The Motley Fool Interviews Sezzle Co-Founder & CEO Charlie Youakim

At the annual Motley Fool member event, Motley Fool co-founder and CEO Tom Gardner talked with Sezzle co-founder and CEO Charlie Youakim about entrepreneurship, competition, and the business of buy now, pay later.

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A full transcript is below.

This podcast was recorded on Nov.16, 2025.

Charlie Youakim: Well, I think we're early days still in this market. I think we have like seven to ten years of growth or strong growth in the BMPL space. I think it's going to be a rising tide for all the players.

Mac Greer: That was Charlie Youakim, co founder and CEO of Sezzle. I'm Motley Fool producer Mac Greer. Now, at our recent Motley Fool member event, Motley Fool co founder and CEO Tom Gardner talked with Youakim about entrepreneurship, competition, and the business of By now Pay Later.

Tom Gardner: We're going to talk about Sezzle a second, but I think I just want to start with your background. What caused you to become an entrepreneur? What made you think about starting the first company you started? How did it lead you to Sezzle?

Charlie Youakim: Well, I wasn't a lemonade stand kid. That's for sure. I was a video gamer. I love science technology, coding, building computers, basically a nerd. But no entrepreneurs in my, like, family or friend group, or anywhere nearby. I just always thought it was interesting. I think my first job out of school, like, I wasn't that pressured. It wasn't that high of a bar. I had time on my hand. I was tinkering, playing with stuff. I remember building, like, a dropbox like product before Dropbox I wish I would have known how to start a company back then. Then it just happened. I was talking to my cousin about starting a company, going to business school, and it was during the global financial crisis, and we just said, let's do it. Let's try it. I mean, I think we're both adventurers, and we just decided to do it and just jumped in and learned the hard way every which way in the first company. That's for sure.

Tom Gardner: How many companies have you started?

Charlie Youakim: Just two.

Tom Gardner: Just two. What is happening with the first company? What was the business, and what is it doing now?

Charlie Youakim: It's a company called Passport, and we did mobile payment apps. First of all, we had the wrong idea at the start, though. We started into parking hardware. Way too hard for us with low capital. We went into mobile payments for parking. Everyone thought we couldn't do it because at that time, there were two big leaders, park mobile, pay by phone that were deleting the way. People in the parking industry were like, you guys just give up. We just didn't just kept on innovating and adapting. We invented the wallet functionality. We invented White Label, and we just worked our way up, and that company is currently market in that space.

Tom Gardner: That is a private.

Charlie Youakim: It's a private.

Tom Gardner: Separate company. Got it.

Charlie Youakim: I moved on from that company in the end of 2015 and then wanted to stay in payments because I knew payments, but I wanted to go after something bigger. Retail payments. Again, wrong idea at the start. We were trying to do, like, a Venmo for checkout. To lower processing fees, and then we noticed Buy now Pay later, this paying for technology taking off in Australia, we pivoted to it, and it was just a rocket ship from that point forward.

Tom Gardner: I still think there's a lot of misunderstanding about buy now pay later. I mean, if you look out in the commons areas about Buy now Pay Later stocks in our case, out in our community, and elsewhere, there are skeptics that think people are buying things they can't afford, and this is a bad alternative. It should never have been brought to market. Maybe explain the difference between buy now pay later and typical traditional credit card usage and why you favor BNPL.

Charlie Youakim: I think customers are making these purchases anyway. On their credit cards if they didn't have BNPL. I think the difference being that with BNPL, the customer actually feels safer. It also computes to a lower cost product for the customer as well. I don't think they're sitting here with a calculator figuring it out, but I think they're figuring it out through usage. Here's the reason why I say that's the case. Well, I'll give an empirical example as well, but I think the customer when they use BNPL, the payments are planned. We got down payment today, one at two weeks, four weeks, and six weeks, which matches to these pay cycles for these young customers, mid to low income, like these bi weekly pay schedules, they view it as budgeting. I think they want to use BNPL because they don't want to get over their skis. Because what happens with BNPL, the moment there's a missed payment, i.e, you've overextended, you can't use this anymore. You've got to catch up before you can use this again. BNPL companies like Sezzle but I think all of us, we're all 100% aligned with financially allocating credit to these customers. If we overextend them, we also get into trouble because if they get too overextended, they're less inclined to want to catch up with us. Now, flip that to the credit card companies. I think they're inclined to get people over their skis, which is the very reason why these young customers are afraid of credit cards because if they overspend, they find themselves with end of a month balance they can't catch up on. They've got to make the minimum payment. They spend more, and they get in this never ending cycle. They can't catch up. The upcoming holiday period is the greatest example of that, I think. For us, our credit decision teams, it's like we're getting ready for war. We batten down the hatches, we pull back limits across the board. We shut off some new customer groups, especially to new products. We really play defense in the holidays to make sure people don't overextend themselves. I think that's when the revolver is created for the credit card company. I think they don't mind the overextension at that period, because now they got a revolver for five years. It's a better product.

