Employee Extensions

Extending to your customer’s employees is both logical and also a sneaky-big (dare I say, sneaky-enormous) opportunity for a vertical SaaS vendor (VSV). Similar to supplier extensions, you can mandate employees engage with your workflow—the merchant is paying the employee, after all. Similar to extending to consumers, the potential monetization opportunity is enormous, since small businesses employ nearly half of the US employee population. It combines the best of both worlds.

Employee extension is typically done for hourly front-line/deskless workers like restaurant servers or field technicians. These individuals are almost always underserved by existing software, and there is a huge opportunity to build products just for this cohort. To sell to these individuals has a dual purpose: 

For the merchant, labor is oftentimes the largest expense. Finding and retaining labor is also one of the biggest challenges SMBs face. Improving this aspect of their business can be key to building strong margins. Additionally, the employee is the face of the merchant, and the primary driver of the consumer experience. Ensuring employees are well-equipped, well-trained, and fairly paid to do their jobs can make all the difference.