool that helps to drive visibility and drive people in, solves the problems. That way they don't need to build it themselves. But I think if there's going to be a world where, you know, the need for comprehensive SaaS solutions is going to shift perhaps a little bit more upmarket and, you know, the more sophisticated small business is going to maybe build, you know, if they just need an invoicing tool, they're going to be able to build a simple one that solves it solves a small little need. But what we're saying is that, like, the resiliency behind it is, you know, where you need the sophistication of like an engineering team, right? Like you could build a little app, but the second you change, you know, a character from a, you know, a lowercase to an uppercase, the whole thing explodes. So, like, how do you make it resilient? How do you make it, like, you know, useful for the market? You know, I think that's a, you know, a whole, a whole different story. But, you know, I do see a world where, you know, SaaS companies are offering, you know, free tools to drive visibility and bring people in. But, you know, I think that, you know, the players that are going to win are going.
- [10:56]
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Tom (Builder Genie Founder)
create experiences like the, the days of just slapping on, you know, an AI. You know we could draft an email for you. I mean that's like table stakes these days. I think be able to do financial forecasting. Anything that's written in a textbook that's going to be disrupted. If it's in a textbook and an AI or a human could read from it and AI could just do it faster. Anybody's going to be really able to build that. But to create experiences to make it real, there's one thing to create an app that could send an invoice. There's another thing to log in and see know Dan's face talking to you saying like how do you want it? What do you want it to look like? Let me help you create the invoice. Who do you want to send it to? How can I follow up with you? Right. So like the experience of humanizing AI and making it more of a, an interactive experience. I think the people that do that really stand to win.
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Interviewer
Well, I can't wait because I use, you know, when I invoice I have to type. But if there was an AI avatar that talked to me, I feel like I would, I would use it. That's fascinating. It might become my therapist.
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Tom (Builder Genie Founder)
Think I know someone that might be
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Interviewer
kennel view that I'm afraid I might become my therapist. That's, that's what fascinates me about avatars. I feel like it doesn't really matter what it's used for. People will just as, as they feel they're more human, like they will kind of move over. I was reading something, it was saying like it was an app about something but people seem to use it as their therapist but it's not, it's, it's just a chat bot. But they were as they, it's like they automatically go into this like well you know, I'm kind of feeling down today. Let me just talk to the chat bot. Because it feels like a human, but it's also not human, so it's not going to judge me. You know, how about this, how we're interacting with AI, it's like we really, you know, technology moves faster than we can adapt and we don't. I don't think we can really tell what's, like, human or not.
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Tom (Builder Genie Founder)
Yeah. Especially at the, at the pace right now. You know, the adaptation, I think, is also going to be generational too. Right. Like, we're even talking about, like, is there a, you know, a Gen X, millennial and Gen Z sort of interface and you interact with it a little bit differently. So I think that that's going to naturally evolve. But, like, you know, the openais, the anthropics of the world have started to already lay the foundation just in the last two years of what it's like to, to interact with, with tools like this. I think it's just a natural evolution. Right. Like, I think that, you know, 10 years ago we were watching Back to the Future, and if you ever said that you're going to have a flying car, people would have thought you're crazy. And maybe we don't have flying cars, but we have a Tesla that could drive you, you know, across the world, across the country, without, you know, you haven't touched the steering wheel. So, you know, probably if you'd ask people 10, 15 years ago if that was possible, they thought, you know, you're crazy. So, you know, if we think about what five, ten years from now could look like, I think the world's going to be a really different place.
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Interviewer
I was just watching Uber is just doing these promotional videos. It's starting in Dubai, then it's coming to la, then I think New York City, I could be mistaken, where it's a drone. It's like a helicopter drone that it can get you like 10 minutes, would normally take two hours. It's unmanned and it's actually Uber. And they're like, you could. You'll be able to use the app to actually call this thing. And so they did a flight with it. It was. I forget what show it was on. They were like, they wanted to promote it. So they go in, the guy goes in and it takes them somewhere. I'm like, wow, like, what a time to be alive.
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Tom (Builder Genie Founder)
Yeah. I was in Dubai a year or two ago, and they're like, they're building infrastructure in the roadways to charge the cars as the cars are driving. So I can imagine. Just like, car. The Uber never stops. It's just like it's always on the road. Doesn't need to even recharge stuff. It's. It's pretty wild. The world that we're. That we're living in.
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Interviewer
I know. The only thing is we move so fast that I don't know if we're recharging. Right. That's the thing. As humans, like, we, I, you know, I need to be healthier, sleep better, I need to recharge myself because I. I get too wrapped up in things. But let's go to the. I think we've all had those scary moments as entrepreneurs where, like, you. You start to get momentum and then, boom, the rug is pulled out. Something happens. It seems. I mean, that could be like an every other day thing sometimes, but was there a moment for you where you were like, everything was, you know, cruising up, everything was great, rug got pulled, and you're like, I don't know if I even want to do this anymore, man.
