In this episode, we explore Phil's journey from a serendipitous networking encounter to the creation of Passm8, a platform born from the need for a simple, user-friendly system to manage classes and take payments. Phil shares how his experience as a dancer and his initial work with a friend’s remedial massage business sparked the epiphany that led to the development of PassM8.
Phil recounts how a lack of suitable class management solutions inspired him to create PassM8. His platform offers an easy-to-understand interface for administrators and users, incorporating critical features such as waivers without additional costs.
PassM8 is tailored for anyone running classes, from dance and yoga to cooking and swimming. The system accommodates various pass types, including term-centric and block bookings, offering flexibility for both providers and attendees.
Phil discusses unique functionalities of PassM8, such as the ability to handle multiple locations and membership-based models, making it suitable even for larger operators, though his focus remains on supporting smaller, independent businesses.
The integration with Pinch has revolutionized the onboarding process, providing a seamless payment experience for both businesses and their customers. Phil emphasizes the importance of making transactions painless and efficient.
Phil shares how AI has empowered him to enhance productivity, likening it to having a senior developer on his team. Despite initial reservations, he now sees AI as an invaluable tool in driving innovation and efficiency.
Looking ahead, Phil aims to expand his client base while staying true to his mission of supporting small business operators. He values a slow and steady growth approach, ensuring that PassM8 continues to meet the evolving needs of its users.
Transcript lightly edited for clarity, readability and blog formatting. Timestamps, filler words and auto-caption artefacts have been removed where possible while preserving the meaning and flow of the original conversation.
I think what I don't want is just someone to say, "Yeah, I'm interested in buying your business. I'll give you $100,000 for 50% of your business." Hello there, Joe McCord from Pinch Payments here. Welcome to the very first episode of PMYD, the podcast that focuses on the people behind the companies that work with Pinch, from integration partners through to referral partners and merchants. On this week's episode, we were fortunate enough to be joined by one of our very first ISVs that used our product, Phil from PassM8. PassM8 is a studio management booking system for classes. So think dance schools, yoga studios, stuff like that to help them collect their customers' payment details, run their business schedule, their class structure weekly, and also take payments on their behalf. So I hope you're looking forward to it.
It was a great interview. So over to well, me and Phil. I'm here with Phil from PassM8. Phil, it's an absolute pleasure to have you as our very first guest. Can you remind me, like, where did this whole Pinch, PassM8 Phil journey start?
Like, how did you get in touch with us in the first place?
Yeah. So I was working out of Bundaberg at the time, and at that point I was, I went to a networking event randomly, invited by a friend, and came across a guy, Dan, who recommended Pinch, because he thought it would be really good for my clients to have the Xero integration, which is going to be taking a load off their mind for automated bookkeeping. And I thought, yes, absolutely. That's something that everyone's going to love. So far, no one's used it, but that's okay. We've got, we've got a brilliant platform, and I didn't realize the benefits of actually, you know, that we're more than just that feature. Just actually working with Pinch from a startup point of view, having access to the main developers here has been fantastic, and the level of support, it's been incredible. So yeah. Straight into the Pinch promo. That was awesome.
You mentioned Bundaberg. Is that where you grew up?
No. So we were up there for my partner, actually. She got a job working in Bundaberg for the lack of getting one here, which was crazy considering that she's in mental health. So she got an opportunity up there and in the process of being there, I realized that there was not much in terms of dancing, and I've done a lot of dancing in my time. Not much in terms of dancing, like as in not many dance schools It was a bit boring. Oh, okay. To be honest. No, Bundaberg's great and we were on the coast and so you know, beautiful area, lots of lots of cool people. But yeah, it was like when you were actually searching Bundaberg what to do, it was like, oh, lots of people complaining about what there isn't. There's probably a lot of line dancing. Who knows?
I never got into that. But there were definitely… There was a small, Latin dancing community there. So I sort of got in contact with them. And I was encouraging, Hannah it was, she got into, actually leveling up what she had, which was just at that point, just meeting in a park. I was like, "Why don't you actually start a school and make this proper?
'Cause it doesn't exist and Bundaberg needs it." Hannah's your client?
Hannah's my client. So she's my number one client. She's the, she's ground zero. So she's been very tolerant of you know, everything that I've put her through. But basically, I was helping her That's how we feel about you. Oh, I feel the same. I feel so guilty. But it was, it was the case that I was helping her setting up her website. And when I was, she was just going through the process of choosing someone to actually manage passes for her classes, and that's where I realized there was an absolute need for something that made it simple, not just for the administrator of managing classes, but also making it easy for someone to purchase it and to have an account where they can go and easily understand exactly what it is that the classes that are being offered, when they start and they stop, and then what passes will let me in.
