0:00

You're from Vancouver . Very rarely

0:02

do we have Vancouver people here .

0:04

I'm actually from Victoria . Okay

0:06

, so quick clarification .

0:07

Sorry to disappoint you .

0:08

Sorry to disappoint you , but I moved to Vancouver

0:11

a year ago , about a year , year and a half

0:13

ago .

0:13

Nice , from Victoria , from Victoria . So what made

0:16

you come to Vancouver ?

0:17

I had to get out of Victoria .

0:19

What's the deal ? I had a house on the island , so I kind

0:22

of concur . Is it

0:24

just a smaller mindset kind of thing

0:26

?

0:26

It's just exactly . The energy is different

0:29

. I grew up there , I was born and raised there . I studied

0:31

software engineering at UVic , so I just had to get out

0:34

.

0:34

Nice , yeah , Cool . And Vancouver

0:36

is when you get here it's

0:38

actually smaller than you think , right ?

0:40

It's way smaller than you think . Yeah

0:45

, it's way smaller than you think , yeah , it's like a tiny .

0:46

There's only what ? Is it ? A million , two million people ? Yeah , it's just . There's only so many

0:48

people . Once you get in almost the business

0:52

networks and stuff , you see the same people .

0:53

Yes , that's correct .

0:54

Yeah , especially in tech , it's like same

0:56

old , same old .

0:57

Yeah , I mean I spend a lot of time in San Francisco

0:59

. So I'm in San Francisco three

1:02

to four months out of the year .

1:03

What makes you ? What's the deal with the San Francisco

1:06

?

1:06

Investors . There's the tech community is way bigger

1:08

. So I mean , if you find me on LinkedIn , like I live

1:11

in San Francisco and

1:13

I think it's just , it's better to build

1:15

. If you're trying to build like a big tech

1:17

company , being based in San Francisco

1:20

is a competitive advantage , yeah , so

1:22

you based there then . Are you based here ? Our is a competitive advantage

1:24

, yeah , so you based there then , or you based here . I mean we have two entities

1:26

, so we have a Canadian entity , a US subcorp

1:29

, and the subcorp is based in San Francisco

1:31

.

1:31

Yeah , I see how many S's are in the word

1:33

truss Two .

1:35

Two . So it's the same as the roof truss . I'm

1:38

just joking , but

1:40

it's a bank .

1:41

Welcome to the site . Visit podcast

1:43

leadership and perspective

1:46

from construction with your

1:48

host , james baldman . Business

1:53

as usual , as it has been for so long . Now that it goes

1:56

back to what we were talking about

1:58

before and hitting the reset button , you know

2:00

you read all the books . You read the email . You read

2:02

scaling up . You read it's a great . You know the emails you read Scaling Up . You read

2:04

Good to Great . You know I could go on . We've got to a place

2:06

where we found the secret

2:08

serum .

2:09

We found the secret potion . We can get the workers

2:11

in . We know where to get them . Once I was on a job it

2:13

was for a while and actually we had a semester

2:15

concrete and I ordered like a Korean-Finnish

2:17

patio out front of the

2:20

site .

2:20

Show , yesterday I was down at Dallas

2:22

and a guy just hit

2:24

me up on .

2:24

LinkedIn out of the blue and said he was driving

2:27

from Oklahoma to Dallas to meet with me

2:29

because he heard the Faber Connect platform

2:31

on your guys' podcast Home . It

2:34

crush it and love it and we celebrate these

2:36

values every single day .

2:39

Let's get down to

2:42

it , is it Matt ? Matthew , matt

2:44

Smith , let's go with Matt . You like

2:46

Matt ? Sure Nice , okay

2:48

, so really

2:50

interested in this . Really

2:53

really cool For our US Sitemax customers

2:55

. We have a thing on our

2:57

website . You guys are a partner of ours and we're

2:59

advertising to our customer

3:01

base your products for construction

3:04

, financing tools

3:07

, alternative to

3:09

banking , et cetera . So

3:11

are you kind of like the

3:13

unbank bank ?

3:15

for construction . I would say we do

3:18

everything your traditional bank does , but

3:21

better , and we digitize a lot of those

3:23

systems . So we do banking

3:25

. I can't say we are a bank , we sit

3:27

on top of a bank , but

3:29

think of us as , like , the operating account

3:32

for your construction business .

3:33

Let's just go through like products just

3:35

for a second . So you have your checking

3:37

account and that's typically for transactions related to the

3:39

construction projects , or ? Yeah . So let's , I mean let's talk about

3:42

like a typical workflow , like AP , ar kind , transactions

3:44

related to the construction projects .

3:45

Yeah , so let's talk about

3:47

a typical workflow , like AP , ar kind of stuff

3:49

. Yeah , so we can talk about a typical workflow . Let's

3:51

say you're a small general

3:54

contractor building

3:56

custom homes or doing home renovations . You

3:58

can get a trust account . You'll get an accounting routing

4:00

number . You can connect

4:02

QuickBooks to trust . It'll

4:05

sync all of your invoices . Your

4:07

customers can pay you using Trust

4:09

. So we have this payment portal where all

4:11

your invoices will be stored and customers can

4:13

go and pay their invoice with our system

4:15

. The second your customer pays , you

4:18

get instant access to the funds where then you can

4:20

turn around and spend the money on our card

4:22

or you can go and pay a subcontractor

4:25

. So what's really

4:27

different about what we do is we combine a payment

4:29

system with the banking system . And

4:32

some of you are probably already wondering like well , I print

4:34

checks from QuickBooks right now . How

4:36

does this work for me ? Well , you can actually print

4:38

checks from our account , so you can use

4:41

the account routing number to print checks . It doesn't change

4:43

what you're doing . And then we also have mobile

4:46

check deposit , so you can use the account routing

4:48

number to print checks . It doesn't change what you're doing . And then we also have mobile check

4:50

deposit , so you can use our system to do mobile check deposit , so you can scan

4:52

the check with your mobile and all that stuff . Correct , yeah

4:54

, you can still do that , and

4:56

an enhancement from what you would have today is that you can actually give access to your staff

4:58

in the field to deposit checks into your account without giving them full

5:01

access to your system .

5:05

So let's without giving them full access to your system . I know there's a lot to unpack there , no , but

5:07

just use case that for me . So what's the example ?

5:09

Yeah . So let's say , actually we have customers doing this . So

5:11

let's say you have a roofing company and

5:14

you've got sales reps in the field that are signing

5:16

contracts for installing a new roof

5:18

. Maybe they go to the customer's house they

5:22

close the deal . The customer , writes a check on the spot and

5:25

then the sales rep will take the check and instead of them putting the check

5:27

in their truck Taking it to the deposit book , taking it

5:29

to the bank , whatever . Well , typically they take it back

5:31

to the office , and then someone in the office has to take it in

5:34

. They'll just deposit it right there in the field

5:36

and then that way the money starts processing

5:38

right away and you get access to the funds way faster

5:40

. So that's what we've seen .

5:41

Okay , so is the value proposition here

5:44

centralization of everything , integration

5:46

with software

5:48

, and then speed

5:51

of convenience of transactions

5:54

.

5:54

Yeah , and we're also giving

5:56

you a digital payment system , which most

5:59

companies in construction actually haven't quite

6:01

adopted yet . They may have , like they

6:03

may have tried something like a Square or

6:05

a Stripe , so can they take credit cards ? Absolutely

6:08

yeah . So we accept credit card . Ach

6:10

check . Do you provide

6:12

credit cards ? We do issue credit cards as well , you

6:14

do ?

6:14

okay , so do you partner with Visa or MasterCard

6:17

?

