Latest / Leaders In Payments / Nichole Montoya, CEO & Co-Founder of Cheddar Up | Episode 263

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Nichole Montoya, CEO & Co-Founder of Cheddar Up | Episode 263 · Leaders In Payments

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast, where we talk to C-level leaders from across the payments landscape.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: We'll be discussing the products and services that impact the payment space today, as well as trends and predictions for the future of payments.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: We will also hear stories from our guests about their journeys to the top this year we launched Sign Ups.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Sign Ups is a type of form in ChatterUp's terminology at least that's what we call it Volunteers use Sign Ups all the time, like Sign Ups to bring a dish, sign Ups to work a shift, that kind of thing.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: It really is a sophisticated form.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: For a while we kept thinking or I should say I kept thinking that that sort of out-of-scope we help groups collect payments and forms payments and information.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: I was really focused on that payment realm, but it finally became really clear that that was a feature that we needed.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: People kept asking for it and they really wanted to have that form type along with payments.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: That was Nicole Montoya, the co-founder and CEO of ChatterUp, and she is my special guest on this week's episode, episode 263 of the Leaders in Payments podcast, and I'm your host, greg Myers.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: Chatterup helps groups like PTAs, girl Scouts teams, churches and more collect payments and information.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: They go to ChatterUp and sign up for free, leverage the user-friendly and intuitive software to create your page and simply share it via a link, qr code, email and more.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: Nicole and I discuss ChatterUp in detail, including how it started, what makes it unique and what the future holds.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: We've got a great episode ahead, so let's get started.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Hi, nicole, thank you for being here and welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Thanks, Greg, I'm super happy to be here.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: Great, let's dive right in.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: If you don't mind, tell our audience a little bit about yourself, maybe where you grew up, where you went to school, where you currently live, a few things like that.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Sure, sure.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: So I grew up in the Midwest.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: I grew up on a farm in the middle of Iowa.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: I went to Drake University, which is, you know, strayed a couple hours into Des Moines, iowa, and then kind of bounced around.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: I went to Chicago.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: I worked for Anderson Consulting.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Shortly thereafter became Accenture, moved from Chicago to San Francisco, back to Chicago, and now I'm in Denver, which is where my company ChatterUp is headquartered, and I've been here for about almost 18 years, which is crazy.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Wow, okay.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: Well, let's go ahead and talk about the company ChatterUp, so tell our audience what ChatterUp does.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: So ChatterUp is a really simple way for group organizers to collect payments and information.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: So, group organizers, nonprofits, organizations so think of organizations like schools, ptas, girl Scouts, booster clubs, hoas, that type of organization that needs to collect payments and information from groups and from large people and by information.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: That could be a form, it could be a waiver, it could be a sign-up, it could be all of the above.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: So I have two daughters, and when they were in elementary school they're much older now though when they were in elementary school, I found myself kind of writing a lot of checks and filling out a lot of forms, and just that gosh, there needs to be a better way.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: This is slowing me down as a parent who needs to write those checks and fill out those forms, and I could only imagine kind of the pain it would be for someone receiving all that.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: So that was sort of one of the aha moments, and we've been setting out to solve that for the last 10 years.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: Okay, a few follow-on questions about the company.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: So you're located in Denver and do you do business just in the US or outside the US as well?
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Right now we do business in the US and Canada, all over the North America for the most part.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Okay, and how do you find these organizations?
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's so many.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: Just the list that you gave, there are thousands and thousands of those types of organizations.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: So how do they find you, or you find them?
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's kind of like the million dollar question.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: We spent a lot of years figuring that out early on and now we're we've become really good at it.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: But a lot of it is a little scrappy, a little grass rootsy.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: You know, aligning with organizations that serve these types of groups you know, state PTAs, big Girl Scout councils around the country, forming some partnerships.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: That has served us well in the past and still does today.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Digital marketing is a great way that we find people when they're searching for something like us on Google keywords, that type of thing.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: And then I'd be remiss if I didn't say word of mouth, you know, because that's a huge lever for us.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: We work with a school, for example, and hundreds of parents pay and you know those payers inevitably go off and give it to their soccer team or their booster club.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: So word of mouth is a huge lever for us as well, and we've been around for a while, so we're sort of becoming a known brand in this type of, you know, group volunteer space.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: I'd be remiss without asking the question about the name Cheddar Up.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: Where did that come from?
