The Best One Yet - Pepsi/Venmo’s “PepCoin” partnership, Walmart’s Grocery Club, and Voyage’s self-driving cars for old people

Episode Date: September 16, 2019

Pepsi and Venmo teamed up for a spending partnership they’re calling “PepCoin” — it highlights the behavioral challenges of Fintech. Walmart’s $98/month Grocery Club is taking on Amazon with something Amazon can’t do. And our “Nearly-Unicorn of the Day” is Voyage, whose self-driving cars are turning the elderly into early-adopters.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. And this is snacks daily. It is Monday, September 16th. Guess what, Nick? What are you talking? Eight straight days of gains on the stock market. I know you're thinking. It's like a baker's week. It's a baker's week seven plus one. Not a bacon dozen, not a baker's dozen. Now this is the best? Is the best one, yeah. Definitely the best snacks daily. Our first story, Pepsi and Venmo just teamed up on a calorie-packed partnership to create pepcoin. Sounds a lot fancier than it actually is. It's called pepcoin. We're looking at who actually won the partnership. Turns out there's a winner in this one. Second story is Walmart. It just whipped up a grocery club.

Cool, $98 a year. $98 a year for unlimited free grocery to your neighborhood. The target is Amazon and the target is target. And the food is the hook. And the third and final story, what have we got? The not quite unicorn of the day is Voyage. It just raised $31 million for self-driving robo taxes. But for old people.

We're talking senior citizens, retirement community, robot taxes. Hanging out of the old Willow Grove Acres estates over there. Before we jump into all that, Snackers. This is a sad moment. Tough weekend. For a company that caused quite a stir last summer. On Saturday, we had to put to rest movie pass. Pour out some skittles.

Maybe a few men and do extras. Movie pass is dead. It's a true thing. This was the all-you-can-watch movie theater membership. It sounded too good to be true. It's an all-you-can-watch movie buffet for $10 a month. Turns out it was too good to be true. Now, sad story here.

This is Jack and I bought some movie pass stock I remember while Jack and I were talking this thing could have gone up but it also could have apparently gone to zero I thought to myself this is going to be like the Facebook of movies maybe the Netflix of movies

turns out it ended up going to zero went to zero dollars if you want to send your condolences hit us up at Robin Hood Snacks In the meantime great lesson on things can go up things can also go down things can go down my stock is worth zero dollars and they may stay down You're tuned in the snacks daily.

We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something legal out the way. The snacks about the hearing food is air candy. They don't reflect the views of the Robin Hood family. It's all informational just so. You know, we're not recommending any securities. Nope. It's not a research report or investment advice. Not an offer or sale of a security.

Right. Snacks is digestible. Business news for you. Robahood Financial, LLC, member FINRA slash SIPC. For our first story, Pepsi and Venmo, they just teamed up to create a little thing called Pepcoin. Pepcoin. Because consumer behavior is really hard to take advantage. For the record, pepcoin is Bitcoin that you can eat.

It's a charming idea. Now, this brings me back to the old days. I know what you're thinking. When like 8-year-old me wearing 16 huskies, you got the life cereal and the crack on Oprah and mixed together for breakfast. And I would collect those little stamps at the bottom of cereal boxes. You cut them off and then I think an adult had to send them in for you. And if my mom sent in 30 of those. little things, I'd get like a fanny pack.

Right. Or this is kind of like those McDonald's Monopoly games that my family would obsess over for a good two months out of the. Atlantic Boulevard to get for a super-sized French French friend. Hardest one to get. Whoever won the millions, but I don't know who you are. So, and then Gatorade, I think, and Pepsi had bottle cap collection. Well, Pepcoin is, like, well, Pepcoin is a reward system version 2.0.

It's between Pepsi and Venmo. Venmo, by the way, is owned by PayPal, which is the biggest fintech company, and it's also publicly traded. So let's walk throughout this partner. work. Let's say you're walking by, it's treat yourself Tuesday. And you see some free to lays chips and you're feeling kind of hungry. And you're hungry, but you need something to wash it down. Jack and I aren't soda guys, but, you know, we'll go with this on this one. So you get some Doritos, let's say. And you get a caffeine-free diet Pepsi. Okay, like we did, they kind of balanced that out of it. So if you get a combination of soda and chips made by PepsiCo, then you whip out your phone, get the camera open and you can scan a like code on the back of both. There's actually not on the back of both. On the back of the, of the chip. chips. Right. And then underneath the cap of the soda bottle. So you actually got to buy the soda bottle and open this thing out. And you have to buy a plastic soda bottle because it doesn't work for cans. Basically, this program is a huge carbon footprint, is what we're trying to say. So if you get both a snack and a bottle, then you get to scan them and you get 37 cents approximately for that combo. That goes into your pep coin account online. Right. And all you need to do is take your phone and take out your camera and it should recognize the QR code and pop up an internet window. Now, once you do this a bunch of times and you pass the $2,000, mark, you can then transfer this cash, which is like free cash, directly into your Venmo account. So let me do some math here.

