EE 343 - The Tech Startup Transforming How Workers Get Paid - Ciara & James from JustTip

We're the white tip box you see in coffee shops. When you want to leave a tip and you get put that card machine in front of your face you never know. That goes, first of all, directly to the staff and second of all, is that where is it going? It's a black hole in some cases. Why don't we create a system where tips can be left for staff directly through a system like, say, example, just Tip? The platform's gone live July 21,. We've done just about 2 million transactions.

How are you? Welcome to the Entrepreneur Experiment podcast with me, gary Fox. Today, two guests for the price of one, we're getting Ciara and James, the co-founders of Just Tip. They started the business when they were just out of school, right at the start of the pandemic, and now they've processed over 2 million tipping transactions in Ireland alone. They are my rising star pick for season 18. Here's my chat with Ciara and James.

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Kira James, welcome to the pod. Thanks for having us us how you doing. I'll be honest, this is our restart because we couldn't get a mic working, so there is the realities of podcasting welcome. It's brilliant to have you on um. We're chatting beforehand about like co-founders and having many actually happened. I think it's been a handful, so it's great to the two.

I mean, we now work in charity micro payments as well. But um, essentially we're built after covid lack of cash and we've built a platform where you can now tip staff directly through e-payment. So it's kind of almost snowballed into a legislation backed tax management platform for employers as well as an e-payment. Yeah.

And as we were chatting earlier outside, I was like, oh, it all kind of started to drop and make sense. So I think it's going to be a cool part for people to understand it. James, describe it to me, because I think people recognize you, your brand and where you sit on the counter.

Yeah, there's obviously a very technical approach I can give you in terms of what we do and with micropayments, we're the white tip box you see in coffee shops. Tap the tip machines so say thank you, leave a tip for something, thank you for the staff, and that's what we do. So that was our initial product that we launched in market in July 2021. And we've just launched our second product after three years of wanting, three months of building.

That's kind of the way the entrepreneurship works, I guess. But uh, yeah, well, but you've done a lot like you've. You've scaled rapidly because, like a lot of places I go, you're there like it's, it's very annoying, it's, brilliant though it's I I remembered I. I know where, exactly where you are. Um how did this all start?

so I don't know, this is like most entrepreneurs journeys or not but like I was 19 years old, uh, december 2020 and I was in a coffee shop, we were just allowed to sit back inside because covid meant we could sit back inside whatever lockdown. That was 18 or 19, I think we've all lost track of that.

I think we've all buried that deep down in the emotional box it.

It becomes a blur in time, but I was inside the coffee shop and I wanted to leave a tip and I got stuck with the same two problems as I have as well, as probably everybody else listening to has. First of all, I wasn't carrying cash because COVID had meant that cash is now dead. And secondly, the same issue that I guess everyone comes to is when you want to leave a tip and you get put that car machine in front of your face. You never know.

Bring me back to the 2 million transaction. By the way, that's huge. I think it's important to kind of, because sometimes when you see these things you kind of like gloss over them. I say it so many times today yeah, like when you said two million, I was like whoa.

I had a customer and I said it to them a lot, I said two million transactions. He says you know, every time you say that you brim just a small little small.

You need it when you were saying you're sitting in the coffee shop because, like everyone has ideas all day, all times. For me, I love exploring the zero to one piece, because that's the bit that trips people up. Everyone has great ideas, but very few do the execution piece. Had you started multiple businesses before, or how did you even begin?

how I started businesses before. No like I've always been kind of uh, annoying, I guess, like I'm knocking on doors looking for things to do and like I've been working since I was 15 16 as a curer. So the zero to one piece for me was literally just I've always wanted to start a business. I've worked for employers who who I wouldn't necessarily agree with what they do to a certain extent.

motivation though, because to have an idea is one thing, but the motivation then go and start it, was it just natural.

You're like, why would I not do that? Or for you, kira as well, like what was the? Because starting a business is a huge decision. Yeah, I mean, I think James James is the kind of person that's born to start a business like that. He just he came out like that, um, but for myself, yeah, I just thought it was a really good idea. Um, and he came to me with the idea and I'd worked in hospitality, so I just thought the idea was almost too much of an opportunity to pass up.

What stage did you do that at? Because that's interesting.

And what stage did you do that at? Because that's interesting. And what stage did you go door to door? I think we built a very shaky mvp um of the platform and then we went door to door to almost get feedback on it and to get people to trial it. And then james actually has a, has a funny insight into the pricing and how that works as well. But um we had built because he was speaking about when strike pay launched.

And then, yeah, I was sitting in sandy, I was in sandy for it, and I'd just been to probably the 10th place where I was like, please take it for free, just try it, I won't, I'll pay you to take it. And then, uh, it was another. No, so I sat on the wall, I was sitting outside, I think it was zambrero, I think they're still there, actually. Yeah, and I just we were with the guy, so myself and kira there's a third guy that gave us a hand at the start, tom o'connor.

And then isn't human psychology fascinating? It's just that really pissed me off because I lost two weeks but it because it sounds right every and I say this to all founders at the start, like I do, but at teaching around early stage founders and they all want to give it away for free or for like five or I'm still losing money.