6:17

We're partnering with Visa and we're competitive

6:19

, like our point system is actually competitive with Amex

6:22

. So we have a point system where you can earn

6:24

points on your card , you can book travel , get

6:26

crypto , exchange

6:28

your points for airline depending

6:31

on which airline you want to exchange them for get gift

6:33

cards . We even have like

6:35

a perks marketplace which you guys are in

6:37

and you can get discounts

6:39

at all kinds of different construction SaaS tools . So we're

6:42

I mean we're really building this bank

6:44

for construction and all of our

6:46

deals and perks and the way

6:48

that money moves and you know , permission

6:50

systems , whatever the whole thing is geared towards

6:53

your construction business and

6:56

that's what makes us really unique .

6:57

That's really cool . So

7:01

the other thing you have is staff

7:03

cards , so take me through staff cards .

7:06

Yeah , so this I would call this like modern

7:08

expense management and

7:11

essentially what's happening today is most

7:13

companies in construction have

7:15

maybe a few company cards that

7:17

they're sharing among staff . We're talking credit cards

7:20

. We're talking credit cards .

7:20

Yeah .

7:21

So the staff will go out to some

7:23

supplier or whatever and they'll go , use the card

7:25

, they'll take the receipt , bring the receipt back to the office

7:28

if they remember , and it's like

7:30

card sharing and what we've done

7:32

is you can actually issue cards to your staff

7:34

and then they have

7:36

spend limits that you can set for that staff

7:38

member . When that staff member spends

7:40

on the card , they get a text message right

7:42

away to upload a photo of the receipt tag

7:45

, the project that they're purchasing for , and

7:47

then that all shows in a dashboard for your admin

7:50

staff , like your bookkeeper , the owner

7:52

. I mean , this is like night

7:54

and day , right . So most companies , when they see

7:56

this , they're like , oh wow , what the heck have I been doing ? Like

7:58

, why am I doing this ? There's this other

8:00

cool thing that we do what I

8:02

call like a vendor card or a virtual

8:05

card . So let's say you're buying I don't

8:07

know . Let's say you're doing a project and you have to order this . Like you

8:09

know , the customer wants these like weird custom blinds

8:11

. So you have to go to this new supplier that you've never used

8:13

and get these new custom blinds

8:15

and the supplier wants you to purchase

8:18

with credit card . Right , some

8:20

of you might make the customer go put their credit card in

8:22

. But let's say you're doing the purchasing for your customer

8:25

. With our system you can issue a virtual card

8:27

, name it after that specific

8:29

vendor for the exact amount you're purchasing , make

8:32

the purchase , then cancel the card right after , and

8:34

it protects you from sharing your general

8:37

company card details with the general

8:39

web and so that way you're not worried

8:41

about like oh , am I going to get charged by this vendor

8:43

again for the same purchase ?

8:45

Or scams , phishing scams .

8:46

Phishing scams , all that kind of stuff . Yeah , so it makes your system

8:48

more secure .

8:49

So that's really cool , and I would imagine that

8:52

the controls of

8:54

all of these . So , let's say , with the

8:56

staff cards , is there

8:58

a credit facility total

9:00

? Let's say it's like 50

9:02

grand . And

9:05

then you're like , okay , split your 50 grand up however you want . Is that how you

9:07

do that ? In terms of which ?

9:09

So the available balance yeah , so you

9:11

set the limit per employee .

9:13

So each employee has a limit Like 500 bucks , $500

9:15

, whatever yeah .

9:16

And then if

9:18

you know , the employees can't

9:20

see how much money you have in your account or how much available

9:22

credit there is for the total account , so

9:25

to them it makes no difference . But yeah , it's based

9:28

on the amount of incoming money you have . So

9:30

we base your credit limit of how much you

9:32

can spend based on how much money is flowing

9:34

through your account .

9:35

Okay , Do you have those attached to how

9:38

fast is your Apple Pay processing

9:41

speed ?

9:43

What do you mean by that ? Like like you can

9:45

, I mean you can have the card Apple pay .

9:47

I know , I know , but with Royal bank

9:49

I have to go through the stupid hoop to to

9:51

have it done . Oh no , no

9:53

, no , no , no , yours is instant right .

9:55

I mean you can add , you can , you can issue your

9:57

. I could open my phone . I mean I have a trust

9:59

account . I could open my phone right now . I could open

10:01

our phone right now . I could open our app right now , issue myself

10:03

a virtual card and add it to Apple Wallet

10:05

in 60 seconds . Perfect , that's cool

10:07

.

10:10

So the speed of convenience and everything is like this huge value proposition you have going

10:12

.

10:12

Yeah , I mean , if you're banking with your local community

10:14

bank or you're banking with , I mean , even Chase

10:17

or Bank of America , like this is a ridiculous

10:20

upgrade for your business . Yeah .

10:32

Right , so based just mostly on convenience and administration and speed of everything . Yeah , I mean , and

10:34

yes . So what about ? What about transaction size ? Is there ?

10:35

any like gates limiters . On that we have no limits . I mean we're like a

10:37

regular . You know if you're going to come to us and say , hey , I need

10:40

to do , you know , a million dollars per

10:42

transaction . I mean obviously we're going to do some underwriting

10:44

and see if you're a real business and you

10:46

know the rest of it . But I mean

10:48

, once you're up and running , it's smooth .

10:51

Do you do you have any um uh

10:53

accreditation

10:57

per customer based on

10:59

history for how fast you clear checks ?

11:02

Um , check clearing is based . I mean

11:04

we have an algorithm that runs in the background . Okay

11:06

, so typically what you do is you . I mean it's based

11:09

on rewarding regular activity versus

11:12

penalizing unusual or infrequent

11:14

activity . I see , okay , so like

11:17

if you're just running your business , you

11:19

won't even notice what's going on . It's just happening in

11:21

the background and everything is processing extremely

11:23

fast . We actually do instant settlement

11:25

on payments from your customer . So

11:28

all the transactions let's say it's Monday

11:30

afternoon and you collect a $10,000 deposit

11:32

with trust it's instantly available in your account

11:34

the second your customer clicks pay . So you can go pay

11:37

a vendor , you can go buy the materials

11:39

, whatever you need to do .

11:41

Right , but a check is typical three days

11:43

kind of thing for it to clear .

11:44

So the checks are a little bit different

11:47

. So with checks it takes one day

11:49

to just validate that that is a correct check

11:51

. So I would say , and sometimes it's less than one day

11:53

, and then the next

11:55

day the funds are available . Wow , that's pretty fast

11:57

. There's something . There's a difference

12:00

. We actually really differentiate a

12:02

vendor payment or a materials

12:04

purchase versus a withdrawal . So

12:06

a withdrawal is when you just withdraw money into your third

12:08

party account , versus , like I'm going

12:10

to buy materials or I'm going to pay a vendor

12:12

based on a bill . Those are two different things

12:15

for us and so , like if you're paying a vendor , the

12:17

funds are much faster than you just trying to withdraw

12:19

into a third party .

12:20

Okay , just a dumb question . Do you have

12:23

debit cards ? Third party Okay .

12:24

Just a dumb question Do you have a debit

12:26

cards ? So we don't issue debit

12:28

cards , we

12:32

only issue on a credit bin . But the credit that you have is based on the available balance in your account

12:34

with us , so it's based on the amount of money flowing through your account with us

12:39

.

12:39

Oh , I see , okay . So if someone has $0

12:41

in their account , you don't say here's 50 grand

12:43

for visa .

12:44

Yeah , so we don't do that today . We

12:46

don't do that , and

12:52

a big reason that we don't do that today is because of the market , for lending has been really tough the last

12:54

few years , especially on banking for everyone , and so for us , you could think

12:56

of it as like a daily pay charge card and

13:00

then , as we get bigger , we will

13:02

eventually do so .

13:03

is it a Visa debit card then ?

13:05

It's not a Visa debit card , kind of .

13:07

The way that , conceptually though , so

13:09

if I let's put it this way If I have

13:11

. Just

13:13

to make it simple . If I have , conceptually yes . If

13:16

I have $10,000 in the account .

13:19

Your available credit is $10,000 . I

13:21

got that .

