Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - Revolutionizing Shopping and Giving ft. Kenyatto Jones | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 62

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

In this episode of Coffeez for Closers, we sit down with Kenyatto Jones, Founder of GivBux, a groundbreaking mobile wallet application that is transforming the way people shop and give. With a vision to integrate philanthropy into everyday transactions, Kenyatto has led GivBux to become a leader in the fintech space, offering users a seamless platform to make purchases while supporting their favorite causes. Under his leadership, GivBux has gained recognition for its innovative approach, including features that allow users to earn rewards and contribute to charitable organizations effortlessly. Join us as Kenyatto shares his entrepreneurial journey, the challenges of developing a disruptive financial technology, and his commitment to making a positive social impact through business. This conversation provides valuable insights into the intersection of technology, commerce, and philanthropy, and is a must-listen for those interested in the future of financial services and social entrepreneurship.For More Check Out our Playlist: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgPwyhl8CkXiM0cBtuY8A_6JS60FueLz3&si=0_2dnoPkYV6jcSGw Check Us Out on all Platforms!Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coffeez-for-closers-with-joe-shalaby/id1726674707Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2KkQWRqHSHcCK3TVfsRKUK?si=hjTnUOjFS5eTDxBjgf4RwQ&preview=noneAmazon: https://www.amazon.com/Coffeez-Closers-Joe-Shalaby/dp/B0CRYLQRW6 Coffeez and Closers Socials & WebsiteWebsite: https://coffeezforclosers.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coffeezforclosers/TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbnU0T3RrLXdPbC1BR2NLc2lWcExqWklQaHlQUXxBQ3Jtc0tudi1GV2Zod3hRYzRhTkhONFBuMlptblNGSlJ1QzhpV0tzbHh5YThNR0R3Y2RnNnU5NV9ER3E5ZUhxMjdUUWp1UWo4MVl6Q2szeXo1cFh1OHNkYkxDR1F0MXZtMTZ6QnZoakdzSnJpVl9PcWZBOU9zZw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40coffeezforclosers&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Facebook: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa2pLZ2pMaUxmSTh4dy1qazMtdlBjX2pVN1AxQXxBQ3Jtc0tua2RUTUNsRmJob0RKWlVqeDhNaUN4US1rdlRvUG9Fdm5SNk1jU1pQNzNLQnVmUmtGMGtMYUViZ2pLMXJkOVJUci1kMk9DN2poTThVV2NFd0tISWdDMzNwOEZ2c3pVb09lbEhjemJHblRsS1RKdHZqbw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpeople%2FCoffeez-for-Closers-with-Joe-Shalaby%2F61556355642488%2F&v=uXvk6LY9lS8 Joe Shalaby SocialsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/josephshalaby/TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa3p6VlRzR1BWMkJQM1ZIaUdVZHhYVTYyak43QXxBQ3Jtc0tuUXVBOE1oZUJYTmZIZnNENUgxQkhjamk4RXJHb09MWU9OczJhLWpnX0JwN2pENzRhaV9NajJROW5nek1tQ1VvVE40ZFJuUUI2cnI0ajNKLXE4d1VMUUpkTGFHR0tGY0o5NUhnWnZnaXJoZXdEM0piaw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40josephshalaby&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/josephshalaby E Mortgage Capital Socials & WebsiteInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/emortgagecapital/Website: https://www.emortgagecapital.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Emortgagecap #1 Mortgage Company on Social on 🌎#1 Non Delegated Lender in the Country🌟#1 Broker in CANMLS #1416824"Mortgages Are What We Do Not Who We Are"™https://finance.yahoo.com/news/learn-why-e-mortgage-capital-192000740.htmlAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What's up, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Coffees for Closers, the podcast, where we bring you conversations with innovators and disruptors, making big moves, and creating a lasting impact. Today, we're talking to someone who's transforming how we shop, connect, and give back, leading a groundbreaking shift in fintech and philanthropy. Get ready for insights, inspiration, and game. changing ideas. Please welcome the founder and CEO of GiveBucks, Ken Jones. Good morning. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm actually not the CEO. I'm the founder and chief strategy of the company, but I appreciate the introduction. Well, the founder is chief strategy

officer, still the founder. You know, I love the concept of GiveBucks. I love what you're doing with it. And I love the mission behind it. Thank you. Now, I like to start to show off with the same question, everybody, with everybody and can what is your morning routine my morning routine at 5 a.m. I get up and listen to great glory it's like like clockwork and uh it's one of my podcasts or what do you listen to it's on i have app the matter where i'm at in the world i it's uh right here it's how i tune and um i tune radio tune in radio i'm sorry tune in radio okay and he's just uh he's always on 5 a m california time for 10 years he go live on at 5 a.m at 5 a.m?