No one's going to think that's worth anything you also have the issue of them raising your prices later down the line, exactly because they've sunk cost on zero.

If you sunk cost, if you anchor on zero, everything is expensive so, like our first customer is still has paid full price since day one and still with us and we've had like three issues in three years like minor issues where, like they spilled syrup on a plate. So we're going to change that and that's more just making sure that they're happy with the brand. But from our point of view, yeah, that that was an interesting day, because I'll never forget.

you called me after that and I was like I don't think you should be charging them are you sure? And then, yeah, there's a confidence in the brand thing.

You know we've put months at that stage into it and it's kind of like you think back, why aren't we charging them? Yeah, my time isn't for free. This isn't a charity. We have to go and be able to make a living on the back of it. We're not doing this to be able to make everybody else happy. And again, that's another piece. We learned that we were trying to go oh yeah, we'll do that for you in the crisis, but now we're like this is what we do.

I think if founders, or aspiring founders especially, listen to this, just listen to that five minutes and take that away. That is one of the most important lessons every founder has to get, because everyone makes the same mistake. It's wild because we think, oh, you know, we'll just get them to try it. But it's those two lessons of the sunk, of the fallacy of zero, and then you kind of go on well, people don't value it, like you can't work for free and it's an unsustainable model.

We never had the money. It's like when we like to kind of put in perspective, we started this. Again, it is a lot of money. We started with five grand from her parents and my parents, out of my money and Keira's money as well, which was minimal at that stage, but from our point of view, it was literally we never had money.

Seven, eight months. I had two other jobs as well as working, just working in a restaurant, and then I was also working in a news agency. So, like you, just have to have that that great value. I had a terrible spending habit. Other than that, um, you also have to value your own time a terrible spending habit. I love that my money, not other people's money.

It's kind of like that line from Conor McGregor. He has got an unhealthy obsession with spending money, but Keira had an unhealthy obsession with making money as well.

I respect the graph, though three jobs ain't simple. I respect the graph and you're doing market research technically yeah, exactly no that's the age we had customers in ireland, it's like within a month.

We had the first two or three weeks we were processing five grand a week and then we had customers in the uk organically within a month. Organically they came to us through a whatsapp group, um that someone in ireland had said, yeah, use those guys.

And that was it so you obviously had gone okay, there's the problem. We've got product market, this turns into the next story.

I'm going to tell you about how we so like we had such traction, such energy, such a lack of experience oh my god, such a lack of experience to kind of happen like, uh, in 2022, like I'm on the end of 21. It was just all about race, race, race, get as fast as we can. Market share, market share. I want to look back at now like just yeah, you look back on yourself and you're like yeah, there's not sustainable like. So we were.

So you went ahead under. What happened next?

So I found what I thought was the right person for the job, um, and what came from that was we started this really high burn phase, so we had to go raise funding to do it, and I got caught in this like hamster wheel of just raise funding, raise funding, raise funding, and we brought 10 people on through this guy, so the team was up 12 like, and we had people in america, which is hilarious.

So you've gone from what?

two or three to 12, two or three and a burn of like 2k a month up to like a burn of 100 whoa 2k to 100k well, it was myself and kira taking pretty much nothing because we always felt bad taking money out of the company, which is another story, but, um, it was literally bringing on all these different people to help us.

offset for my lack of experience yeah, especially when you're raising funding, like the lack of experience. Bringing someone on can give investors a bit more security. Um, that's what we thought, um, but he obviously didn't bring any security or anything at all. But, um, yeah, we're, we're, we're under pressure to.

You know, add experience to the team, because I mean, if you're putting your money into a team of two 19 year olds, you want someone to almost be steering them but like I just kind of thought we'd raise 100 grand, every time I heard it was just oh, no, no, no, like even with enterprise ireland and the local enterprise board, who are brilliant, uh, sponsors, uh, thanks for the free plug no problem at all the mug's in front of me, um, but we, we just we were too young and I can see why they didn't

I was going to say how did you come to that decision? Because sometimes when you're so far in, you're like we just got to see where this goes, so you were out of money we were sitting only ones doing everything, which is funnier, like, and we had about 60k left in the bank.

And I remember saying to kira we have two options we get rid of everyone today, keep 60k in the bank, or we keep pushing because it was a mindset that, yeah, people were actually interested in us but they could see through the bullshit pretty quickly. So it was kind of like we get rid of everyone, keep 60k and make you have enough money to live and get through to the next phase, or we keep on the basis that we can raise a million, a million and a half.

You know he was like we'll bring it, we'll make it this big and you know, as two 19 year olds, you're gonna believe this person you brought on or experience, and then you kind of get blinded by it, whereas looking back now you're like wait, how is that gonna happen?

like. I don't blame people, right, but I'm gonna call the catalyst for this is all those stupid tiktoks and instagrams where you just see some bloke walking down a runway to a jet and he's a multi. It doesn't happen like that and that's what I thought was gonna happen that we bring on the funding, bring on the and we just go.

I don't know if we can blame TikTok for all the mistakes. I will, I will.

And you know what? I don't care you don't even have TikTok. It's that mindset. It's that mindset of just like.