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, we get that question sometimes quite a bit actually.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: So Cheddar Up?
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: So Cheddar is slaying for money.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: There are lots of slang words for money, as you probably know, and Cheddar is one of them.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: And you know, when we were starting the company years ago, we were, as every founder does, trying to come up with the name that you can trademark, find the URL for that fits.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: And we settled on Cheddar Up because we thought we thought it was sort of fun and whimsical and could mean different things to different demographics but still be pretty demographic agnostic young, old in between.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: So it's just sort of this concept of kind of settling up in a way.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: And you know funny story, my co -founder and I were thinking for weeks and we couldn't come up with anything and unfortunately fortunately my husband thought of the name and I thought he was crazy at first.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: He's like I thought of a name Cheddar Up and I was like I have no idea what you're talking about.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: I was just like it meant literally nothing to me.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: And then we had a nephew who worked downtown it was in his early 20s and so he's like let's go ask, you know, let's ask Ruben what he thinks.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: I think he'll know what it means.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: And we got him on the phone, we put him on speaker and we're like Ruben, what does Cheddar mean?
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: If I say Cheddar, what do you think of?
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: The first word out of his mouth was money.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: And I was floored.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: I was absolutely floored.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: And then just the longer we thought about it, we're like we think this could really work and we sort of went with it.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: And then my co-founder designed a really snazzy logo with a flying cheese cube and that was sort of the end of it, the beginning of it, rather.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: Great, I love to hear those.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: Those are the fun stories of the startup days.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: You mentioned collecting payments and information.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: How important to your business is the and information part.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: It's critical.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: It's really important.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: As we studied, what do groups need, what do these types of organizations need?
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Information was a huge piece of it.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: There's the Venmos of the world, the Zills of the world, all great platforms, but they're really focused on peer-to-peer payments, getting money from A to B.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: These organizations who we serve just need more.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: They need it varies what they need.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: That's the other spoke that we spend a lot of time on.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: We really focus on creating software that's easy and we really focus on creating software that's flexible, creating software that lets them collect money and information.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: In information, it might be t-shirt size, sign the waiver, chicken or beef who's coming.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Information really needs to be collected in tandem with payment.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Just having the money just isn't sufficient Nine times out of 10 for the users who we serve.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Just going back to flexibility, that is really important.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: You think of some of the example users I shared earlier.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Again, hoa, booster club, pta.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: It's not like we're just serving the same user, helping a school collect tuition, for example.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: If that was my problem to solve, it would be much simpler.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Creating software that can be used and manipulated to serve different things.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: A PTA might use it for an event, they might use it for an annual giving campaign.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: They might use it for after-school enrichment or selling spirit ware.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: That's a lot of different use cases just for one user.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: All of that really involves collecting information.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: That makes a lot of sense, this kind of tactical question, but is it through?
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: And you talked about it being software.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: Do you have a link that's for each organization?
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: I see you have a mobile app.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: How do they tactically collect the payments?
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: They create account on Cheddar app, on Cheddar appcom.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: If they're the organizer, they can also, as you mentioned, download the app and create an account there.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Then they go about creating what we call collections, which are collection pages Little websites, for lack of a better term, little web pages rather that let them collect whatever it is they're collecting for.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: They might pop up a page for spirit ware.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Then they go, they walk through what we call our collection builder.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: They give their page a name.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: They add quote unquote items, which is anything that costs money.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: It could be a t-shirt, it could be registration.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: They add items.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: They add questions related to that item, if that makes sense.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: They can add forms.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: It all builds up on this really beautiful page that they create.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: They can add a banner with lots of different bells and whistles that they need to collect shipping if they want to put their page behind a password or add timing to it.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Lots of bells and whistles.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: They essentially create a page and then they share that link.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: They share URL or QR code with their community so people can click on that and then pay.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Something we're really focused on is friction-free paying.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: If you're sharing a link with a few hundred people.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: You don't want them to have to go download an app in order to pay.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: You don't want them to have to remember some login password.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: You just want them to click and pay and pay friction-free on a really beautiful mobile experience, because about 75% of people are paying on mobile.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: That's what they can do.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: They share the link, people click, they pay, they get an email receipt, the organizer gets notified.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Then we're tracking everything all the payments and all the information in a really simple, beautiful UI for the organizer.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: They can view that information online or download PDFs or download spreadsheets.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: The app is really for the organizer, the person sending out those links.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: They can create or edit the pages that they're creating.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: They can also take point-of-sale payments through our mobile app and our Bluetooth card readers, which is pretty snazzy.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: If you think about, maybe a PTA treasurer?