There was a moment in time where I remember learning the term that credit cards use for their customers that pay their cards off at the end of the month is dead bee. That's when I realize it's pretty good to be a fool in this world, or another time I realize it's pretty good to be a fool in this upside down world. I'm pretty clear in my thinking on it, but I do encounter a lot of people that aren't sure about whether this is a beneficial solution that's being provided in the marketplace. But I see no advantage to using your credit card over BNPL. But I'm sure there is some. Obviously, some larger payment, you have to make points, etc. But I think the average balance on a buy now pay later maybe it Sezzle is around 85 bucks that is not paid into the credit card. It's like $6,000. Is that anywhere near close?

Charlie Youakim: It's near close. We're in the low hundreds. I think these are different credit tools for different products or usages and different stages of life. You can interchange the two, as well.

Tom Gardner: Got it. I want to talk a little bit about what will happen to Sezzle during a recessionary period because there are a lot of questions for Sezzle's shareholders, and, of course, we're all here as fools. In fact, raise your hand if you own shares of Sezzle. Great. We have probably about a third of the room that are Sezzle's shareholders. You're speaking to them, and then you're speaking to the two thirds that haven't yet been convinced, which is fine. The fear is that there will be a lot of defaults. Transactions will slow down, your earnings will get clobbered, and what will happen even just in a normal recession, like a two or three quarter recession. What do you think happens to Sezzle during that?

Charlie Youakim: Well, I think, first of all, our customer is more paycheck to paycheck than the average customer anyway, they're mid low income, younger. Our CFO, she's always been in this sort of, like, lending area, and she says, This customers already in a bit of a recession. They're in there, that situation already, just a level set. But I think here's where the big benefit we have at Sezzle versus other companies in the credit space. First of all, incredibly short durations. With an incredible amount of data points coming in really fast per customer. We can detect a customer reaching some sort of financial difficulty early, they get shut off. The moment they miss a payment, they get shut off, extension of further credit is stopped. Credit card is not the case. They can continue to purchase. We stop the extension of credit, we stop the runaway train to that customer. Then we can also, if we're starting to see, like, abnormalities in our system, which we see every day, we watch data every day. We see abnormalities, we can lower limits across the board. Again, a tool a lot of other companies cannot do, especially credit cards, credit cards have to give 45 day notice just to lower a limit to a customer. We can lower limits next hour if we're seeing things we don't like across the board. Then we can also shut off new customer groups or tighten across the board and new customer groups. What the downside might lead to, I think, is maybe lower volumes, maybe at the start. But if you look at a downturn in the economy, I think it actually could pull higher scoring credit groups, potentially or people that may not have used BNPL. Into trying out the BNPL. Maybe a spouse got laid off in that time period. Hey, maybe we should try this other credit product. It might help us in this time period. We might pull more users into the space, which could offset our tightening to the existing customer group and offset that. Then I said, the last thing that I think makes me, I'm a big shareholder. This makes me feel good about our system. We have really strong gross margins already, great safety factors. Right now our PLRs are about, 2%, kind of running 2% principal loss rates. But our top line revenue percentage is like 11%. Our gross margin is on volumes. Our gross margin on volumes, 6% or so. We can basically triple our loss rates and still come out with a profit. I mean, I don't think we'd be high five in at then it is. But we'd be profitable still. Great safety factors.

Tom Gardner: Got it. Can you talk about what your customers are using Sezzle for to purchase? For example, the natural inclination of a critic, and I understand, is they're buying unnecessary items, and this is just encouraging people to overspend. But what percentage of it is spent on what you would consider to be basic necessities, for example?

Charlie Youakim: Well, I think, it's growing, actually. What's happening? Is this growing? Where the business started was we were partnering with e-commerce merchants, getting our product displayed on their website, helping them make the sale. Those types of products initially were, like, beauty, cosmetics, fashion apparel, supplements, you name it across all the Internet companies. Like if you see Internet e-commerce companies, that's where Sezzle was and other BNPLs. But Sezzle is a little bit different than the rest of the competition. We started to go to what I call open loop products faster. What I mean by that is we went direct to consumer and said, Hey, you don't have to look, wait for us to find us at a website. You can sign up for Sezzle premium. You can sign up for Sezzle anywhere. We'll issue you a virtual card. Now you can go tap this card anywhere. Then what happened to Tom when we started issuing these cards, we became more general purpose. People are using it as a target. They're using it as a Walmart. They're using as Home Depot, Lowe's. Everywhere in their lives, probably where they're making something like 100 to $120 purchase. Like, Oh, I'll sezzle this one and split it up over my paycheck. That's where we're seeing more and more purchase behavior is toward that just general purpose purchase.

