Square Wants to Solve "Commerce" Problems, not "Payment" Problems

"Square's mission is to reinvent commerce on both sides of the counter," says Keith Rabois, Square COO. "We actually look at all of those pain points [small businesses face] and try to rank order them in terms of how much friction is there for that small business person, how much of a disadvantage do they have."


"We will try to find the solution for them over time," but "it won't all happen overnight," Rabois says. Square's big success so far has been built on one particular pain point, namely the cost and difficulty for a very-small business, or a home-based business, or a retailer selling goods in a non-traditional venue, of accepting credit and debit cards. 


But that point of view also means Square might not be looking at "mobile payments" in the sense of using a mobile phone as a replacement for a plastic card. That process, many would argue, simply is not broken, in North America.


One might argue that the next big opportunity is not low-cost merchant point of sale terminals but business management software and apps, the sorts of tools that allow merchants to figure out whether they should change operating hours, change pricing on products and adapt offers to changes in weather. 


You also might note that where some mobile wallet, payment or commerce apps and platforms try to provide value for customers, Square has, up to this point, tried to focus squarely on value for merchants. 


In addition to "what problem are you trying to solve," would-be firms in the mobile commerce space also must ask "whose problem am I trying to solve?"