Aubrey Amatelli on The Mompreneur Model with Dori DeCarlo

0:00 She is sure, she is true, She is straw. She is straw, She is true, is true, she is praise, pray, she is she is you. Hello, everyone, welcome to today's Word of Mom Radio. Here on the Word of Mom Media Network. I'm your host, Dori Di Carlo. And you know we are here week after week, show after show, breaking those myths that morepreneurs and businesswomen, especially those of us building our businesses from home. Now we're just dabbling in between bake sales and getting her nails done or not. We are smart, we are savvy, and we are sharing the wisdom of women in business and in life. And I am thrilled to be bringing today's guest into our business spotlight. Aubrey Amatelli is the founder and CEO of Payrio, the first payment provider exclusively focused on cannabis and alternative medicines. Aubrey's career started at JP Morgan in their Merchant service group. Over a decade, she rose to executive director Commercial Banker, specializing in technology and disruptive commerce in Silicon Valley. This extensive experience in fine tech has made her industry expertise incredibly valuable in the cannabis payment spaces. Adding to her impressive professional achievements.

1:23 Aubrey's also a single mother of three who has successfully led pay Rio to profitability in under a year. Her inspiring story serves as a testament to her resilience in leadership in an industry where female executive leadership and businesses overall have struggled to survive. And I love this story, so I am thrilled to be bringing you in. Aubrey, Welcome to Word of Mom Radio. Thank you Dori so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. I am thrilled to have you, and I would love for you to take us on your journey and how your experiences prepared you for founding Payrio in this cannamis payment space.

2:05 Yeah, woof. I was born and raised in the Silicon Valley, so I've been around technology and startups my entire life, and I always say it's been in my blood since I was born. I was working at a startup in San Francisco that was gobbled up by JP Morgan and that was the beginning of my love of payments and I spent over a decade there lived in breathed payments. It's for me the most exciting industry because you're learning something new every day. And after my time at JP Morgan, I was excited to get back into the startup world. So became the chief revenue officer at a fintech and left the big bank and went into the startup world that I've been dreaming about for a long time. And that's where I found that what I had learned at JP Morgan was so valuable outside of a big firm.

3:00 The education I got there, I always say, it's the Harvard of Education of payments, the largest payment processor in the world. So I got to take that knowledge and bring it to a startup and help that startup grow. And at that time, I was really itching to start my own company in an industry that I was excited about and proud of, and cannabis was that. Cannabis and alternative medicines. I always say, I think plant medicines can change the world. So it was time for me to just take the leap of faith, leave the startup, start my own and it's been an incredible journey since then. It really sounds it, and you know, let's face it, this is a first of all, a very unique space and one where so many businesses struggle to survive. So what kind of challenges did you face to not only get this going, but to be able to make it profitable and under a year.

3:58 Yeah, So the challenges cannabis industry are there's there's many. It's it's you know, I'm so grateful that there's legalization, whether it's medical or recreational growing across the country, but it is still a federally illegal product. And that is where the challenges come in when it comes to payments. When Visa and MasterCard in the payment world are our governing body, so and they go they side with whatever the federal government views products, so they see cannabis as federally illegal. What I had to do is find a unique payment solution that is not like the one you use at a grocery store or when you're shopping, you know, at the mall. It has to be it was a unique solution that's kind of outside of the box and bring that into cannabis so that we didn't break any of the rules from Visa and MasterCard. So that was really how we started and that took off, and I'm thankful for that.

4:56 I'm interested to know how it is different. So there's Actually we launched with a solution that was a wallet based solution, very similar to a Venmo, but it was connected to a physical terminal, so we utilized a Venmo type technology to process payments. That was in twenty twenty two. Since then, we've grown. We use products that run on the ATM rails, which are outside of these a MasterCard. We use token based products, so's there's many products now that we've brought to market, but it started with a wallet based technology way back when in twenty twenty two, which isn't that far long ago, but it feels like a decade. As a founder, it does.

5:42 So as a female executive in the fintech and at cannabis industries, have you had to employ strategies to overcome I'm going to go with the gender related obstacles because this is definitely not a woman driven industry. Yeah, it's believe it or not, that has not changed as much as we wish it it would. Coming from JP Morgan gave me a little bit of clouts starting into these conversations, but I would jump on zooms at the beginning, before pay Rio had a name in the market. You know, when you're starting from scratch. You're calling dispensaries and they've never heard of you before. As you begin to get you know, customers and referrals, then that is an easier conversation to have. But I do remember at the very beginning many calls jumping on a zoom. I require a zoom so that I could look at the owner and talk through the product and show demos, et cetera.

