How A Vision And Relentlessness Drive Success

See how Naim, co-founder and chief revenue officer of Payzli, shares insights on leveraging technology, the entrepreneurial mindset, and the impact of persistence in scaling a business. Dive into lessons on AI applications, overcoming challenges, and the value of collaboration in the Particle Accelerator Podcast by Particle 41.From his early business ventures as a child to leading innovation in the payments industry, Naim shares invaluable lessons and strategies for growth.

🌟 Key Highlights:

Naim’s entrepreneurial roots: How cutting grass and selling candy sparked his business journey.

The evolution of Payzli: Transforming payments with wholesale ISO solutions and innovative tech like Payzli Transact.

Lessons from failure: Turning setbacks into systems for success.

AI in payments: Leveraging AI to create super employees and streamline processes.

🎧 Key Takeaways:

Embrace failure as a tool for growth.

Leverage AI for meaningful impact, not shortcuts.

Focus on the niches to deliver transformative solutions.


📲 Don’t miss this inspiring conversation about innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology!

Connect with Naim:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nhamdar/
Website: Payzli.com

🔔 Subscribe for more discussions on business innovation, leadership, and technology!

#entrepreneurship  #innovation  #paymenttech #technology #businessgrowth  #collaboration  #ai #podcast  #particle41