You know, I don't think he's live. No, yeah, yeah. Because I listen to Greg Lowery podcast. I love his podcast. Okay, yeah, I don't think he's live, but there's reference. You can tell that it was, if it was recorded, like, in close proximity in the last 24 hours. There's always some reference to something that's happening today or, yeah, it's, I don't think it's live, though. Okay, I'm going to download that.

I didn't know he had now. Yeah, too. Actually, no, it's his, it's, it's called tune in radio. And for this, there's probably a hundred, 100 different. Castor on there. Like right now, it's a Tony Evans podcast. Okay. Okay. So I think it's in it. It's actually K-wave. K-wave. Oh, gotcha. Oh, it's the K-wave app. Okay. Right on. And so 5 a.m. then what do you do?

Then, at least three days a week, I go to I work out. Not as much as I should, but I work out. I got sucked into this Pilates class, which I thought was pretty easy, but it's not easy. It looks easy. It's not, it's not easy. It's not leading. Yeah, but a couple of my friends suck up meeting into it and I've been me and my friend Naomi my bestie says she's a good girl we do that with a couple other people joined with us and we try to get that out of the way and then

um I'm back to work nice nice okay cool what year did you start gift bucks uh 2018 December 5th 2018 and you've been working on developing this app for years and it still is now what are we six years later now it's being really push to the public. Absolutely. Yes, yes. We're really getting ready to a major push now. 2025. You're going to see some momentum start to happen. Seven years later. So you spent seven years building out this app. What were you doing in that whole time, like to live? How did you make money? Yeah, it was not easy. You know, I made some money in a previous company. I put it all here.

And I cast out some stock for seven figures, and I put the money here. And, you invested heavy into this yeah put everything in yeah i mean it should it should do very well for for us and you know that's not really reason why i'm not not money's money comes and goes we're not worry about that but we'll do well yeah no i mean the concept is it's it's revolutionary you know um so tell the general audience a 10,000 foot overview of what is give bucks and how they can benefit from it sure so so give us is a super app and we know they're not big here in the States yet's been in Asia just to put some context to a super app there's Gojet there's Ali Pay there's grab these platforms have hundreds

of millions of people today on the platform the biggest super app fall probably heard of it we chat by Tencent they got 1.3 billion people yeah on the platform so a super app is just one app instead of three four five six different apps to do all the different things like sending money talking on the phone, doing FaceTime, texting, paying your bill, giving, instead of using all these different apps to do it, it's all encompassed in one platform. That's why they call it a super app. So we develop the super app for the sole purpose to change the way the world gives. And it's a pretty unique platform and an algorithm that's embedded into the app.

And the whole concept is, hey, live your life. Go to the merchants, spend your money. The app's going to reward you because you use the platform. but we mandate that you have to give some of those cash rewards to a charity of your choice. Maybe you give to the Salvation Army, maybe you give to the Food Bank,

maybe you give to the church or a booster club, wherever. You give a piece of your rewards away to a charity of your choice and it happens, it's like inside the app, you have to set a percentage of your rewards

that you want to give to that charity. It's like set it and forget it. So now every time you go spend money, you know that go to a restaurant, you're at Red Robin, you're at Morton, you're at Applebee's. You spend $100 bucks. you're eating food with your family, you're putting food in your belly,

the same time you know you're putting food in someone else's belly. That's why we built this platform. It means a lot to us. It doesn't matter if you went to old Navy or Nordstroms, bought a hat, a jacket, a pair of pants, a pair of shoes. You use the app so that you get rewarded, and maybe you're helping someone that didn't take a shower today. Maybe you're helping someone that slept on our bridge.

It doesn't matter. How you're you doing is use the platform and you're spending your money with a purpose. That's kind of the, in the nutshell, that's the crux of why we built the platform. platform, all the other little things, sending money back and forth, chatting, talking. Those are all just feature sets that come with a super app. But the whole purpose of using the app is spend money and help others that are less fortunate. That's the gift side.

And then the buck side is there's a really unique opportunity to also supplement income for yourself. And it's all using a free platform. So giving and making money all in one app. That's what the platform's about. That's great. Yeah. The concept is genius.

and for someone like me, like when I'm going to a restaurant, and just to feel good about, you know, guaranteeing a percentage of whatever I spend goes to other hungry people would just make the experience better altogether. Absolutely. It's the right thing to do. Yeah. We're our brother's keeper.