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Tom (Builder Genie Founder)
So, so many over. Over the years. I mean, more. More than I can, you know, more than I can kind of remember. I think it all, you know, my. My story starts similar to yours where it's, you know, I was in a. I remember my first business in 06 was in my closet of my two bedroom apartment in Miami. I ripped the walls down and that was. I had a CRT monitor and that was my first office. But look, we rebranded the company. I told you. In 2020, we went out, we were starting to think about how do we raise some money? Do we do a seed round? Early 2020, like, January, February, we had a little seed round that we were trying to raise for. It was all friends and family. Like, it was a lot of my college buddies that were, you know, gonna put, you know, 10 grand here, 20 grand there, and, you know, try to raise some money that way. And then, you know, that Monday hit in March and boom, like, everybody lost 50% of their portfolios overnight. It was like, Tom, like, the last thing we could do is keep you money right now. So imagine, like, we. We started to try to, you know, raise a time that was just like, you know, it's just an impossibility. So we went from, you know, man, we got this run covered. We did this in two weeks. This is awesome. We're gonna be able to run to like, boom, the next day. It's like, holy shit, we have no money. How are we gonna, you know, grow the business? And, you know, that. That happened, you know, a Few times over those next few years. I mean, I remember, you know, we, we, I'm very proud to say we never laid off anybody. We never had a riff. We, you know, kind of held a couple little breaks that, that helped us along the way, so we were able to, like, kind of maintain our growth. But there were a few times, I remember there was one, like, there was one Friday in particular where we were, you know, hoping to have a, an investment come in. And we were, I mean, we were down to, we were down to. There was no gas left in the tank. Like, there was no money to pull from. Like, I had no money left. My business partner had no money. Like, there was just no money to pull from. We were, you know, we were, we were basically like hours away from having to lay off half the staff. Like, we had the letters written, we had like all the payrolls. Like, you know, we had everything ready to go. And if we didn't get an investment in like, within two hours, you know, like we said at Friday, 5 o', clock, if we can't, you know, if we don't have money and like, we, we can't pay people on Monday, then, you know, fortunately, you know, we had an investment hit, like 3:30. I mean, like, I don't think our staff knew that. It was like 90 minutes away from having to change the entire business and turn it into a lifestyle business, you know, and that, that happened, you know, a few times throughout the time. I remember calling, you know, a buddy of mine, you know, midway, probably through, like 21, being like, I can't make payroll on Monday, like, can you spot me 50 grand? So that way I can, you know, keep the doors open. Because otherwise what do I do? You know, there, there's, there's been a lot of stories like that where, you
- [19:09]
Interviewer
know, so Tom, so what do you think? I mean, because if, if you tell, if you took somebody, if you took Tom, you said, hey, Tom, you're going to start this business. It's going to be going great. Shit's going to hit the fan. Everything's going to fall apart 90 minutes before you're going to be saved. If you told somebody how the roller coaster was going to be, do you think you would still continue to be an entrepreneur? And if so, like, what is the drive? Like, what do you think keeps people in it? Do you think it's the ignorance of not knowing what's going to happen or it's just because, you know, you just love pain?
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Tom (Builder Genie Founder)
Yeah, I was going to say gluttony. You Know, I, I, I don't know. Sometimes, like, I, I'm like, I scratch my head. I'm like, look, I don't, I don't think I'm employable at this point. Like, I think I would drive anybody crazy that, that, you know, tried to try to employ me. But I, I think that there's some just inherent drive to want to achieve. You know, it's like there's some, there's some thrill in the chaos. Like we, you know, we call it whack a mole. Like, I feel like I'm. Every day, I'm just like, fighting to fight, and I'm trying to, like, solve problems. And then as soon as I plug one hole, it's like five more holes spring open. And, you know, even like, I, you know, I talked to my, my therapist and I'm like, you know, she's like, you've been saying every 90 days it's going to get better for the last five years. You know, like, it's like 90 days from now, it's gonna be better. 90 days, it could be better. Just 90 days, there's more problems, you know, so, you know, I, I think that there's a perspective where the thrill in the constant change and the constant movement and the fast pace, some people love it, some people are terrified by it. I naturally enjoy that fast pace. I enjoy the cost of pivoting. I don't necessarily enjoy the things coming down to the next 90 minutes, and I try to avoid that as much as possible and try to build systems and processes to prevent it from happening. But at some point, you achieve a homeostasis. What I found over my career, there's been, you know, three or four times where I've gotten to a period of, like, things are calm, it's peace, there's homeostasis. And what do I do? I start a new business and I just do it all over again.
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Interviewer
That's why I think, you know, there's always this thing like, are you born an entrepreneur or not? Can anyone do it? I think anyone can do it. But I think this, the character traits that you just mentioned are the ones that some people are inherently born with and they have. That's, that's my opinion. But, Tom, this has been great, man. I learned a lot. I, I love the stories you got to have you back on. I want to hear some more stories about what's happening. But if you want to get in touch with you, how can they do.
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Tom (Builder Genie Founder)
So, yeah, you know, look, websites, biller, genie.com. so, you know, anytime we're here. My personal email is tieronica builder genie.com, feel free to reach out. Love to connect with anybody. You know we're here. We've got some cool stuff coming down the pipe. So, you know, maybe next time that we're together, you know, there'll be some more cool news to share.
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Interviewer
Awesome. Thanks. Tom. Thanks for your time today.
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Tom (Builder Genie Founder)
Appreciate it.
- [22:05]
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Dan At Strayer University, we help students like you go from Will I to why not? For over 130 years, we've been innovating higher education to make it more affordable, accessible and attainable so you can reach your goals. Go from thinking can I? To Yes I can and keep striving. Visit strayer.edu to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Chev and its many campuses, including at 2121 15th Street north in Arlington, Virginia.
- [22:35]
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- [23:07]
Tom (Builder Genie Founder)
If you like the show, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening.