About
Paresh Patel
Paresh Patel is the Founder and CEO of PayRange, a fast-growing IoT company modernizing self-service retail interactions. A serial entrepreneur and industry leader, he is perhaps best known for his business strategy: identifying pain points and transforming them into scalable opportunities through technology. Under his leadership, PayRange has evolved from a visionary idea into a platform redefining cashless payments, and it continues to expand rapidly. Since the company’s founding in 2013, it has acquired millions of users, enabled over a million machines across the United States and Canada, and processed over a billion recorded transactions. This growth reflects Paresh’s unique blend of technical creativity, operational insight, and ability to recognize overlooked problems, an approach that has empowered thousands of operators across hundreds of major cities to scale through practical, high-impact solutions.
An entrepreneur at heart, Paresh has always loved technology and the creation and building of things. He first had the opportunity to put these skills into practice at 17, when he purchased a battered old soda machine and convinced the staff at a local garage to let him service it for them. What started as a way to pay for college eventually became the beginning of a lifelong journey, as that single machine grew into thousands operated by his company, Courtesy Vending.
By the time he completed his PhD in Organization and Management with a specialization in E-business from Capella University, he had already acquired seven competitors. Four years later, he expanded further with the founding of VendScreen, his first step toward integrating touch-screen technology with traditional machines.
Throughout his time in the self-service industry, Paresh was primarily focused on serving the consumer through improved machines, better placement, and broader product options. His companies were among the first in the country to use handheld computers to track inventory and merchandising, ensuring things ran smoothly for both customers and the companies. But over the years, he repeatedly heard about the struggles of machine operators and felt the solution providers were not offering the innovative tools machine operators like himself needed. And they were never going to.
When he exited both companies in 2013, it was with the intent to refocus his energy on machine operators, but he wasn’t yet sure how. Thankfully, the opportunity to find out came soon after. While stopped at a gas station to put air in his tires, Paresh discovered he had only three quarters for a four-quarter machine. After searching unsuccessfully for change, he realized something fundamental. The barrier to sales wasn’t price, but payment options.
PayRange was built to remove that obstacle entirely, enabling customers at vending machines, laundromats, and more to ditch the inconvenience and uncertainty of cash and coins in favor of mobile payments. More than that, it allows customers to view connected machines in the PayRange app, making tasks like laundry day easier by showing which machines are available and when a wash cycle is complete. It is, in short, a complete reinvention of the consumer experience in unattended retail.
What appears to be a straightforward application-based solution is, in actuality, backed by significant technical depth, reflected in the company’s more than 100 patent applications. And these advancements aren’t just for consumers’ benefit. Over the years, the platform has grown to support vertical-specific software, an evolution intended to help business owners better connect, run, see, and grow their enterprises. Owners can also use PayRange to market their companies, generating leads through promotions, loyalty programs, and more.
But the true focus of PayRange is exactly what Paresh had originally intended: Building the solutions, technology, and tools that machine owners need to make more money, save costs, and, in turn, enrich the consumer experience.
Paresh’s work has earned him the title of EY Regional Entrepreneur of the Year, Mountain West Region in 2022, among other accolades. He has also been featured on platforms such as Automatic Merchandiser Magazine, Vending Times, and Authority Magazine.
Yet his focus remains less on recognition and more on solving real, everyday problems through intuitive, thoughtfully designed solutions. The innovative mind behind the transformation of “sleepy” everyday self-service machines into an industry-shaping force, his company has effectively invented the technologies and business processes they’re putting into use.
As PayRange scales through major contracts and strategic acquisitions, including KioSoft and Turns App, Paresh is continuing to find new ways to digitize the self-service laundry industry. And at the same time, he remains in pursuit of a much larger objective: building the underlying rails that will power the future of self-service commerce and reinventing industries including vending, amusement, and more.
Latest articles from my blog
What if your customers’ everyday frustrations are actually your best source of innovation? Small inconveniences, abandoned transactions, unnecessary steps, and
What happens when traditional self-service industries move beyond coins and cash? Cashless payments are doing more than giving customers another
What does convenience really mean in modern automated retail? It is no longer enough to simply place a vending machine,