You know, we're our sister's keeper, so we have to do the right thing if we can, especially if it's frictionless. I mean... Now, the only friction would be adoption of the app. That's correct. So they have to use the app as, like, your credit card's built.

into the app and you pay or you pay with the app or yeah it's it's super simple you literally go to the merchant you're at fill locker you're at apple bees doesn't matter they bring your bill all you have to do is go open up the app type in the amount $34 and 15 cents click pay and in about seven eight seconds a barcode's going to appear and you just point the barcode to the scanner and you pay for your bill the app generates an e-gift in real time. We're authorized to issue legal tender in the form of an e-gift. Basically the same as a gift card that you go buy at the grocery store, but instead of being in its plastic form, it comes on your phone in the denomination of whatever your bill is.

That's how it works. Wow, that's amazing. So it's very friction. It's just like just paying instantly. Paying instantly. And I'll show you, well, you can ask a couple questions, but I'll show you a couple, I should have had this pulled up. Yeah, that's amazing.

And it looks like you have a lot of people already on it. So like, is that like, because Uber's on this. Uber's easy. We love Uber. Uber's easy. So like when I order my Uber, can I just be synced so I don't do anything, right? So Uber, there's a few apps like Uber, Amazon. Amazon has its own giving solution.

They used to have one smile, but somehow they abandoned that just recently. I think within the last six months. Yeah. I don't know why. Harrod was an amazing product for them. Maybe they'll bring it back. Who knows why, but no, they abandoned that for some reason. So, but it's okay.

We're happy to keep the giving movement going with them about them. I mean, well, with Smile Gone, that just opens up more market share, more opportunity for you guys, for those who have that on their heart to give. I mean, everyone should be giving anyways. You know, we all know that that's something that we're called to do. obviously this doesn't replace the mandatory giving requirement, but you have to fulfill as part of your legacy anyways. But, you know, any additional opportunities where we can help elevate our, you know,

our soul, it's always welcomed, right? Amen, absolutely. So let me ask you this. I'm going to go back. Like, at what year, how long have you been an entrepreneur? Because we talked about your coffee company. We talked about. So you've had multiple companies in the past.

Since college days, 25 plus years than an entrepreneur. 25 plus years. What was your first business? Well, I guess you wouldn't. If you had, well, let's say the first business was starting in the direct sales space back in the 90s. So the formerly known as the multiple level marketing companies, multiple level marketing business. Okay. That was probably the first, I want to call it business that I'd have gotten involved in where I didn't have a salary, didn't have a, didn't get a weekly paycheck.

It was you eat what you kill, kind of a scenario. But it really, I really did learn a lot about business. And they didn't teach much about balance sheets. They didn't teach much about income statements. It was just a different type of situation, but I'll understand the power of leverage and how to earn income off a network. So that was eye-opening. Much different situation than, hey, you punch out. You don't get paid until you punch back in kind of a situation.

So you started, in your early 20s, you became an entrepreneur. Yes. And what inspired you to start GiveBucks in 2018? So you had a big, did you have an exit in 2018? And then that's what allowed you to, or you cashed out some stock? I cast some shares out. Of what company? I was a coffee company.

Okay. Out of Plano, Texas. And you were a majority, minority owner? I was a large shareholder in there. I think if I kicked this thing off, I was the second largest shareholder in the company. Okay.

And, you know, should have done better than I did, but life is, what life is. So we, I now have an opportunity to control my own destiny here and do something that I think will have major impact on society.

I think it will have a major impact on society. I think it will have a lot of, have a legacy play for myself, and I want this thing to be here, you know, or the movement to be here long after I'm gone. And again, the whole concept really is changing the way the world gives. And it's an arduous task. I know. Some people say it's insurmountable. Some people, you know, everybody's got an opinion, but. Well, that should fuel you more. Yeah. It should feel you more. You know, whenever someone says the mountain's too high to climb, like, let's go. I'll make it happen. Absolutely.

So my question is like you, you know, Facebook, all these big mega platforms are encouraging giving or, you know, so how do you differentiate between, you know, meta's giving platform or, you know, smile, Amazon's platform or some of the bigwigs charitable platforms? Well, so I think what's different about this platform is we're actually giving our user base the capital because they use the platform is because we're not rounding up. So if your bill was $34 and $12, cents, that's what you pay. We're not saying make it 35 so that we can give some to a charity choice. You pay your bill, whatever the price is. So the people on the platform are basically foregoing a cut of the income to go to charity. They're losing. The user's not losing. The user's not losing. Really, no one's losing. It's a win-win for the merchants.

win-win for the user base and win-win for charities. We had to create this. I don't understand how the merchant doesn't lose. So here's a great example. So I pull this up. This is what it looks like when you pay your bill. Went to Elpoiloco. I typed in the amount, 1593.

