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When Jack Dorsey co-founded Square in 2009, he narrowed in on a single goal, which was helping sellers make the sale. The Oakland-based company’s first product was a square-shaped smartphone attachment that allowed vendors of all sizes to accept payments by credit card.
But if Square had simply focused on hardware to process card payments, “we would’ve been a very small company and I would not be here talking to at all,” Dorsey said at an event in New York City on Wednesday in which the company introduced a slate of new features for Square.
Instead, the company persisted in asking why business owners wanted to take credit cards in the first place. They didn’t love the hassle and fees of credit cards, but customers were increasingly using cards for everything and no longer carrying cash. If vendors didn’t take cards, they’d miss out on sales.
The card readers were a start, but ultimately, Dorsey said his focus is on creating products that make it more affordable and frictionless to do business. Over the past 16 years, it has rolled out financial services, marketing tools, and business management software.
Today, its parent company Block (NYSE: XYZ) has a market capitalization of $49 billion. With Dorsey as CEO, Block has grown to include the mobile payments company Cash App, streaming service Tidal, and buy now, pay later service Afterpay.
New Square services to save time and money
The marquee feature Square announced on Wednesday is a service called Neighborhoods, which lets businesses set up online ordering storefronts in Cash App and participate in a common loyalty program. It saves businesses the hassle of building dedicated apps, but allows them to offer some of the features that have made apps from Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Dunkin so popular, without the hassle of building a dedicated app. The processing fee for vendors using Neighborhoods is just 1 percent.
Square is also now integrated with popular delivery apps including DoorDash, Uber Eats, and GrubHub, so restaurants can see all of their incoming orders on a single platform, rather than juggling different tablets for each service. If restaurants also use Square’s banking services, they can access those payments right away, rather than waiting more than a week for the payments to clear with the delivery platforms.
The company also announced several upgrades to its AI services aimed at helping with planning and business insights. Early testers have been particularly impressed by the ordering guide, which allows restaurants to compare ingredient prices across vendors using standardized units and to track prices over time. Square head of product Willem Avé tells Inc. that the goal is that with five minutes of work in the tool, a business could reduce their food costs by 10 percent.
Bitcoin and streamlined pricing
Square now allows businesses to accept bitcoin payments, convert a percentage of incoming revenue into bitcoin, and store bitcoin in crypto wallets within Square. For the first year, Square will not charge transaction fees for bitcoin payments. Dorsey, a longtime crypto advocate, suggested that the audience in New York, which included many business owners that use Square, should consider using bitcoin as a way to diversify their finances and hedge against inflation.
Square also introduced a three-tiered subscription plan (free; a $49 service that includes web and marketing services; or $149 a month for 24/7 support and additional software upgrades), doing away with a complex system of add-ons. Avé says the change was intended to make it easier for users to add new products (a restaurant can now sell merch or tickets to events without adding new features) and that the features announced on Wednesday are available to all users.
Square’s goal: be boring
Like offerings from Clover, Shopify, and Toast, Square’s devices proliferated as contactless and mobile payments caught on, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic. Today Square’s mobile card readers, terminals, and other devices are used by more than 4 million sellers, from major retailers to mom-and-pop shops and craft fair vendors.
Dorsey, who also co-founded Twitter and created the open-source social media platform Bluesky, said Square has always been giving time back to entrepreneurs, so they can focus on what they’re building.
He and co-founder Jim McKelvey chose the name Square because it was boring and faded into the background. “We didn’t want something that was in front of our customers. We wanted a name…that felt like it was something that a seller could put their whole business on,” Dorsey said. “I think it set the tone for the company.”
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Jennifer Conrad
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