On today’s episode, Kunle is joined by Domm Holland, Co-Founder of Fast, the world’s fastest online login and checkout platform. Fast is a San Francisco based privately held company funded by Stripe, Addition, Index Ventures, Susa Ventures and Sugar Capital.

More and more shoppers now prefer buying things online rather than in stores. But that being said, most of these shoppers would also tell you that the checkout process in stores is still way better. Why? Because you don’t fill any form, you just tap your credit card or phone and off you go. Now we are even seeing innovations like Amazon Go, where you don’t even need to tap.

But online checkouts are still another story altogether. Most businesses try out new and optimised forms to simplify checkout, yet don’t really see the results. There are many “1-click” checkout solutions out there. But they all require (a lot) more than 1 click to checkout. This is where companies like Fast are coming in and disrupting the checkout landscape.

In this episode, Kunle and Domm talk about what it takes to create a truly 1-click checkout experience. You will get to hear about how Fast solves the checkout puzzle with an identity-first approach. This is a great episode for merchants and businesses of all sizes!

Here is a summary of some of the most important points made,

• • Having to fill checkout forms results in drop offs
  • Optimised forms cannot solve checkout problems
  • Identity is the main friction point in checkout
  • It is now possible to buy directly from pieces of content
  • Email is the primary identifier on the internet

Covered Topics:

On today’s interview Kunle and Domm discuss,

• Checkout industry landscape
• Fast’s core focus
• How does it work
• What about existing payment gateways
• Position on Shopify
• Future of the Checkout
• Learnings from the pandemic boom
• Company Outlook

Timestamp:

• 09:40 – Domm’s backstory
  • How his grandmother-in-law inspired Fast
  • Launched Fast in 2019
• 13:10 – Industry Landscape:
  • It is still an unsolved problem
  • All 1-click checkout solution requires a lot more than 1 click
  • Most current solutions are centered around the payment step
• 16:40 – What is Fast’s core focus:
  • We are an identity company
  • “The primary problem of checkout is an identity problem, not a payment problem”
  • Better forms are not a solution to the problem
  • Identity should be accessed via a network
  • What is the fastest and easiest way to checkout?
  • Fast checkout button sits on every product page
  • Over 1000 merchants are using Fast
  • Button can be added natively inside content
• 25:10 – How does Fast work?
  • Integrated deeply with merchants
  • Fast interfaces between customer and store
  • A merchant just has to install the Fast app on their site
  • Current support web-only, but will be launching SDK in H2 this year
• 29:40 – Does it replace payment gateways?
  • It can work alongside pre-installed gateways
  • Fill the form the first time you use Fast, then you’re set for the future
  • Supports all transaction sizes
• 32:05 – Will it be available in Shopify?
  • Focusing on the market outside of Shopify
• 34:30 – Future of the Checkout?
  • “The Amazon Go model isn’t going to win”
  • The focus to improve online checkout is to keep removing friction points
• 40:20 – Magic links as a service
  • “Email is the primary identifier on the internet”
• 45:15 – Learnings from COVID:
  • Any products around the house took off
  • Sports did well too
• 46:10 – Future Outlook for the company:
• 47:05 – Lightning Round

Lightning Round:

• Q: Are you a morning person?
  A: Yes 
• Q: What is your daily morning routine?
  A: Up at 4:30am, followed by a workout and breakfast, first meeting at 7:30am 
• Q: What are 2 things you can’t live without?
  A: Coffee and my family 
• Q: What book are you currently reading?
  A: Macbook 
• Q: What are 3 indispensable tools for managing your business?
  A: Slack, Zoom, Devices 
• Q: What’s been your best mistake till date? A set back that’s given you the biggest feedback.
  A: Shutting down the last company

Takeaways:

• Identity is the main friction point in checkout
• It is now possible to buy directly from content
• Email is the primary identifier on the internet
• The Amazon Go model isn’t scalable and won’t succeed

Links & Resources

• Fast on Twitter

Tweetable Quotes:

“Email is the primary identifier on the internet.”

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SPONSORS:

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