6:46 I wasn't taken seriously. There were many calls where I let like, I would start the call and they, you know, I would be talked to as if I didn't know anything, and then when I was finally able to speak, then all of a sudden, there was silence. Knows what she's talking about. She has the experience. So I would say there were a handful, if not a dozen calls where I would leave the call and just kind of be like, well, you know, it's just part of part of the world and part of the change that I want to make. And that's really one of the big reasons I started pay Rio, the startup that I worked at after JP Morgan, the entire c suite and board was male except for me. I was pushing to have an other female leadership other female on the board and it just wasn't a change they wanted to make, and so that really sparked the fire under me to start pay Rio so that it could be female led. All of our executives at pay Rio or female and we have over eighty percent women who work at the company right now.

7:45 It's so interesting to me and here our ward of Mom Radio, we have been doing things for years trying to raise awareness. Our first though, we had Shira adleron who wrote the ABCS of CBD, which is kind of like the Bible in all of these different places. And we've done shows with Impact Naturals on CBD with talking about microdosing and what that's doing for people with depression and anxieties and things like this. And it's so sad because, as you said earlier and I believe it too, plant based wellness is what is going to save us, because if Parsley cured cancer, instead of telling you to grow Parsley, they'd be shoving it in a pill. You know, natural is always best, and you know, I've never understood the attitude, you know, because of all of the medicinal benefits to CBD and THHC, whether it's cannabis, all the alternative medicines that it introduces you to. There are such a push against it, and then you have this, you know, date by State is kind of rolling over because, Okay, let's face it. Personally, as a mom, I have adult kids, as I'd much rather see somebody smoke a joint than drink a beer, because I joke all the time. You get five guys drunk, they're going to start a fight.

9:16 You get five guys stoned, they're going to start a band exactly. It's just a different frame of mind that it brings. So in this industry, how does it work? Like, how does it work? I'm a brand new I'm a dispensary. How do I now implement your product? Aubrey, I'm kind of interested. Yeah, great question. So a lot of the dispensaries, and when we talked about this prior to starting the show, are cash only, you know, because they have a hard time not only accepting payments, but finding a bank account to support their business. Imagine bringing a medicine to the market and be passionate about it and wanting to share it with your community, opening up a shop, and not even be able to have a bank support your business.

10:01 It's just wild in my mind. But once they you know, we get a hold of them and we talk them through it. We are able to show them demonstrations of our product, which is a physical terminal where they put it you've probably seen them before, put them on the you know, the desktop, and you enter your card and your PIN number. A lot of what we do is debit pin debit, but it's very easy, like we make it very easy. You just plug it in, connect it to Wi Fi, and you're ready to go. Every time a new customer comes on board, it's such a feel good feeling for myself and my employees because we know that we are providing better access to the medicine from for the community around that dispensary. A lot of times they might not have cash on hand or it's hard to get it, and then maybe they say, oh, I'll just skip the dispensary today. But now they can go in with their debit card and even a credit card and be able to pay for their medicine.

10:58 That is so awesome. And on that note, we're going to take a quick break. We're going to say thank you to our sponsors, and we'll be back here in just a moment on Word of Mom Radio. She is brave, she is bold, She is you, and we want to tell your story. Are you ready to share your journey with us on Word of Mom Radio? Go to wordomomradio dot com and register as a guest. We want to tell your story because when you win, we all win. In twenty seventeen, Unsilenced Voices was formed to help survivors of domestic abuse and gender based violence worldwide. The organization currently serves sierri Leone, Rwanda, Ghana, and the USA. In twenty twenty two, Unsilenced Voices gifted over thirty three thousand dollars to survivors in the USA and in sier Leone, there are over twenty six young girls who have been rescued from sex trafficking and domestic abuse and now going through vocational training school in order to better their lives.

12:06 We need your help. Donations are critical in order for us to continue our work. We also need volunteers to help with research and development. Please visit Unsilenced Voices dot org for more information. And we're back here on Word of Mom Radio. We are talking with Aubrey Almatelli, who is the founder and CEO of Paleo, the first payment provider exclusively focused on cannabis and alternative medicines. So I have to ask you, what do you think the push back is with alternative medicines.

12:47 Is the pharmaceutical industry so deep in that they just don't see that there's room for both. I think that, yes, I was going to say pharmaceuticals. Unfortunately, you know, pharmaceuticals incredibly large industry. And when you start to bring you know, cannabis into your life, then you have you know, for example, with cancer, you have an appetite, right Psilocybin is a wonderful medicine that helps, as you mentioned, with anxiety or you know, depression, CBD creams natural way to help with you know, muscle pain, et cetera. SoSE there's so many beautiful ways that these plant missines help.