Spoken like a true marketer. But it's that sort of mindset of just like it'll just of hours, blood, sweat and, like, quite frankly, so many tears. Uh, I think it's interesting though, and it's a really I really appreciate you being so honest, because that is sold a lot. It is kind of portrayed, and that's why I love having people on from different stages of the journey. You know, start middle and kind of like, hey, we're all, we've all met it. Because I think they, they all, we've all met it.

It was 60 grand no, no, that was it. We were out of money basically the month after and obviously I said I got rid of everyone. So, like, some of those were really hard, like a 21. Like there was two or three people on the team that I'm still in touch with now. They're just amazing people and they were the ones that were actually keeping the brand at heart. There was one or two I really enjoyed. It was a really really good day that day but, that said, they were contractors.

They weren't getting their tips and he could see the value prop and what we were trying to create here that's what I was going to ask you, because you know at that stage a lot of people would be like oh, we blew it, we're just going to give up. Was it ever an option? Were you ever?

even thinking like that every day. I wanted to go, but like it's kind of like yeah, you can have your tantrum and then go fix it, because you know you mess up, go fix it, but you need to have the tears, oh yeah, oh yeah, 100.

I've never cried so much um, but I think that's it. Like you, you want to give up. But, like I think, true skills of an entrepreneur sometimes is that you don't. You're also thinking, okay, yeah, I want to give up because it's hard for me. But I mean the people who are earning tips off the back of this. I don't want to take that off them. And then the people who put money in. I don't want to.

Um, they're an investor in ours and they put money in on the basis of me sitting there in a shirt going like, yeah, come on, we'll do 100 grand. And they, they trusted us and, like he did, say to me, he wrote the investment office and they went in.

But good investors do, though he's done well.

He's done well in the back of it so far, but we got to realize that for him. But like, that's why we do it is because those initial investors, who are customers and it came out of their pocket and they're just people, they're not multi-millionaires, they're not, maybe they are, I don't know but they had enough money and they trusted me with it and that's what we got to get back.

I mean, yeah, it's about bringing back value in yourself and your time, like that sweat equity you put into it. I mean I don't. I think perseverance through it is probably the main thing. As an entrepreneur, like I mean, I can barely add, like when it comes to numbers it's terrible, which you would think.

She's not head of finance, but just state that right now the marketing.

It's okay, but I think you have value in your own time. It's just pure grit of going and doing it 100%.

I agree with you a thousand percent, because founders often don't. I'm like oh, what's your day worth? What's your daily rate? They're like I don't know. So then it's worthless, because you're putting in all the sweat, equity and time, but they're running in different directions.

We're below minimum wage right now. By the way, what's that? We're below quite over to him, probably. You're hired, James. See, I did not know that.

Ciara's like wait, you're getting paid. But I just love digging into this because the mindset piece of founders is so interesting, because I think there's a lot to be learned from that stage of like okay, we made this mistake, now here's how we're going to fix it. So what was your thought process? Bring me through the kind of the fixing process of like, okay, we're out of money, now what? Because you said you got intro to a few people, what were you trying to think to do?

like what were you like right, the road out of this is what and I had to lean on john for that, like that was we had. We had like a hundred grand plus in debt. These guys just left us with um, and it was just just literally start like what john got me to do was write out a list of all the problems and then just start going through them. And what's actually funnier is like the debt that we had is actually nearly all paid off now. It's all been serviced and we're all good.

Yeah, I mean, I think you can break down all these problems. So not easily. But I mean, you have debt. You need to work back from that in. How are we going to restructure it? Who do we need to set up calls with? What can we afford? And if you break it down, it seems a lot more manageable as a person. Then, oh my god, what am I going to do?

It's yeah, break it down we go to all these fireside chats and it's gas like, is it like? Oh yeah, the first five years we did. I'm like, mate, that was fucking q1 22 and I'm like that's brilliant, like because we had, we've gone through debt restructuring, we've gone, we're at the point of liquidation. We've fired a whole team of people. We like we don't clean a house.

We've been burnt by somebody, burnt by shareholders, like it's just, it goes full circle and uh, yeah, but ironically, unlike a lot of startups, you, you guys, were trading, you were active, you were in customers, you had clearly hit some sort of product market fit, so was that kind of keeping you driving forward? Are we kind of like looking at the transactions going, okay, look, we're actually trading, we're making money, we're starting to get money in the door?

yeah, 100. I mean, I think that's probably what kept us going, as well as also, I think it's a lot harder to you know, just by restructuring that and all this, this and that, going through those hard times when you don't have a product out there, when you still have to put money into building it. Um, so I think that definitely saved us.

Yeah, like we think about debt like. That's probably the end of the conversation on deck, because it's just more that was one of the issues that we had.

This is the point in the movie where the music just starts to. You hear the music start to play up.

Oh, and the pressure and stress. Like I was in Warsaw and I said this previously, like it's, I was in the hotel room and I was I forget my fucking email from somebody looking for money and I just passed out Like I just gone. And I was just literally collapsed. Yeah, I was just under so much pressure. When I stand back and look at it I'm like now I can't do pressure, now that's a waste of time.