Six sets of soda and chips. You got the $2. Got the abacus out over here. So in a year, you'll make like $15 of free Venmo money. Now, Pepsi came out hard and said, this is a quote-unquote permanent program. This isn't like an occasional thing they're doing. Now, that's a very bold claim. I'm pretty sure the lawyers didn't want them to say permanent program.

Rule number one of lawring, never say forever. Don't do it. The fact that we just said it right now is a problem. should have been bleeped out. So at first, when we dove into the snack style, we noticed that it seemed like Pepsi was kind of the winner of the partnership. Well, it is called Pepcoin. True.

It is involving Pepsi products. Very true. And then when you look at the press release, we did a little Apple F here. Pepsi's mentioned 28 times. Venmo's mentioned six times. It's been a bad day for those Venmo lawyers on that thing. In Pepcoin, the Venmo is silent. But if you dive in a little deeper snack style, you notice that Venmo is the real winner,

right, Jack? Sounds like the time for the takeaway. So, Jack, what is the takeaway for our buddy? buddies over at Venmo and Pepsi. Human behavior is the biggest challenge to FinTech. Exactly. FinTech being financial technology. Venmo is a great example of it, digital payments. FinTech needs humans to transition from physical to digital,

aka from their physical wallets to like their mobile apps. And Venmo's already got like the athleisure-loving, brunching millennial avo toast-eating crowd like US and everyone else. Right. So Venmo has a whole generation of bougie millennials hooked to the app. But now this is targeting potato chips and so. to drinkers, which might be a different customer segment. Exactly. We're not talking about the like brunch was incredible.

Oh, G, I can't even. I'm obsessed with the Asaii Bowl crowd. This is going for the Dorito eating Pepsi chugging crowd. And that's why Venmo got involved, because this partnership could potentially change human behavior. For our second story, Walmart just whipped up grocery delivery membership club to become the prime rival. First rule of grocery club? First rule. Tell everyone at the office you join grocery club. Everyone should know that you're doing it. It's fun to be a part of everyone should join. You actually go to the grocery store? Oh, I'm sorry for you. Yeah. You should hang out with my club.

Here's the news. Walmart's Unlimited Delivery Grocery Club will now reach half of Americans by this fall. It's actually not called Grocery Club, but we just thought that was a better name. It's called Walmart Delivery Unlimited. Now, it costs $98 a year or $12.95 a month. And you get like same day delivery if you order within like a three hour window. Yeah. So order now, it'll be there in three hours. And there's like a $30 minimum. So you can't get like three kind bars.

Understandable. Actually, three kind bars is pretty expensive. Now, if you don't want to join the club, it costs about $10 per delivery. So the break-even is two orders per month. If you're going to order twice in a month from Walmart for delivery, you should probably just do the club. Now they tested this thing out in June in three cities. Tampa, Houston, and Miami, all NFL cities. Now this is going like almost nationwide.

It's going to reach half of all Americans. Let's talk about the big four in grocery delivery. The families from Game of Thrones, who we got from Westeros over here, Jay. You got Instacart, which is $99 a year for unlimited delivery. And then he got Target, which has an option that's $99 a year for grocery delivery. First of all, is this like prices right? Walmart beats them by $1. It's like that one friend.

Walmart's is 98. Target and Instacart are 99. Really creative Walmart. And then the one you all expected to be the lowest price, Amazon has Amazon fresh. But to be an Amazon Fresh member, first you got to shell out $119 to be a prime. Then you got to mortgage your home. Then it's $180 a year for Amazon Fresh for a total $2.99. So if you want that like Amazon delivery, you're shelling out a lot of money to begin with.

But here's the key thing about groceries. Grocery delivery is a loyalty leader. Food is the hook for Walmart to get you in the store. It gets you in deep because food is a loyalty leader. It's a loyalty leader because you kind of need it every day. I just ate and I plan on eating later. Or according to Wikipedia, you need it at least every three days. Sometimes you're just feeling spontaneous.

Maybe you want to eat pretty soon, like in three hours. So you go to Walmart.com and you order some basil, you order some spaghetti sauce and San Marzano tomatoes. I don't think you've been to Walmart in a while. I like my San Marzano, though. And the thing is, you might even throw in some workout socks or a shirt. Shambreys shirt, which, by the way, Shambrae. Again, not sure you've been to Walmart recently.

The jeans, that people who don't like. jeans can wear. The point is food gets you in the store and then you buy other stuff. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Walmart? Amazon, it cannot offer this. Walmart is using what it has and Amazon doesn't to offer what Amazon cannot. Wow, let me write that down. It's like the fifth book from JAR token right there. Let's talk about locations. Yep, 90% of Americans, actually over 90% live within 10 miles of a Walmart. And the percentage for Amazon is much, much, much lower. What about food? Amazon owns whole food, but that is out of price level for most Americans, and it's only 340 locations. So what we've noticed Walmart's found here is a formula to beat

Amazon. The grocery club. By the way, we on for dinner on Monday? Yep, Nick dinner's on, but it's B. YO, San Marzano, you're bringing your own. I'm not going to get them at Walmart. Also, this is Jack and I own shares of Amazon. For our third and final story, Voyage is making driverless cores for old folks, and they just raised a big round. The company's based in Hollow Alto, California, which is Spanish for tall sticks. It's also a dry heat over there. It's also where Stanford University is, and I played golf on the Tiger Woods-Stanford University golf course.