13:22

Okay . So , and then John

13:25

Smith , who works for me , goes and

13:27

spends $5,000 at a vendor . Do

13:30

we now have $5,000 available credit ?

13:33

At the end of the day , it will sweep

13:35

the money out of your account , but at the end of the day , Okay

13:37

, yeah , so , so

13:40

, yes , so this I see

13:42

.

13:42

So the , the credit is not really

13:44

a credit facility , it's more like how much money

13:46

? So it is kind of like a visa debit , because

13:48

you're actually drawing down in a way

13:50

conceptually on what you have . Whereas

13:53

a credit card is you have . It's

13:55

not related at all . The

13:58

approval is based on the approval is yes , the approval

14:00

is based on how much visa

14:03

or whatever bank is going to

14:05

give you , and then they facilitate that

14:07

through Visa .

14:07

So the term for this is a daily charge

14:09

card . So it's a daily charge card

14:12

and what we are advancing to you . I think

14:14

some people are like , ah , I need a credit

14:16

card , and I understand some people still use a credit card

14:18

. The advantage of this is that

14:20

we are technically lending you money

14:23

for the time that it takes for the

14:25

money that you're collecting to settle . So

14:27

think of it as like , if you're collecting 100 grand

14:29

, I mean we're giving you 100 grand right away

14:31

to go and buy the materials . So we're still

14:33

technically underwriting you for that time

14:36

because that money that you just deposited

14:38

has to settle . So if you went to your regular

14:40

bank , it would be a different

14:42

story and most payment

14:45

systems like , let's say , you're using an independent payment system like

14:47

Square or Stripe A lot of the time

14:49

if you want a daily or instant access

14:51

, they would charge you like one and a half

14:53

percent for instant access to those funds

14:55

Because typically they're clearing in like three to five

14:57

business days .

14:58

Okay , so what percentage of

15:01

companies use these

15:03

traditional if you can call it banks or

15:05

community banks or whatever because

15:07

of the fact that they have lent the money or

15:09

they have a line of credit or the visa they've given

15:11

them a high ?

15:12

visa . Probably all of them . Okay , probably all of

15:14

them .

15:17

So your value proposition to those companies

15:19

is what ?

15:20

They can still . If they still need the

15:22

credit facility from their current bank , they

15:24

can still use that and still use

15:26

us as an operating account , and we

15:28

still see that today . Of course

15:31

, in construction , you still need credit , so you have that as a

15:33

payee . Whatever it is Correct , people use us

15:35

as their operating account and if they still

15:37

need a credit facility , so you e-transfer backwards and

15:39

forwards from their traditional bank . Yeah , they don't have e-transfer

15:41

there .

15:42

Or whatever it's called , ach .

15:43

They use ACH .

15:44

So they'll ACH money back and forth . What's that ?

15:46

stand for Automated .

15:47

Clearinghouse , gotcha . Okay , nice , that's

15:50

pretty cool and I would

15:52

imagine that you will be at some point . We're

15:55

close , yeah , with financing .

15:57

Yeah , financing the project I

16:06

mean within the next offering these like 30 , 60 day charge cards

16:08

. It'll be like an Amex where you're always

16:10

going to have to like clear the bill , but we're getting closer . We're

16:12

getting closer to being able to do that .

16:14

So is there a legislation for prompt

16:16

payment in the United States Like that is coming

16:18

down the legislation here ?

16:20

That is a complicated question . It's state

16:23

by state , okay , and it depends

16:25

, okay , yeah , and I'm not an expert on that topic , but I know it's state by state Okay

16:27

, and it depends , okay , yeah , and I'm not an expert on that topic , but I

16:29

know it's state by state , because I find

16:31

that that does in

16:34

Canada .

16:35

Anyway , it will impact the get

16:37

paid now because you know you're going to get paid in two

16:39

weeks anyway

16:42

.

16:42

It will . But I'm curious

16:45

to see if companies find a way around

16:47

this prompt payment thing . I know , I know it's going to

16:49

be crazy , right , like I mean , imagine if you could

16:51

waive your right to prompt payment and you're not going to

16:53

get the job unless you waive your right .

16:55

I mean , it's a tangent , but I guarantee , like

16:57

someone's probably thought of that , Well

17:01

, it's a lot of companies that finance their jobs through that

17:03

, through not paying on time

17:05

, and that's part of their control . Is the checks ? Oh

17:07

, it's in the mail all that stuff I mean that's more

17:09

of a nefarious thing . A lot of people

17:12

don't end up making it .

17:13

They do that in the States too .

17:14

Yeah , I'm sure they do All right , so

17:16

got to ask this Give

17:19

us the origin story . Are you a sole

17:21

founder or do you have a co-founder ? No

17:27

co-founder . Or do you have a co-partner ? No , no , I have a co-founder

17:29

.

17:30

How'd you guys meet and what was the napkin chat ? So Nick and I , my co-founder

17:32

, met in software engineering at UVic

17:34

. So we both were both engineers . Did

17:36

you write ?

17:37

the code for this software .

17:39

I don't code anymore as much

17:41

. Sometimes I'll jump in if I'm really pissed off

17:43

about something . Is it a language you know

17:45

, oh yeah , okay , I wrote the beginnings of

17:47

all of it .

17:48

Gotcha Okay , and what is that ?

17:50

Our front end is in React , yep , and

17:53

our back end's in Python , django . Okay

17:55

, front end TypeScript , react , typescript I should

17:57

say TypeScript because it's a lot cleaner and

17:59

safer than just React . Okay

18:08

, so you guys met at UVic . We met at UVic and I mean we spent a year I think in

18:11

2018 , just building random stuff like different ideas

18:13

for things , and then

18:15

in I guess I think it would be January

18:18

2019 , we had this epiphany about

18:20

. We kept talking to businesses about different issues they had

18:22

and we kept running into this thing like , well

18:25

, all these businesses are still using checks . Why are

18:27

they all using checks ? What's going on here ? Consumers

18:30

have e-transfer and most consumers , unless

18:32

you're a business owner , you don't really understand

18:35

what it is to have to move around 10 , 15

18:37

grand at a time . But

18:39

most businesses we found were all using checks and

18:42

I grew up with the guys I

18:44

grew up with . None

18:50

of them went to university . They're all tradesmen . So , like good , really good friends of mine

18:52

own their own contracting business businesses . One of them is Hutchinson Contracting

18:54

in Victoria , devin , who I grew up with . He was

18:56

our first customer , so kind of like the summer

18:58

of 2019 . Nick

19:01

and I built this B2B payment system for

19:03

Canada and our goal was like can we just make e-transfer with

19:05

no limit ? I built this B2B payment system for

19:07

Canada and our goal was like can we just make e-transfer with no limit ? Like how do we do

19:09

that ? Can we just do that ? And we did that . And then we launched it

19:11

for Devin , his construction business , and

19:13

he did our first transaction and then we powered

19:15

his business . I

19:18

mean , they're a lot bigger now . They started at zero

19:20

and I think they're like in the millions

19:22

, millions a year now and

19:25

we just powered his business payments . And then

19:27

we grew that in Canada for three

19:29

years and then , in the summer

19:31

of 2019 , we were like , okay

19:34

, I think we hit like a peak here

19:36

. We were at about a quarter billion dollars a year in payments

19:39

and we

19:41

were struggling to kind

19:43

of build more features in the banking space . So

19:45

we wanted to launch bank accounts

19:47

and cards , like all the things that we have now . We wanted

19:49

to build all those things before , but

19:51

in Canada we were super restricted by the

19:54

oligopoly that we live in today . Market's

19:58

also a lot smaller and so we decided

20:00

, all right , what would it be like if we just pivoted

20:02

to the States ? And so what happened is in 2022

20:04

, we actually sold our Canadian business . We

20:09

sold the Canadian . We didn't sell the business , we sold

20:11

the software . So we sold the software and the customers . And then we pivoted to the

20:13

US and in December 2022 , we

20:16

launched Trust into the US . And

20:19

Trust was basically we took everything

20:21

we learned in Canada about how construction

20:23

businesses were doing payments and built

20:25

that into a much better system

20:27

sitting on top of a bank , so

20:30

that we could do the things we really wanted . Like

20:32

one of the biggest things

20:34

that we ran into when we were running the Canadian business

20:36

was that all our transactions settled in three days

20:38

and every company

20:40

we signed up in construction would complain about

20:42

it Like man , I collected the money , it's Monday , is there any way

20:44

I can get this money right now ? And we're like

20:46

we're sorry , we can't do it , there's no way . And

20:49

so when we built the US system , we were like , okay

20:51

, how can we make it ? So every transaction

20:53

is instant . How can we make it ? So we never

20:55

get this ask again ? And that's what we

20:57

did and we found a way to do it

21:00

.

