Any speculation as to how this business unfolds?
It seemed like there was no clear path stated besides aiming for 10 billion in processing volume and half the medium to large churches in the US. Which is not a bad goal if they can dominate this niche market. Just the question is, isPushpay positioned to be able to dominate or will the competitors chip away at their prospects?
Somewhat around 65 competitors, more or less are offering the same service as Pushpay. Which leads me to believe the payment processing segment will ultimately be commoditized as plenty of their competitors will be able to offer a cheaper service. Which leads to the next question, will Pushpay be able to retain their current customers once the race to the bottom begins?
Currently they're building out their core platform which everything is centred around driving engagement for the church attendees, all intending to lead back to increased giving (of course).
- Mobile church app;
Basically a hub where churches are able to connect with attendees and drive engagement through social media, notes, podcasts, events, pledge, etc.
Once again this differentiation has been copied to death by competitors to a degree where they more or less look and do the same thing.
Noticed that some churches barely used the application (weeks without update and some not setup properly). I'm not sure if this was a paid add on, but it was there might be a slim chance they opt to renew this particular feature.
- Back end integrations and administrative capabilities;
Integrations and administrative is where Pushpays value proposition stands out from competitors currently. Although not to hard to imitate just takes a bit of work.
- Pushpay University (Recent release) & Nurtured Church Podcast & Pushpay Summit;
Great idea and inherently more difficult to copy. Will most likely be used as a gateway for churches / pastors into Pushpay. If churches are heavily motivated to increase giving this is definitely a leap over their competition. Judging by their relationship with the segment of large churches this may be the case.
- Brand;
Pushpay is currently recognized as Industry standard.
- Future acquisitions (verticals)
They've hinted at some acquisition as an add-on to their current service. Some segment into the ticketing space which will be a good value add.
eg. https://brushfire.com/
How does this all tie up?
Pushpays value will come from incremental value by way of Payment Processing, Church Management, Administrative, however it's still early days and copycats are about. It's all about product "stickiness". Which leads to the final question. Is it difficult for a customer to leave?
You could argue the mobile app and payment process will be sticky enough (Asking attendees to download a new app or having to re-upload all church content onto a new platform, retraining - Risky to operations and waste of time), however some have worked a new platform while their Pushpay contract rolled over. What we need to see is more incremental value added to their platform. Pushpay employs the highest number of sales staff in this sector and over 100 developers which is exactly what you would like to see. Higher customer growth + Platform development.
I'm unable to value the business yet, however they do create real value for churches and their attendees.