Just do. Yeah, I think your point there as well is don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. In terms of like, I think the Irish startup community and business community find the right people. Obviously, we spoke about that, but they will help you and people want to help you, especially as young founders or any type of founders.

we don't have all the answers at 19? Especially I didn't have. Would you believe, because I'm still speechless about that? You?

definitely didn't believe it, but you do seem like you lack a little bit of confidence, james, I'll give you a hug later. But sometimes I'm shocked. Someone said it to me last week. I was chatting to someone and they're like oh you know, I know a lot of people that go on your pod. I'm shocked at what they say Because they're like people are genuinely 80, 20 people 80% of the time mean good, they will help, they're honest or transparent. I think it's when you, you pretend to kind of know.

because people want to help, like people are inherently good, you do get the odd bad apple but people inherently want to help, because then, like every bad apple you have makes you realize that the rest of the apples are nice to taste. Exactly when we were at that like that ended I love how you say it.

Like it was like 100 years ago, 2012. Back in the glory, back in the hard old days of 22, even even how it ended.

I had a relationship end at the end of it. Like it's just like it wrote off the year week before christmas and I just said, right, that's, it's too long there.

If you've been inspired by listening to the amazing business person and either want to start your own business or supercharge an existing one, then the local enterprise office has something for you. Whether you want to improve your online presence, become more sustainable, get into new markets or just get the idea off the ground, they have the support for you. For more information, check out your local enterprise office on localenterpriseie and see how they can help your business today.

Now back to the episode.

Generally it's right, yeah, how they can help your business today.

Now back to the episode. Generally, it's right, yeah, and that's another piece like because this guy that we had as a COO three or four people had said it to me at that stage and I was kind of like, okay, decision made, he's gone, and it was before that I was kind of, well, we'll try it.

We need him for the round of funding, we need him business and oh, I'm a unique person. And blah, blah, blah. Everyone's had the problem a hundred times before. A variation of when I do. I could do like roundtables with entrepreneurs. I always the format is the same Introduce yourself one line about the company and tell me a problem you have, and then we all just solve the problem. And it's amazing because then all you need is one or two people to open up and go.

I was like, oh actually, we've, we've, a huge issue it's like when you go meet with some customers and you're like, okay, let's spend. I actually said this to someone because I don't really care.

Well, there's just it um again more hand gestures where you're saying you're giving the problem. What the problem? Oh, the problems are bad, but here's the solution like in business, classic sales you know everyone gives out about everything.

so like landlords ourselves that we're shouldn't be doing, shouldn't be coming to Ireland and blah, blah, blah. It's really hard starting a business. It's really hard running a business, it's really hard. And the reality is, when you do meet business owners, you generally have a chat about how hard it is and a little bit of a group therapy session.

I think being an entrepreneur is like it can be very lonely and you can feel very alone in all your problems. So sharing with other people who are in the same space it just it makes sense logically, even though sometimes you can't see that when you're when you're in it.

Um how did you handle the stress piece kira?

I wouldn't not very well, to be honest, james actually a lot better at it than I was, but and he collapsed. So, um, but yeah, I kind of just threw myself into it and very much detached myself from it, because I, to start, you're very much emotional about your business.

But, um, yeah, that's how I handled it kind of with James, and then a good few tears as well, okay, and then talk to me about tipping, because I think post-covid it's a different world from what, how I interact anyway, everything's digital. Now I don't carry cash anymore. How has that impacted tipping and kind of like the hospitality sector?

Yeah, I think, to put it in perspective, there's a study done by Stanford which says there's about 58 billion tipped every year in the States and that's money that's traced. You can probably up that number for cash payments generally. In some cases can be quite great. So in terms of tipping, everyone says ireland isn't a tipping culture. Yet the average bill puts on 10 percent um.

no, and then they can see me press no, I love doing it, I love clicking.

No because the irony it's not just tip, there's no transparency I'm I refuse to give the money to aib I also think that in that industry is like there's such a huge staff turnover and tips are so important in that industry for staff. So I think for ireland now they're turning more towards tipping, you know know, to keep their staff and it's now actually becoming more important.

Give me an idiot's guide to tipping Like how does it work? When I tip in a restaurant or a cafe, what happens?

So with JustTip or without JustTip?

You can do both, actually, oh, you can do both. You can do both Not anytime.

So without JustTip. The old way to do it was through a visa machine. You just leave the tip, you add it onto the bill or whatever you do through the card machine. Basically, that tip gets dumped into your business bank account with the income you've made from that transaction, and then it's up to you, as a business owner, to separate that out and pay it to your staff.

To put that in perspective, like if your business is doing most restaurants do, between half a million and a million a year, and if you're saying your average tip is 10%, just for round numbers sake, you're looking at paying five to 10 grand roughly in tax. That doesn't need to be paid because by using just tip the tip goes outside.

That makes a lot of sense. I never really understood because when the Visa machine comes to you, you're like, yeah, 10%. But I never really understood where it went then because I'm like, how does that go to the actual person? I never understood how the actual person who served me and gave great service, I never understood how they got that back. You remember the?

Ivy Literally again around the like.

We use like that in the paper. It's okay, it's out in the public domain.

We won't pick anybody else out but like that's a very clear example of a system like just tip was needed because, yeah, the tip went through the card machine and the customer was rightfully wanting to give a really good tip to the people because it's a high-end restaurant and it never went to the staff. So like that's where our chair came in, john. So like he again wanted to join the business because his kids worked in hospitality and they weren't getting their tips.