I don't understand any others that do it in a way that actually present that information in a very easy-to-understand, guided way, through the sales pipeline, through to completion. On top of that there was waivers as well. No one really incorporates the waivers, or at least if they do, it's, it's a paid add-on. And I was like, "Well, that doesn't make sense. That's, that's your core business." So that's where I really saw the need to sort of - That's PassM8. That's PassM8. That's what we did, is solving needs from day one, basically. So that's a good segue. So I guess talking about PassM8, now the listeners aren't likely to have heard of PassM8 before, so let's, let's just take a second to talk about that. What is PassM8?
Who's it for?
And how can people get their hands on it?
And yeah, who should be, who should be, thinking about PassM8 as a solution?
For sure. So PassM8 as a solution is aimed at anyone who runs classes, basically. So yes, definitely dance schools, but you know, yoga studios, fitness studios, cooking classes, swimming schools, basically anyone who's actually running classes. And the, one of the things that we noticed at the beginning was like a lot of a lot of the pass managers that are out there, they're very much like, you know, you'll have a card that allows you entry, and once it's punched 10 times, that's it's over. But what about for someone who wants to commit to a block?
So say for instance, you've got a start date and end date, and you've got a six-week course, -My system will allow for the purchasing of an entire course for that period of time, which is quite unique, and I don't understand why that's not something that's more widely adopted. But it works in with a block. So you can purchase a block, and it's like, "Yes, I want to do cooking level one," and that's going to give me six classes. So very term-centric. And you referred before to dancing. You are a dancer. I am. I've, I've… I have done it since 2013, and yeah, I love it. It's, it's part of my life now. Yeah. And so we were just talking before we started recording about, you know, that epiphany moment that so many tech founders have that kind of leads to them developing the solution, right?
Like, leads to them actually, like, discovering that problem that then becomes the product, that then becomes their life. You' as a dancer, having built this PassM8. Product, I'm assuming that there was some moment in time when you, in the act of you know, attending some of these classes, must have had that epiphany. Can you talk to us, is that is that what happened?
Well, yeah, it' was, it was literally, in trying to find some… The epiphany was just prior to actually helping, Hannah with setting up her classes, it was actually helping another friend setting up her business for a remedial massage business. And we found, we found a product that was actually quite good for her, worked in with WordPress, and it was so simple. At the end of it was so simple for me, to set up, and it was, so simple for someone to book in to see, to book in for a massage. And that was an immediate boost to her business and a quality of life for her, less admin time, and she could just say, "Look, book on, book online," and walk through the door, basically. And that was great, especially considering that she's a lot of the time hands-on massage, just a hands-off thing. And so that was the first thing.
The epiphany was when I was then helped Hannah, I was like, "That does not exist." Like, it's… And whatever is out there is not easy. It's not easy for admin, it's not easy for users of the system. So that was the, that was the epiphany. And yes, I said, "Hey, you know what?
I can probably do this for you." And straight away I was thinking to productize it and make that something that's available not just for Hannah, but to actually expand that. Little did I know how long it was going to take to actually achieve that but hey. How long has it taken?
So yeah, it's been going for about two and two and a bit years now. So it's cracked on definitely a lot longer than I'd thought it would. - If you knew how long it was going to take, would you still have done it?
I get asked that question all the time by my partner. Really?
And the answer is yes, I would have done it. Because I think it's a, it's a founder's journey. Like, this is, you know… you never know how long something's going to take. You know, at the beginning you have high hopes. I thought- True … in six months- It's not a real question, is it?
No, it's not. 'Cause you just don't know. And there is no end, to it either. It's, it's like, it's like they I liken it to a child. It's like, you know, your child is born and you're like, "Oh, this is such a difficult stage," you know?
But they're not going to be toddlers forever. They're going to become infants, and they're going to run and play. And then annoying teenagers- Then they get… Exactly … that are full of like, code that you wish you never wrote. Yeah. How'd that get there?
So you're all the time trying to sort of… And it's it's exactly that because you know, I'm like, "Okay, I'll be ready to market this and expand it and really sort of kick this into an, upper gear." But then you go and take on, a bigger, newer client, and you realize that' there's a whole suite of things that they require that was once before optional. But now, these bigger organizations, they require it. So it's back to the drawing board and back Yeah … putting your dev hat back on, taking your marketing hat, putting it on the shelf for a bit, and getting back into it. Yeah. It's an interesting one 'cause you're mentioning, you know, dance schools, swim schools, and talking about the concept of classes. A lot of these businesses have classes, but they also have other streams, right?
