01.11.2010
AlertPay in the News: An interview with the Montreal Gazette!
Hi everyone,
As we're approaching our 5 millionth member, we've been getting a lot of interview requests from the press.
Last week, we had a journalist visiting from Montreal's English newspaper, The Gazette, for an interview with Firoz Patel (Chief Executive Officer) and Ferhan Patel (Chief Operating Officer).
Please read the interview
HERE
This is a very exciting time for us since we are growing more than we ever expected! Please read the article and let us know what you think here or on our Facebook page.
Thank you all for your support.
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Artikkel ise:
Showing people the money
Patel Brothers' Internet payment system has exploded in popularity
By JASON MAGDER, The Gazette November 1, 2010
Brothers Firoz (left) and Ferhan Patel poured their life savings into starting AlertPay in 2004. Now, the Internet payment company offers its services in more than 197 countries and has about 5 million users, with 4,500 new users signing on per day.
Photograph by: Marie-France Coallier, The Gazette
It's hard to believe it now, but there was a time when brothers Firoz, 36, and Ferhan Patel, 30, had to fire themselves so they could afford to run their business.
The brothers, who grew up in Brossard, started AlertPay, an Internet payment company similar to PayPal, in 2004 and poured their life savings into the venture.
"We only had a certain amount of money we could invest, so in order to make it last, we fired ourselves and one of our directors fired himself and we all went on EI," Ferhan Patel, the company's chief operating officer, recalled from the boardroom of the company's modest offices on the ground floor of an office building on Mountain Sights Ave. in Snowdon.
"Those were interesting times. If it didn't work, we'd be screwed. We had just drained all our expenses."
AlertPay has always been self-financed, but Ferhan said that hasn't been too difficult because the company has turned a profit from the first day it launched.
The business idea grew from a previous business: marketing software the brothers developed to track the number of clicks on website banner advertisements.
The brothers noticed a need for a different kind of Internet payment system because of frustrations they and several of their customers had with continually having their memberships terminated through a mistaken belief they were committing fraud.
"We kept getting shut down for absolutely frivolous reasons," said Firoz, the company's chief executive officer.
"We worked with several multilevel marketing companies, but PayPal tended to shut down any multi-level marketing company, or even any company that had those words written on their site, as we did.
"They wanted to protect against pyramid schemes, but there are many MLMs, like Avon, for example, which are legitimate businesses."
Several of the Patels' clients asked them to come up with a solution so they could have some sort of Internet payment system. The brothers decided to cease all other operations and develop an Internet payment system that could serve as an alternative to PayPal.
"These were not small-market people we were talking about. These were merchants that could bring thousands of clients to us," Firoz said.
It took several months to develop the software, but once they did, it took off.
AlertPay at first only focused on credit cards and bank transfers, but then saw there was a need to develop a system for corporate payouts.
"It's for companies who have a need to send money to all the people they owe commission or payments to, or some sort of earnings to, around the world. We have set up at a local point almost everywhere in the world.
"It's through the Web, but ultimately, it needs to get to a bank point."
AlertPay is now present in 197 countries and has 5 million total users, though that figure is growing by about 4,500 per day. Impressive numbers to be sure, but they're dwarfed with those of PayPal, which although it's only available in 190 countries, has more than 150 million users.
"PayPal is in their own domain," Ferhan said.
"We're in the same marketplace as them, but we're not trying to follow their path; we're trying to carve out our own path. We also serve a bit of a different market. We tell people if they have PayPal, they should try AlertPay, because it can bring them a segment of the market they never would have had access to before."
AlertPay offers several services not offered by PayPal. It has bank wires, money orders and certified cheques, and since June, all members can pay through a credit card, or withdraw money onto their own credit cards.
AlertPay is also working to be the payment method of choice for cities adapting their parking meters for payment by smart-phones.
The company won the contracts to provide services for the cities of Lethbridge, Alta., Saskatoon,
Sask., and West Palm Beach, Fla. AlertPay expects to add two other North American cities in the coming months, and estimates the agreements will generate $30 million in mobile payments in the next two years.
Every new AlertPay membership potentially leads to exponential growth, because when merchants add AlertPay as a method of payment, many of their customers also add AlertPay, and often, the merchant's competitors also join so as not to cede a competitive advantage.
Since AlertPay launched its revamped website in June to make it more user-friendly, the growth in new memberships has been tremendous.
The brothers say this is the fastest growth the company has ever experienced.
In September, payment volume increased 38 per cent from August, while transaction volume was up by 23 per cent and deposit volume went up by 40 per cent. This resulted in a revenue increase of 35 per cent on the month.
"Our growth has always been very viral," Ferhan said.
"But our recent growth has been a pleasant surprise.
"Calls are through the roof. Emails are through the roof. We're seeing a record number of transactions, and there's a lot of Alert-Pay chatter."
And because of that growth, AlertPay is hiring in all departments: customer service, programmers, and sales.
The brothers will also opening their first satellite office in Mumbai, India in the next few months in order to give the company a foothold in one of its fastest-growing markets.
The Indian office will begin with 20 employees, but it has a capacity for 180
Through all the years of working closely together dealing with the stress of managing a growing company, the brothers say they have never had a fight, and both say they have never found it difficult to work with family.
"It's great, actually," Firoz said. "It's not everyone that has this kind of relationship.
"We have to make sure we have that respect between us, and we carry on from there."
"We make sure we have distinct jobs and responsibilities," Ferhan said.
"We made things clear from Day 1. Maybe we had some things growing up, like your typical sibling rivalry stuff, but that's never happened at the office."
montrealgazette.com/news