BNPL Pioneer: Sezzle CEO Charlie Youakim Talks on Finding the Best Strategies

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) pioneer Sezzle [SEZL] has carved out a space in the fintech theme thanks to its unique range of services and an emphasis on financial wellness and credit building. 

Founded in 2016, the Minneapolis-based company is a Wall Street darling, its share price having risen some 981.70% in the past 12 months. Although the company focuses primarily on BNPL, it offers a wide range of services, including educational resources and web extensions to facilitate payments. 

CEO Charles Youakim is no stranger to growing small players to dominate the market. 

In 2010, he founded Passport, which quickly became the leader in parking payment applications. He later helped co-found Sezzle, and continues to organize and plan much of the company’s technology architecture. In the latest edition of OPTO Sessions, he explains the company’s products and trajectory, as well as its unique approach to engaging with customers.

Watch the full episode on YouTube, or listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. 

BNPL Breakthrough

Sezzle’s main product is simple: they offer four interest-free payments of 25% each via merchant websites. This basic service has allowed the company to cultivate “an incredible symbiotic relationship with merchants, where we help them make the sale and then they help us create consumers.”

The company has also expanded beyond the typical BNPL model to work directly with consumers. “We did it through subscription and pay-as-you-go products, which allowed the consumer to basically subscribe to Sezzle and use us everywhere,” Youakim explains.

Ultimately, he sees BNPL as a “a budgeting tool”, a hybrid between debit and credit that offers the advantages of both. “There are some customers that want the purchasing power that they’re missing from debit, but they still like the certainty of payment.”

Beyond helping customers budget while increasing their purchasing power, Sezzle has focused on helping younger consumers build a credit score through BNPL loans. The feature, called Sezzle Up, allows users to opt in to credit reporting for free, meaning that successfully paying back a BNPL loan can boost their credit score. 

This service addresses a key issue faced by younger consumers. “Typically a BNPL loan, which essentially is a loan, does not get reported to the credit bureaus, so the customers are not getting credit for it on their credit profiles,” Youakim explains. “A lot of our customers are young customers, new to credit. They need this reporting, in our view.”

The merchants are winning, too. 

“There are some merchants where we are responsible for about 40% of their sales,” Youakim says.

“It depends on the merchant category, but it can range from anywhere from 2.5% of sales to 40%. I’d say that, most of time, it’s probably around 10% to 15%.”

Clearly, it’s paying off. Sezzle’s revenue grew an impressive 123.3% in Q1 2025. Youakim chalks it up to product expansion: “We really nailed a few products in a row.”

New products are likely to drive Sezzle’s continued expansion by “meeting customers where they are, not trying to force them into our app.”

Youakim gives the example of a planned browser extension that aims to improve customer retention. With the extension, when a user is shopping online, “Sezzle will say, you can find this tent $10 cheaper over at so-and-so sporting goods. And then you’re like, wow, that will save me a bunch of money. And so you’re reminded of Sezzle, and then you are more likely to come back into our ecosystem.”

Growing Market Share

While his work with Passport was an essential learning experience, the stakes are higher with Sezzle, Youakim admits. “Retail payments is the major leagues.”

That said, by scaling up Passport to outpace its competitors, he learned a simple formula: “if you pick the right strategies, find the right niches and listen to your customers, you can win.”

This is exactly how Sezzle has managed to hold its own in such a dynamic side of fintech. By listening to the customer and building out its financial services portfolio, he estimates that Sezzle “is the most fully featured on the direct-to-consumer side”.

Sometimes, the best innovations are the simplest. Youakim explains a new service the company has tested that allows consumers to pay in five installments, rather than the usual four. “We tested it and consumers loved it. And I think it’s just so silly, right? One more payment, but with consumer behavior, you just never know.”

Not every customer-driven initiative has been so successful, however. He cites a credit reporting service through a partnership model inspired by a customer survey that ultimately had limited uptake. “We definitely do take the surveys with a grain of salt because not every time the customer tells you that they want something do they actually really want it — or are willing to do the work to do it.”

Sezzle looks well-positioned to capture what has become a fast-growing segment of the payments ecosystem. Youakim has estimated that BNPL’s share of US payments could jump from 6% to 20%. While such meteoric growth might raise some eyebrows, Youakim says its simple math: BNPL already makes up around 20% of payments in both Europe and Australia, two comparable markets. 

Where does Youakim see Sezzle in five years? 

“The Sezzle app will be the hub for your finances: checking account, credit type account, maybe credit builder, maybe an actual credit card at some point in the future.”

The key focus is on features. Rather than being a simple “moneymaker for the company, its more about slamming tons of value into the app.”

“Saving the customer money on purchases — that’s right to the bottom line.”