21:00

Yeah , Sweet , okay . And then you

21:02

went into an incubator .

21:04

Yeah , so we did Y Combinator . What

21:07

was that process ? Like you , know being nominated

21:09

for that and getting in there and pitching and all

21:11

that I mean for those that don't know , y Combinator is like

21:13

the , it's like going , it's like it's

21:15

like harder to get into than Harvard and

21:18

it's like it's like the incubator

21:21

for , for a company . It

21:23

was like it was life changing .

21:25

I think our network

21:27

and you were on campus , there the whole time .

21:29

It was good during COVID so we were , we were

21:31

remote . We actually went to San Francisco anyway

21:33

, yeah , so we were there anyway , but all

21:36

the sessions and stuff like that was remote , but

21:38

all the interactions with the people was in

21:40

person because we were there . We

21:42

were there . But that made a big difference

21:44

for the company , allowed

21:48

us to raise the money we needed to do the next thing . I think the network

21:50

, the Y Combinator network , is just extremely

21:53

powerful . I don't know , for those folks who haven't

21:55

heard of Y Combinator , I don't know how to describe

21:57

what that is for startup founders , but it's a

21:59

big deal and

22:02

that kind of changed the game for us . Yeah , it was a good stamp

22:04

.

22:09

Nice and then . So between then and now , and you

22:12

guys are going to I mean , if people are

22:14

interested , you're going to raise another round now

22:16

.

22:17

Yeah , we're thinking about I mean , it's just in the preliminary

22:19

stages of thinking about raising another round . Yeah

22:23

, I'm not sure too much to say

22:25

about it , but if you're interested in learning more , you can reach

22:27

out . I don't want to say , I don't want to write anything in stone

22:30

yeah , for sure got it interesting .

22:32

So so Now

22:35

let's just chat a little bit about the

22:39

advantage of

22:42

the model . Let's just say For

22:45

those who are like so how

22:47

does trust make money ?

22:49

That's a good question . We make money the same way

22:51

a bank makes money , but without

22:53

all of the crazy

22:55

infrastructure costs that they have . So

22:58

for us we make money on the credit card checkout

23:01

. So we have a checkout system . When you collect money

23:03

from your customer , ACH is free . But

23:05

when your customer pays with credit card , there's an

23:08

option in your settings . You can

23:10

surcharge the customer automatically or you can

23:12

pay the credit card fee for them . It's up to you . I'll say that

23:14

most companies that work with us they

23:16

surcharge their customer the credit card fee . So

23:18

we make money on that credit card fee and

23:20

then , when funds are in the account , we make interest on

23:22

the money and then we

23:25

also make money on the card . So when you

23:27

swipe your card somewhere , the

23:29

Visa network pays us out a percentage of

23:31

those merchant fees that the merchant pays to

23:33

the network .

23:34

Okay , do most people know that Most , people know that

23:36

.

23:36

Actually , most people don't know how cards work . So the way that cards

23:38

work let's say you have your , let's

23:40

take Amex , or we can take our trust card

23:42

, whatever , but Amex everyone knows when

23:45

you go to the store and

23:47

someone has a terminal , the business

23:49

with the terminal they pay what's called merchant fees . We're

23:52

all aware of this . They pay their 3% or whatever . That

23:54

3% gets chopped up and

24:00

most of it actually goes to the card issuer , the person that issued the card

24:02

, which is , say , Amex or Trust . Okay , so most of that

24:04

money goes there . And then what they do with that money

24:07

is they give you points . So if Amex

24:09

says they're giving you 1%

24:11

cash back , they're giving you a

24:13

percentage of what they already made on

24:16

the purchase , right , right , so they're

24:18

not losing money . Like you have to think everything's a business

24:20

, right . Like nobody's losing money

24:22

on these things . I mean , if they are , then they're not going to last very

24:24

long , right ? Someone's offering you 5% cash back

24:27

? I mean it's not unlimited and

24:35

there's some T's and C's that you should

24:37

look at , because it money on the card . When you swipe your card , we

24:39

get paid from the Visa network and then

24:41

we give you a portion of that in points and we keep

24:43

the other portion as revenue and

24:46

so , yeah , I mean , at

24:48

scale , we make great money , this is a good

24:50

business to be in and we actually

24:52

don't have to charge our customers any money . So

24:54

we don't charge a SaaS fee , we don't charge transaction

24:57

fees , right , and it's

24:59

like this win-win symbiotic relationship

25:01

and I think that's what I love so much about

25:04

this business is that we can

25:06

provide a ton of value for

25:08

businesses . We get to make money and

25:10

they don't have to pay anything and they get all this value

25:12

. Yeah , and that was a big

25:14

difference from our previous business in Canada . We

25:16

charged transaction fees and that was something that , when

25:19

we looked at the States , it was a big blocker for

25:21

us when we were trying to sell the construction businesses , trying

25:24

to ask them to pay per transaction . They're like why would I pay per

25:26

transaction ? I use checks and it's free .

25:28

So now we don't have that argument . I

25:30

would imagine that on

25:33

multiple projects , the integration

25:37

with the accounting software allows you

25:39

to have more of a granular control

25:41

on what monies went to what projects

25:43

.

25:44

You're moving away , yeah , and it's

25:46

not just that , like , yes , there's the integration

25:49

, but also our system is extremely

25:51

easy to navigate and use . Okay , like

25:53

way more easy than your regular bank . I mean

25:56

, we've got you know . Look at your transaction table . You

25:58

can filter , you can search , you can

26:00

find what you're looking for . Has the PO

26:02

number on there sometimes , or the job number . It has whatever

26:04

you want to put on there , right ? We have memos

26:06

and notes . We have attachments . You can attach

26:08

a document to every transaction . Right

26:11

, like your regular bank , when you go into your Bank

26:13

of America or your Chase account to like zero

26:16

in on a transaction and add memos

26:18

and notes and attachments , like it

26:20

just doesn't , it's not a thing , right ? Whereas

26:22

for us , like , we've built it so that you

26:24

can add as much context as you need , because

26:26

there's a lot of these big companies , they have thousands

26:29

of transactions , millions of dollars moving around

26:31

and sometimes all

26:33

it'll say on your transaction item is check number

26:35

one , two , three , four and your bookkeeper's

26:37

looking at it going . What is this for ? What the

26:39

heck is this for Like ? Why is this short on

26:41

the invoice Like what's going on , Whereas with our system you

26:44

have the check number , you also have the vendor name , who

26:46

paid you the check . You can go in there , add

26:48

notes and memos and attachment and invoice

26:50

whatever , so that when you're doing your reconciliation

26:53

, not only is it synced with your accounting system

26:55

, but also the extra information

26:57

that you're looking for can also be stored in our system

26:59

as well . I see that's cool .

27:01

I mean , does the accounting software

27:04

have those endpoints , or you have more

27:06

than they have often ?

27:07

I mean , we are not a replacement

27:09

for your accounting system , Of course not .

27:11

I'm just saying I mean , when

27:13

you go into your banking system , it really is

27:15

nice to see more granular details

27:17

sometimes than even your accounting has .