I click pay, and they scan my phone. Because I use this, we don't use it. I didn't pay with my Visa mask card for my American Express, which the merchant would get dean, the merchant processing fees for that. So we pretty much eliminated that. We don't ride the visa rails or the MX rails. We utilize the gift card rails, which is a different kind of situation. So the merchant benefited from that. Don't have to worry about chargebacks. It's not like I dropped my car in the street. Someone went in there and tapped it and left and complained a month later

saying, I was never here. So that's the loophole. The merchant, you're avoiding the merchant fees when using cash directly as a gift card strategy. It's one of, It's amazing. Yeah. I mean, that's one of. But, yeah. I mean, like, just as a general gist, like, because they're saving on the merchant fees, the 2, 3%, you're saving the 2, 3%, everybody's saving that 2, 3%.

That's the variance there. Absolutely. The merchants also benefit because we have a community of people that have money in our account. So they've got funds to be able to use. Where do they get that money from? Either they top their account up or they earned rewards through the network, which I can talk to you about that later. So now I've got a bunch of money in my account.

Where can I spend it? I've got to spend it right there. So you want to be one of the merchants on there. If I'm in your town and I've got, I'm going to log in right now, I've got $400 something in my account. I could be John's Pizza, Joe's Barbershop, or who knows where. I got to spend that money. And trust me, I'll spend this money before I pull out this Bank of America card or this paper cash.

Yeah. So that money is, how do you fill that money? Is it through your credit card, your debit card? your debit card or where's that money being? So two ways to get money in your account is I can use Venmo, I can use Zell, I can walk into. You have to, you have to basically input the cash. Yeah, you can top your account up. I can connect my debit card to top my account up.

That's one way. Or if you owe me money, let's say you, I. Well, let's say businesses are using their credit cards, you know. They'd have to use, is it tied to a credit card or only? You could, you could tell your credit card too. You could still get your points too. Absolutely. That's what I was alluding to.

Yeah, absolutely. So you can get your points. You avoid the merchant fees. You avoid the merchant fees for both ends, and then the hungry benefit. That's it. Yeah. This is amazing. Yeah.

It's amazing. And I mean, it's a win-win for everybody. You're absolutely right. I hope to God this takes off now. We are now in the spirit of giving, and that's why I was really wanting to kick off this interview right in time for the Christmas season, for people to really just put it on their heart. hearts, their minds, their souls to give and give accordingly and just give all the time. Awesome. And I think give bucks is a solution to help people start that journey of always being a giver,

you know, because, you know, we all know God loves a cheerful giver. Absolutely. God loves a cheerful giver. So if we give and we give with, you know, all our hearts, you know, we're going to be rewarded. So this is another, like I like to take many steps towards progress, and this is just a baby step towards giving. It's not like this is, God wants 10% of your money, more than 10%

really, but you know, this just adds a little bit more. Absolutely. Yep. Now, my question is, what put it on your heart to start give bucks and where you spent six, seven years in

development, millions of dollars with no end in sight, what put, like, that risk on your heart? And, and and why? Like I said, I wanted to do something where I could leave the legacy. I have a marketing background, been a part of situations and know so many of my friends that have made millions and millions of dollars, and they make this money, and then a lot of it just gets squandered or just goes away, and nobody really benefits except for them. And I said, let me put something together

where people, we know how to make money, but let's figure something out where through this money that we're making, we're giving back. And people are doing transactions all day long. You're going to eat breakfast, lunch, dinner anyway. You're going to go to the theater. And there's so many. You got everything on you. You're going to buy game stops on here.

Food for less is on here. Uber's on here. Delta's on here. Home Depot is on here. Yep. Is on here. We can give, even when we go to Home Depot, I mean. I'm sure.

I pretty much can. You can live on this app. Yeah. If you didn't have a bank. Nike's on here. Airbnb, Nike, Under Armour, Adidas. You can use this platform at any of these establishments.

Yeah, it took a long time. We got a lot of knows. Some of these that you see are just recent. From Northstroms, Amazon, Home Depot, Forever 21. All these companies said no, no for us. I mean, you're calling their leadership teams to try to get them to, you know, give me an API integration into your payment platforms. It's actually an interesting methodology on how this came about.

At one point, I had started, I had tried to use LinkedIn, and I was trying to, you know, make the calls of the chain. Luser, lose a model. There are associations out there. There's these aggregators that have relationships already with a lot of these companies. And I thought, man, I hit the jackpot, get with one of these associations, and you can get in. But it's a good model. I'm thankful for it. It's helped us.