Is cash declining now? Because, anecdotally, I would imagine it is.

Yeah, it's not that it's declining If cash, that's with you. But in most cases now we're seeing kind of an 80-20 split, 90-10 split, between cards being 90-80 and then cash the other way around. And it's generally like you know, I'm still 23. I still go down to my grandparents and they just throw a 10-year in my hand and that's kind of it. But that's it's not necessarily a mass circulation thing.

Yeah, I think there's a value proposition for you know, the everyday consumer who's leaving the tip, but there's also a value proposition for the employer that people don't necessarily see unless you know we're pitching to them or we're trying to sell them the system. But, um, for example, my dad, he's a taxi driver and that would have been a huge, basically 90% cash before COVID Like he would. I don't think he ever used his bank account.

Are you always going to taxi? And they're like oh, card machine's broken. You're like I bet it is I bet it's broken.

There's an ATM right here, though.

Yeah, exactly, but he, I had to, for Christmas, get him a little card reader because he needed it now and it's basically all he uses and he still doesn't know the login.

I still have to send it to him every day, but still, and yeah, so that's, there's a huge shift post-covid, away from cash, especially in places that were the convenience now of just being able to have direct access to your funds, not having to go to an ATM or speak to a teller or and that's the people pay for convenience. I love that line. It's like I pay like apple's paying. You know apple pay and it's kind of that logic. And again it has increased consumer spending.

It isn't just like when you go and order coffee and you know, don't, I was in, I was the only person there. I went in right kind of.

I feel like you've come into their house, honest to God, and they continued the whole conversation, the entire 45 minutes.

I was there to do a bit of work and I was like this is so uncomfortable like literally speed drinking the coffee to get out of there, because I felt like it was in their kitchen yeah, I felt like it was in their kitchen and you know you're kind of looking at service like that and you're kind of going this won't survive like you're kind life.

That's just not good yeah, and the point I was trying to make about was like we get our tiktoks and they're so funny because people have like comment wars, tipping should never be in Ireland and I absolutely love them because I'm just like just don't tip them. It's really simple, like it's a really simple reality. Don't bring tipping, darling, don't bring the American culture in here and blah, blah, blah. Just don't tip.

It's pretty simple yeah, I think it is like no one's forcing you, you gotta make people feel something right, make them love you, make them hate you, but make them feel something.

Those comments push our views significantly.

Oh yeah, the thing is, people will fight back. They'll be like you don't work in the hospitality industry, so shut up. You're just like okay 100% though it genuinely like oh yeah, it's tick tock is a dangerous place yeah, it really is.

The comments are just not good you just have to like post it and ghost it.

Don't even think about it the whole piece of curious that before, as you evolve as an entrepreneur, especially as a first-time founder, you get so attached to your business and your brand and you're like you take that comment personally, whereas now I'm just laughing at it like I just look at these profiles you're like who cares?

user 777777 doesn't like the pod oh no, you don't like the pod you're a 777 but you still watch all the clips and comment.

I'll wrap it up now. I'm gonna just yeah, oh, sorry, oh, really, that's good feedback who's?

this guy you know, yeah, it's wild.

So where does this go then? How do you guys make money?

yeah, I love it look at, look at kira going here. How do we make?

money which are like so we have competition. Obviously in the market. It's kind of evolved like the tipping space and the donation place. The micro payment space has evolved quite quickly. Um, so we built our structure around one of our sales guys that are speaking and walking into the shop. We want the employee to be able to give the sales pitch back to the employer. 45 euro a month, 5%, that's it. Very simple model and there is competition. Who? I'm answering the question?

he's pretty sure, like I got clapped in. Oh, they're like hold, like hold on, he's here, he's here it's. James, Hold on guys.

Ridiculous.

It's an easy sell, though, because you can literally go in and be like it's 45 euro a month for us to sort everything, or it's 45 euro an hour for your account to split these tips, which will take them about six hours a month, See there's the quote we're looking for, James.

There's the line we were looking for.

Yeah see, it's all about my team Co-founders. It's team effort.

Yeah, Keep each other in check as well. I like that. So like, does this scale beyond Ireland?

Yeah, so it already has. So we're in the UK with a number of merchants over there. We're scaling up over there. We have had interest probably from every corner of the the globe at this stage. So like, uh, america, australia, germany, france, spain. Like again, yeah, there's legislation backing us here and yet there's a tax piece here. But don't forget, this is, as kira said, four or five hours work of taking money out of revenue, putting it into payroll, adding it basically to 20 hours.

Cork listenership, so shout out to Cork we're going there next, we're going there in May for a live pod as well, so that'd be really cool we've got Cork Arc, cork Simon.

Again they're doing it through another company, cuh Cork University Hospital for donations. So, like you know, it's where when we were going through that piece in 2022 is how do we generate revenue without having to change the system? So we were onboarding charities through our tipping system and creating their employees.

Do you remember? Um, you know, in graff and street, and those people with the buckets would stop you and you'd run away with your headphones on. Well, now they'll have. Uh, now they'll have the just tip running at you so you can't say you don't have any cash.