It's also where we are basically right now. Now, Voyage has a fleet of Chrysler minivans that shuttle old folks around. How appropriate. Now, the vans currently, they have self-driving tech, but they still have a human backup behind the wheel. But the reason Voyage is excited is they just raised a cool $31 million from venture capital. And that means they can put that into the business and start growing things. things investing. Now, the 31 million, they're going to spend on expanding their second generation

fleet of self-driving cars and launch a third generation fleet. Yeah. All of these things only go 25 miles per hour. They're pretty slow. But the third generation is going to do it with no human being behind them. And it could potentially be electric. Yes. And it's probably going to be electric. TBD. Plus, they're going to grow their team from like 50 to 150 people. And they have been snagging some top people. From Tesla, from Uber, your resume. And from Neo, which is, Tesla's Chinese rival. Now, in case you're wondering where these things are, if you're looking for like a voyage minivan cruising around,

holding up traffic, they're in two retirement communities. Yes. They are robo taxis that are cruising very slowly around a retirement community in San Jose, California. Big sharks fans. And then the second one, no-brainer, Florida.

We're talking like 55-plus retirement communities here. I actually checked out the website. It is a, for the Florida one, it's an active and friendly adult 55-plus retirement community. We're talking like Willow Glenn Acres Estates over here. here. Now, the people at Willow Glen Acres Estates, that's not the real name, by the way. No, that we should clarify that. They're old, but they're active and friendly, so they need rides. And they want to get around. That golf course isn't going to be there. You don't want to walk to

that golf course. Tuesday is bingo night. Thursday is movie night. Friday is grandkids photo night. And in the meantime, hiring human drivers to shuttle around between all those critical activities, that's like 20 bucks an hour plus benefits. And over the course of a year, that's a lot of money. We're totally. Now, these things are cruising only 25 miles. per hour, but you'll make that 4.15 p.m. reservation at the clubhouse at Del Boca Vista. Oh, you're telling me. Jack, what is the takeaway for our buddies over at voyage? The early adopters of self-driving tech? It may surprise you. We're not talking like Tim Ferriss wannabes here with like the Google Glass. It's, one second, let me put it on. With all bird shoes

on every appendage of their body. Let me take a picture of this. It goes right into my mind. Nana might be the early adopter of self-driving tech. Yolo Nana. Yolo. Nana. Exactly. No, this is serious. Elderly. people, eventually they probably shouldn't drive for safety, but they living longer because of modern health care and they need to get places. Exactly. And otherwise, if they have to rely on other people, it can become a burden on families, which leads to more stress and more challenges for everything. Or maybe they can spend a ton of money on like Uber and Lyft. But Voyage has realized that millions of American senior citizens, they're in these retirement communities. They have this neat. It's kind of the

perfect place for the first fleet of robot taxis. And the main issue with self-driving cars, they tend to go really slowly because they're so careful. But in a retirement community, 25 miles per hour is like Speedy Gonzalez. Easy over there. So self-driving cars can empower elderly communities with mobility. By the way, Voyage.

Great idea from snacks over here. Backseat crossword puzzles. Built in. Built into the seats. Pencils, not pens. You got $31 million. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us to start the week?

Venmo, which is owned by PayPal, wants the chips and soda crowd to start Venmo. So it's launching Parenthood. Cap coin with Pepsi. The Venmo is silent. Very true. Very true. Walmart is doing what Amazon can't. It's promising three-hour grocery delivery to half of America. And Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, he just started like stressfully cross-fitting. He's so frustrated about this. Must make primeless. Must make prime less. Third and final story? Voyage is spending $31 million to add robotaxies to retirement communities. And old people might be the perfect early adopters to self-driving. I can't believe we didn't see this.

Now, time for our snack fact of the day. We got some weights up in here. All right. The new Apple iPhone 11 Max Pro. One sec. We got to take a break after saying that. Is also a half-pounder with cheese. Now, if you're wondering if that's heavy or not, a half-pound, the very fact that they're

using pound metrics to describe the iPhone is concerning. The iPhone 11 Max Pro is 7.97 ounces, which is just about half a pound. You've got to stop at the Way Station on Interstate 91 with this thing. You're going to get into the elevator and it's going to start like shaking and they're like, get out of the elevator. Who has an iPhone 11 on them? Snackers, happy Monday. By the way, what do Adele and Snacks have in common? We all have voices of an angel?

Correct. Exactly. We're also both on Spotify. Very true. Check us out on Spotify too. Enjoy us there. The Robin Hood Snacks podcast you just heard reflects the opinions of only the hosts who are associated persons of Robin Hood Financial LLC and does not reflect the views of Robin Hood. The Podcasts, Inc. or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates.

The podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to serve as a recommendation to buy or sell any security and is not an offer or sale of a security. The podcast is also not a research report and is not intended to serve as the basis of any investment decision. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member FINRA, SIPC.