Like, they'll, they'll have, like, casual attendances, and they'll have one-on-one coaching and stuff like that. Yeah. And you know, if you do go down the path of trying to be the platform for everybody, you're going to end up with a lot of the same problems as a lot of the competitors that you're talking about. Yeah. Is staying in your lane something that you're trying to do?
Like, are you kind of focusing on service providers that are, like, exclusively doing class type stuff, or is it your intention to you know, spread your wings a little bit across all of those different types Yeah. Good question. The core will always be, the niche that it was fit from the beginning, and no one's been focusing… I think everyone else is focusing on the gyms and stuff like that and I don't think I've ever really set out to compete with gyms because that's already a market that's pretty well, you know, taken care of. So my focus will definitely be on that. But as a side, as a, as a complementary suite of tools, event management is something that would actually naturally fit in with any dance school because they all have events.
So that is something that is definitely on the roadmap is the stuff that is, event management as well. But again, it's just one of those things that is definitely heavily dominated by a lot of big players and so I've definitely chosen the niche approach. So I mean, there must be so many people around Australia who are, you know, running Pilates in the park and you know, doing, like, classes out of their houses and things like that. Is that kind of the type of customer that you're- 100%, because… And that really leads nicely into the pricing model, which Yeah, I was going to ask. Yeah. That's, that's, -A lot of them are very much they'll-- they might have a decent starting price, but then, like one of my com-competitors, they had a… I think it was even free, to get started.
But then if you wanted to be able to send emails out, that's $100 plus a month- to actually have that functionality. Yeah. And literally everything that should be part of your platform is an add-on. And so a lot of them ended up spending five, six hundred dollars a month. Yeah. It's just too much for somebody who's just running a class out of their house, isn't it?
Yes. And that's really where I wanted to be able to sort of take it to say, "Hey, look, it doesn't matter whether you have five students or 500 students, the platform scales with you." So if you're not using the platform, you only have five users, you'll pay less than someone who has more. And you get all the functionality that all the bigger players have as well. So that's a pretty unique, selling point there. Yeah. And I expect a lot of the people who will listen to this are going to be, you know, businesses- other founders and stuff like that.
It's probably, you know, a good, a good way to introduce the idea of having embedded payments like Pinch- or Glassbox, as it were, in a ISV, integrated software vendor setting like yours, because you know, the question you would ask is, if you're going to try to offer a really inexpensive solution to a market that is, you know, going to struggle for you to extract too much revenue from them, how do you generate enough of a total addressable market to justify the amount of work that you're going to put into this thing?
And payments revenue for a software vendor is actually a really, good way to do that because you don't necessarily have to take the revenue off of the, merchants that you're servicing. You're just taking a processing fee the payer. Yeah. And so even though these business owners themselves might not actually be, you know, large, massive small businesses that are like successful, their payers are generally, you know, pretty reasonably well off, right?
It's, it's an affluent market for the end user. -Hmm. So you did mention you have 6,000 customers at the moment, and I think you were referring to like attendees of classes. So you must already be thinking about the end payer experience as a potential part of your growth model. Yeah. And ultimately, everyone who's using the system is getting familiar with it. And it's, it's actually funny because the process of becoming registered, even to one organization I signed up just recently, of the 500 active clients in this one organization, 300 of them actually went through the process of just registering. Even if they were already part of the system, they wanted to actually register. They wanted to go through, sign the waiver, which I was quite surprised.
Like that's, that's a level of investment in what it' is that they're doing and that they love. They all love to dance, and they love to be part of this community. And that was, that was really cool, I thought- to actually have that aha, this is, this really is a, is a testament to how, painless it is for them to actually. Do that. And that's what I think from a, from a business point of view, you want to make it as easy as possible for a business to come on board and for their clients to come on board. And what was really cool with Pinch was how they sort of made the process of actually registering with PassM8 so straightforward because it was like, they enabled me. To actually consume their APIs for all the tech guys out there, to go through the onboarding process.