13:30 But if you use the plant medicines, it means you're using less of the pharmaceuticals. I think there is a correlation there, quite a big one, and so that's where the struggle comes in. I was just working with a licensed psilocybin treatment center in Oregon. They have a license from the state, but they cannot open their business because they cannot find a bank account to support the sale of the psilocybin, which is the medicine. So it's it's a one of those situations that I want to find the solution for and we always are helping and looking, but it just it's really backwards. There's a medical center that's helping people with anxiety and depression, yet they can't find a bank account. So I'm just you know, what we do every day is pushing that part of the world, that part of those medicines forward, and it's it is one baby step at a time, but we are moving forward, which is great.

14:27 That is so crazy to me that they cannot find a bank. You know, do what my grandfather did. Stick it in the mattress to. Have a safe, and we're going to put all the cash in the safe, or we're going to put all the checks we get in the safe and it's just going to sit there until one day we can find a bank account and cash everything, or we're going to pay our taxes with the cash. So it's there's unique ways around it, but at the end of the days, it is a struggle. It is the craziest thing to me, and I have to say, if you're looking for a good CBD cream, Corsica Sense, s CE and TS. They have in their sports tab their CBD cream. Their stick is the best one I have ever used. I have neck and spine injuries. Say, I'm a huge proponent of alternative medicines. And what makes their CBD cream so unique is that it has menthol and eucalyptus, so it actually gets into your muscle. It has a lovely light scent, and that stick, that whole thing.

15:38 I get it once a year and I use it two or three times a day sometimes. It is a really great product. And there are there fabulous products out there. And again it's that moral majority that doesn't see that. You know, they think it is so much better to take a narcotic then a plant based alternative. So my brain, you know, always reels on this. And now I'm going to flip it back to the balancing A single mom of three and we were talking before the show. Your kids are the age that my kids were when I became a single mom six four and two. Wow are you?

16:26 Because you know we talk about the balance. There's no such thing as balance since juggling. How are you keeping all the balls? In the air as a CEO of a really rapidly growing company and these little. Ones, I should be in the circus with all the balls in the air. You know. It's it's all about community. When I first divorced, I have a fabulous o pair come and live with me from Colombia. So she's been with our family for actually four years. Two years and then COVID and then she came back after that wrapped up a little bit. But I, you know, my au pair has been there for me for the kids after school so I can work a full day. My mother is super close to me. She helps out a lot, so I've become also a carpool queen.

17:19 I you know, have many car pools for all the different sports so that it can cut down on all of the you know, the effort going back and forth. But it's all about community and you know, being okay asking for help, which took me a while. It took me a couple of years to ask for help, and then I realized that everyone people do want to help and they want to support, and you know, that's kind of that's how I make it through. It takes a village, and it's really true. I was working when my kids were with their dad and stuff like that. And I've been a mom for nour since nineteen ninety four, long before anybody knew. When I started calling myself that, people laughed at me. I kicked myself that I didn't TRADEMARKT Yeah, And seriously, I've been always calling myself that. And you know, as your kids grow, it's funny they become part of everything. I remember one time I was writing a proposal and my screen just went blank and I cry. I was just like no, and my son, my oldest, was nine, and he comes in.

18:30 He goes, Mommy, what happened? So don't know. I was working on my computer and everything disappeared. He goes, well, if you'd like to get up, please, maybe I can help you. I said, okay, I got up. Click click here you go, Mom, it's right here. I saved it for you. Here, I saved it for you. There. They grew up with this, you know, it's it's so funny because it's really in their blood. I remember one time I was doing a graph. I was ready to throw my computer at the window. My middle son comes up, if you excuse me, Mom will help you. I was like, thank you sat down and you want to pie, you want to you want to line chart, you want to this, you want It was so funny and you'll see as they get older they get excited when new things happen and they feel like they're part of what's going on.

19:20 But it is a circus act at this point for you. They are a big like Rio is my daughter. She's my youngest, so her name is Rio. And then my two boys, Nico and Gino, wanted to be part of it. So we recently launched a lower risk, non alternative medicine arm of our business called NRG Payments Nico Rio Gino Payments. So now they're all part of it, and they've been through, you know, the ups and the downs with me, and I'm very open if it's a down, I mean, you know it's yes, we're growing rapidly, but there's been a lot of tough lessons that I've learned along the way, and they know all about them and they're super supportive.

20:01 But we also celebrate together as well. So yeah, it's it's great. It's a family business. It's a wonderful thing. And you know what, it's funny the things that are tougher are such great lessons for them. It really is. It's a wonderful lesson for them to see that no matter what the challenge is, mom has found a way to meet it and surpass it, work around it. It's it just shows them that where there's a will, there's a way. So it's a wonderful example that you're leading. And it's so funny you have the same thing as me. Two boys and a girl. It's when you said your middle boy, I was like, I wonder if a third it's a girl like he was.