Have buskers started using this like could this be used for buskers and things like that?

yeah, like we're B2B in that sense, so we're more focused on creating value for businesses. There is other side to buskers. Yeah, there's other companies that do that. But from focus on business for now there's an opportunity, obviously with buskers, but uh, we've got an inherent cost attached to these devices. I can't necessarily just kind of give them out. Plus, I feel it'll be too expensive for buskers to take on like the long-term value of the ltv for these things.

How do you work well together, because clearly there's a good great chemistry between you. How do you work? Because I'm always kind of curious about the dynamic and just the processes of co-founders.

I think we can bring it back to the start. Myself and Kiri met probably first year, second year, a long time ago. I've been anointed for a while. We're just really good friends to start off with.

I hate when you say that because we both made the decision, you don't blame yourself for it, but, um, I also think we have we're we're like chalk and cheese, like we're very different skill sets. We bring very different things to the table. So I mean, if I was arguing with you about finance all the time, I can see how that relationship would break down, whereas, exactly, um, whereas, like, we have very complementing skill sets and we work on things together in a very good way.

So how do you do that? Should I describe the events this morning? I was talking traffic right, so I took. It generally takes about 20 minutes to get to work. Took me an hour and a half. I was under pressure to get a couple emails out because we're in grange gorman, hence why I was late for this um I wasn't gonna call you I don't know.

Yeah, well, I was gonna make a big deal about it.

Yeah, I had breakfast as well, but I didn't eggs.

Yeah, I had breakfast as well, but I didn't think it was going to be a crash. But Ciara rang me. I said I will see you there, goodbye. And she texted me. Never speaks to me like that. See you there.

Yeah, I knew it was under pressure, though I was just like, yeah, I know I malicious, just thoughtless. Um, but we, we do have a very good way of you know if I disagree. If we disagree on something, that's a big decision. We just break it down into what we want to achieve and is there compromises we can make and what's best for the business as opposed to what is wrong or right.

That took years, like there was obviously us being friends and there wasn't much strain on that, like we're just friend groups or crossovers, like. But the reality is when you go into business together and then you're starting to deal with money and like opm other people's money, you kind of, we have to relearn, I guess, around how we deal with these things.

No, that didn't come naturally at all. There was a lot of conflict that arose before we. We found the resolution to this conflict, but, um, I think that's the only way to keep it.

I'm generally wrong.

That's kind of the way we resolve um, I think you find a way to resolve conflict, then you're you're golden, as long as you don't have too much. You don't want to be constantly resolving, but I think that's how you oh we know our spaces, you know? Yeah, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna come in and be like I think we should triple the text bend because I think that's a great idea yeah.

And how did you come to that? Because you see a lot of co-founders and the dispute becomes a massive schism and they end up leaving the business. So how did you? Did you just naturally fall into your roles, or did you sit down and go right, I'm going to take this, this and this. You take this, this and this.

I think our skill sets dictated that a like I would definitely be the more marketing, creative side sales speaking to people, and obviously you can tell he's a salesperson as well. But I mean the more sales people the better. That's not really something that you'd ever conflict over um, but he's a. You're very strategic um focused. You're very good at like the fiscal end of it yeah, you're very good at the fiscal end of it.

I'll clip this bit for you and send it to you. You can play it there and those down days you can play this ringtone the fiscal end of it, um.

So I think it kind of just fell into it fell into it like obviously there was bits and pieces there where actually you know you just come to them, be like oh, you actually need to take on more when it comes to the finances, you need to be more in touch with them, things like that. But I think, in terms of it was our skill sets, which I think a lot of co-founders.

you can't like if you look at some of these brands out there and it's just, you could have two or three co-founders and two of them are very non-existent. The media side some people only have three that want to be, whereas I think because there's two of us, you can kind of have two people on, for example, here. Yeah. It can. Again, we complement each other, but when you have two or three people who are very similar personalities, it can become quite conflicting quite quickly.

Actually, I think a lot of it is. This happens with co-founders is a lot of it's ego and like, yeah, a lot of it like I'm not dead of us fairly quickly exactly, yeah, no ego left now. But, um, basically yeah. So like I didn't have any issue with him being ceo, he had the skill set for it. But I get, like a lot of people you know, you found, you founded a business and you're not the ceo of it. It can be, it can hurt, but I think I think that's all in the end.

It comes back to your trusting as well.

Like you've been in a trust in each other. So like oh, I wonder what they're up to go rogue in this meeting and be like, oh yeah, by the way, yeah, okay, and what's the future then?

like, what's bring me through? Like obviously it's very, you're very rapidly scaling, you're at a very quick pace.

Like bring me to the next six to twelve months um, yeah, like we, obviously, within the next couple of months, we're gonna be raising additional capital as well to keep us moving forward. Um, but I guess we're looking to kind of expand out the product line based on why generate new customers when you have customers at hand or you've got partnerships that can create customers quite easily.

So onboarding the business, onboarding the employee, everything has to do with that perfect, gonna do a quick fire round, so do one question and I'll get you both to answer. Kira, start with you. What book would you recommend every entrepreneur?

I'm so read um working hard or hardly working. By grace beverly it, grace Beverly. It's not inspirational, but it's very helpful.

She is phenomenal. She is phenomenal, she is a machine.