But they can't get you into the platform. I apologize, I have a little tickle here. But they can't really get you into accepted to the merchant. You still have to get approval from the brand. So we used to have to think we submitted an application and a flow of how the brand will appear inside of our app. I have many of those diagrams for every merchant. I mean, the merchants are particular about their brands.

I mean, it's not like you can just copy and paste the Nike logo and put it in your app or on your website without having a problem. You know, probably get a cease and desist really quick. Yeah. So you do have to get merchant approval. But the associations are super helpful, super helpful in some regards. I put this in my throat here, buddy. Yeah. I'm going to talk about now, like, building a super app.

a lot of people on this call don't even know what a super app is. I mean, because we don't really, I mean, I think the closest thing I would think to a super app would be like, uh, WhatsApp or something like that. I mean,

that's, what's a super app. It's not a super app. I mean, I feel like they're just, they keep adding to it. They're big. Yeah.

Um, what's this? We don't really have anything in the U.S. that's a super app right now, huh? Nope. I mean, a lot of people, I mean, kind of Facebook is sort of,

like you could, send payments through Facebook? Can't go to, you can't go to Ralph's and say I'm going to pay with my Facebook. Yeah, you're right. No. The best example of super apps

are look up for the listeners, grab, everyone knows WeChat. We chat. Yeah. Those are super apps. Even Elon Musk, he's kind of been touting,

turning Twitter, we're actually now X into an everything, app and everything app is the same as a super app. Yeah, so. I can talk, I can chat, I can send you money. There's a social media component where I can post things on social media. I can spend money at the merchants.

Those are the major core features of a super app. And is there a social component of give bucks too? Phase one's already done. The next version, which is our... Are you going to be like a Blue Sky X platform? Are you going to be like a... They'll be our version of Instagram or TikTok inside of the app so people can create content and post inside the platform and share what they're doing. Yeah.

All inside the app. And it'll be cool. Maybe it'll be like philanthropic, you know, content. Absolutely. Yeah, I've taken a, you know. That's exactly what we want. Yeah. Philanthropic content.

Yeah. A lot of my content strategy always is around, you know, philanthropy. be matter of fact i do man on the street content and i was doing it yesterday and i was you know trying to find needy people just to buy them their stuff really yeah well that's part of my content strategy so okay yeah um so beyond the podcast i do you know man on the street content a couple times a week okay yeah in addition to everything else i do and it's funny to get rejected by people they don't even know what what's coming if they said yes you know um Got a funny story about that.

I try to give a guy right in Newport. It's funny. I never let anybody, if I see a homeless, when I drive, I have a stack of $2 bills or $1 bill is in my glove apartment, ready to give as I'm just to live my life. And once I'm in Newport, I'm giving, I just do my routine. Okay, here's a guy who needs help. And I'm cash, so he's all, oh no, sorry, I can't take money from you people.

I'm like, okay, it's kind of odd. I didn't know there was racism even within the homeless, but there's racism within the homeless. I'll just give my two, three dollars someone else. There's a funniest experience right there on the corner of right. There's a warrantee office. Wow. On PCH and Superior, I guess, or read as you pass whole hospital. So a white homeless guy would not take money from, you know, an African American.

That's insane. Interesting. That was a fascinating experience for sure. So what are some of the biggest challenges you think you faced in building a super? You know, finding the right development team to work together in harmony. It's been the biggest challenge I've had so far. I got lucky. I found some ninjas out of Honduras.

These guys are super qualified. Language barriers, but it is. but and we have operations person here and he's from Leigh Forrest QA, a lady does our QA, she's here in Irvine, our CTO, he's here in Irvine. But getting everybody all on the same page, meeting timelines, has been a challenge and partial, it could be part of my fault, run out of capital, didn't have all, I didn't have tens of million dollars to start this company. I think I had enough to get us to where we are. I think we have a seat at the table. Did you get any seed funding or you funded at all? I put seven figures of

my own money in, but I got a little bit of money from out. So we went public. I took it's public. Ticker symbol is G bucks, GBUX. We're on the OTC markets. We just filed with the SEC a month back a little more than a month or so. What's the share cost right now? You know, I don't follow as much. I've been focused on, it's probably somewhere between 50 cents and a dollar, somewhere,

it's always kind of hovered around there. But you're going to see, I believe, and I'm not making any comments on any investment advice or buying any shares or anything, but I think this thing is going to do very well. I mean,

the concept is genius. So like a tech company that, you know, skips out on merchants, you know and it gives the money back to the point it's a brilliant concept

do you have competition right now no one's doing this in Silicon Valley the way we're doing it and we did this by design I looked at all the big boys what's Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Google Pay, Zell, cash out Venmo, PayPal, what are they doing

what are they not doing and that's part of how I came up with this idea I wanted to do something that was just different and no one's doing it like this at all Did you ever talk to the founders of like Van Moe like Brian Johnson or see what they're doing it? Well, I know what they're doing. You can look at their platform.