So all the documents that are being uploaded, the identity and stuff like that I don't see them or anything like that. I just pass them straight through to Pinch, and that was really cool because from that perspective, yes, I've registered with Pinch, but I didn't have to go off somewhere else. We… I want it to be as painless as possible and every aspect of interacting with the service to be painless, and not ridiculously expensive. It's like, oh, no, I've, I've committed now. The amount of small, operators out there. That end up resorting to an Excel document because there is just noth-nothing out there that suits their needs, I really want it to I really want it to be for the mum-and-dad operators out there. They want to have more time. They want to have more quality of life. That's really my main game.
So we could take this in two directions here. I'll take it in I'll take it in the obvious one first. You mentioned working with Pinch. You're talking about like, you know, using our APIs and stuff like, that. Yep. What's, you know, what's been the, experience of working Pinch?
You. Mentioned before you've helped people with websites and stuff like that so I, assume you've had experience working with some of the other providers out there, like, you know, bui-building like payments workflows in websites and such. How have you found Yeah … working with our team?
Well, good question 'cause when you're, when you're when you're a founder and you're trying to sort of address the technical issues and trying to think, "How am I going to do this?" I'll, I'll never forget. It was, like, well, okay, so I need a payment gateway, and we're going to go Stripe. Let's just name it. Weren't interested. Bleep that out, Mikael. I'm just kidding. Keep going. They just wouldn't, weren't interested. They basically rejected the application. They rejected your application?
Yeah. I didn't even know they did that. Well, it was like, because I didn't want it to be where it was like, I didn't want it to be that I have the account with Stripe, and then I have everyone paying me, and then I'll pay them. I just didn't want to be the middleman there. It's Right … no. The relationship should be between the business and that provider. Yeah … which is Pinch or Stripe, as it were. Yep. And I act as the intermediary, which is basically doing payments on their behalf- Yep … and making sure that I can track… how those payments are going, the status of them, and that was, … And on top of that to support my pricing model, which is to be able to support the lower operators, they pay that $29 a month. Yeah … which is our basic fee.
And most don't pay more than that but we do take that clipping Yeah … of a 1.5% Clipping off of payments. Yeah … which means as you grow, I can grow too. - That's a really good way to do it too, 'cause it does mean that you're always, you as a platform developer, are always financially incentivized to make sure that your product has value. Yeah, 100%. Like actual genuine user value, not just like, you know, extracting revenue from people who might otherwise not really be able to afford it. Yeah. Yeah. So AI. Right. Everybody talks about AI. If we didn't talk about AI, the algorithms probably wouldn't pick up, pick up the content. So we'll have a quick conversation about AI. We did talk before the episode started about this.
You've been using AI now in your, in your platform, and it seems like everyone I talk to has been using AI, in their, in their coding. Can you give us a little bit of like an overview of what you've been doing with AI as not just like in terms of coding on your platform, but embedding?
You were mentioning you were looking at potentially embedding some agentic stuff inside PassM8. Yes. No, there's a lot of topics in there. - Well, let's start with just you talking about the coding stuff first. Yeah, sure. So in terms of the coding, because I'm actually pretty close with you guys at Pinch, I'm actually friends with lead developer here is Damian. Yeah. - That's DK. DK. Yeah. An absolute legend of a guy, so he's been really fun to hang out with and socially he's invited me out to a couple of things as well, including, a one-day workshop, and that was where the… It was just clear as day, I have to do this. I think I'd been resisting it quite a bit because I'm like, I don't want to be teaching its models. I'm, I'm… I don't want my code to be copied, and then given to other people.
I have now learned that's not necessarily something that is a risk unless you're not paying for it. If you're not paying for it, sure, you're the product, but if you're paying a commercial membership, well, that's a breach of God knows what Yeah … to be stealing your code basically. So that has sort of satisfied my, concern. Assuming you trust them, Assuming you trust them. Yeah. Which is, you know, that's You've kind of got no choice at this point but to trust them. Exactly. Yeah. But I think the penny dropped on that day, because being a small organization, like it's mostly myself plus the help of other casual people who will come and in-into the platform, it's a lot of hats that I need to wear, and to be able to focus on that I need to be able to deliver more.
But it's kind of been a bit of a testament to what you… where we're kind of going to be at the stage that I'm at with setting up this business, competing against the giants that are out there. You know, it's, I can be a lot more nimble, and I don't need a huge development team. Yes, it would be nice to have a team that's a bit bigger than what it currently is, but AI has definitely empowered me to actually be able to do some To code like you got a whole team, right?
Exactly. Yeah. I consider it as like having a senior developer. I would never trust, the output without reviewing it myself- and I've caught up on one mistake I was telling you earlier, which is could have accidentally emailed out, everyone like an error instead of actually a message.. Yeah. So you still think that like we're at the point where humans need to be doing review?