27:19

Yeah , absolutely . I mean we integrate

27:22

and we put as much context as we can

27:24

to your accounting system .

27:26

Because you have time as well of the transaction

27:29

too . We have everything I know , so like

27:31

, even like the timestamp

27:33

of when a transaction went through . I don't know if your accounting

27:35

software even has just has a date right . It doesn't

27:37

necessarily say like 2.30 .

27:44

I actually I don't know that , but they definitely have a date stamp .

27:46

But that's the cool thing is you're able to to look at stuff you know in sequence etc . And

27:48

you could you could also , you know , filter that and

27:50

look at that by time when things went through

27:52

.

27:52

Yeah , pretty awesome and and I mean

27:54

the most common use case I've

27:57

seen is where people go from

28:00

. They look at their bank statement . They're going from looking at checks

28:02

and check numbers with amounts to

28:04

hey , the payment

28:06

method is a check , but this is the person that it's

28:08

from , this is the vendor that it's from . Here's

28:11

the invoice attachment . And imagine that's

28:13

in your banking system , so you

28:15

don't have to hunt , you don't have

28:17

to worry about it . You're going to save so much time

28:19

on the back office . That's

28:21

what we see a lot .

28:26

So where do you see banking changing over

28:28

the next five years ?

28:31

I mean for us so this is something

28:33

I didn't mention is we have what's called the trust network

28:36

. So if you

28:38

use trust and you pay your subcontractors

28:40

, your subcontractors have the option

28:42

. They don't have to . They have the option to sign

28:44

up for an account with us and join the network

28:46

so that the next time you pay them the

28:49

transaction is instant . There's

28:51

more metadata . They

28:54

have like a verified badge that appears next

28:56

to them so you know you're paying the right person . And

28:59

so our goal is to kind of build a verified

29:01

network for construction companies so that when

29:04

you walk onto a job site everybody

29:06

has a trust account because all the transactions are instant

29:08

, there's extra metadata for reconciliation

29:11

and it's all secured and verified

29:13

. So that's I mean . Maybe

29:15

that's biased , because I'm saying what I think trust

29:18

is going to be in five years . I

29:23

think we is going to be in five years . I think we're going to be on every job site and every

29:25

contractor is going to have an account with us so that they can use the network to pay . In the States

29:27

they have Venmo and Cash App , which is

29:29

for consumers , but this is a business payment

29:31

network . I

29:33

think banking as a whole is changing to

29:35

be more verticalized . So

29:38

I think banking is becoming more

29:40

specific for

29:42

what industry you're in , and I've seen this

29:45

a lot . So another good example

29:47

, aside from construction , is e-commerce . There

29:50

is now a ton of banking for e-commerce

29:52

companies where the

29:54

lending is based on

29:56

when you're getting your

29:59

Stripe deposit , because most of these e-commerce businesses

30:01

are using Stripe right and Stripe

30:03

pays out on a certain schedule . All the

30:05

deals they get and discounts are based

30:07

on being a you

30:09

know online retailer , right

30:11

, and so kind of similar

30:13

for construction . It's like all the deals and things

30:16

that we're building are specific for these construction businesses

30:18

. So I think what we're going to see is like if you're a

30:20

farmer or if you're a

30:23

whatever business you have , you're a hairdresser , like , those

30:26

financial products are going

30:28

to be way more catered to your business

30:30

and how you transact . And

30:33

I think I mean I think big

30:35

banks are going to be . I

30:38

think they'll probably still be around , but

30:40

they're going to have a harder and harder time maintaining

30:42

market share and they'll have

30:44

to . I think they need to change quickly , especially

30:47

, I mean , the US is already happening

30:49

, but I mean Canada is another place where it's

30:51

been really slow to change . But

30:54

yeah , I definitely . I think that's a big

30:56

one . Cash is disappearing

30:58

, yeah . So what's the deal with cash ? I think that's a big one . Cash is disappearing

31:01

.

31:01

What's the deal with cash ? People

31:05

have the dystopian view or the big brother view about what people are trying to stop with cash

31:07

because they want to track everything . Or

31:10

is it just the fact that it's just

31:13

an antiquated method ?

31:14

Yeah , you

31:18

talk to a lot of construction companies . The construction

31:20

companies that I talk to that are still using cash

31:22

are usually I

31:24

would say I don't want to be harsh , but they're not like

31:27

the best construction companies . You

31:29

know , the guys that are sophisticated , that have , that

31:32

are making more money , that are have faster

31:34

growing businesses , are not using cash , they're not

31:36

taking , they don't , they're not worried about hiding

31:38

the $2,000 or $5,000

31:41

from taxes . I mean , you

31:45

know they're growing their business to be millions of

31:47

dollars a year . They're not using cash anymore . Yeah , I don't use

31:50

cash in my personal life . I think

31:52

it's fairly common in the US

31:54

to still carry around cash sometimes

31:57

, but it will get slow

31:59

, it'll get phased out slowly . Things

32:02

happen very quickly in

32:04

the United States and

32:06

Canada .

32:07

We're slow , so when you say things

32:09

move very quickly . What have in

32:12

the banking system ? What have you experienced in the

32:14

past 24 months that have gone very

32:16

quickly ? Tap-to-pay Tap-to-pay

32:18

.

32:18

So tap-to-pay has existed in Canada since

32:20

what ? 2012? , 2012

32:22

, early 2010s . Tap-to-pay

32:25

is a brand new thing in the US . Now

32:27

it's everywhere . In the last I mean

32:29

whatever call it 36 months , 48 months , I

32:31

mean it's everywhere Everybody uses Apple

32:33

Pay now , every place you go to . I

32:40

mean I was in the States in 2018 , 2019

32:43

.

32:43

I remember vividly , coming from Canada and not being able to tap to pay anywhere . Yeah , I noticed

32:45

when I went on holiday . I'm like , you don't

32:47

have tap here .

32:48

Yeah , what's going on ? You don't have tap , guess what . Now tap's everywhere

32:50

. It moves way faster , way

32:52

faster . So when there's an innovation

32:54

or something like that happens , it can happen

32:57

very quickly , as opposed to in Canada , things tend

32:59

to happen a little bit slower .

33:00

But the biggest is

33:02

Chase . The biggest merchant

33:05

, kind of like Moneris

33:07

, is here .

33:09

I don't know the answer to that .

33:10

Like for terminals , I think , Once

33:12

they change , I mean it just goes pretty

33:15

quick .

33:15

Square is pretty massive in the US . Square

33:17

yeah , it depends on where you are

33:19

. It depends on the size of business . Yeah

33:22

, if you're after the lowest

33:24

merchant servicing fees , you're probably going with one

33:26

of the legacy providers .

33:28

Yeah , and what's your view on Bitcoin ? Is that ever

33:30

going to be anything that people can use ? Oh man , this

33:32

might be controversial .