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: She might create a page for, let's say, the Fall Festival.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: She might promote that event a month in advance.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: People are registering, they're signing up, all as well.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Then the Fall Festival rolls around and people just show up.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: They forgot to click on the link, or what have you.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Then they can use their point-of-sale to collect those payments.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: The nice thing about that is all the payments and all the tracking stays in the same spot is what they collect online.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: It's pretty turnkey in that regard.
• 10:42
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• 10:55
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• 10:57
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• 10:58
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• 11:05
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• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Slash resources, slash podcasts.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: In a world full of squares and stripes, be Solid, what would you say?
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: Differentiate your company from your competitors out there.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: I would say our focus on groups.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: If I had to name one thing, it was just our commitment and focus to what groups need when they're collecting payments.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: That's the first thing.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Our ability to create a user experience that's really simple and flexible and allowing people to pay really friction-free those are some of the that's all really sits under this umbrella of really wanting to serve groups as it relates to helping them collect more easier.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I would think it gets to be a little, I don't know, enticing to want to go beyond just that right.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: So to stay focused on groups and do it really well for groups is probably sometimes a challenge.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we're always sort of sticking new ideas and new features under that lens of like are our users asking for this, do they need this?
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: And that just helps us decide.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Right, like this year, we launched signups, which I don't know if you're familiar with signups, but signups is a type of form in Cheddar Ups terminology at least that's what we call it and volunteers use signups all the time, like sign up to bring a dish, sign up to you know, work, a shift, that kind of thing, and it really is a sophisticated form.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: And for a while we kept thinking or I should say I kept thinking that that sort of out of scope, right, like we help groups collect payments and forms, payments and information, and I was really focused on that payment realm.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: But it finally became really clear that that was a feature that we needed.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: People kept asking for it and they really wanted to have that form type along with payments.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: So we launched that in the spring.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: It's been a huge, huge hit.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: But, yeah, it is something we have to stay really focused on, like remembering who we serve and not trying to be more than that.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: I often use the analogy that companies like yours are sort of the operating system for a small business.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: So you're sort of the operating system for a group, right, you're providing not just payments, right, that's sort of the old school merchant services kind of view.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: Right, we just accept payments, but now you're doing so much more than that and then it sounds like over time you've added more capabilities, I mean with QR codes and you know links and you know the card readers.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: So kind of segue to the next question, like where do you see kind of the payment side of your business?
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Where do you see the payments industry heading in the next few years?
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Gosh, that's such a tricky question and I don't know that I'll have anything really profound or, you know, any revelations, necessarily.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: But you know, I think the payments industry and consumers are really just going to demand more and better and perhaps faster.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: So I think you know we're going to continue to move more online.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Personally, I think, we'll be taking less and less bank transactions unless they really, you know, get faster for cheaper.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: I think, from a security and a fraud perspective, we're just going to see more and more like biometrics being used and I think consumers are just going to have to come along for the ride and be tolerant, which I think we're already seeing now.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: You know we've moved to asking for more things along those lines to devalue identity, to prevent fraud and, you know, compared to the early days of Cheddar Up people, they don't mind, they understand it.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, people complain every once in a while, but you know, just with the nature of fraud these days, I think that's just going to continue to increase.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: I think we're just going to see more people getting into payments.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: You know payments aren't going away.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Nonpayment companies are going to become payment companies.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: We're already seeing that now and I think that's only going to increase, and then the actual payment companies are just going to have to continue to get more sophisticated.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, those are some of my thoughts.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, those are some of the things that we're always thinking about, as we're, you know, adding payment methods and thinking about the future.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds like some of the sort of things we may call trends you're already doing with QR codes and things like that that you know a lot of companies maybe haven't adopted yet.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: You've already done that.