00:00I'm here with Richard Carter, the co-founder and CEO of LowePay.
00:05Why don't you explain a little bit about yourself and what your company does
00:08and for those who might not be familiar with it?
00:10Yes, so Richard, the founder of LowePay.
00:13Ultimately, we are, I guess, a better, faster, lower cost version of Zettle,
00:19sum up and square, with the objective of empowering small businesses
00:24to get their money faster and not pay as much for it as they need to
00:31at the lowest possible cost.
00:33How did this sort of idea to explore that kind of area come to you?
00:38What inspired you to start the business?
00:41Well, I have another business called OrderPay,
00:44which is focused on ordering and paying at the table in hospitality.
00:47And that business took off somewhat in the post-COVID trading restrictions
00:52where we had to have social distancing.
00:54So we used the QR codes to order and pay at the table.
00:58That took off and we were across thousands of venues in the UK.
01:01And I spoke to a lot of hospitality businesses that were finding it tough
01:05in those trading times after COVID.
01:09And one of the things that blew me away was how much they were paying
01:13to take a card payment, but also how long they had to wait to get their money.
01:17It just blew me away that they were paying, you know, 2%.
01:20And then if they took money on a Friday, they weren't getting it until a Monday.
01:23And if it was after 6pm on a Friday, they might not get it to Tuesday.
01:27And these are folks who are already up against it.
01:29And 80% of their revenues were Thursday to Saturday.
01:32And they were all having to wait.
01:34You know, they wanted to cash and carry on a Sunday and, you know, buy their stuff.
01:37So I saw that there was a real gap for instant access to funds.
01:43And also that there was, it seemed that there was some, you know,
01:47unreasonable prices being charged in the market.
01:51You mentioned this was all sort of taking place as a sort of response to COVID, post-COVID.
01:55What sort of timeframe are we talking for when you started the business?
01:59Well, we started the pilot for the business at the end of 21.
02:03So I guess coming out of the learnings and wide scene from COVID,
02:05and then we launched Lope in January 2022.
02:09And, you know, I'd say that unashamedly, I'd looked at some of those giants
02:14like Zestel, SumUp and Square.
02:15And I'd looked at, you know, what are the things that they do really well,
02:18because they do some things really, really well.
02:20And then sort of saying, well, how can we do those things better?
02:23And sprinkling our own bit of magic on top of that,
02:25which is our reward scheme and our instant access.
02:28So we set about launching the business in January 2022.
02:32We focused initially on taxi drivers in London
02:36because we thought they were really being very poorly served.
02:39I don't know if you've got a cab in London, but quite often when you do,
02:42they go, don't use that one in the back, mate.
02:44Use this one in the front.
02:45And they pass you a card reader through.
02:46And that's because they're paying three to five percent for the terminals in the back.
02:51So we thought we'd help those guys out.
02:53And it turned out to be a really good sector to go after initially,
02:56because if you perform for them and treat them well and, you know,
03:00deliver on your promises, they're amazing advocates.
03:03And they tell everybody when they're something that's good.
03:06And we engineered into the product a referral scheme where if you refer a customer,
03:10you get a thousand pounds in free payment processing.
03:13And so do they.
03:14So we were very fortunate in having this really viral growth from an early start
03:21with a bunch of really happy users.
03:23So, yeah, and then that spread to then going back to a number of those people that we've met,
03:28obviously in COVID and those hospitality venues saying, hey, guys, we've solved the problem.
03:32You get your money straight away, it goes straight to a card.
03:35And by the way, if you spend on that card, it further reduces the already really low rates that we charge.
03:41So we're actually now the world's lowest cost, highest rated app to take payments.
03:48And if you're not happy with it being the lowest cost, you can make it free.
03:53And people say, what's the catch?
03:54Well, the catch is you have to use our expense and reward card.
03:57And if you use that, it's free.
03:59If you use it, you can offset those fees further to zero.
04:02So really feel pleased about how we're solving that initial problem,
04:06but really helping UK small business.
04:09I think we say what our aim is, it's to increase the GDP of small and micro businesses in the UK and in other geos.
04:16That's really what we're passionate about doing.
04:19Yeah. Speaking of that bug, what's the most sort of rewarding thing about startups, running your own business?
04:24What keeps you going?
04:26What gives you that work ethic and what drives you forward?
04:29Interesting. The things that keep you going and get you going are also the things that worry you,
04:34because having lots of friends who have invested in your business,
04:38you want to make sure that it works, obviously.
04:41But in terms of what keeps you going, the challenge is amazing.
04:47Taking on the giants, there's nothing like taking on a few decacorns, right?
04:51You've got SumUp worth over 10 billion, Zettel, multiple billions, Square, multiple billions,
04:57and coming along and taking on the giants.
04:59I quite like that. That's quite a cool thing to do.
05:03We've got an awesome team of 30 guys and girls at Lope, which we just have great fun with.
05:12We're really flexible in terms of our work approach.
05:15Everybody's very collaborative, very flat structure.
05:18It's super exciting to think that you've built something, you've built something that people like,
05:23and then it's not only relevant in your country, it could be relevant in other countries.
05:28There's something generally quite cool about knowing that you're saving people money.
05:33It's very rare to have something that's a pseudo-utility, and it's less than half the price of other people,
05:39and when they use it, everybody benefits.
05:41It's a very rare situation, so I enjoy it, enjoy it a lot.
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