Yeah. It's, it'Not quite, not quite got to the singularity yet. It's like autonomous cars, you know?
Yeah. Do I trust it?
No, not yet. - Unless you go to San Francisco, and then everybody trusts it. Oh, well. We're, we're not there yet. This is Australia. I do wonder when we're going to. Like, you see the videos on YouTube and stuff like that of like people getting into Ubers without dr-drivers in other countries, but Yeah … it doesn't it doesn't feel likely to be something that Brisbane City Council's ever going to implement, does it?
Oh, man. Well, that's a whole nother conversation. But look, you know, it really does, it really is an… a, it's an analogy that non-tech people can probably wrap their heads around, is the whole self-driving car thing, because that's ultimately what we're looking at in development. Is like, do I trust AI to run my business?
Is… let's face it, that's what we're kind of asking, and is that going to benefit me?
I can tell you hands down that it's benefited me, because the throughput of what I can actually deliver, with the, my backlog of issues that I need to churn through- I'm currently sitting at 240. It helps me deliver stuff quicker, when you're not, when you don't have the capacity. Yep. So it is going to affect businesses large and small. And yeah, it's going to- But you're walking towards it, not away from it. You're like, you, I'm, I'm cautiously walking towards it. I mean, it certainly looms as a good way for somebody who's just getting started as a solo fintech founder to be able to actually be as productive as like, you know, businesses that are already operational. Yeah, it is an interesting one.
One of our, sister companies is a point-of-sale and physical payments product called Clover, and I've been thinking about how Clover could potentially use AI, 'cause like one of the biggest… So they focus on hospitality businesses 'cause it's a point-of-sale retail point-of-sale system. One of the biggest challenges that businesses have when they're actually like setting that up is actually getting their menus into the system. And like knowing how I've been using AI, like you could straight up just take a photo of your menu and just upload a photo, and AI would be able to pull out all of the data and just create a menu as long Yeah … you have the functionality. It's, it's honestly amazing what sort of things you can do with it. Yeah. Let's talk about your experience so far.
Your, like, journey as a fintech founder, you've been at it now for two years. Yep. What would you say are the… Like, if you go back to the start and be like, "Phil, from two and a half years ago, you really need to know this thing." "You need to see this coming because it's going to save you so much time and so many headaches," what would, what would be the biggest lessons that you've learned so far?
Oh. People don't hate your product. There may be some times that they're saying it doesn't do this, but actually they're happy with what you've already got. They love your product. They actually want to make it better. That's why they're suggesting it. But I think that's got me caught up in a lot of a lot of unnecessary stress, Well, as in when people were giving you constructive feedback. Yeah … you were taking it a little bit to heart. You take it personally. Yeah. So it's… And it's a hard thing to separate yourself from because you're quite attached to your product and let's face You built this thing the way that you thought it would work, and then somebody's telling Exactly … your thinking was wrong. Yeah. And because I was actually, like, I'd started everything in Bundaberg, then moved to Brisbane, I wasn't actually on the front line.
So the only thing you hear about is when something, you know, there might be a bug or it might be, "Hey, we really need it to do this," or whatever. So it kind of it kind of makes you feel like, oh, you know, I can't keep on top of this and … But actually since I've actually started getting businesses, in Brisbane as well, being there and actually seeing people come in and using the system and their respo- responses to a system that you know, like previously on one of the organizations they would have a check-in system at the front door which was so slow that they would have to then have a line going down the down the staircase on a second floor, out the front door and down the street just so I can check into a class that's already starting, you know, is running late. Yep.
Now people just walk straight through and they're happy and they're like, "Oh, this is nice," and it's, it's faster and - So you've noticed that?
Like, you've seen that it's actually doing queue busting. Yeah. PassM8's doing queue busting. 100%. People just walk straight through.. Yeah, I mean, queue busting is a thing that like, big service providers, try to focus on 'cause it's, like, one of the biggest frustrations. Like, so could you see PassM8 being used by like, you know, a big, you know, metropolitan wellness center?
Like, are you… Have you got your, like, eyes on that at all?
Like, is there, is there… Are there… and if so like, what are the, what are the, what are the things that you think that you need to add to be able to get there if you aren't already there?
Look, I think the fundamentals are there. Yeah. I guess what I'm getting at is if there was somebody out there listening to this and they happened to be, say, you know, like the CEO of Total Fusion- or something like that like, would you… Should they look at your product?