33:33

I don't think

33:37

crypto is a good means of transacting

33:39

, like I don't think cryptocurrency is

33:42

a good way to exchange

33:44

, like I don't think it's a good replacement for

33:46

money , right um it

33:48

. The technology is cool for smart contracts

33:50

and things of that nature , or

33:53

, you know , maybe maybe speculating

33:55

. I know people are speculating a lot on like storing

33:58

, it's like gold or whatever people use that example , but I'm

34:00

not a big crypto guy for transaction because it's so

34:02

expensive , like , unless we have some breakthrough

34:05

in mining in

34:08

processing . you know , unless we have some sort

34:10

of breakthrough like , we have a different , a completely

34:12

different technology than exists today with

34:14

computers . Sure

34:16

, we could use it to transact , but

34:19

I think the big lesson with crypto was that

34:21

and I like using the example

34:23

of like , if folks don't know this

34:25

like , before central banks in

34:27

the Wild West , there were banks

34:29

across the US and

34:32

there's all these stories of people robbing the

34:34

banks and they robbed the gold from the banks and the banks

34:36

had gold in their vaults and there's

34:38

stories of like oh , you open the bank vault and there's

34:40

nothing in there . People's money

34:43

just disappeared from these bank vaults . And

34:45

so they came up with a solution of the central

34:47

bank . And the central bank was there to regulate

34:49

all the banks and how money was stored

34:51

and make sure that banks had enough deposits

34:53

to cover their customers . And then there

34:56

was okay , we need insurance for deposits , we need

34:58

FDIC , we need and

35:06

we spent 100 years or more developing a robust , secure , stable banking system so that we

35:08

remove volatility , so that we can trust

35:10

in the value

35:13

of a dollar , that I go buy something . And

35:15

what happened with crypto ? And it's like almost naive

35:18

. Um , people started

35:20

banks , crypto . These crypto

35:22

currency exchanges were essentially

35:24

like banks in the wild west

35:26

, where people put their money there and

35:28

there was a vault and , oh my god , the money's

35:30

gone . Like all of a sudden , there's no money there . Oh and

35:32

, by the way , there's no central regulator ensuring

35:35

that these entities or these digital

35:38

banks have enough deposits and have enough

35:40

to meet their . You know what I mean

35:43

. I'm like , why are we doing

35:45

this again ? We already invented a system

35:47

that's secure and stable . Why are we reinventing

35:49

the system ? And the argument was like oh , we need

35:51

decentralization , we need a way . And guess what happens

35:53

? When you have decentralization with no central bank , you

35:56

get scammed , people get greedy and

35:58

they steal the money and they walk away .

36:00

And that was mostly on the altcoin

36:02

stuff , though , right , anything that was other than Ethereum

36:04

or Bitcoin . I mean these were .

36:06

So it has nothing to do with

36:09

which token

36:11

or which cryptocurrency . It has

36:13

everything to do with which exchange . So

36:15

there's some exchanges like Coinbase which are

36:18

not scams yeah

36:20

, exchange . So there's some exchanges like Coinbase which are not scams , yeah , oh , I see Right , it's the

36:22

exchange . So you could store Bitcoin in an exchange that then disappears with your money . Oh , that

36:24

makes sense yeah , Right , so it doesn't matter which coin

36:26

, it is Right . Yeah

36:29

, so it's more about the fact that it's on

36:31

like having an having an unregulated

36:33

entity hold your money for you . Oh

36:36

my God , Like come right , Did

36:38

we really ? Did we need to relearn that lesson

36:41

? I don't think so . I was when people were

36:43

doing that stuff and putting money with these random

36:45

people and you know , living in the Bahamas

36:47

, like I was like okay , this is a recipe for

36:50

disaster . There's no central bank like making sure

36:52

that they have the deposits Right

36:54

, and that's why you should trust in the banking

36:56

system we have . The central bank is a good thing

36:58

. It ensures that these

37:00

small little community banks aren't ripping you off

37:02

, Right , that's what it's for .

37:04

Yeah , I mean , I would agree with you there . I mean , you

37:06

know Bitcoin specifically has been so

37:10

volatile that it's you know it's

37:12

a value creation tool , and that's

37:14

it I mean , and there's , you want

37:16

it if you can call it that .

37:18

It's like a stock basically right , sort

37:20

of , except stocks have companies

37:23

that provide value to people . So , like I liked

37:25

. Another example I like to use is like take

37:27

a nurse , right , a nurse that works

37:30

whatever . She works her hours nine to five

37:32

. How does cryptocurrency as a technology

37:35

change or improve her life at

37:37

all ? There is no extra utility

37:39

earned in this technology

37:42

for this person . It doesn't make a difference to

37:44

their life whatsoever . They're like oh

37:46

well , they can use crypto to buy stuff at the store . It's like

37:48

they have a freaking visa card . So what ? Yeah

37:50

, they can use their visa card to go buy stuff at the store . Like

37:53

, I don't understand . Like , if you can't give

37:55

a direct example where a non-crypto

37:58

person gets value out of crypto

38:00

, it doesn't make sense . So , and

38:03

most of the companies are what I would call infrastructure

38:06

companies selling to infrastructure companies

38:08

. So it's like a crypto infrastructure

38:11

is selling to another crypto infrastructure , selling

38:13

to another crypto infrastructure . There's no

38:15

end customer doing

38:17

something with it . There

38:19

is some value and people are going to say

38:22

, oh well , there's in South America

38:24

, in Argentina , people

38:26

are using crypto to get paid . But guess what they're

38:28

using ? They're using stablecoin . And what's

38:30

stablecoin backed by the US dollar ? Ok

38:33

, so a stablecoin is backed by the US dollar

38:35

. So what's the point of the stablecoin

38:38

? Why not just use the US dollar backed by the US dollar ? So what's

38:40

the point of the stable coin ? Why not just use the US dollar ? Like the US dollar is safe and

38:42

secure and backed by the central bank and backed

38:44

by the US ? Like

38:50

it doesn't make sense . If you can , oh , you can't have a stable coin unless it's

38:52

backed by the US dollar . Well , why are you using a stable coin ? It doesn't really make sense

38:55

.

38:55

That's cool . That's cool to get your that's my strong

38:57

opinion .

38:58

I'm sure there's others out there that would like could

39:00

debate this with me , but , like if I were you

39:02

, I would stay away from some of this crypto stuff

39:04

.

39:04

Yeah , I mean the what was it called Bored Ape and

39:06

the NFTs ? I was like okay

39:14

, this is a joke . I'm like . So

39:16

if I in

39:18

order like music's a little bit different

39:20

, right ? Because you have to , because it has

39:22

a timeline of consumption .

39:25

Yeah .

39:25

Start and end right . You can tell

39:27

if someone started or finished a song . There's a

39:29

play , but something

39:31

visual . How long can you say

39:34

that ? I've looked at it . The

39:36

consumption is . It's possible .

39:37

It's possible , but I mean Kind of it's

39:40

kind of possible , but why ?

39:41

But it's the same , you know go

39:44

back to the example I said with the nurse . But to look at it for five seconds is , how different

39:46

is that than an hour ? So I guess , I guess I think

39:48

you know what I'm saying . If someone to digital

39:51

representation , one is the real one that

39:53

has the certificate

39:55

on it and the other one's not , you still get the same

39:57

consumption value . Anyway , let's

40:00

go back to construction .

40:02

I'm sure people appreciated the tangent though . Well , I think it's

40:04

kind of cool . It is cool .

40:05

It's cool . Just to sit with someone in banking

40:07

is a bit of a cool

40:09

thing for me . I can ask you those questions , get your perspective

40:12

. So is

40:14

there anything else that you can see where I

40:18

guess the let's just talk about banking in

40:20

general the

40:22

machine is going away , I guess because

40:24

of deposits are electronic and

40:26

cash isn't being fired out of machines

40:28

anymore , as much as it used to

40:31

, I mean almost , but not

40:33

, but almost not . But how much the

40:35

bank itself like ? Just think about this for

40:37

a second . The old models of banks owned

40:39

the real estate . They had a branch , they had people

40:41

in it . People would line up . They

40:44

want to talk to somebody . What

40:47

about the ? Is

40:50

that whole paradigm just gonna die

40:52

?

40:53

It will die when a generation I know

40:55

it sounds terrible it'll die off when the generation

40:57

of people die off .

40:59

You just don't go to the bank anymore .

41:00

Yeah , I mean most of the money in the world is held by

41:03

people above the age of 50 , right

41:05

, I would assume . I actually don't

41:07

know if that's true , but I'm assuming that that's true

41:09

. I would say most of the wealth in the world

41:11

is held by people over the age of 50 because they've spent their

41:13

whole lives earning wealth . Those people

41:15

want to walk into a branch . They want to say , hey

41:18

, where's my money ? They want to shake someone's hand . So

41:21

I think it'll take a generation or two to

41:23

shift and eventually we'll probably

41:26

be digital . I mean , I barely walk . I

41:28

don't think I've had to walk into the bank in a long time

41:30

.

