In this episode of Fayl Tales, host Loveth Ochayi sits down with B en Cull, co-founder of Pinch Payments, to discuss the journey of building one of Australia’s leading fintech payment platforms and navigating its acquisition by global payments company Fiserv.
What began as two software engineers sketching ideas on napkins in a pub between Manchester and Sheffield evolved into a payments business supporting more than 2,500 merchants across Australia. Without massive funding rounds or overnight success, Pinch grew steadily over eight years through persistence, product-led growth, and deep industry understanding.
Throughout the conversation, Ben shares the realities of startup life — building with limited resources, learning sales as technical founders, raising investment, managing the pressures of acquisition negotiations, and adapting to life inside a global corporate structure after the deal closed.
The episode also explores lessons for aspiring founders, why “quality doesn’t necessarily equal success,” and how slow, consistent execution became one of Pinch’s greatest strengths.
Host / Interviewer: Loveth Ochayi
Guest / Interviewee: Ben Cull, Co-Founder of Pinch Payments
Interviewer (Loveth Ochayi):
Ben, welcome to Fayl Tales. Thank you for joining us today.
Interviewee (Ben Cull):
Thank you. Lovely to be here. Thanks for having me.
Loveth Ochayi:
You recently went through an acquisition with Fiserv after originally seeking investment. Can you walk us through what the weeks leading up to that announcement were like?
Ben Cull:
Months, more like it. It was the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my life. The acquisition process took at least six months from start to finish, and honestly, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We weren’t even looking to be acquired — we were actually going to market for another funding round. But once larger players saw what we were building, some said, “Investment is fine, but this is too small for us — we’ll just buy it.” That completely changed the direction.
Loveth Ochayi:
And the acquisition offer ended up being more than expected?
Ben Cull:
Way more. To the tune of double what we thought the business was worth. It was a very surreal experience.
Loveth Ochayi:
Was acquisition always the goal when you started Pinch?
Ben Cull:
Not at all. When we started, there was no plan. No strategy. Nothing. We were just two developers building something we thought was interesting. It wasn’t until we raised our first investment in 2020 that investors sat us down and explained that if you’re taking people’s money, you need an exit strategy. Acquisition became the logical long-term outcome after that.
Loveth Ochayi:
Can you explain what the acquisition process actually looked like behind the scenes?
Ben Cull:
It’s extremely thorough. First, you prepare the business to go to market — financials, pitch decks, growth story, all of that. We worked with a boutique advisory firm called Tiger and Bear in Sydney, and honestly, they were incredible. They handled the process professionally and canvassed everyone from VCs to PE firms to major strategic buyers.
Once serious interest comes in, you enter due diligence. That’s where every part of your business gets dissected. We produced hundreds of documents explaining every aspect of the company. Security, HR, finance, compliance — everything.
The funny part is we were only a team of ten people at the time. So when they asked things like, “What’s your HR department like?” The answer was, “There is none.”
Loveth Ochayi:
Was there ever a point where you thought the deal might collapse?
Ben Cull:
Absolutely. There was one legal clause both sides got stuck on — something around joint and several liability. Our lawyers and their lawyers were butting heads over it for ages. At one point, it genuinely looked like the whole deal was going to fall apart over this one issue that, honestly, I still barely understand to this day.
Loveth Ochayi:
Emotionally, what was it like when everything was finally signed?
Ben Cull:
Relief. Pure relief.
At first, it was exciting. Then it became months of emotional whiplash. One day you’d think, “This is happening,” and the next day there’d be another blocker. By the end, I couldn’t even feel excitement anymore — I was just glad it was over so I could stop thinking about it.
Loveth Ochayi:
Did you celebrate?
Ben Cull:
Quietly. My co-founder and I had dinner with our partners and just took a breath. I did immediately buy myself a Kia EV9 in matte blue though — that was my reward.
Loveth Ochayi:
Let’s go back to the beginning. How did Pinch actually start?
Ben Cull:
My co-founder Paul Allen and I both worked at Easy Debit years ago. We were software engineers, and we kept noticing how many gaps existed in the software systems around payments.
One big realization we had was this: quality doesn’t necessarily equal success.
Some of the software we saw was hanging together by a thread, but the businesses themselves were wildly successful. That was a huge lesson early on.
Later, Paul and I started talking about building something ourselves. At the time, I had moved to Belgium with my partner while she completed her postdoc. We were in a fortunate position where her salary covered our living expenses, so I stopped working and spent a year just building.
Paul came over to visit from England, and somewhere between Manchester and Sheffield we stopped at a pub. He introduced me to a chip butty — chips on white bread — and we literally sketched the first version of the business on napkins in that pub.
That’s genuinely how Pinch started.
Loveth Ochayi:
What were those early days like?
Ben Cull:
Amazing, honestly. I’d walk my partner to work, go sit at a coffee shop in Belgium with my laptop, and just build all day. No meetings. No staff. No responsibilities. Just creating.
We spent about a year building before we launched anything commercially. Eventually, we connected our payments engine with invoice syncing and started sending cold emails to accountants and bookkeepers asking for “feedback” on an idea we had already built.
People loved it.
The first real payment that went through? We were literally jumping around the room celebrating.
Loveth Ochayi:
You and Paul were both technical founders. How did you handle sales and growth?
Ben Cull:
Badly at first.
We were classic engineers. We’d much rather build software than talk to people. For the first couple of years, growth was mostly word-of-mouth because neither of us really knew how to sell.
Eventually, a recruiter named Bill Nunan overheard one of our sales calls at a coworking space and basically said, “Boys, I think you need help.”
He ended up joining us and became instrumental in helping us actually communicate the value of the product to customers.
Loveth Ochayi:
What do developers often get wrong when trying to become founders?
Ben Cull:
They build things for the sake of building them instead of solving established problems.
I got lucky because the thing I wanted to build already had successful models in market. Stripe was a huge inspiration for us. We weren’t inventing a brand-new category — we were adapting an existing successful model for the Australian market.
I think founders underestimate how important that is. If you can align yourself with an existing successful business model and then improve part of it, you massively increase your chances of success.
Loveth Ochayi:
That’s such valuable advice. Thank you so much for sharing your story and insights today.
Ben Cull:
Thank you very much. I’m excited to see where things go from here.