Founder Friday is a content series from SuperAngel.Fund & SuperAngelSyndicate.com that highlights companies across our portfolio and the inspiring founders behind them.
SuperAngel is led by Ben Zises and invests in early stage Consumer, PropTech & Future of Work companies. So far, we have invested $20m into 100+ companies alongside more than 500+ LPs. Click here to join the syndicate and access some of our deal flow.
In our 50th edition we are featuring Shehryar Hussain, Co-Founder & CEO of AccelPay, an eCommerce software platform that is building the "Shopify for alcohol,” by enabling brands to sell online direct-to-consumer (DTC) in compliance with federal and state laws.
Shehryar is far from a beginner when it comes to building or working with startups. While attending the University of Connecticut where he earned a degree in Economics, Shehryar started a marketplace specifically for college students to buy and sell products directly from each other at their university. After graduation, he taught himself how to code and landed a coveted role as an iPhone app developer at a VC-backed tech company before spending six years as a Senior Software Engineer. Suffice to say, Shehyrar put in his time working for “the man”!
In mid 2021, Shehryar decided it was time to build for himself again and joined the OnDeck Founder Fellowship program. And after tinkering with a handful of ideas, one of Shehryar’s friends told him about the struggles he was facing while launching a new Tequila brand. Unlike most CPG companies that expanded into the eCommerce channel over the past 20 years, selling alcohol on the internet has been a far more complicated task with slower market adoption. Since Prohibition ended in 1933, alcohol brands have been forced to adhere to the "three-tier system” whereby producers (brands) can only sell to wholesale distributors, who can only sell to retailers, who are then allowed to sell to consumers.
This structure has resulted in rigid compliance requirements, all but eliminating most alcohol brands from selling online (except via third party marketplaces) given the impact on payments, shipping, marketing, data privacy and putting significant downward pressure on margins. Even worse, it limits a brand from owning their own first-party data and maintaining a direct relationship with their customers - crucial for any marketer.
AccelPay set out to solve these problems - not just for Shehryar’s friend - but for the industry as a whole. Along with his co-founders, Josh Waller, Jim Saunders and Wesley Yee, three of whom have engineering backgrounds, the team built a platform that provides the underlying technology allowing brands to sell to consumers on their own websites (DTC), while staying compliant with the “three-tier system” and other regulations.
With the online alcohol sales market expected to grow dramatically over the coming years, forecasted to increase from $35B in 2023 to $50B+ by 2029, the timing could not be better. Through their suite of eCommerce and payment solutions, AccelPay not only boosts an alcohol brand's operational efficiency but also give them ownership of all their customer data while enabling an entirely new sales channel.
How It Works: As a customer reaches checkout, AccelPay identifies where the customer is located, sends a simple API request, and intelligently matches the customer to an entity legally entitled to fulfill the customer’s order. The team built its own proprietary network of licensed retailers enabled with real-time inventory and passes all the data back to the producer - all while making it as seamless as any other eCommerce experience. Click here to give it a try!
Given the innovation, it’s no wonder customers are taking notice. Last year, AccelPay processed more than $10,000,000 of Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) and earns a portion of that in the form of transaction and recurring revenue platform fees. The business is on a tear, with sales up over 80% YoY and tracking towards $25,000,000+ of GMV in 2024.
The company has grown from 100 customers in June 2023 to more than 300+ paying customers today, including some of the world's largest brands owned by ABInBev, Pernod Ricard, Moet Hennessy, Promixo, Tilray and Stoli.
AccelPay’s mission: To modernize the alcohol industry by making it simple to sell, market and distribute alcohol products, and potentially other regulated items in the future (think Cannabis or Tobacco).
Explore the AccelPay website here and check out our Q&A with Shehryar below! 👇
Describe your company in 5 words or less?
Shehryar: E-Commerce infrastructure for Alcohol brands
What was your primary motivation for starting your business?
Shehryar: The alcohol industry has lagged behind dramatically when it comes to E-Commerce, brands in this category haven't had a good way to engage their current customers and find new ones online. Finding ways for software to help enable these businesses to own their digital channels is an exciting and complex problem to solve.
What piece of advice would you give an entrepreneur starting a business today?
Shehryar: Find a real problem, let that guide you to the right solution, don't fall into the trap of having a solution and then finding a problem for it to solve. If you solve a real pain point then you have the beginnings of something.
What do you love to do in your free time?
Shehryar: Walking the dog, eating around the neighborhood, and if I can actually - writing some code!
What is the most interesting place you’ve visited recently and why?
Shehryar: Singapore! They take their food very seriously.
What is your favorite app or tool in your work life and in your personal life?
Shehryar: It used to be Alfred for just the clipboard history/launcher but now that I'm constantly in my inbox it's become Superhuman. I was skeptical about Superhuman at first but the small time savings with all the shortcuts has really been amazing, and I haven't even really dug into using snippets yet.
What do you believe is the most important skill or attribute of a successful founder?
Shehryar: Resilience.
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