The pivot from crypto

Rollfi didn't start as embedded payroll. It started as crypto payroll.

"A lot of my friends used it," KP says. "But we realized very quickly that's not a real business." So they pivoted. 

But KP made one rule for the new direction: reach out to people with no connections first. Make sure the value proposition stood on its own.

"Anywhere from Twitter DMs to cold outbound. I wanted to make sure someone I didn't know bought the product before I started selling to people I knew."

Friends are great for validation. They don't build massive businesses.

The distribution play

Rollfi helps vertical SaaS companies add payroll to their platforms. Their customers' customers that are middle America businesses, mostly use legacy payroll providers.

The legacy players aren't transparent with pricing. Customer support isn't great. There's real pain there.

"A lot of times these guys come to us because they're starting to lose deals by not having payroll," KP explains. "Those are good signs that these guys are ready for it."

The platforms have usually done the homework. They know their customers want to buy payroll from them, and they just need someone to power it.

The captive audience advantage

Selling to an existing customer base should be easier. If your customer support is good.

"Especially when the NPS score of an average payroll company is so low, they should want to give you a shot just to not deal with the support representative of a legacy player," KP says.

That's your opportunity. Be better than whoever they're currently dealing with.

Who owns churn?

We asked KP: Is churn a pre-sales problem or a post-sales problem?

His answer: "It depends on what you promise versus what you deliver."

If you tell them you can do things you can't deliver, that's a sales problem. If you should be able to deliver, but operations aren't working, that's a post-sales problem.

Case-by-case basis.

Best-in-class distribution

The companies that distribute embedded products well have one thing in common: they prepped their customers to buy more than one product from the start.

"They didn't go in as a point solution and then say, 'Hey, magically we are going to sell you 10 other things,'" KP explains. "They always said, 'Hey, we're going to start here and help modernize your accounting firm or pizza shop or restaurant.' So they were already primed to go buy other products after they won a trusted initial wedge product."

You build trust with the wedge. Then you expand.

But timing matters. "You build up trust over a lifetime, and are you going to erode it in a second?" KP asks. "If you throw too much at them and your quality doesn't stay consistent, it's very hard to keep them attached to your products."

Each new product release needs to be as good as what they started with.

Pick your platforms wisely

For embedded solution founders, KP's advice is simple: choose your platform partners carefully.

"It's almost always the same amount of work for the person that doesn't have their operations together and someone who does. But the success varies widely based on what expectations they set with the customer."

Not all platforms are created equal. The technical integration might be the same effort. The results won't be.

What this means

KP's approach to embedded products comes down to one principle: trust first, products second.

Don't sell to friends until strangers will buy. Don't add new products until the first one works. Don't partner with platforms that can't set proper expectations with their customers.

Build trust. Then build on it.

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