Zavo

What do they actually do

Zavo provides a payments platform with card terminals (Zavo Pro and Zavo Mini) and Tap‑to‑Pay, plus a web dashboard for sales, payouts, and basic reporting. It emphasizes instant/next‑day payouts and flat, transparent pricing, and merchants report using the terminals in real cafés and shops with fast payouts and low fees (pricing, home, Trustpilot).

The company is rolling out an AI‑backed POS and “agent” features to assist with reporting, inventory monitoring, staffing suggestions, and loyalty, but some POS functionality is still labeled “coming soon” on the site. Zavo and YC say over 400 businesses use the platform today, indicating the payments stack is live while deeper POS/AI features are being introduced (YC page, POS page, home).

Who are their target customer(s)

• Independent single‑location café owner: Margins are squeezed by slow payouts and high processing costs, and juggling separate tools for payments, inventory, and reports is time‑consuming. Zavo targets this with fast/next‑day payouts, simple pricing, and easy terminals (pricing, Trustpilot).
• Quick‑service restaurants and food trucks: They need rugged, always‑on cellular payments across sites and an order/kitchen system that keeps transactions and orders in sync. Zavo offers cellular terminals today, while full POS/order routing is still rolling out (home, POS page).
• Small multi‑location operators: Operating several stores without centralized menus, permissions, and unified reporting wastes time and creates inconsistency. Zavo’s dashboard addresses cross‑site basics now, with deeper POS/agent automation still being built (home, YC page).
• Full‑service restaurants and bars: They rely on table management, kitchen routing, accurate forecasting, and staff scheduling; disconnected payments, payroll, and inventory create errors and extra work. Zavo’s planned AI manager and POS aim to tie these workflows to payments, but those features are early/rolling out (YC page, POS page).
• Pop‑up/event vendors and market stalls: They need plug‑and‑play terminals, reliable cellular payments at changing locations, and quick access to funds to cover immediate costs. Zavo’s Tap‑to‑Pay and cellular terminals plus fast payouts address this today (Tap‑to‑Pay, Trustpilot).

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Founder‑led installs and local hand‑selling to nearby cafés, trucks, and pop‑ups with short free trials to prove fast/next‑day payouts and low fees; leverage YC intros and early Trustpilot users as references (pricing, YC page, Trustpilot).
• First 50: Host in‑market demo days (farmer’s markets, food‑truck hubs, café associations) and add referral credits. Push quick Tap‑to‑Pay signups and promo payouts to attract mobile and single‑location operators (Tap‑to‑Pay, Trustpilot).
• First 100: Offer a simple self‑serve online flow for ordering terminals/onboarding, run targeted search/social ads focused on instant payouts and transparent fees, and sign small reseller/ISO partners in hospitality to reach multi‑location buyers (pricing, shop).

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

The reachable U.S. restaurant/foodservice base is roughly 0.8–1.0 million locations, atop a very large payments pool (≈$12T annual card purchase volume; merchants pay fees in the ~2.3%–2.9% range, implying hundreds of billions in annual fees) and a ~$30–35B restaurant POS hardware+software market (WebstaurantStore, NRA, Nilson, ClearlyPayments, Grand View, GMI).

Bottom-up calculation:

Start with ~1M U.S. restaurant/foodservice locations; ~70% are single‑unit. Adding food trucks (~58k) and coffee shops (~40k) yields roughly 0.8M in‑person merchants aligned with Zavo’s near‑term focus (independent cafés/QSR/bars/pop‑ups) (WebstaurantStore, TouchBistro, TheRestaurantHQ, Toast).

Assumptions:

• Focus is U.S. in‑person foodservice (restaurants, cafés, bars, food trucks), excluding non‑restaurant retail.
• Average effective merchant fee range of ~2.3%–2.9% is representative for high‑level payments economics.
• Addressable base prioritizes independents and small chains likely to switch terminals/processing and adopt POS over time.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Square: Broad SMB POS + payments with low‑friction hardware, free POS tiers, and next‑day/instant payouts; overlaps with Zavo on simplicity and speed (Square Restaurants, Square hardware/pricing).
• Toast: Restaurant‑first POS bundling payments, kitchen routing, payroll, and back‑office tools; strong for full FOH/BOH workflows, with features sold in paid bundles (Toast pricing, pricing guide).
• Clover: Hardware‑centric POS/payments sold via banks/resellers, offering LTE devices and an app marketplace; appeals to merchants seeking turnkey terminals and bank‑sold services (Clover Flex, Clover pricing).
• Lightspeed: Full restaurant/retail POS for multi‑location and inventory‑heavy operators (ingredient‑level inventory, kitchen displays, centralized reporting) with integrated payments (Lightspeed Restaurant, inventory).
• Stripe Terminal: Payments + hardware platform for developers/platforms; offers certified readers and Tap‑to‑Pay but is not an out‑of‑the‑box restaurant POS (Stripe Terminal, support note).