I spent my career inside the embedded payments system — building payments products at FreedomPay, launching real-time payments and Zelle at TD Bank, running a neobank portfolio at InComm, and leading product for a PE-backed vertical SaaS platform where embedded payments was the single largest revenue driver in the portfolio.
Across all of it, the same pattern repeated: platforms know payments is a revenue opportunity, but the advice available comes from people with a financial stake in which processor you choose. The guidance is good enough to get you started and bad enough to cost you millions over a five-year horizon.
Margin Labs exists because I got tired of watching platforms make decisions based on processor sales decks instead of independent analysis. I've sat on both sides — negotiating with Fiserv and FIS as a buyer, building connectivity into processors as a vendor, and running the P&L that lives or dies on the net take rate. That's the perspective I bring to every engagement.
The through-line across everything I've built: payments revenue follows product experience. You can choose the right model, negotiate the best spread, and sign the right processor — but none of it matters if merchants don't activate, transactions don't flow, and the product doesn't make payments feel like a natural part of the workflow. The platforms that win on payments win because product and payments are the same conversation, not two separate roadmaps.