20:43 She is and it's amazing. She's I want a girl and be just like her. I really do. She's so awesome. So I have to ask you, giving your expertise in that technology and really disruptive commerce, you see the intersections of fintech and the cannabis industry evolving in these coming years. Great question. It's and it's going to sound backwards, but right now we are below the norm. So the evolution is going to get this industry to where all other small businesses, small medium and large businesses can operate today and that take you know, they take for granted. They can walk in and get a bank account, they can set up a merchant service's account, they can connect payments to their website. All of those pieces of the payment ecosystem are not are very hard to be you know, they're not attainable to cannabis except for with you know, companies and guidance like pay rio. It's not you can't google and find a solution right there. So the evolution is just going to get these industries an equal playing field. Wow, which is right.

21:57 That's crazy. So as a wrap up, awfully, what do you want to say to that woman out there who's listening, who's trying to start a business, what do you want to tell her? I want to tell her that's that's a good one to find something that you're passionate about. You know, I come into work every day I say, it's my favorite job. It's the best job I've ever had. It's the hardest job I've ever had, but I love love coming in and working and pushing my mission forward. So if you're going to start a business, make sure it's in an industry or an area that you're passionate about, because your passion shines through when you're talking to your customers, when you're leading your employees, and then the next would be stay true to your mission. As you grow a business, there will be a lot of nice little carrots, you know, dangled saying, oh, if you go this path, you might you know, make x amount of money quicker or this way and you know x y's you could happen. But staying true to your mission and making sure to follow your gut, we'll keep you out of trouble. But trouble, as you mentioned Dori, is good because you learn a lot from that as well.

23:10 It really is how can everybody reach out to you? Oh so Pyrio dot com you can actually click meet the team and schedule meeting directly with me on my calendar. We're very active on Instagram. I actually run the Instagram. I wanted to be very approachable to our customers. So that's pay Rio, Underscore HQ, and then you can also find me and my company on LinkedIn. All of Aubrey's links are going to be live on Word of Mom Radio, and I'm going to say to the people that are going to dispensaries and things, ask if they take pay Rio, and if they don't, let them know there's an alternative out there that there's actually a company designed specifically for their needs. I think it is such an ambitious thing that you have done, Aubrey. Really, you know, hats off to you because you know, just the world of payment providers is so insulated and that oh boy network of just crunching it all. So for you to get out there and create something like this that is actually working and profitable and far enough that you've now opened up a second subsidiary, it's remarkable. I'm so impressed.

24:36 Good for you, Thank you so much, Thank you for your support. I mean, that's what we all have to do, is, you know, women and moms and moentrepreneurs, is support each other like build you know, build each other up, because that's how we'll all succeed together. Word of Mom Radio. We say it all the time. When you win, we all win. Every successful woman out there there paves the way for another woman to follow. And the example that you're leading for your kids, especially your son, to see their mom as a successful business owner who still has time to be mom, to drop them off at daycare and summer camps and things like that.

25:22 All of the things that we do to show up as parents and as those role models. But really, this is quite an undertaking and I'm so impressed with what you've been able to do. I really am Audrey, so really congratulations. I love it. And please, as you are expanding, as you add more and more, please come back to catch us up on where pay Rio is going, what you are doing next, what doors you're knocking down, because again, you know, when you win, we all win. We get to feel like, see, it isn't impossible, we can break through those into those industries that are so male.

26:13 Led, absolutely so good for you. I really thank you so much for taking the time to come and share your journey. Thank you my pleasure, Thank you right. Back at you, and for all of you tuning in, thanks so much for being here. We're going to close out with our fabulous theme song from Smith's Sisters and the Sunday Drivers. So till next time, this is Dori di Carlo saying, go out and create a marvelous you. Bye for now. She is sure, she is sure, she is strong, she is strong, she is true, she is true, she is brave, she is you. She is she is she is sure, she is sure, she is strong, strong, she is true, is true, she is brave, she is bold, she she is you, is you, she is you. She is sure of herself. Yes, she takes care of its powerful and strong. Yes, she knows who she is has integered any woman strong and true, You know her by name. See this woman is you. She is sure, she is strong, is strong, she is true, is true, she is brave, she is bold, she is she is you, she is you, she is she is sure, she is strong, is strong, she is true, is true, she is brave, she is bold, she is

27:44 she is you. She is you, she is She adds value and hope, has proved to be brave. See it's never too late, never time to behave reaching for dreams doesn't matter. The age believes in herself, unleash from ocage. She is sure, she is sure, she is strong, is strong, she is true, is true, she is brave, is bray, she is bold, she is you, is you, she is she is sure, she is she is strong, she is strong, she is true, is true, she is brave, is brave, she is she is she is you.