41:31

Did you see that there was

41:33

a presentation in Ottawa by this

41:35

guy who's put this

41:37

generation squeeze thing together

41:39

? Have you seen this ?

41:40

No , I haven't seen generation squeeze .

41:41

Okay , we won't go into this , but all

41:43

I can say is Google or

41:46

or go to YouTube and find generation

41:49

squeeze . It's the most bananas thing

41:52

you've ever heard in your life .

41:53

Okay .

41:53

They're advocating for intergenerational

41:57

fairness .

41:58

What does that mean ?

41:59

Redistribution of wealth .

42:01

Why .

42:02

Because younger generation are

42:04

useless and they

42:06

think that we have so people that work their whole

42:08

lives have to give up to some like yuppie

42:11

. Yeah , it's real serious . We're talking standing

42:13

Can you swear on this .

42:15

Yeah , Fuck that .

42:16

I mean like what I know that doesn't make any sense

42:18

, but I don't know . It

42:20

looks like they're coming for it .

42:21

What's it called ?

42:23

Intergenerational Fairness and the group

42:25

is called Generation Squeeze .

42:27

How old are they ? What are they like ? A bunch of

42:29

25-year-olds .

42:30

Well , this guy was at least in his 50s

42:32

. Who was representing it ?

42:33

Oh , okay , he wants to give up his money to

42:36

a bunch of young people , I don't know , let

42:38

him . I mean he can do what he wants , right , but

42:41

yeah .

42:42

I mean , so that's kind of a crazy

42:44

thing . So

42:47

you said that you're

42:49

probably going to think of doing financing

42:52

stuff for construction at some point .

42:54

Financing is coming very soon , so the actual

42:56

like borrowing money just as

42:58

like a line .

42:59

To clear a job To clear a job .

43:00

Yeah , that's coming actually faster than the

43:02

money , faster than like issuing

43:05

credit on the cards , so we're going to have

43:07

that in the app very soon , because that's pretty cool .

43:09

We've been approached by a number of companies actually , who

43:13

have financed this job button

43:16

in Sitemaps . Yes , they've wanted us to do that

43:18

and I've kind of thought of sort

43:20

of but I'd rather do that with you guys , so when you're

43:22

ready for that , we'll have the paper

43:25

, finance this job . Get up to 100,000

43:27

, or whatever it is .

43:28

Yeah , that's coming very soon and for us , I mean

43:30

we're basically basing it off of your

43:32

transaction volume with us , right ?

43:40

So because we have the data , so it'll be fairly accurate of like how much you'll need .

43:42

So you got some underwriters ready to rock and roll with that stuff .

43:43

Oh yeah , it's a big project .

43:44

That's huge . Legally it's huge . It's very challenging to do , but

43:46

it's coming . It's coming yeah .

43:47

Nice , that's pretty cool . And then back

43:50

to Canada . At some point are you just going to ditch it ?

43:53

Probably not . I mean , the US

43:55

is a huge market . I

43:57

think it'll take us a long time to build

44:00

up and dominate that market . Coming

44:02

back to Canada is a challenge and there's a bunch

44:04

of regulatory stuff

44:07

that kind of prevents a business from being successful

44:09

in Canada , especially in the fintech space

44:11

. That's why you don't have these types of banks here

44:13

. It's not because there aren't innovators

44:15

that want to do it , it's too much brain damage . I

44:17

mean , I won't say them by name , but there

44:19

is an example of a digital bank . They're not focused

44:21

on construction , but I know them well and

44:26

their digital bank . They don't have insurance on the accounts because they haven't

44:28

been able to get it . So it's like , how

44:30

does the government or the you know

44:32

, how do people expect them to be successful if they can't do

44:34

something basic like put insurance on the account

44:36

, right , yeah , it's like kind

44:38

of ridiculous . Whereas , like , for us , we actually have more

44:41

insurance . We have 3 million of insurance , whereas regular

44:43

banks only have like 250,000 . Yeah , right

44:45

, so it's like we can actually do better than the traditional

44:47

banks , whereas if we're in Canada the

44:49

big kind of like the big five oligopoly they're

44:51

always trying to chop your legs off .

44:53

Right , yeah , yeah , definitely

44:55

. The equipment financing

44:58

is also good as well , like equipment leasing

45:00

. You got all that sort of stuff that you could be doing

45:02

there .

45:09

Yeah , so there's a long roadmap .

45:10

We have a long roadmap of financial products that we can

45:12

build . It's going to take a long time . Yeah , have you seen scenarios where well , I've

45:14

seen it before , but I don't know if you've seen it in your customer

45:16

base where , just for liability reasons

45:18

, like a construction company with a bigger

45:20

project would just create a numbered company for that project

45:23

. Oh , yeah , we

45:25

support that actually , within

45:27

your platform , are you able to have the

45:30

parent company and then this one is affiliated

45:32

somehow ?

45:34

So you can open multiple entities

45:36

with trust and then when you log in

45:39

, it lets you just select which company

45:41

you're logging into .

45:42

So that's just a huge win right there . A regular bank wouldn't

45:44

let you do that .

45:45

Actually I would say 12 , we

45:47

did this analysis the other day . Like 12 to 15% of

45:49

our current customers have multiple entities . Nice

45:52

, so that's a normal thing . They log in to the

45:54

account with their regular login and then they just select

45:56

which entity they're banking with . Right , because a lot

45:58

of companies will have their roofing division and

46:00

then their home reno division and whatever

46:03

division . So some companies have three entities

46:05

, right .

46:06

How often do they close that entity once the project's

46:08

done Most of the time or do they use it again for

46:10

something else ?

46:11

Honestly , I can't think of an example where

46:13

someone opened an entities for a specific project

46:16

, example

46:18

where someone opened an entities for a specific project . I know that companies

46:20

have multiple entities for different divisions of like what they're doing for the specific

46:22

types of work . That's what I've seen . I

46:25

haven't seen like the project specific one

46:27

yet I'm sure we'll come across it .

46:29

Right , okay , yeah , so like

46:31

someone with like an excavation company might do municipal

46:34

work under one company , correct ?

46:36

And then that's what I've , and then the sub stuff they do on something

46:38

else . Yeah , so they'll have maybe their exactly

46:40

they'll have their subcontract work and then like , maybe

46:43

new home builds is under a different entity . That's

46:45

what I've seen .

46:45

Nice , okay . So

46:48

how long does it take to create an

46:50

account with you guys and get going ?

46:52

Yeah , so it's all digital . You

46:54

can book , we do white glove onboarding , or you can just go

46:56

and do it yourself .

46:57

What does white glove mean ?

46:59

White glove onboarding is like yeah so

47:01

we'll get on a call with you . We'll I

47:03

don't want to say hold your hand , but

47:05

we kind of hold your hand and like walk you through the process

47:07

of creating an account . You can , we

47:09

have , you know , you can text our reps

47:11

if you want , if you have questions

47:13

or whatever , and you basically

47:16

just need your business info . We verify your identity

47:18

. I mean obviously you're opening in a bank

47:20

account and then you're

47:22

up and running . I mean it takes less

47:24

than a day .

47:25

So do you mail out these Visa cards , or are they all digital

47:27

cards ?

47:28

You can do either , or so you can most

47:31

. What we've seen is most companies , when they sign up , they

47:34

issue physical cards to all their staff and then we

47:36

FedEx them to you . So it's actually really quick , Nice

47:38

, we like to get the cards in people's hands very fast

47:40

and then

47:42

you can create digital cards and add them to your Apple

47:44

Wallet in the meantime . What we found

47:46

is most people want the physical cards . Right

47:48

, it seems fairly common , yeah , especially

47:51

if you're going to like gas stations and

47:53

in the States physical cards are a

47:55

little bit still more needed than tapping and

47:58

if you're making $10,000 purchases at

48:01

a hardware store or whatever they kind

48:03

of want the card . They usually have the physical card . Yeah , that

48:05

makes sense . I think there might be limits on .