You can kind of see. But what's on their, you know, on the horizon in terms of like, because a lot of people are leaning. A lot of the big guys. I mean like Amazon to hear Smile is gone. I thought they were going to lead the forefront on a giving revolution. Maybe they'll bring it back. I don't know why it was a bit of shock to me too. Yeah. It opens it up for more market share for you, but, you know, it's a, you know, it's a shock to definitely hear that smile is gone. Now, let me ask you this, and this is something that, you know, is important. It's how are you inspiring user engagement and really inspiring the adoption of your user base?

So, the app's by imitation only. So anybody can download it, but you can't get in without a code. So we incentivize our user base to spread the word because when their friends are paying it forward, they're getting a reward. So it really means a lot when you really understand and pull the layers back. If you told a friend, they told a friend and they told a friend and that person who you don't even know down there went to Applebee's and spent $100 because they paid it forward, this person got in this example, 50 cents of the transaction. This person got 50 cents.

You would have got a dollar. I would have got a quarter. And so with three other people. So seven of us benefit because this person who we don't even know, use this app for Appalpeas and paid it for it. That's kind of the model. So I can't just download give bucks right now and start using it. Download it, but you can't get in. We need a code to get in.

It's easy. That's why someone will invite you and you can click on the link and then get in. Yeah, but how many users are out there? I mean, how do you... We just get started. I mean, there's north of 10,000 people that even know about the company. Nobody really knows about this business yet.

They're getting ready to, though. Yeah. And they'll all, they'll all, listen, the last company I was telling you about, the coffee company, is word of mouth, and a quarter million customers were spending money,

and it's all word of mouth. We'll get customers. How do you get Nike to sign up for your platform with no, user with the 10 I mean a small user base 10,000 I mean how did you convince him like that that was a feat by itself like a big merchant like Nike a big merchant like home depot I think they have a different motivation as I've gone through and learned this because I corner why do we get through these rejections

the business model is pretty simple and then why are we getting some approvals it was pretty I know the motivation is yes I think checking the company out we do give um objections on how much volume, how much volume we believe we'll do. And I think really, like, we don't make any money unless we send them customers. So it's not like we're saying, hey, guys, we need a $19 a month fee or a $19 a year fee. There's really no reason not to use the platform when we're sending customers to you. I think the gift card rails are genius, not having to worry about chargebacks. You guys probably don't have that issue here, but a lot of merchants, there's a lot of fraud out there by people just. I mean, all these merchants aren't listed here Southwest, every single one of them are dealing with chargebacks. There's no way you can't deal with chargebacks. Yeah, when people are using their debit card and credit card, you are subject to using chargebacks.

The gift card rails are uniquely unique in that respect where we don't have that issue. I don't really have an issue with that. I mean, we bear some burden potentially with chargebacks as people put money into the platform. But even less, we're pretty safe, especially when you start seeing some of the new features in there with cloud biometrics or your face will actually approve the transaction. That's an extra layer of security for us. So we won't be subject to the characters out there that.

create these nefarious little there's a lot of fraud out there of course there's a lot of bad actors that like pry and looking for ways to infiltrate and squeeze in and exploit the vulnerabilities in these platforms but I think with 3DS

and biometrics it should shake all those guys out it's kind of hard to charge something back when your face was required to approve the transaction or your finger. Yeah. In this case, not even your finger

who will require your face. That'll be the ultimate protection for us. And when's that coming? The facial recognition to pay. I'm a month away from that. Probably a month, maximum two months away, but yeah. That's amazing. We're pretty protected the way we are right now.

3DS is pretty good. But that extra layer is just ironclad. It won't have any issues. Now, mortgage banking business and in my business we are hyper regulated. I'm talking about like so regulated that Elon Musk is even saying, man, you got so many regulators in the mortgage space that they're like duplicitous. You know, there's just a bunch of the same regulators all regulating at the same time, all like auditing, doing their concurrent audits. So I'm used to hyperregulation. What sort of regulatory

compliance or hyperregulations is around philanthropy. I'm sure there's a lot because there's so many philanthropic scams out there. Sure. And then how did you overcome those and how are you kind of meshing in and overcoming any future regulatory issues? Yeah, so two things. I like the fact that us being a publicly traded company now filing form to int type information to become a fully reporting, fully audited company.