She is. Oh, she is someone that would be on the bucket list to meet.

She's on the pod bucket list as well. Definitely want to get her on in the next couple of years. Incredible business.

She's incredible. Yeah, I watched her before businesses as well, when she was just doing social media.

She's brilliant, incredible social media how she does social media is a master class and just good marketing.

She's brilliant, james, um, probably the economics and money, but I think from our point of view we don't uh we do very different answers there we don't actually I don't read a lot. Personally, I don't really like reading, but like we're actually just after finishing college, but I am kira, listen, you got one more year, um, but like you just don't get time. But yeah, economics and money.

probably that I'm a lot more resilient than I thought I would be. So if you had told me when we started the business, oh, you're going to go through this in a year, I'd have been like, okay, well then I definitely would have given up and I would have left. So there's no chance I would stick through that. But then you do.

You're a lot more resilient than you think you are, which I think is a huge learning for us.

Okay, james, be less impatient and trust the process, because I'm incredibly impatient.

This is true. Okay, good self-awareness and fairness. What valuable business is no one building? You're not meant to give it away that.

You know already what the questions are probably like I think there's a lot of cool ai businesses out there. I wouldn't necessarily invest in it just yet. I want to see what happens next. But from my point of view, hydrogen fuel networks, I think when you look at what the world is doing now, electric cars are are being smashed. Petrol, diesel isn't the way forward and there's nobody seem to be building out a hydrogen fuel network, which is my opinion in the future.

Just come up with that right now here. What would you do today if I give you 10 million euro? And I can't invest in just everyone says that we'll take that as a given right. You put nine and a half into just it, so what would I do with the injustice? No, what would you do with if I gave you 10 million today? What would you do with it?

I would. I would invest in the startup. Some startups in ireland. I'd say the startup network in ireland is phenomenal anyone's particular yeah, riley, have you heard of them?

yes, they've been on the pod, have they? Yeah?

which you knew from the research I know, here you're showing up.

You haven't listened to every single episode in fairness they were back. Oh, riley were on.

Probably episode 150, maybe so wow, okay, yeah there's homework for today yeah, I'll go watch it now. Um, I think they're like the messaging their business is really brilliant as well, as there's there's a lot. There's a lot behind that that I really agree with the messaging in their business. So I'd probably I wouldn't give them maybe the whole town mail, but I'd give them a good pitch they're great marketers as well super marketers. They're brilliant, brilliant.

James start planning for the future, I guess diversify it out.

I'm going to need more specifics than that.

James, no, but again um, looks, you invest in some of it in the startup, you put some in the stock market. I put money into it right now, money into stable things, oil oil, gold oil, things like that. Um, so yeah, I wouldn't necessarily start throwing the money around essentially you're definitely the finance brand I'm like give it away here.

What's something in your daily routine.

You wish it started sooner this is gonna sound silly, but simple. Because when, when you're in that hustle wine space which isn't isn't a great place to be necessarily you're like well, I'll just stay up late and do it tonight, and then you're up till two or three doing it. This is the idealized version james trying to be inspirational and then you're up at six the next day and, like you, you actually do not work the same as if you had gone to sleep so most days sleep.

See, he ratted you out there, james. What about you eat?

yeah, you did.

You went through a phase, yeah you kind of just went through a phase of not eating.

No, you just kind of go meeting to meeting, to meeting, to meeting, to meeting, and then coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, and then you end up just falling apart like so it's uh, yeah, taking care of yourself and understanding that you have a body clock that you need to take care of okay, um, you get one way around, that's it.

Yeah, you've kind of answered this one already here, but I'll give you one million euro today. You can only invest in one company or one person. Who would it be?

um, probably go with riley again. Yeah, I really like what the company stands for and all the work they do as well as I think mark obviously marketing background. I'm like, yeah, their marketing is amazing.

They're on the money.

They're great people as well, james I put some of it into coda. I like what luke's doing there. I think that's again with the law passing. Um, it's got to go through, you know the government, the next couple of weeks or months. It's a need. A pension is needed by everyone and obviously there's a massive other side to that business as well if you start a new company in the morning, what would it be?

something to do with the kind of sustainability and fashion side of it. I know sustainability is very much a buzzword but when it comes to I'd be a lot more the creative side with a bit of strategy. So I'd say somewhere there, maybe even on the logistic side of the whole end-to-end how it's made, everything like that. So probably something in that space I would say would be where.

I'll land eventually.

Okay, I love payments. Something in that space I would say would be where I'll land eventually.

Um, I love payments, probably in that industry but I think there's a massive gap in the market right now for helping low-paid gig workers to do various things like collect tips, for example, but also declare tax. Um, help them, you know, if you're doing nixers and things like that, additional income. There's a massive opportunity to create a platform to help additional, create these additional value basically create value.

I agree with you. I think, as people you know, we now like have ability to work anywhere and do a lot of different things, and I think people will have multiple gigs, slash jobs. I don't think I think we're going to get into an area whereby people might have two or three different jobs simultaneously and I think, like kira's dad, like john, driving a taxi, and then we're coming from a cash-based industry to a contactless pays industry.