48:07

I don't know On Apple Pay .

48:08

I think Some of them , some stores , have limits

48:10

on Apple Pay . Yeah , but I

48:12

mean I've tapped when I was in the States

48:14

. I've tapped like $2,000 before . So

48:16

yeah , it does work for some large amounts

48:18

, but better to have the physical card .

48:20

Yeah , it's weird , Like

48:23

when I went into an Apple store and I wanted to use Apple Pay and

48:26

there was like there's a limit .

48:27

I'm like , I'm in your store . Do you not want me to buy ?

48:29

this shit . Okay , that's a bit silly , I know . Okay

48:40

, how . About some uh rapid fire question if , if , um . So what do you do that other

48:42

people would think is insane ? What do I do that other people think is insane ? Who thinks you're

48:44

nuts for doing xyz something ?

48:46

I mean , starting a digital bank

48:48

is kind of crazy . Um , yeah

48:51

, I mean some people I mean my grandparents can't

48:53

really wrap their head around it . You , some

48:56

people think that's kind of crazy . Where ?

48:58

are your grandparents from ?

48:59

England , so British .

49:02

So how is Matthew going to start a

49:04

bank ? I don't understand . Don't

49:07

you need to be rich to start a bank .

49:08

It's something like that . You

49:11

actually do need a lot of money . We

49:13

raised a lot of money to start . That's

49:15

cool . I think that's what people think I would say . I also

49:17

do rock climbing . I like rock climbing . Let's see your forearms

49:20

Not too

49:22

crazy .

49:22

Not too crazy . We used to have a guy work for

49:24

us . He was a rock climber and he had like Popeye

49:27

arms . It was huge .

49:30

I have a really intense job so I don't get to

49:32

go as often as I'd like to . What's

49:38

to ? Yeah , what's your ?

49:39

what's your favorite climb ? Uh , I do all indoor .

49:40

So I'm not , I don't do the outdoor stuff . I see , do you like going ? Uh , I went to craig x all the time

49:42

I've done outdoor once and I I was

49:45

very terrified . Yeah , yeah

49:47

, I mean that's just have you . I mean for

49:49

people that don't know , in vancouver we have this

49:51

mountain called the chief yeah you can google google

49:53

right now the chief . I mean , I've never

49:55

done that . I don't think I will I don't know , yeah

49:58

, I like the indoor stuff . It's like , uh

50:00

, it's like meditating for me . You know , you don't , I

50:02

don't listen to music or anything , I'll just like climb . And even

50:05

though it's indoor , the outdoor stuff is , uh , I don't

50:07

have , I don't have another time for that , you know that

50:09

alex honnold guy . It's not crazy what

50:11

he did I hurts

50:14

it like hurts to watch like

50:16

the Like the footage . There's no

50:18

way .

50:19

I just even on TV .

50:21

I'm like oh , my God , and you know that's the

50:23

guy that hasn't died yet . Right there's all these other

50:25

guys . Don't say yet .

50:26

Matt Come on .

50:26

Sorry , there's all these other guys . There's

50:28

all these other guys , like it's . There's a sad

50:31

story about a guy from . It

50:39

was one of his mentors , right , I can't remember his name , but uh , they did yosemite together near the a

50:41

guy who grew up near the whatever that town is near , the chief squamish . He grew up in squamish

50:43

and there's a whole documentary about him in squamish

50:45

and he , he died , oh yeah

50:48

yeah , so

50:50

you .

50:51

I won't see you in a wingsuit anytime soon no

50:54

, no , no . That's like

50:56

that plus that , yeah

50:59

, so like , hey , it was hard for us to get

51:01

up here . Now let's jump off it Like

51:03

in the flyway bird . Okay , what

51:06

would you be doing if

51:08

you weren't doing what you're doing now ? Like

51:11

total , like other

51:13

thing not related to what you're doing ? Do

51:16

you have another passion ? You'd be like , you know , if I wasn't doing this , I'd be doing something

51:20

else .

51:20

I mean I love people Like I like working with people

51:22

, but I'm also an engineer , so I don't

51:24

know I

51:26

like , can I , can I ? I'd probably be building something . I don't know I'd

51:38

be building something , maybe I'd be , maybe I like that . Like

51:40

, I have that like engineering mindset of built , like

51:46

the most satisfaction I get is from like coding and seeing something that I've built in real

51:48

life . So and I see , like like great friend of mine , devin , with his company

51:50

Hutchinson Contracting , I mean I saw him go from doing

51:52

little residential jobs and now they're doing big commercial

51:54

projects and I get to see , like you

51:57

know , I can see he has the same kind of mindset

51:59

of like the satisfaction of building and running

52:01

all these pieces Like it's like I don't know

52:03

, that's the , that's what feeds my brain

52:05

. So probably I'd probably be running a construction

52:08

company or something like that doing big , big

52:10

projects . Cool yeah .

52:12

All right , the last question . So I don't know

52:14

how often you go to job sites , because probably

52:16

not as much as some of our other guests , I actually

52:18

have been . You have Okay , so do you have a memorable

52:20

story from a job site that you're like . Oh my God

52:22

.

52:23

The one that I , the only one that came to mind when

52:25

I saw this was

52:27

when we were in Canada . We did this growth hack , where

52:29

we did co-branded construction signs on job

52:31

sites .

52:32

Okay .

52:32

And I if they posted it on Instagram , I would deliver

52:34

coffee and donuts to their job site . So

52:37

we did this co-branded . I remember

52:40

doing a couple of these and dropping off coffee and

52:42

donuts .

52:42

So was it called Trust at the time ? No right .

52:44

We were called back then . We were called Mizumago in

52:46

Canada .

52:46

Okay .

52:46

Yeah , so people would do this like co-branded sign

52:49

. And I remember delivering coffee and donuts

52:51

How'd that go . It

52:54

was good . I mean lots of cigarette smoke in

52:56

my face . But I remember some of these

52:58

job sites . This one in particular was

53:00

like the guys were super

53:02

nice and Devin I mean Devin who I

53:04

delivered to their job site , devin good

53:06

friends with him . But yeah

53:09

, it's funny , going from like an office working

53:11

with software engineers where everyone's

53:13

very , you know it's a different environment

53:15

. Going to a job site is like a

53:17

peek into a different world . It is a different world

53:20

for sure .

53:20

Yeah , okay , matt . Well

53:23

, so is it trustsomethingcom

53:25

? What do we got Trustpaymentscom ? Trustpaymentscom

53:28

for anybody who's interested . And

53:34

yeah , we're going to continue to do our

53:36

best to deepen the offering from SiteMax . Awesome , you

53:38

know . Get you some more customers and yeah , there we go .

53:40

Sweet , yeah , and I mean with trust . You

53:42

know , we have a welcome offer 50,000

53:45

bonus points , you know , akin to

53:47

Amex points , after your

53:49

first 5,000 of spend . So

53:51

for folks that want to sign up and get

53:53

a free flight somewhere , yeah

53:56

, just sign up on our site and tell us that you came from

53:58

SightMax .

53:59

Right on . Thanks very much , Matt . Well

54:05

, that does it for another episode of the Sight Visit

54:07

. Thank you for listening . Be sure to

54:09

stay connected with us by following our social accounts

54:11

on Instagram and YouTube . You

54:14

can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at

54:16

SightMaxSystemscom , where

54:20

you'll get industry insights , pro tips and

54:22

everything you need to know about the site visit

54:24

podcast and Sitemax , the

54:26

job site and construction management tool

54:28

of choice for thousands of contractors

54:30

in North America and beyond . Sitemax

54:33

is also the engine that powers this

54:35

podcast . All right , let's

54:37

get back to building .