(This is a lightly edited speech delivered by Paymaster Jamaica founder and Chief Executive Officer, Ambassador Audrey Marks, while addressing the Leaders-to-Leaders series at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in St Andrew recently.)

MY mandate is to address the topic, “Facing giants: turning adversity into opportunity.” I have started and operated six businesses but today my focus will be the Paymaster story, which I think best exemplifies the theme. I will speak on:

(1) First success — getting started,

(2) The three giants in business (capital, managing growth, disruptive technologies)

(3) Continued success — built to last

First success — getting started

As you all are already aware, the entrepreneurial spirit in Jamaica is very strong. Just look around you — from the city to the most rural hamlet; from the peanut vendor to the ultra-sophisticated enterprise … it is the dream of many Jamaicans to be self-sufficient; to start a business and to grow it into something meaningful. In starting Paymaster, I was no different from most. I too believed … and still believe … that if I had a good idea and was willing to work hard to transform that idea into a business, I could generate wealth for my family, and create job opportunities for others, and of course contribute to Jamaica’s economy.

The idea to start the island’s first one-stop multi-payment agency had its genesis during one of the most economically challenging periods for Jamaica. It was 1994 and the country was in the first stage of an unprecedented financial meltdown. Credit for the purpose of funding start-ups and fuelling business development was virtually non-existent … but I had a dream that couldn’t wait and so I started the business plan for Paymaster.

I, like many others, had wasted numerous lunch hours in impossibly long lines simply waiting to pay a bill … and it occurred to me that not only was this activity inconvenient and wasteful, it was also incompatible with modern living. At that time we estimated that Jamaica was losing some half-a-billion dollars each month in terms of the manpower and time lost in paying bills. There just had to be a better way.

I needed to find a solution; to create a system to make bill payment easier and more convenient for those who had to perform this necessary task. If I could devise the right formula, this would save time and money for the utility and other companies as well as their customers.

Entrepreneurship at its very core is about problem-solving and at that time there was a huge problem that everybody complained about but nobody seemed to know how to tackle.

And so 20 years ago, in 1995, armed with a business plan …we set out to test the idea by developing one of the world’s first multi-payment systems that allowed multiple customers to transmit money to specific multiple companies from one convenient location in their communities. Despite the initial scepticism of many, we signed our first utility company in 1997.

To move from idea to plan to implementation is your first success. Always remember that feeling… It means you have acquired a success formula that you can replicate even when if your first venture doesn’t last (unfortunately only approximately 15 per cent start-ups survive). Lesson number one is: where others see problems, look for opportunities. You also have to believe in your dreams … even when the people and circumstances around you try desperately to convince you otherwise.

Giant #1 — finding capital

By 1996 we were up and running with our first location and first demo programme, but the business was really starved for adequate funding. This was a time when some financial and other institutions were going out of business; virtually all sources of funding had dried up and what little funds were available were very expensive to come by. We had to find a way to develop the business.

So we took our business plan to GraceKennedy Ltd, one of the largest conglomerates in Jamaica, which had recently become agent for Western Union company to do remittance payout in Jamaica. From all our due diligence, remittance collection and bill payments were complementary services, so GraceKennedy was seen as a natural investor. Disappointingly, after perusal of the plan and discussions, they concluded that the business model was not sustainable because the major companies would never outsource their collection to a third-party entity.

However, one year later between 1997-1998, there was a significant shift in our fortunes and we signed JPSCo, C&W and the NWC, the three largest utility companies in Jamaica. As such, we updated our business plan with this actual proof of concept information and again presented the same to GraceKennedy.

Less than a year later, in 1999, we discovered that while we were still in discussions, GraceKennedy was using the same business plan and had acquired from our programmer a working copy of our multi-payment software that we had spent the last nearly five years developing. They had started signing up companies to commence bill-payment collections in the exact same manner as Paymaster. We were faced with the realisation that not only were they now our competitors, they were starting from the very same place that it had taken us close to five years to reach.

It was especially terrifying, as if being our competitor was not bad enough, in addition they were starting from a position of great advantage because they had intimate knowledge of and had replicated our business model. They also had the capital to back a fast-growth plan.

Lesson number two is therefore to be careful whom you trust with your ideas and business plans. Acting with impunity can and sometimes will come from the most unlikely, and seemingly impregnable, sources. The key, however, is to be courageous; to stand your ground and focus on your vision. Only you have your vision.

There were, however, meaningful opportunities that came from this great adversity: we had to finding creative ways to survive and grow. Focusing on an agent network rather than owned stores meant that I had to travel the length and breadth of Jamaica, meeting and building relationships with key people in over 200 communities, this was and remains a most valuable personal experience and business asset.

A personal benefit was that I was pushed to grow out of my comfort zone. Specifically, I had to get over my fear of public speaking. I joined many business and civic associations, I got involved in public service because I knew then that I had a responsibility to actively participate in the changes I want to see to create a more equitable society… this new passion contributed in many ways to becoming President of the American Chamber of Commerce and Jamaica’s Ambassador to the United States.

Most importantly, however, is that this personal and business adversity also eventually will have a huge positive impact on our society and a stronger foundation for entrepreneurship. For most Jamaicans the only capital they have in starting a business is their intellectual capital. After 15 years, my quest for this right was finally rewarded with the recent unanimous ruling of the highest court in our country that the law of confidence is alive and well. Therefore, business plans given in circumstances of confidence should never again to be used against the interest of the owner of the same without significant penalty. Your intellectual capital is a real asset, just as a house or car, which you should be able to use as collateral for your business.