Like, is it, is it ready for that kind of level of operator yet?
It is. But the thing is, this is where I'm always open to having those discussions to work Right. You pivot to kind of help. I'Yeah. And that's what I've been doing. Yeah. And it's because my product is not so embedded into a 20-year-old history of their code base, it's still at that point where I can actually make those pivotal decisions. In fact, I just made that which is multiple location support. That was something that you have to have multiple accounts. If you want to have multiple locations, you have multiple accounts. So you got multi-location support now?
I just pivoted that. And so yes, now you can actually have separate landing pages for each of your locations with a separate check-in process and yet under the hood it's all still one back end, one system of seeing all your clients across multiple locations. But yeah. You got multiple, like, teachers per location?
Yeah. Like, that's manageable too?
Yeah. Oh, yeah, man, that sounds like it's probably pretty close to the mark for… Yeah. Look, it's… a- and again, it's It's usually the biggest sort of hurdle that a lot of these platforms run into. Yeah. I, it's, … In terms of where I'm trying to go right now, I'm trying to go for smaller operators at this point. That's not to say I'm not interested- but it's like I know that they're the ones Need the help … need the help. Yeah. So I don't want it to be something that is suddenly making this product into something that's so big that it starts excluding them. So… And someone asked me the other day, "What happens if you get bought out?" I'm like, "Well, sure," as long as they maintain my ultimate vision for what this is to be, which is something that is to help the moms and dads, the creatives that are out there.
Like, no one wants to be doing admin work, let's face it. And it's… And they've got families to come home to Yeah … and that was the biggest thing. As long as I'm adhering to that I don't mind who I take on. But my focus is definitely making sure that the smaller operators are taken care of as well. So I mean, Pinch Payments' whole thing is about getting service-based businesses paid easier. Obviously we have a product, in our own arsenal that plugs into Xero and stuff. We've kind of alluded to that. And I would assume a lot of people listening to this already know about that. But you know, you've built a payments integration, and so I'm assuming, like, that you know, the service-based businesses that you're servicing by using your product are getting solved for in much the same way.
Like, would you agree, like, that you know, one of the more frustrating experiences that service-based businesses have, is basically sending invoices at the end of the day and then having to chase payments?
Yeah. They don't have to do that with PassM8?
Is that something PassM8 sort of solves for?
No. And to start with and this is another feature that Pinch had off the, off the bat, was, it was automated payments. As it turns out, I, my requirements ended up, succeeding what Pinch could offer in that regard because of… Mine's a very bespoke- sort of operation across multiple merchants. Yeah. - So talk to us about how it works. Like, how does somebody actually, like, get… like, make a payment through PassM8, and how does the how does the business owner receive the payment?
Like, what's the flow there?
Yeah. So-So it really depends on the type of pass that it is, and I wanted to provide it, like, a few different options in terms of the styles of passes. So you can have that one I was telling you about, which is you start at, you start, like, at the beginning of a term, and you will be there for six weeks of a term. -Hmm. And that's it, your pass will allow you for that period and get you into that class for what you're buying. Yeah. Or it might be that you don't have the… You can't commit to it, coming every week. You might come every second or third week. Yeah. So you might want to have a flexible pass. So we, it's like a different type of pass. Or it might be, you know what?
Unlimited. I just want to come unlimited, start and end date, and that's what I'm going to do. I'll pay for three months. So for all, for those types of payments, it is paying up front. Yeah. So we accept the payment up front, so that's just literally registering with PassM8. They become a, they become, a customer. It's all done online?
All online. Yeah. Okay. - So if I'm a, so if I'm, like, the person who owns the studio or Yep … school or whatever, I send, like, a link to fill out or an email or, like, how do I get that in your hands as a, as Sure. So usually they'll have a QR code at the front door. Oh. So they can just basically do it on their phone. Right, okay. And that is great because- But you also mentioned landing pages as well, right?
So like, those QR codes go to the landing pages. Yes, 100%. Yeah. And we generally recommend, like, if it's going to be that you would have your own website. And that's where you're having people interested in your classes- having them pre-register would be, would be good because then they've gone through the process, they just walk through the front door. So you literally have nothing to do with that' at early introduction. As a web designer, you must be toying with the idea of letting people build websites on top of PassM8. Oh, yes. But right now that is, that's outside the scope. I can see. But yeah. But Phil, like, I mean, we're talking about, like, businesses that are so small that like, a landing page could essentially be a website, right?