Tom Gardner: But two or three reasons that you think somebody would use Sezzle instead of Klarna.

Charlie Youakim: Well, I think one is we've got credit building. That's the tool in the tool belt that we really believe in. We've got young customers, mid to low income, and actually a good number that are new to credit completely. When we launched our BNPL products, all of our competitors were doing nothing with credit reporting. We decided, Let's do that. The reason wasn't just because our competitors were not doing it. The reason we decided to do it was these are young customers. They don't have good credit scores or they have no credit score. Let's help them build their credit scores up, by the way, so the audience understands, young people generally have low credit scores. Your credit score grows with age, typically, if you look at the profiles. You actually want to start building your credit reporting at a younger age because it helps you get your credit score up over time, which gives you access to renting an apartment, buying a house, buying a car. When we were talking about it within our management team, we were thinking about this, and I was thinking even about my own family. I have a little kid right now, but he's not. But if he was 18-years-old, I would have not told him to use Sezzle when he was 18 I would have been like, You got to build your credit score. I was like, If I couldn't recommend the very product I'm helping build to my son, what the hell am I building? We just viewed it as, like, This is just the right thing to do. That's one big difference between us and a Klarna. I said, the other big one is the open loop products. I think we just have this fantastic suite of open loop products that reach direct to consumers. Consumers don't have to wait to find us on a merchant website. When they like the way Sezzle operates and the way the system works, they can just get the card and tap away. The reason I think that's really important is think about the evolution or think about a credit card in your wallet. Would you rather have 15 private label credit cards or would you rather just use your general purpose credit card? I think that's what the BNPL customers finding. I'd rather just have a general purpose credit card that I can use everywhere. In this case, BNPL?

Tom Gardner: I've heard you speak positively about the competition. We've had two conversations in an interview, and then we had an opportunity to have lunch, both of which I so much enjoyed. When I hear that from a CEO, obviously, one scenario that CEOs delusional. We don't want any competition. We want to crush everyone, eliminate everyone. The other scenario is the market is still so misunderstood and so early on that actually there's a benefit to just people getting in the game with one of the solutions because it's going to open their eyes to other possibilities. I'm presuming that's more of how you see the market developing or where it is now. Of course, I do like CEOs that admire their competition and learn from them. Maybe talk a little bit about how you think about competition for this stage of the market.

Charlie Youakim: Well, I think we're early days still in this market. I think we have like seven to ten years of growth or strong growth in the BMPL space. I think it's going to be a rising tide for all the players. Our view is get our elbows out and gain more of the share of it. I win the game as we do that. I really view business as like a sport. I view it as like we're going out to play tennis. Tennis would really suck if you're sitting up against a board all day. I mean, maybe not. In terms of, like, we're going to win all day. But you're going to have the monopoly. But it's way more fun. You wake up in the morning. What's the competition doing? What can we do to outcompete them? I think that helps at least drive me, like, getting up in the morning, what to do, what to do. I really do believe Tom that we have good competition. My last industry passport, this parking space, I think it was a great industry for me to start in as an entrepreneur. But I almost call nowadays, like, the minor leagues of business, it doesn't drive as much talent. But you in the retail payments or the payments industry we're in. Wow. It's the major leagues. Actually, I'm thankful that I had passport behind my belt before I came into Sezzle because it better prepared me for this level of competition. I mean, we've got Klarna. We've got a firm. We've got PayPal. We've got Afterpay, which is a part of the block now. We've got ZIP. I mean, these are all really good teams. We're always excited to see what they've got, and our goal is still just keep on keep on gaining market share ahead of them.

Tom Gardner: Well, you're definitely an innovator and a visionary. I'm sure you're operating the business very well, as well, but I know you have a lot of ideas. How far out is your vision, do you think? I mean, obviously, maybe there are flashes of it, but, a tangible vision for Sezzle goes how far for you, and what does it look like?

Charlie Youakim: I usually like to think five years ahead, like where we're going to be with our products and services. I think five years from now, we're gonna be hitting the same customer group. Younger, mid to low income, which, by the way, is the heart of America. It's like this is a huge percentage of America. The way I see it is I want that group of consumers to see us as a must have application on their phone. A must have for financial services and a must have for shopping services. If they find out what their friend does and have the app on their phone, why don't you have Sezzle? You got to download it.

Tom Gardner: Charlie Youakim, the founder and CEO of Sezzle and I will say before we give him applause, Charlie took a red eye flight last night and did not sleep at all, and he performs at this level on zero Sleep. Charlie, thank you so much for the half hour.

Mac Greer: As always, people in the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements for sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. For the Motley Fool Money team, I'm Mac Greer. Thanks for listening, and we will see you tomorrow.

Mac Greer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Tom Gardner has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Sezzle. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.