Zeni’s Playbook for Displacing Legacy Providers: Converting 70% of Customers from Traditional Finance Firms

Getting customers to switch from established providers is one of the hardest challenges in B2B tech. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Zeni co-founder Swapnil Shinde revealed how they’ve managed to convert 70% of their customers from traditional finance firms by targeting the industry’s fundamental flaws.

Understanding the Legacy Problem

Before building their solution, Zeni’s founders experienced the limitations of traditional finance services firsthand. “Typically what startups do is like they hire a part time bookkeeper to manage their books. Then they have an admin who takes care of their bill payments and expense management. At some point they need a temp CFO,” Swapnil explains. This fragmented approach created multiple pain points for growing companies.

Identifying the Critical Moment

The key to displacing incumbent providers was understanding when founders are most receptive to change. For Swapnil, this came from a personal experience: “I literally remember a scenario where at Mezzi, I asked my finance team that, hey, why did our burn rate increase by 30%? And I was already sitting at the end of the next month and I was asking about the previous month because that is when the books were closed.”

Exposing the Misaligned Incentives

Rather than just offering a faster service, Zeni attacked the fundamental business model of traditional providers. As Swapnil notes, “When someone works on an hourly basis, they actually create more work for themselves. They will add more manual stuff so that they can charge you for more hours.”

This insight led to a complete reimagining of the pricing model: “We are incentivized to automate stuff for you because we are a SaaS platform. So it completely changes the ballgame.”

Price Point Disruption

Traditional firms typically “start at $2000 to $3000 a month because they will sit and do everything for you manually,” Swapnil explains. By automating key processes, Zeni could offer their service at a fraction of the cost while providing more value: “If you go to our dashboard, you will feel as if a finance expert is speaking to you about all the insights.”

The Technology Advantage

Instead of competing solely on price or service quality, Zeni created a new value proposition entirely. “Zeni today is the only platform that can guarantee you daily bookkeeping and offers you real time insights into your finances through the Zeni dashboard,” Swapnil notes.

This technological advantage addresses a critical pain point: the delay in financial visibility that plagues traditional services. Rather than waiting weeks for insights, customers can access real-time information about “why did your burn increase? Why did your opex increase? Which vendor are you spending most money on, how did you spend on that vendor in the last twelve months?”

The Human Element

While technology is central to their offering, Zeni recognized that pure automation wouldn’t be enough to convince companies to switch. “AI cannot power 100% of it. So we have a dedicated team of finance experts who collaborate with AI to stitch an experience that is ten x faster than what you might have today.”

Focus on the Customer’s Customer

Rather than obsessing over competitor moves, Zeni took a different approach. “I think as founders we shouldn’t be focused on what a competitor is doing. We should be focused on the competitors customers. How do you delight them?”

For B2B founders looking to displace incumbent providers, Zeni’s playbook offers several key lessons: identify structural problems in existing business models, create new value propositions rather than just improving existing ones, and focus on delighting customers rather than fighting competitors. The goal isn’t just to be better than traditional providers – it’s to make their approach obsolete.