Giant #2 — managing growth

According to statistics, some 85 per cent of start-ups fail. Jamaica and the world are littered with the flotsam and jetsam of many companies — some smaller and others larger than Paymaster — that have not survived the vicissitudes of the business world. We certainly did not want to be numbered among them. Our goal was to build a company to last by providing the best service to the over 1.5 million individuals who would use it for bill payments, school fees, medical bills, remittances, the purchase of phone cards; for paying visa fees and even toll charges today.

By 2007/2008, we decided on a rapid- growth strategy to take over the in-store collection of some of our clients, such as the JPSCO and C&WJ. This was a new concept. We experienced a 100 per cent increase in business over and above what we had projected. We had to simultaneously move our head office and add new back office systems to manage the growth. Unfortunately, our ‘back end’ was not strong enough to withstand the changes at such a rapid pace and this resulted in us losing over $200 million in sales.

This was another blow to our operations — the magnitude from which few companies not part of a conglomerate can survive. (Millions more were also lost by two of our major competitors in similar circumstances but they are part of a group of companies…. which provides a buffer). This provided a valuable lesson in managing growth. A robust system with multiple levels of redundancy is a key in business, especially for companies involved in processing transactions and managing the movement of money.

Due to this setback we shelved other growth projects for a while and gradually started to recover by organic growth. But once again, five years later in 2013, as the company began to settle and grow, the rug was again pulled from under our feet. The Postal Corporation of Jamaica contract which accounted for a quarter of our network locations, was cancelled without stating a cause… in one day, over 85,000 customers were handed to a competitor: GraceKennedy’s bill payment company. This was a huge blow. There was no tendering process; no indication that such a drastic change would have been made in such a short period of time. We have been advised that the Office of the Contractor General is investigating this matter.

But this was not a moment to bemoan our misfortune. Once again, we seized the opportunity to evaluate and to learn from the experience. I was also personally at a different point in life. In 1999 my team had nicknamed me Zena, the warrior princess, and my only focus was on fighting back. Fourteen years later, my interest was much more on what is the lesson in this adversity? I knew without doubt that because of who I am and that this too would work for my good, to provide a benefit that is abundantly and exceedingly more that I could ask or expect.

Therefore, the lesson on the business level and the opportunity I want to share with you is to ensure that as you are growing your business, minimise your reliance on any one contract for more than maximum 10 per cent of your business. You can start in that manner but you must grow your way out of that reliance. Your business will not be sustainable when the cancellation of any one contract can put you out of business. We are now in a global marketplace, the opportunities to shift your scale of business are almost limitless. We were fortunate to survive that time, but as we celebrate 20 years since establishing the first branch on this improbable idea, we are very determined to establish a culture which will not have the company at 90 years with a reliance of over 50 per cent of its profits on one contact.

Giant # 3 — disruptive innovations

In business, technological innovations can be your friend or mortal enemy.

At Paymaster we are mindful of the ever-changing landscape; of the increasing demands of consumers for improved service quality as their expectations rise and their tolerance for the mediocre lessens and as the competition increases and their growing ability to choose makes brand loyalty even more difficult. We are also aware of the rapidly changing technologies and the constant need to change through innovation and product extensions to stay ahead and remain relevant.

A couple of years ago the ‘experts’ were predicting the demise of Paymaster with the advent of mobile money. But we have embraced this technology by becoming a service partner for companies licensed to offer mobile wallet by providing the agent network for registration of accounts, cash in and out and bill payment aggregation.

Today, Paymaster still facilitates bill payments for twice the number of companies as its nearest competitor. We are again expanding with exciting innovations including the relaunch of the fastest growing loyalty programme in Jamaica and the revamping and relaunching of our e-commerce services.

We definitely have a lesson to share about embracing innovation and disruptive technologies. As such, Paymaster is now in a renaissance phase with a focus not only on growth but also on reshaping and repositioning the organisation to continue to meet the changing needs of our customers and client organisations. My role now is to engender a culture of understanding that we are indeed our brother’s keeper and every aspect of our business ethos must reflect that belief.

Continued success

There are many lessons in these experiences for you and me concerning how we develop and implement our business ideas, and pursue opportunities. James Collins, in the best seller, Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, states that “visionary companies pursue a cluster of objectives, of which making money is only one — and not necessarily the primary one.”

Knowing what I now know 20 years later … would I take the risk of nurturing and developing an idea and guiding it into a business venture like I did with Paymaster? While there are obviously some strategies that I would change, the answer is a resounding yes! As American business mogul Warren Buffet says: “In the business world the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”

The entrepreneur is not someone who is committed to thinking inside or outside of the box. For us … the box simply does not exist. Some may view the ideas we have and the effort we make to realise those ideas as unrealistic … but as my daughter’s favourite actor, Will Smith, once said, “Being realistic is the most commonly travelled road to mediocrity.”

If we never try, we will never win. The Paymaster story is one of trials and triumphs…. But I also believe it’s one of understanding that adversities and opportunities are the two sides of the same coin… It’s up to us to keep our focus on the right side.