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say we are sort of On the curve.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: We're trying to stay ahead of things for the most part.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and QR codes is sort of a funny one, right, like it's such an old school thing to a degree, and then it went away and then COVID happened and now they're large and in charge and everybody loves a QR code including us, right, but that was sort of a funny phenomenon that I think a lot of people observed.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: But, yeah, we'd like to think we're sort of ahead of the curve.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: I will say one of the things we just recently launched is tap on mobile, so the ability to take point of sale without hardware.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: I think that's just that'll be really interesting to watch.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: A lot of our users really like our Bluetooth card readers and they just they're comfortable, they're familiar with having the reader there.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: But we recently released tap on mobile, where you don't need the hardware to take the point of sale, and it'll be interesting to see how users adopt that.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: I think for sure it will be adopted over time.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: It's just so nice to not have to buy an extra piece of hardware to take in-person payments, but I think that'll be a fun one to watch.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't know you had that product.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: That's cool.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: That's definitely something that's coming in bigger waves and actually something we're going to be talking more about in the next few months, but it's interesting.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: So the other aspect of it is, as the younger generation takes over more leadership roles probably in your groups, I think you're going to see things like the tap on phone is that kind of technology.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: They're going to be more used to that frictionless, more frictionless kind of acceptance method, and so I think it'll take off for sure.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're totally right, especially as it applies to our demographic, and part of the reason we have to stay super innovative is just that we really do have a lot of parents, honestly, that use the platform, because a lot of this volunteer stuff pertains to kids and sports and school and, yeah, just by nature of parenting, they're younger and younger.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, they're hip on the latest technology for sure.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: Well, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about you.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: So tell us about your journey, what you did before Cheddar Up, maybe some of the roles and things you had and kind of what led up to starting the company.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: So right out of college I worked for Anderson Consulting and sort of went into their change management arm.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: I did a lot of project management, kind of went into HR services, which was HR consulting, bounced around a little bit between Accenture and a boutique consulting firm and KPMG, and that was fun.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: It was, like you know, really structured way of learning about business.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Then I had two daughters and always sort of kept my foot in the door and worked.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: And then I was in Denver working for a financial technology company that created wealth management software and I just sort of fell into this consulting role and so my brain was sort of on FinTech.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: We were launching a new software product there that was really focused on millennials at the time, the transfer of wealth and creating tools that they could use and would want to use.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: And so again, my brain was on FinTech and I didn't really ever plan necessarily.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: I've always been pretty entrepreneurial in spirit, trying to solve problems and think of products, but I never really processed that might result in me being a founder of a company, let alone the founder of a tech company or a FinTech company, because I'm not technical, I'm not an engineer, and so this is, you know, my journey with Cheddar app is really just sort of a classic naive wanting to solve a problem, just kind of going all in and believing, you know, naive, and that I didn't really realize how hard it was going to be, as probably is the case for a lot of entrepreneurs, but just sort of was like okay, we can solve this, this is easy, like the idea of building software and designing it and solving problems really did seem fun and easy to me.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: It wasn't easy, but it has been fun and it's really fun to create something and solve a problem.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: So that's that's sort of.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: You know, I dug in at the time and pulled my friend at the time, molly, in.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: She was really a design my ASTRO, so to speak, and I, you know, the aesthetics of building a software platform was really important to me and knew that we're going to be really important to our users if we could, you know, because we would have to create a platform that was really easy, knowing that we would have a lot of users who had a really varying level of, like, tech savvy.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: So pulled my co-founder in and then it was just sort of like, you know, finding engineers like how do we build this thing?
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: And that was that in and of itself, was was a journey and in a little like a lot of trial and error, finding engineers who were were really talented and were really good communicators, I found.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: You know, that kind of balance is gold, and it took us a little while to find that.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: And then we just I mean, we've iterated and constantly innovated for the last 10 years, which I think is part of why we've been successful.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: We just we didn't have a, you know, build it and they will come, kind of mentality.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: It's always been very iterative in terms of user feedback and so I think because of that, we've had some success.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it was just really like let's go build a payments company and we started it in 2013, 2014, 2015.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you think back into payments, venmo was just sort of making a dent and oh, what was that company called?