Well, that's it. It already is. Yeah. Like, essentially every client of PassM8 has their own landing page, which is a professional presentation. They've got a lovely image they can have behind. Yeah. Their logo's prominent, that… And it's all designed very nicely. Customizable obviously to their branding and needs. Then it goes through to show all of the upcoming classes, are listed there. If they expand on one of them, they can actually say, "What passes will actually get me into this particular class?" It then moves you down to the bottom of the page. You can then say, "Oh, okay, these are the passes that will get me into it." Then you can read through each of the descriptions to say which one's the suitable one for me. If they like it, then they'll click Purchase Now.
That then takes them to the registration process and the waiver is complete at that point, so never something you have to be worried about is indemnity waivers. And then takes them through the pipeline of making that purchase. But circling back to what you were saying before, that was the upfront payment gets you that pass. The other one, which was, which is a big need is membership-based. Yeah. I was going to ask. Yeah. But like, it sounds, it sounded to me like you were trying not to kind of serve the membership-based- No. Absolutely membership. Okay. So that is, that is I think probably- Most of the- … the biggest sell. Yeah. And that was a lot of work to do because there's a, there's a lot There's a lot of logic in that. Yeah. - 'Cause it can be so many various variations, right?
Yep. So Families, two kids, three kids. Exactly. Yeah. So it'One term, two terms, one week at a time. Yeah, there's so many variations. I want to pause, I want to go on holidays. I want to pause and skip a payment. Yeah. You know, what happens if they skip it?
Well, this is now, like you were saying, like, if you've built that functionality, you could run gyms. Yeah. Yeah. I actually would say that managing a gym on my system is actually quite easy compared to classes. Classes are the ones that are… Like, a gym's quite easy, 'cause, like, do you have a membership or don't you?
But a class is something that has a predefined, not to get too technical, but there is a lot more, a lot more in sort of database operations in working out do you or don't you have a pass for that class you're trying to attend. So it's actually a lot more complicated. The same could be said for events as well, which is why I'm I'm not ruling out the possibility that I will, sidestep into events as well. So any organization that runs events, eventually it'll all be done through the same platform. And then everyone who attends event is now in your system. That is also someone who you can actually, communicate with. And communication is another big part of the system that was definitely, made difficult, by some of the, some of the other systems is, like, communication is not really, a strength.
Like, for instance, a lot of them will allow you to communicate, but they might not say, "Do you want to communicate with the guys who were supposed… who came to salsa last week or bachata last week?" You know, it's like everyone or nothing. So that was something that I made as part of the process as well, communication, so you can easily communicate with your clients. That's awesome. So let's talk about what you're most proud of. I mean, actually being a fintech founder is a pretty cool thing. Like, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's something, like, a lot of people dream about- and don't actually ever get to. So like, I assume you're pretty proud of the fact you actually have a product in market. Like, that's pretty remarkable. Yep.
But is there anything particularly that you've achieved throughout this, aside from that like, you know, stands out as like, you know, a major thing that you've kind of like now you can look back on and say, you know, "I did that." Like that'that's something that I'll be able to say that I've done. Yeah. I think, I think working with one of the dance schools here in Brisbane, which is a huge… They got six- 60, 70 people in a class Feel free to shout them out … and that's definitely Dance Culture and Annalie. Dance Culture. And James is the owner, and he's trusted me to sort of take on that which was huge for him, honestly, to trust me with that especially coming away from one of my big competitors. And he was forced to pay to exit, and he still did that 'cause he had that much faith in what I was working on. That's amazing. Yeah.
So that was, yeah, so huge shout-out to Dance Culture, and they're amazing. If you want to get into dance, honestly, th-these guys are-- they're, they're so dedicated to what they do and have come from a really good place as well. But yeah, for Dance Culture, when I was standing at the back of reception and just actually looking at a room full of people and thinking they'd all walked through the door, and they've all checked in and it was seamless. There was no hitch-ups. That was amazing. And the other thing I'll just say That's some real good validation there. That was. Yeah. It was like, the system's amazing if no one notices it. It's kind of a double-edged sword there. Like it's, it's great 'cause no one's noticing it.
Doesn't give you much in terms of the validation, but it's still really cool because that's what you want is a system that's not in the way and pissing people off. Yeah. Sorry for saying that No, that's okay … the other thing that I actually would say is my proud moment was probably the integration with Pence- Pinch with regards to the onboarding of the payment system, and that was never, more of a testament when except for when I was, I hadn't actually enabled notifications. I never knew that someone had actually signed up as a business. They'd gone through the process of actually onboarding with Pinch, and that all happened without me knowing about it. Yeah. That was pretty cool.
