Interview with Sam Owens, co-founder of the pre-seed funded startup Boodil
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I had the pleasure of interviewing Sam on Friday. He’s one of the co-founders of the exciting new fintech startup from Manchester: Boodil.com
With Harry, Shane and Dally, Sam is a part of a very pertinent and well structured team of founders. And it was really refreshing to hear his enthusiasm for Open Banking and how he believes Boodil can add some magic to the currently quite dull checkout process.
So what is Boodil?
Before we dig in, Sam did a great little explanation of Boodil on video. Here's the video transcript:
"Hi Startupmag, my name's Sam Owens, co-founder of Boodil. Boodil are an open banking payment solution that puts the consumer at the forefront of everything we do, and we offer consumers a fast and rewarding payment method that comes straight from their bank account.
And for merchants and businesses, we offer a cheaper way to accept payments that settles funds instantly and removes chargeback risk."
Boodil is a checkout method. It’s competing with Paypal and Klarna but it offers clear advantages for merchants and shoppers.
For merchants
Boodil’s payment method leverages Open Banking technology. After each transaction, the funds arrive immediately in the merchant's bank account.
This means reduced fees whilst also eradicating long wait times for the funds to settle into the merchants bank account. So much better for cashflow.
As an example, at Startupmag we use Stripe. Each time a payment is made on our site, the funds hit our stripe account in seconds. However, these funds only land in our business bank account 5 days later.
That’s 5 days of revenue that merchants have to front.
With Boodil, this transfer delay disappears. And merchants will receive their funds straight away.
For shoppers
Boodil also gamifies each purchase by rewarding shoppers. They will receive points to be exchanged for rewards and prize draw entries to win vouchers and even fully paid holidays.
Yes, there are already tons of cashback apps on the market. But receiving 1% on each transaction (or 30p on a £30 purchase) is not exactly electrifying.
With Boodil, each time you buy online becomes this entertaining moment when you get a chance to win a trip to the Maldives.
The randomness and the surprise of the prize draw is genius! It reminded me of the virality of premium bonds.
Premium bonds are an investment product issued by NS&I where you are entered into a monthly prize draw where you can win between £25 and £1 million tax free.
I never hear anybody happily boasting about the regular interest they are receiving on their latest ISA investment. But I do see the massive smile and twinkle in the eyes of my friends when they win the latest premium bonds draw.
Boodil is attempting to make checkouts fun and exciting. And this could definitely reduce that dreaded cart abandonment rate that gives nightmares to ecommerce owners.
Boodil raised £525k in their pre-seed funding round
A few days ago, Boodil raised £525,000. This round closed with 6 pre-seed investors including 5 angel investors:
- Louis and Reg Rix (Co-Founders of Manchester-based business, CarFinance 247 & 247Money)
- Anthony Morrow (Founder of OpenMoney)
- Gary Corbett (Former owner of the Mere Golf Resort)
- Ben Luscombe (Founder of Henley’s Clothing)
- 3B4 Investments
Sam confirmed that the process of finding these investors was very organic and the angels were either existing contacts or introductions from their contacts. The process didn’t feel like pitching but more like conversations and feedback sessions from business leaders that they respected.
This really highlighted the importance of nurturing your investor network as early as possible. It doesn’t have to translate into going to networking events and startup pitching competitions, but it does mean doing everything you can to be trusted in your industry.
I left the call thinking that this is just the beginning for Sam and his co-founders.
Boodil is attacking a very competitive industry with unicorn giants having raised millions in funding. However, they are approaching this problem with very clear improvements for the players on each side of an online transaction (lower fees and quicker funds for merchants, and ease of payment and excitement for the shoppers).
This is a real positive showcase for the benefits of Open Banking.
Boodil will be onboarding their first clients in December 2022 and I can’t wait to test the product out.
