Rich Aberman and his co-Founder Bill Clerico were making great progress with their payment processing startup, WePay.

The platform – which made it easy for small businesses, organizations and nonprofits to accept credit card payments online – had taken shape over the course of six years. Revenue was growing month-over-month. Customers liked it, the press liked it — and investors had put in a lot of money to keep growing it.

But in 2014, Rich and Bill were getting ready to kill it.

The transition away from direct business

No, it wasn’t the startup equivalent of a suicide pact. They hadn’t given up – quite the opposite. Almost without meaning to, they had landed on an opportunity with the potential to leave the direct business in the dust.

Th...