Transcript

hey everyone welcome back to the particle accelerator podcast where we talk to Future thinking Business Leaders about how to accelerate their business 
and grow their team I'm here with Naim and why don't you introduce yourself yeah my name is Naim hamar I am chief 
Revenue co-founder and chief Revenue officer of Payzli nice what does Payzli do so 
Payzli is a technology company uh at our core but we're a payment technology 
company so what we are is a wholesale ISO and we have technology to empower 
our wholesale ISO and direct to Consumer technology as well let's get into some 
of these uh Tech questions here um what tech Trend significantly impacted uh you 
or your industry and how has your company responded yeah so I mean look it's no surprise um I think if you ask 
anybody who's in technology they will say AI um and AI could you know potentially 
be damaging for your company or it could exponentially grow your company right 
and I think you know we don't know where that's going to land yet um but we're 
taking measures today in order to implement AI in a holistic way right and 
you know so some of the ways that we're doing it is you know I'm not a big proponent of like havei do everything 
because I don't think that's a solution right you know anytime you you call any 
of like the public utilities or the airlines immediately an AI answers and 
I'm immediately turned off right and I think you know we fall short as a 
society because of our laziness right to say okay allow AI to do everything right 
I'm not I'm not a propor right I I choose the opposite what I say is enable 
a to make a regular employee a super employee right how do you do that right 
yeah enable AI to take specific tasks right whether it's for a business owner 
or for their employees take things off their plate that 
are you know consuming empty energy like for example I'll give you an example uh 
one of the ways that we're implementing AI is where're um streamlining our underwriting process 
or risk monitoring process in where like it will bring 
um you know the right tasks front and center so that our employees could take 
action because there has to be a human element to this right other ways that we're implementing AI is you know from a 
customer perspective right we're uh introducing an aspect of AI reviews 
right because you know Payzli POS for example is very involved in the beauty 
Services business so anyone who's in nail salons hair salons tattoo studios 
you know small class workshops type things right is a perfect you know 
subject for paisle POS right and those types of businesses you know when you 
want to get a haircut Benjamin what do you do right you go to Google you Google 
you know salons in my area and the ones that have the most best star ratings you 
immediately look at then you start going through the star ratings read the reviews to understand okay who should I 
visit right like what stylus should I visit at that salon right so what we've 
done is we've taken that and really just streamlined the process in order to 
generate more reviews for the business right and we're not manufacturing 
reviews because that does look good right but we're assisting in the review process through leveraging AI in order 
to provide you know a much easier way to obain reviews from your customers as a 
business own yeah makes sense um we're we're a Service Company we're working on 
a lot of AI implementations and we're finding that the the data collection and 
the data curation is often uh really the you know kind of where a medy part of 
the work is the applying the model or applying the prompt is um a little more 
trivial uh good thing the llms are there to integrate with uh and then what we're 
finding is that uh there's a new strategy or not a new strategy but a strategy called Vector embedding where 
you load all the proprietary data into Vector database and it's like we're able get an AI product that leverages 
proprietary data alongside the llm with no retraining and so um the really the 
solutions are pretty inexpensive and um and it really comes down to collecting 
curating um that proprietary data set and really like investing in that like 
figuring out what is the Special Sauce what is the thing that is going to prompt the AI to give the proper 
response to the user query 100% And you know other ways we're implementing AI is when we're building 
Cod right um you know we're having AI 
assist our engineers in order to reduce mistakes yeah right because we're human 
right we're not robots we're human yeah tired it's like a cybernetic typing 
assistant really right anytime there's typing uh the fewer keystrokes the human has to make the less fat finger 
opportunities there are so yeah we're we're able to type at the speed of 
thought right rather than uh rather than having to you know get the thoughts off 
of our fingers and that that's just super fun I mean what a time we live in 100% 100% And but part part of it is 
like okay as a human being you have distractions you have the inner voice and you have right so you're prone to 
mistakes because not many times are you 100% focused on one thing right right so 
we can leverage AI in order to bring back our attention to the task right and 
improve the way we're doing our tasks then we become super human right and I think that's the idea that's how we 
Implement AI the right way that can assist people in order to become superh 
human right love it um Beyond AI what are three technology Innovations you're 
betting on to drive your business growth yeah so one of the things we're doing uh we just released this uh last week we're 
at a show WSAA Western States uh Association 
something I forget the acronym but a WSAA is like a payment focused uh show 
you know there it happens once a year and uh we had a booth there and we unveiled our realtime residual reporting 
right one of the things that you know when you're in the payment industry and you're selling payments right right what 
many people don't know is like those people who are selling payments right typically have to wait you know 20 days 
or more after the month ends for a specific Merchant to see what their 
potential earnings are right so what we've unveiled is you know we're able to 
record this on a daily basis right um and that's an industry first right so 
we're able to take the data because a wholesale ISO an FSD where we're getting 