um having an indipan auditor that's not part on our board not a part of our company would even know them pill back and everything uh gives me some comfort um but on the business model to answer a question see we're rewarding you cash back and we're saying hey if you want to give some of that to charity then so be it that's your business there's no way that anybody could have been defrauded because we gave you cash back. It's not like, and you can earn rewards off of your network. And if you, that's your money. If you want to cast that in and give it to the homeless altar or spend it at the mall, that's your business. So there's really no risk in our, in our model on the charity and the philanthropic giving side. So we're not, but again, by SBA publicly traded, I still want to

make sure we have an auditor to be able to look at all the books. and make sure everything is in order. As long as the math adds up, meaning cash comes in, cash comes out, and someone can account for it, I think we're pretty, I think we're in pretty good shape.

But I let the attorneys sign off and bless all that so that we don't have any blowback in the future. Good, good. You know, as you talk about Give Bucks, and I'm just thinking, like, I'd like to be a,

like, a major person advocating for you because I'm all about giving and I'm all about doing God work and I love the mission of give give bucks as a whole you know I love what you did I love that you know you said I'm going to go all in on giving I'm going to make this you know my legacy because that's why God put me here um and it's it's amazing you know it's an amazing idea it's amazing concept I can't imagine how much effort went into getting all these big companies to say yes

when you are nobody right so it's easier than uh like I said The long route going up with the food chain through LinkedIn, not the best route at all. You know, getting connected with, and we haven't even gotten started. No, I know. I mean. Connected with the associations and the aggregators. Super, super important. But you got to remember, there's only a few hundred national brands that even exist.

You know, we're positioned to, this is why that sales force I talked about. earlier was important we're positioning ourselves to infiltrate and go through and get the small mom and pot shops all throughout the community and that's where there's millions of those businesses a few hundred here millions of John's John's pizzas and Tony T-shirts and Bob barbershops that's where the bulk of GDP is done you know gross domestic product is done in the small merchants and that's that's where we're going so no grow up um Door Dash Uber Eats um you know you go down

pretty much any restaurant you see their sticker in the window you know they had to go get those accounts and but that's where a lot of business is done and that's where we're going not only be able to have it in the local merchant I mean they're nationally recognized brands but in the local merchants is super important for us the reason why we started here

is because I wanted the app to mean something to everybody in all 50 states I just started here in Newport or an Irvine and just got all the local emergence around here it it wouldn't mean anything to someone in oklahoma or texas probably not even riverside no one's going to drive down here download an app just if they can only use it here no is it a national app or international app uh it's international right now we focus on the on the on the u.s market um but we're already once you have the national approval and you know home depot approval here it's easier to get uh the green light

to flip that that rail on internationally. So that's my next question is like, what is, you know, what are your plans for future expansion? And how do you think give bucks users are going to grow over the next five years? I think we're going to experience tremendous growth.

Having started, I think, you just started the marketing now. That last company, yeah, we just had a little stint. We're trying to get some marketing going, And, you know, today was a pretty important day just a few hours ago. You know, a new update came out. There'll be another one with a better UIUX, but new update come out, came out. It's going to make it easier to put money in the account, like within seconds, 10 seconds.

You can top your account up now. Whereas, you know, using the previous version, you know, could take three minutes as much as an hour to get money in your account. But if you plan ahead, it's not that big of a deal. But today, everybody's like, quick, quick, now. Now I need money. I need now access. Everybody needs now. Just what it is.

We're in the Amazon world. We're on-demand world. Yeah, Amazon really open up a can for everybody. Yeah. Delivering stuff the same day. Now, hours or next day, that's what it's just doing. Now you have to meet that demand. Yeah.

So now give bucks has, I want to give right now. I don't want to give it an hour. I need to give it right now. Like, we're moving too fast. Society moves too fast now. Yeah, it is. It doesn't need you. You know, but I want to give all the time.

So I'm going to be using give bucks. So you don't have Starbucks on here yet. We got, yeah, we can I make some recommendations? I'm from Starbucks. So we'll get Starbucks, though. Yeah, once Starbucks sees adoption, once like all the other bigger players, I mean, you already got some of the big players, but, you know, as there's more brand authority, as there's more adoption and as your user base grows,

everyone's going to come to you. Same thing happened when I start my podcast. I can get any guess. I only got mortgage guests. Because nobody cared that I was a mortgage CEO other than mortgage people. And then as the show grew and started to climb the charts,

like, oh, okay, we'll go on your show now. So it happens in any industry. It does indeed. I said it's in communication with one of the executives at Airbnb. And not only though I think, more and more of these brands are going to come, but when I start getting some of them to participate and market,

I think there's a huge opportunity from there. It's kind of a crawl, walk, run, and pros. I'm happy to first get in the door that show them that we can put some points on the board, get some volume going. Yeah, that's it. And I had a pretty interesting dialogue with this lady, and I think there's some cool opportunities

to even get companies like Airbnb to market and talk about the platform. There's some opportunities there. Now let me ask you something. How are you instilling and fostering a company culture of giving at GiveBucks? Like it's a company based on giving. How are you fostering that culture there? I think we have to do a better job at marketing, getting some videos out there so that it's just part of the ecosystem.

