"Jed Morley: Payment Cowboys and the no-BS payment processor"

A Day 2 sponsor self-intro from Jed Morley, positioning a 20-year no-BS payment processor (and the Payment Cowboys Western network) over Stripe and PayPal.

Jed Morley took a Day 2 sponsor slot to introduce himself to the mastermind room. His planned slides did not work, so he spoke off the cuff: a 20-year payment-processing founder positioning his firm as a personalized, data-rich, no-BS alternative to Stripe and PayPal. The session is almost entirely positioning and relationship-building, with no SEO or agency tactics. He opened with a bull joke about big-versus-small processors and closed by offering his cross-industry network to attendees.

Main takeaways

1. The company becomes its own bank on July 1st. Jed presents this as the headline differentiator, claiming it enables frictionless onboarding, better fraud and decline detection, and deeper analytics into recurring billing and downgrades. (Year not stated in the talk; "July 1st" only.)

2. Positioning is no-BS, personalized, data-rich payments. He frames his firm as one tool among many (alongside Stripe and PayPal) that is not one-size-fits-all, but says they hold more data than competitors and you "get to call us," like a small brand that has grown over 20 years.

3. 20 years of merchant-processing track record. He cites thousands of merchant deals across hard verticals including Nutra and "As Seen on TV," surviving the crash-and-burn cycles and portfolio sell-offs of that space.

4. Payment Cowboys is a vertical Western and rodeo payment network. It started after he got into horses and rodeo through his daughter, and was co-founded with a six-time world champion as brand manager. He claims it is the largest Western payment network, serving Wrangler, Ariat, and American Hats, with payment rails behind major rodeo buckles.

5. He offers a broad cross-industry network. As a former real estate broker and developer with customers across many industries, he positions himself as a connector for attendees ("grab me, I'd love to talk").

Key points

Background and personal

• Describes himself as a farmer and horse breeder, and claims to be "one of the top horse breeders in the whole country."
• Builds "the technology and the data behind horse racing and rodeo."
• Number 8 of 13 children, with 12 siblings, and says there are 270 people in his immediate family.
• Has brothers he describes as very successful, and says he has been able to attend masterminds his whole life.
• Says he has not known much about SEO and learned a lot at the event.
• Former real estate broker and developer who "developed all over the country."
• His daughter (12 at the time, 26 now) had severe anxiety, and buying his first horse for her got him into rodeo and "changed my life."

Payment processing claims

• 20 years in the payment processing industry.
• Done "thousands and thousands of merchant processing deals."
• Worked with big brands and marketers as they launched, including in the Nutra and "As Seen on TV" verticals (cited examples transcribed as "Frank Cardone" and "Monasaye," spellings unverified).
• Positions the firm as a tool "just like Stripe, PayPal, anyone else," and emphasizes it is not one-size-fits-all.
• Claim: "we have more data than anyone out there."
• Pitch: personalized, no-BS service ("you get to call us, like a small brand that has grown for 20 years").
• Says it feels like running a startup, but the company has been profitable and "fastest growing."
• Notes the industry pain of portfolios getting sold off, forcing you to rebuild.

"Own bank" announcement (headline differentiator)

• Company "will be our own bank come July 1st" (year not stated).
• Claimed benefits: frictionless onboarding, better detection, "1099 adjusted," the ability to look at recurring billing and see why declines and downgrades happen, and full data and analytics.

Payment Cowboys

• Affiliate program and brand he founded: Payment Cowboys.
• Co-founded with a "six-time world champion" rodeo competitor he met at a rodeo, who became brand manager and partner (name not given).
• Claim: "the largest Western payment network out there."
• Named brand customers: Wrangler, Ariat, American Hats.
• Claims "all the big buckles run on our platform, our payment rails."
• Building a blockchain to track every transaction a horse goes through (teeth, farrier, sales, everything), and says registries are starting to come to their systems.

Networking offer

• Has "thousands of customers in all different industries."
• Offers connections across real estate and other industries, and invites attendees to "grab me."

Misc and context

• Opens with a three-bulls joke (large, medium, small bull, with a new giant bull arriving) as a metaphor for big versus small payment processors. The small bull's punchline: "I'm just making damn sure he knows I'm a bull."
• References meeting "Terry" and Terry's wife (a running joke about high school, though they never actually met in high school).
• The following speaker is referred to as "Ariel" (full name not given). The host cuts Q&A short to protect her time and the lunch break.

Slides

Note: Jed said his slides "did not work," so this deck was not actually presented. The deck title "Data is King: Winning with Precision" was never shown, and several slides are blank or quote-only.

Slides (16)

Source

Synthesized from the SEO ST Day 2 conference recording of Jed Morley's sponsor session and the accompanying deck, Data is King: Winning with Precision - Jed Morley.pptx (slides not presented during the talk). Names marked unverified above were transcribed phonetically.