Like, that's, that's true automation there, and that's really what I'm wanting to get it to not just for my business, but for every business that's using me, is we should be automating as much as possible. That's, that's the ult-ultimate game there. So what's success look like over the next 12 months?
Like, what are you, what are you, what are you, what are your goals?
What are you hoping to achieve?
Sure. Success for me is having, a client base that is bigger than what it currently is. Yes … I've got a lot Let's get you one more. Yeah. That's good. I mean, like incremental gains, right?
Exactly. And look, that's… I'm, I'm very much committed to growing this slowly. I don't-- I think what a lot of founders do is they're like, "Great, I've got this great idea. Let's go and get some money." And they'll get investors on board, and they'll have all this money, right?
And let's go and hire a development team, and we're going to build this, and we've got to go quickly. Honestly, if I hadn't have gone slowly, I don't know where I'd be 'cause, like, I would be run off my feet with… I'm, I'm glad I've taken it slow. I'm glad I've actually just worked one-on-one with a few business operators- and really tweaked the system as I was going, and addressing those as I grew. Because honestly, I think a lot of people, they grow too big too fast and then realize they've burnt through that money that they had. Especially now with AI, I think it's-- we're in a very cool time, which is you can actually, you can actually start a business with not much and grow it from not and scale it, scale it reasonably, you know. Take investment on board when your business is worth a lot more money. Which means.
Yeah, you're not putting so much in up front, so you can be slower. You can take time, yeah. I think what I don't want is just someone to say, "Yeah, I'm interested in buying your business. I'll give you $100,000 for 50% of your business." Yeah. Like, that's, you The era of the vibe code is upon us, eh?
Yes, it is. Isn't it going to be hard for somebody to rock up to Shark Tank with like, a SaaS project that they've built and try to get any investment when the shark could probably vibe code in Lovable in half an hour themself. Mate, thanks so much for coming in. Pleasure. It's been, it's been awesome. It sounds like you've had a good experience working with the Pinch team so far. Yeah. So shout out to Damian and everybody, Cameron, who's been, I'm sure, helping you along the way. Tell us where we can find PassM8. Like, how can we, … Is it up online?
It is. Sign up online?
But it's not PassM8. It's M8. M8. The number eight. So that's A-S-M-8. Com. Au. Com. Just. Com Just. Com. Yep. PassM8. Com. Free trials, anything like that?
Yep. So yeah, and that's… Just click a button, and you'll have an account set up. You can start using it straight away. You can even start, running your classes off it. - -Hmm … and you can even set up your membership with Pinch as well. You sure can. Yeah. Absolutely. And we make that as painless as possible, so there's nothing stopping you from doing that. And yeah, you'll be up… Within 24 hours, you could be, you could be running your classes. Awesome. That depends on Pinch on, you know, getting that part set up, but yeah. It is true. It's, it is quicker for people to get up and running with PassM8 without Pinch, but we're pretty quick too compared to some of the other competitors. But I have to say that the Pinch team have been pretty amazing with how fast they have turned around.
Like, actually, that streamlined process now of actually having that all that documentation sent through to Pinch, it has definitely reduced that the painfulness of getting set up. And so much so it was like, you know, someone was actually up and operating within, I think it was two days. So that's full operation with payments, with Pinch all sorted out. So that was pretty cool. Clip that. Just kidding. Actually, we will clip that. - Yes. Good idea … awesome. Would you… Like, let's, let's, let's have another conversation in six months' time or so and we'll see how far you've come. Sounds good. If anybody out there is interested in potentially… Like, are you… We've, we've got a lot of people in our network who you know, might know people that might be interested in PassM8.
Do you have any kind of like, referral thing going on that they could potentially sign up to?
I know you were introduced-- You mentioned Dan at the start. Elaborate. Dan from Venue Smart, they love the referral stuff. Yep. I'm sure that the Venue Smart team — all of those people out there in the Venue Smart universe would probably have a million and one potential clients for you. How would they go about referring to you?
Sure. It's still in the early process- Early st- … but it's been, it has been discussed. Cool. So I haven't worked out the mechanics of that yet, but yeah, definitely interested in talking more if someone wants to look at it as a referral-based process, by all means. Awesome. That was Phil from PassM8, and that's it. That's episode one of PMYD. That was awesome.