realtime data and and we can run our system in order to generate actual 
residuals for yesterday's processing now we're not going to pay that on a daily 
basis because we're not collecting it on a daily basis right but you know if you 
think of like how Innovative that is right people who who come into this industry you know have to wait 20 days 
after the month end in order to see what they've earned well now with us they see 
what's coming right on a daily basis so when you submit an account with us today 
they start processing tomorrow the following day you're going to have earnings sitting in your bank right 
you're not going to collect it until after the month closes but that visual 
right is going to allow you to operate with confidence that the money is coming 
right and you know it's it's a small thing but it's huge when it comes to 
anyone who selling payments cool any other um uh Tech 
Trends or or technology innovations that you're uh engaged in yeah so I mean we're we're involved 
in a lot right I think PS um you know is a very Innovative 
product for beauty and Services businesses um you know where you know 
just from appointment booking you know we' really really dug in and made that 
process extremely smooth because they think about when you're going we don't 
do this but our wives do right when they go to a nail salon for example when you 
go to a nail salon you may have like uh an artist that does nail art and then 
you know somebody that's just doing a pet you may have somebody doing their eyebrows you may have another person 
massaging right so it's a you mean you don't get many petties don't do that I 
don't so when you go to a nail salon for example it's a multi-touch environment right and 
different people have different skill sets right so when you think of an appointment booking from an appointment 
booking perspective when your wife or my wife or anyone out there um who wants to 
book an appointment if they have a specific technician that does their anal Arts another technician that does their 
pedicure one that does their eyebrows and one that massages them right that's 
a lot of complication there right because each one of these people have a 
schedule right and you have to find the right time that coordinates with all of 
those people right to meet your needs right so what we've been able to do is 
really streamline that process so that you're not going back and forth back and forth and you know giving up on doing a 
service or a product in order to just make a specific time right um you know 
it's things like that where you know we're inovity because we have the technology today to do that right the 
complicated technology to do that and you know when you have a Focus right and 
you're focused on a specific use case and you start to dig in right not to 
just create something but to create the thing right that's going to 
revolutionize that specific task you have the tools today to do that yeah 
that's how we're innovating as an organization we're not we're not going 
across the board and saying okay we want to be the best at every right but we're 
going to identify specific things where we want to make an impact and we're 
going deep yeah de friend of mine Greg Alexander says the riches are in the 
niches 100% the niches have the riches right either way you want to say it and you can have multiple niches right 
multiple niches but even within those niches right still focus on specific 
things because there's tons of you know Salon Solutions 
tons right but not one of them does what we do from an appointment booking 
perspective not one of them does what we do from a a Google reviews perspective 
right so we could do everything great but then there's going to be those two or three key things that we're going to 
do that no one else does yeah really cool well what do you think the most significant gaps between 
your Ambitions are and the realities of today like what's slowing you down 
look I mean it's what's slowing me down you money is always an important aspect right yeah 
you know access access to Capital is a common answer to this question um look 
at this there's really nothing physically stopping you but it's you know everything is time resource money 
right sure um you know so so if we think about okay what would we love to build I 
mean we're looking at RTP Real Time payments right but that's a completely 
different task right and you know in order to accomplish many different 
things you have to add finances you have to add resources and you have to add 
time right so as a technology company you put your road map together well 
ahead of the start of the year right and you say okay these things are what I'm 
focused on anything outside of that I'm not going to focus on at this point unless I could 
add more resources then I could bring additional Solutions right 
right now it's like are we focused on the right thing right what could 
potentially occur that actually diverts our attention elsewhere and then when 
that happens should we keep our attention where it is or should we shift right are moving so quick right today I 
mean you could be uh you know Twan shop in your basement 
literally and build a billion dollar organization if you have the right idea 
you put the right resources together and you take action the right way right 
so you know the luxury that you have as a startup today 
you know it's such an incredible opportunity whereas you know an organization and and we're considered 
you know newer organization still even till today right we have leverage over 
very large organizations right because they're like a yacht right right pivot is fast yeah 
right fast but then there's like this new futuristic um machine 
that just runs circle around everybody and that's the startup of today right sure so we're that speed we're still 
able to travel fast not like the yach those very large organizations that have 
to make minute shifts right our concern is always and I think it's it's great 
because it's an opportunity for the economy right it's an opportunity for Innovation but Innovation is happening 
so quick today that you don't know what's right and anybody who tells you that they know is a liar yeah uh you 
mentioned road maps what advice can you share for connecting your uh your road maps with your overall business strategy 