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: I forget.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Chase bought them.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Anyway, there were some other players in there doing the same thing, but they weren't really focused on the demographic that we were focused on, which is why we just kept moving forward.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: I am a believer that success is really just available to those who just continue to keep moving forward and don't quit.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: I think that's certainly the case for Shutter Up.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Did you raise money along the way or no?
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: We've only raised $2.2 million to date.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: We're really capital efficient.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Now we're profitable.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: We did raise money in a few different rounds.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: That was probably one of the harder things that I have done in Shutter Up.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: We were part of a couple of different business accelerators.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: We were in 500 startups.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: I spent a lot of time in San Francisco when my kids were really young, away from them for weeks at a time.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: That was a little trying.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: We ended up raising capital.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Obviously, 500 startups to put money in found a group via FG Angels out of Boulder, put money in and then we've got some investors out of Utah, did a lot of pitching in San Francisco but didn't end up taking a lot of money from there.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: The majority came from our own region here.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: Okay, what are some things you're passionate about?
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Maybe one work-related passion and one personal passion.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: I think my gosh, they're almost one and the same for me.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: I have two daughters.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: One just went off to college, one is a junior.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Just with my own efforts, with trying to raise capital and being a female founder, I'm really passionate about female entrepreneurship and just the mindset of females in business.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: I think it's all very intertwined.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: It's based on my experience.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: It's based on growing up in the Midwest and just breaking free from some norms that I assumed, from just growing up and then just realizing that sometimes we can get in our own way.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: I'm just really passionate about empowering females to be entrepreneurs and to have a seat at the table.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a double whammy for me.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: I sit on a fair number of panels.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Denver has a really vibrant startup community.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Every year they have Denver Startup Week.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: I always there's a couple organizations downtown where there's opportunities to mentor.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: I love being involved in empowering females to take their idea and execute on it.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: Every July we have Women Leaders and Payments Month.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: I'm going to give you an early invitation to come back on the show next July.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: Since that's a passion of yours, I think it would be a great conversation.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: If you're up to it next July, I would love to have you back on the show for Women Leaders and Payments Month.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: I think I'd be a great fit.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: I'd love to contribute.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Awesome, awesome.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: I love that question.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: It is built off of what you were talking about.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: You've got, let's say, someone coming right out of college and they look at payments in Fintech and they say, wow, that's an industry that's growing and it's a lot of technology and it's a really cool place.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: I want to build my career in this payments and Fintech industry.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: They came to you and they said Nicole, I want to get in this industry.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: What do I need to do to be successful?
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: You, as being someone who's been in it for 10 years and built this company, what would you tell them they need to do to be successful?
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: A few things.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: I think finding a mentor in this space is really important.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: There's so many seasoned payment people.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: I think there's a few different sides of the house as it relates to payments there's old school payments, there's pay-fac payments, there's Fintech really people who are sitting on top of other partners.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Frankly, maybe find one that fits with what you're thinking of doing.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Maybe a mentor may even be too strong of a word, but just resources right.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Just work, talk to people, try to understand the space.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: It's super nuanced.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: I think really investing in research and finding people who can help educate you on payments is time well spent.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: I think get really realistic about what your expertise is or what you want it to be.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: If you're building a product, where does your product and your team, or your potential team, where is it going to provide the most value?
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Is it in the software that you're building?
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Is it in the experience that you're creating?
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Is it the underlying payment technology?
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Get real about that and focus on that, because you could spend a lot of time building the wrong thing or focused on the wrong thing.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Then, I think, find the right partners.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: There's so many Fintech, so many technology companies, every piece of the puzzle.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: There's a partner or company that does it.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Well, just find that right mix who you're going to work with, at least for V1 of whatever it is you're building.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Great Thanks for sharing those.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Well, Nicole, we've covered a lot of ground so far, obviously, about you and the company and your vision of the future of the industry.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: Is there anything else you'd like to cover before we wrap up the show?
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I don't think so.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Just if you've got a group in your life, go check out cheddarupcom and see if we might be able to help you.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Great.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Well, Nicole, thank you so much for your time.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: I know you're very, very busy.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for being on the show today.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much, Greg.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: And to all you listeners out there.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: I thank you for your time as well, and until the next story.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us this week on the Leaders in Payments podcast.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Make sure you visit our website at leadersinpaymentscom, where you can subscribe to the show and where you'll find our show notes.
• 26:12
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