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customer with thousands of checkout companies, she has found online category searches for the top 10 to 20 percent
lanes. "For every one second we add to be effective, as well as learning about companies on Crunchbase and blogs,
to a transaction time, they have to add checking capital investments to date, and attending networking events to meet
100 lanes to get through their peak targeted clients and the tech companies that might serve them.
hours," he said. "These retailers are
very scientific. Can you imagine that Helgeson agreed that starting small is best. "When I talk to other ISOs out
one second equals 100 employees?" In there that haven't made the leap to technology, the advice I give them is to stay
such cases, a few seconds delay could focused and start small. Pick one thing you're trying to solve for and start there.
lead to severed relationships. You can't be everything to everyone. If I were starting out somewhere, I would
pick a niche and focus on one particular problem they're trying to solve."
Take one step at a time
He said the problem with tackling technology too broadly from the outset is
Kelly Cullum, Director of Business not having the scale, money or engineering teams to execute properly. "The
Development at SUR Technology broader you go, the more likely you are to either have the product fall over
Holdings LLC, has run the full cir- and generally fail, or just not be able to deliver what the merchants expect,"
cuit, from building an online soft- Helgeson noted.
ware brand to opening a sub-ISO and
working with a startup focused on Instead of reaching out to large established fintech companies that may not
3D-Secure authentication to now di- be particularly receptive, he recommends that ISOs seek smaller tech startups
recting a technology consulting firm that are a good fit for their objectives, and to build out platforms incrementally.
that offers end-to-end solutions.
To jumpstart the search process, CB Insights created a tool tech experts recom-
"The big thing that I found right out mend for analyzing the health of a startup. Funded by the National Science
of the gate with any type of payments Foundation, its Mosaic algorithm delivers predictive intelligence that helps us-
company is that it is about digging
into the type of client that technology
is going to attract, trying to find the
places that are going to become issues
and then empowering the ISV to edu-
cate merchants," Cullum said, adding
that education and customer service
play critical roles, as does briefing
ISO underwriting and risk managers
to prevent problems down the line.

She also recommends drip cam-
paigns to establish communication
between parties as each new de-
velopment takes shape. "It's about
making sure that you're available to
be included in all processes they de-
cide to create," she said. For an ISO,
these might include drafting a basic
features guideline that is consistent
across merchant accounts.

According to Cullum, revenue splits
can be a touchy subject, since ISVs
entrenched in technology may not
understand them completely. ISOs
need to offer guidance on expected
terms and the flexibility to renegoti-
ate based on milestones as volume ac-
celerates and features advance.

She recommends first piecing to-
gether only a few targeted solutions
for specific verticals. In vetting tech

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