like how do you make those uh determinations do you have a uh A system that you use or like how do you plan 
yeah so I mean it's basic right you know you always have to think of like stakeholder stakeholder is an extremely 
important aspect for any business like who is your stakeholder what are your core values 
and what do you want to create based on those two elements right if if you're just in business to 
print money you're on the wrong track right because money comes you know the 
definition of money is through the impact that we make and if your goal is 
just money with impact taking you know backseat then you're not going to get 
them right Your solution is not going to have light to it right but if you start 
with the impact that you want to make right and that is based on your stakeholder and your core values right I 
think as long as you have really identified those now you could build 
Solutions right and those Solutions has M multitude of layers right you have to 
decide based on that stakeholder what is your optimal need today or what is their 
optimal need today and that needs to the first thing you put on your road right what are the things that you know are 
essential that those second right what are the things that are would like to 
have that goes third right and as long as you're addressing these things in a 
systematic manner then that's all you can do yeah what do you think the most 
um what do you think the biggest challenge is to maintaining a Competitive Edge in your industry 
I think it starts with with your principles right I think it starts with 
your relentlessness because you know that's that's extremely needed in in 
this day and age you know don't be shy to take action um you know I think you know 
relentlessness is uh you know you have to have it as an oad door and if you 
don't then you should probably work for some right because right you know the fact of life is the 
entrepreneur you know you're it's like raising a child right I 
mean think think about your relentlessness with your kids right when 
they're born you're feeding them you're changing their diaper they could pee on you you don't give a right and it's 
like you still love them right and you know business is the same way you're 
going to have UPS you're going to have your downs but as long as you are 
aligned with the mission that of what you're creating you're going to enjoy 
those Journeys whether they're good or they're bad right and and a reflection of that is like Elon Musk right I have a 
lot of admiration for Elon Musk um and one of the things that he has always 
done is you have these really significantly big goals right and you're 
on the brink of failure and you're on the brink of failure and you say I'm not going to give up and you're Relentless 
and then one day you succeed and you're the richest man in the world why not 
because you were after money he had the money right you have a mission and that 
mission requires dedication and relentlessness and as long as you have 
those and and you're aligned with you know what the mission is like what's 
what the end goal is nothing will stop you well well what uh what lessons have 
you learned from a uh a failed initiative that didn't deliver expected 
value so I've had a lot of initiatives right you know there's not one in 
particular that I mean like initially when we launched a point 
of sale right um well when we l the building of 
for you know we hired a ton of people right um they were all 
contractors and then it C down um and you know a lot of our 
contractors are out of India and you know in those areas they go back to their Villages right so we had we kept 
replacing like you know one would leave okay hire another and then that one would leave okay higher enough so at the 
end of that we got like crap code right so about a year and a half into 
the process you know when we were ready to go to market what we realized is like 
okay as soon as we get over a specific number of merchants we're going to have 
some real problems right now you have a choice to make we could have taken that 
market public and you know got into like three 
four 5,000 merchants and then you're going to have some issues right do you move 
forward and because of money right look you don't want to keep burning money 
right do you move forward and take the solution public knowing in the back of 
your mind these issues will occur or do you stop and say you know the hell with 
it start over right because what we're building is not an aate solution what we 
want to build is a bested class solution right so in the eyes of many that would 
be considered a failure right but for me that really wasn't a failure it was an opportunity 
to see things in a different way right it's an opportunity to revisit your 
principles and understand why you're in business right it's an opportunity to 
reassess how you should build the code so what we ended up doing is we brought an internal team we hired 27 developers 
in internally we started the process over we didn't start from scratch because we 
had some stuff still that was that could be reused right but the end result of 
that is you know we created a process for Building Technology that is best in 
class right our Sprint Cycles you know we were at a onewe Sprint cycle which is 
unheard right we slowed it down a bit now we're on a two we Sprint cycle just because 
we're building code so fast right but we wouldn't have gotten there had it not 
been for the failure right so failures could be viewed in two ways one is yeah 
I failed well what the hell is that going to do for you right or you could see why it failed and correct it so that 
you don't make that same mistake again and then you're better off because so to me a failure is still a success because 
of the way I choose to see it right understood um cool uh most people don't 
know what ISO means can you define that acronym sure sure there are three different levels so when you're in the 
payment business you you're either a partner of an ISO a retail ISO which 
means you brand yourself or a wholesale ISO so what we happen to be is a 
wholesale ISO uh where we do do all of our underwriting risk monitoring in 
house and we're registered with two different PS to do them cool yeah also notice like for the 
um big fans of clover know a few people there looks like um for equipment you 
also do Clover leasing which is really cool we do so so today we have a retail 