It's part of the UIUX. We need to do a better job doing that. But internally, we have, it's a skeleton crew. I don't have hundreds of people working for the company. I've never had more than 20 people. So not much impact and we're an international company too so you know developers out of indoors and which can't really give yet yeah they don't really have much money to give yeah and we don't have merchants out there we're not we're not

put that switch on yet but but we we need to do a good job at getting explaining the power of giving putting some videos in the platform and showing you like one thing that I today I mean it's everything is in there we give you all the data if you went to make made a purchase you can see in how much you spent how much rewards you receive how much the charity received it's all the data is there but it's a little bit static it's boring you know what it would work you know what you should do reach out to Greg lorry and have them do a five-minute chat a short video about the spirit of giving and make that one of your videos that would be that like that's not that idea

that you're like that would you know that would be your intro video listen to greg lorry tell you why to use give bucks yeah yeah and he'd do it he would do it he totally would he's such a cool guy yeah he would do it you just like listen i've worked on this app Greg i'm a big fan like i need you to do this five-minute video i'm sorry i had to say that i didn't want to cut you up but No, no, no. No, I was just, I lost my friends out there, but. Well, a couple last questions for you. Now, I like to wind down with these last same questions with everybody. And what is a personal goal that you have for yourself and a business goal that you have for Give Buck over the next year? Next year, well, I'm a personal goal. I'm a little behind on my family obligations.

I'm like the last of the delinquent friends to get, get married, have kids. Actually, there's another buddy who's worse off with me, so I'm not the last one. I won't mention his name, but he lives in Las Vegas, no. You'll never get married there. I'm just kidding. No, yeah, I've got to get the family situation going. Mom, one's grandkids, so I've got to get that machine moving. and you know the business I think the business is going to do well get the first

million people in the platform in the first year you think you get a million yeah absolutely I mean there we can before then I mean we've never even even utilize the power of these influencers and there's a couple of influencers that could just move the needle but you know I think there's a I think there's a better way in using the influence is going to work too but I think there's a better way than having to just stroke a check and pay X, Y, Z influencer to talk about it. It's going to happen anyway. Yeah.

When, I mean, that's the last case resort. If we have to do that, we'll do it. But I think the platform, the merits of the platform will attract the masses. I think a lot of people gravitate to the platform. And our ideology is sound. I think people just need to experience it and thank goodness for Apple Pay and the Google Pay, Samsung Pay,

who've made it mainstream, even though people still don't use it yet, but they've kind of made it mainstream that, yeah, you can go pay with relative ease using your smartphone. Without that, it'd be a harder road. Absolutely. Be a harder road.

But even they haven't infiltrated it, and they spend a lot of money to get you to use this, but go stand at any store, sit back and watch 100 people pay and 90 plus of them are still using plastic cards or cash. This is the craziest thing. A lot of the younger generation though, they're... They're using their Apple. Yeah, they're using Apple.

I mean, I barely started using Apple Pay myself. It's been a lot of money to get you to do that years ago, but... You know, it's adoption is slow. Adoption is slow. And I'm typically an early adopter, but I was reluctant because I was always scared with my phone. but I didn't realize with your phone with Apple Pay that before you pay you have to do a facial recognition which was my apprehension before yeah some people were a little bit wigged out about that big brother and there's a lot of people that are but this is where the world's going this is

it is what it is yeah pretty soon this is going to be the requirement yeah to adopt or die unfortunately we'll we'll see now last question you know because you're a man you know of character and faith and you built a company based on giving so you know that says a lot about you um so when you're in front of the pearly gates what do you think god's going to tell you um well job well done my faithful servant i hope so um but got to pull this off i've got a lot of uh a lot of uh making up to do you know just turned 50 this year so um It's a lot of a lot of making up to do. I'm not done everything I can or should have done.

So it's going to make it happen. This is going to take the giving community, the philanthropic community by storm. Coming to you, 2025, you're going to hear a lot and see a lot of him. God bless you, man. God bless your service. And I hope give bucks takes off. And I'll be advocating for you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.