There's like he wouldn't be very tech savvy. I don't mind my mom like, for example, like all my grandparents or anybody I guess that wouldn't have really invested into that. So there's a massive opportunity to help people like that yeah as well.

Media now is like I'm doing social media on the side and I'm doing this nine to five, and then five to nine, yeah, but there's a lot of, a lot of this thing about like, oh, let's create an entrepreneurship culture. Let's just start a new startup hub. I'm like, no, make it easier for people to earn make it easier for new entrepreneurs to start. Make it easier for them to pay their tax. If you make it easy, people will do it. If you make it hard, people will be like, oh, it's not worth it.

Or they'll do it for cash. There's a certain side of it where you're kind of like I think every entrepreneur is never going to listen to the stuff I tell them. They're still going to make the same mistakes.

Oh yeah, it's kind of yeah, but you know these pods the more time we do these pods, I think, the more, and, like you said earlier, the more times people hear the same message again and again, and again. I think finally you can have to go. There must be something in them. What do you believe other people find strange or strongly disagree with?

I think I said it earlier. Actually, I think a lot of people believe that some people like you just you have to be born almost with the mindset of an entrepreneur. You have to have that natural confidence, you have to have that drive. But I actually think it's a skill you can learn. I think it's it's something that we're not taught in a lot of in school and in college or whatever, but I think it's definitely a skill and anyone can do it.

I agree with you, james. I think it's kind of jump on the back of that, like we just essentially finished college. So I've gone like Dublin, galway, three times a week for the last, and you go over that and like I'm doing a bog standard commerce degree, like you know all the finance bros. The reality is, though, there's 600 people in that course, across all the streams. They're all coming out with the same piece of paper. They might have a language attached to it.

Complete failure. In fact, you've tried, yeah complete failure Because then you understand. You understand what you two are going through. When people say to me oh, I've just applied for loads of jobs and not getting any replies, I'm like, do something extra, do a little project or do a free piece of work that you send to them going. I've seen this problem for you. Here's a solution.

Zero has done it. Yeah, we have one guy in UCD that found a spelling mistake on our website.

Yeah, I know it's really humbled me honestly it's just okay that guy's not on the board, but it's just the extra five percent, the extra ten percent. It's not saying like, redesign the app, I'm just saying do the extra piece. Um, in your personal life, what's one thing you spend money on? This should be an easy question for you what's one thing you spend money on that brings you immense happiness?

clothes or coffee, but probably every day coffee what's your coffee of choice? Oat milk, flat white. I think I drink about seven or eight a day.

Where's your?

favorite coffee when? Yeah, I don't know if we can say that we have too many coffee shop customers fair enough. I love Mr Magpie Coffee.

It is excellent. I love it.

I agree what about you, yeah, probably food, actually Food and obviously then, like, as you progress, you got to make sure you're. If you do sell the business or it gets to a certain valuation, you create value that you can then liquidate. Um, you want to be around for that. You know you don't want to be dead at 50. Uh, so health as well.

So getting back in the gym, getting running things like that that's why I talk about body, business and brain on the pod, the three things. I think they're interlinked. I think for too long we focused on business, business, business, business. I've spoken to so many successful founders and they get, and they have their eggs and they're like miserable, they're unhealthy, burn the relationships, mental health is poor. I'm like what's the point? What's the point otherwise?

advice you give to every founder listening or every aspiring founder Generic, but don't give up. I mean you're going to get 100 no's and then maybe one yes, or maybe 1,000 no's and one yes, but don't give up. You may have to pivot, you may have to change a bit, but if you want to be an entrepreneur and you want to own your own business, you can do it. Just don't give up that's so generic it is quite well it's your story.

In fairness, I'll accept. If you hadn't said generic, I'll edit out generic but it's your story? Your story is about resilience, right? Your story is about just just gritting your teeth and getting on with it?

um, you don't. You're not guaranteed like tomorrow. To a certain extent, you're not guaranteed that you're going to live forever. So, uh, just find something that you love and then integrate it to your life and just romanticize life, cause you don't get to go around again and I really don't care what people think anymore. It's just throw the earphones in, walk down the street. You're the main character. Just this has to be your life and if you fail, get back up again.

So, yeah, enjoy your life love that it's great, and I think as young founders, you've got remarkable self-awareness already. It's really really cool. Thank you. Where can people learn more about yourselves?

and just it over to marketing wwwjusttipnet or on any of our socials, and as well as look out for the hashtag hot people leave tips or new, new marketing campaign incoming um and then on social.

Where's the best place to follow you?

so Instagram would be just tip underscore official and TikTok would probably be a good place to follow the actual journey, which would be just tip underscore official we'll find you.

Tiktok's a hard one to find from a finance point of view if you want to follow me on Xero or Solonet. You know we're on there finance joke there we go, aren't funny?

no, kira james, thank you so much.

That was an absolute pleasure thank you, thanks for having us I hope you enjoyed today's episode.

If you did, please hit subscribe on spotify, apple or wherever you get your podcasts, as it really does help the podcast grow and reach new people. If you did, please hit subscribe on spotify, apple or wherever you get your podcast, as it really does help the podcast grow and reach new people. If you want to learn more about the podcast, go to mrgaryfoxcom. I'll see you back here in a couple of days for a brand new episode.