environment where somebody else does our underwriting on the F serve side that to 
uh on Clover uh but we are setting up our fiser bins which will be stood up at 
the end of the year well we'll be doing uh our own underwriting and risk monitoring for Ferb as well sure I've 
done a lot of work with stripe what uh how how do you guys differentiate so stripe is predominantly a payment 
Gateway um and what stripe has been essentially good at with their Gateway is Integrations right so when you think 
so if you're if you're a point of sell company uh you're looking for quick integration usually you would go to 
somebody like uh stripe because they've really streamlined their sdks in order 
to have you integrate with these minimum code um we also have launched Payzli 
transact in association in partnership with Visa uh that allows for very 
similar type of Integrations okay cool 
awesome man well I'm excited to get to know you uh the the the question I use to do that is uh what was your first job 
like for me it was a paper R uh and yeah that's how I made my first dollar 
delivering the paper how did you make your first dollar so it's funny I came to this country at the age of eight and 
I uh immediately I saw opportunity everywhere uh we lived in Boston 
Massachusetts at the time and um one thing I noticed is there's a lot of grass and know so 
what I used to do I made friends with the neighbors and um all the kids in the neighborhood so i' rally them all 
together there was about like seven of us including my brothers and we would go around door Todo asking neighbors to cut 
their grass and M and so on and I was kind of like the quarterback 
coordinating everything or how would settle with the homeowner um I mean at 
the time it was like $10 and we would split it up amongst each other but if you do three to four you know homes 
within a weekend now you can buy some candy for school and then what I used what what what I used to do with my 
money however is I used to go buy candy and resell it at this so I used to make 
even more money right so I used it as an investment um I didn't realize I was 
doing this at an early age but you know I had the entrepreneurial Spirits yeah 
love it say a very similar story here um what was a toy or hobby that you 
had as a child that inspired what you do career-wise today uh I was always into soccer uh so 
so I I loved soccer and I like Bruce Lee a lot right and what it it's funny like 
when you think of Bruce Lee is not known to be like a motor 
of of sorts but if you read kind of his um quotes throughout his history right 
it's very very motivation and um I still have quotes today that you know be like 
water right that transcends time and space right um so so he was always a 
hero of man I just love the way that he was fearless and you have to have an element 
of fearlessness when you go into entrepreneurship uh because it's a scary it's a scary 
Venture right most people don't take that Venture and then you know software 
to me has always been such a great sport because it's not one person that will win the game right it's a combination of 
people you know so I could be the best player in the world that put me on a team with 10 horrible players I'm gonna 
get destroyed right so it's that camaraderie that teammate that uh spirit 
of working together you know really works well for business and business owners who do that well succeed right 
love it love it um what was your favorite and least favorite course in 
school well least favorite uh I loved uh anything English 
right because English was not my first language um and I I I really thrived in 
those classes because I took time and attention really focused still on those and on the opposite 
Spectrum um mathematics and geometry and all of that good stuff I was so far 
ahead when I got to this country that I kind of you know shied away from it 
because I thought I knew everything um and because of that you know it made it 
not interesting right and um you know I ended up falling behind in the subject 
and then I had to reup and you know really get engaged uh but I like 
geography um you know that was always uh history um those were always great 
subjects for me because you can learn so much from the past and it allows you to position yourself for future success 
right because the past is a reflection of us learning from somebody else's mistakes or victories right and if you 
implement those lessons the right way it allows you to to succeed in life yeah 
awesome what quote from uh a famous person lives in your mind rent free you uh you mentioned Bruce Le some Bruce Lee 
quotes uh is there any other famous person or even like what's your favorite uh Bruce Lee quote any any quote from a 
famous person so my favorite quote of all time and pl here 
some so are you able to see this 
yeah so wait let uh it's right here that that quote 
for the for the folks that are on audio only that that plaque said uh something 
around that it's one thing to be a boss it's another thing to be a mentor yeah but that's not the quote so so the quote 
that really resonates with me is I'm not who you think I am I'm 
not so sorry I'm not who I think I am I'm not who you think I am I am who I 
think you think I am I am who you think okay okay right there it so so what that 
what that resembles is like who we are on the inside is just a 
reflection of what people see and that reflection of what people see comes back 
to us and that's how we operate right so we initiate 
right people reflect and then we think that that's who we 
are cool it's really deep when you think about it um I'm not who I think I am I'm 
not who you think I am I am who I think you 
think um there's this um unconscious to conscious or like uh 
there's this quadrum of uh things that uh it's it's 
like things that other people see like known to me known to you 
unknown to me but known to you right so it's a it's a four box yeah and in the 
four box it's the things that I know about myself are in a row and the things that you know about me are in a column 
so the in intersection is that there are things that we both know about each other like like immutable characteristics y you know you know my 
hair is brown I know my hair is brown um th those things are very obvious but then in the lower quadrum there's things 
that are unknown to you and unknown to me they're the they're basically they're 
my hidden potential yes and what uh what the idea is is that if I'm learning more 
things about myself and you're learning more things about me and we do that 
through feedback you know honest communication about each other then we 
unlock hidden potential think this is really cool so the and look I could 
speak about this for days right because I I had a mentor uh Bob Proctor who I 
did a year-long mentorship with and I became aware of so many things like 
minute detail and I'll give you a quick story um in my early days of my business 
I took a large sum of money and I put it in a bank account that out of sight out 
of Mone and I told myself I'm like if I ever fail this money is how I will recreate 
myself right so you know I was growing my business and you know I plateaued for 
a while and I'm like what the hell's going on I'm like pushing pushing pushing and I couldn't break through the specific barrier right so when I was in 
conversation with Bob Proctor um you know he said something 
and it just sparked something in my mind I'm like the money have hidden I'm like you know what I'm taking that money and 
it was nothing that he said right well it was something that he said but he I didn't really tell him about that story 
right that I took money and I put it away right so immediately you know this 
I I recognized that you know at times in life we take certain actions and when we 
take those actions it's we think that it's a safety right but in reality what 
it's doing is it's an an mhm right so immediately I took that money and I put 
it in land right it's an investment now right 
and I had no safety now so I was exposed right sure and from that moment on 
within one year I doubled my business yeah that's great now is that like a 
coincidence maybe right but here's the thing that I know if you're a speed boat 
right you're the fastest speed Bo on Earth but you have an anchor and that anchor is made for 
Yachts how fast would you go not very fast yeah you have to pull that huge 
anchor right but as soon as I released that anchor I was able to just maneuver 
around things and go as fast as I wanted awesome yeah there's a there's a book 
popular right now called burn the boats right uh it's the same concept yeah 
sometimes we have anchors that we put for ourselves that we think is a safety 
net but in reality it stunts our 
growth yeah there's some common business ter uh like no plan B burn the boats 
these are been um that lesson uh has been talked about a lot that like the the hunger and the drive is really what 
makes the success uh not as much the the intention is more powerful than the 
mechanism so uh a lot of times um internally we talk about like what is 
your intention because if you have a clear intention you have a lot of clarity around it there's the mechanism 
will will determine itself like we'll figure out how to get to the goal but do we really know what the goal is and that 
that anchor that you're talking about is really um it causes us to focus on the 
mechanism too much the methodology too much and uh in many cases it it prevents 
action well 100% And and benj you know I'll tell you another belief in mine is 
you know the human experiment right the odds of a human being coming into this 
world is so astronomically low that nothing else in life we could do 
can compare to that right my personal Bel is we chose to come we chose to be 
here because we had a choice not to be here right and live in a state of bliss 
right but we chose we make the we make the decision to come into this world knowing the struggles knowing the 
obligations knowing the the potential of failure right because we have powers 
within us that we're not awakened to right so the fact that we were able to 
make that mission to earth right is a symbol of what we can create here but 
when we come here you know we're constantly fed this 
um you know negativity right you can't do this I mean think about a kid right 
my own kids right when when they're about to go into danger I'm like no no 
you can't do that right as opposed to you know me stopping and saying okay how 
can I teach them to still have that drive but to not hurt thems along the 
way right and these are things that we have to be conscious of right yeah I 
think uh most amputees will tell you that the loss of the limb is not the uh 
is not the worst part of it it's the limitations that you put on yourself because of the loss of the limb those 
are far worse than the actual loss of the limb itself um and they always they 
feel like that limb is still there yeah yeah my my son broke his arm twice he he 
can't he doesn't have full rotation of his wrist uh we give him a lot of crap 
for it like uh you know this this social media guy that does the two hands you know the kind of that he he does it 
sideways so now in the house if we want to go obviously we do it with one hand vertically and one hand flat right we 
kind of give him some crap about it just really to signify like uh that it's not 
you know that this inability to rotate your hand completely flat like Palms up 
uh he can't do but it's like more worse the limitation that he might impose on himself than the fact that he you know 
can't rotate his hand abut there's literally nothing I've seen him not be able to do I mean absolutely like 
there's you know I was at a show um I'm part of entrepreneurs organization and 
we bring in speakers and we brought in a speaker with no hands right he's got 
like a halfam Powerhouse 
Powerhouse right he's working out he's speaking on the largest stages on Earth 
with Tony Robbins right how could he do that missing his Limbs and then you you 
think to yourself I'm like I'm so lucky like I have health on my limbs 
I have all these things what the hell do I have to complain about nothing just get up and do something take action cool 
well uh if people like what you've had to share today uh how should they connect with you yeah I think it I'm I'm 
very active on LinkedIn um you know I'm not a big proponent of social media but 
I am active on LinkedIn um you could find me Naim Naim 
H um you can come to our website um and look me up there as well Payzli. 
comom um yeah those are probably the best two methods to find me awesome well 
it's been awesome discussing with you and uh congrats on all your accomplishments U yeah thanks for being 
on the podcast today thank you Benjamin appreciate it