Earnings Season - Innovate or Die w/ @QuickPlateJA's CEO @MoniquePowell

Episode Date: June 11, 2020

This week @RTRowe and @HDanhai speak with @QuickPlateJA's founder & CEO @MoniquePowell... Hear her tell her journey from her early entrepreneurial start to her years doing a 9-5 in Corporate JA and then her jump to QuickPlate and how it's been going over the last 4 years. She also talks @QuickCartJA, the latest product from the QuickPlate family, meant to get your business online and into home delivery and drops a deal for free delivery for the month of June!Wow, this one is a helluva package 📦.Don't come for the gems💎, get them delivered instead🏍…Contact Us Here -> 📧 [e-mail] us on Twitter here 👇🏾www.twitter.com/Earnings_Seasonwww.twitter.com/RTRowewww.twitter.com/HDanhai🔗Links🔗 The Wigton/VMIL/MIL Article - https://bit.ly/3cxbBkz Partner with QuickPlate - https://bit.ly/2zmfRoiSignup to attend the GRWR Workshop - www.everymickle.com/grwrProven's APO Suspension Notice - https://bit.ly/2BVQMBEProven's APO Ending Notice - https://bit.ly/2XQUaGtMonique's Story - https://bit.ly/2UxtMzg 🗣Shoutouts 🗣@Stubert_JA for the corrections, @FirstAngelsJA for the investments & @Glasgow_Sandra for the inspiration. ★ Support this podcast ★

hi guys welcome to earning season another week of earning season i'm randy rowe at rt rowe on twitter and i'm denny and he's denay on Twitter. With a heavy pause. You got that one from Justin Trudeau. This week, as always, we're doing a little bit of looking at the market.

And I know, I think I told you the last episode that we were going back to the market review. We haven't forgotten, but we have a lot of interesting people that we would want to share,

experiences that we want to share with you. And this one, I couldn't make the chance pass without interviewing our current guests. So, you know, it's a guest episode again. But before we jump to the guests, I'm going to give you just a little bit of anticipation because we will touch on the market because we haven't spoken about the market for a while. So, Danai, what's up on the market this week? Or since last time we've spoken, the market because we haven't spoken about the market for a while. So then I was up on the market this week or since last time we've spoken. The last time we've spoken.

News and numbers. Some numbers have come out since we've spoken. Yeah. More news. Yeah, more news. Definitely more news. Important news are out in grace.

Two parts of grace thing so the first part isn't news per se it's been out i just haven't we haven't mentioned it what grace is aha so gk included a lock-up in their dividend yes in a dividend in their dividend. Yes, in their dividend declaration, they mentioned that they were asking the registrar to close the name, the shareholder list for a certain period. It started on the 29th and will end on...

Then I close for the notes. Right. Right. Then I close for the notes Right You know for a bunch of guys just talking Off the top of our heads We really do seem to use a lot of references Yeah so Interim dividend Paid on the 15th of June To stockholders on record At the close of business on the 15th of June

to stockholders on record at the close of business on the 29th of May 2020 and the company's register of members be closed from the close of business on the 29th of May 2020 to the close of business on the 5th of June 2020

that's an interesting bit, this is the second time I have noticed that they have had this bit on their dividend decoration. The previous dividend also had this close of, close of the company's register of members. So it's interesting. And I think it's something to look at. It's instructive for most GKs making right now.

Yeah. it's instructive for more gk's making right now yeah it's it's it's um more it's one of those things that we look out for it's it's a it could you know what let me tell the people so they don't think it's too secretive it's it could be it could be absolutely nothing it could it could be just us looking for um the lie that we want to believe, or it could be an indication of something else in future. What reason would a company have to close its trading shop members at this time? Just, you know, generally. For a dividend payment, as they say. For a dividend payment.

Is it that they're doing it for a dividend payment or is something happening within that period where they would say, okay, close it for now? Exactly. People have been to grow up hearing me say all the time that I have this single say in this rule-a-thon. Then I hear it for years now. Companies lie.

CEOs lie in air quotes. But obviously, the numbers are results don't i say lie because they can't lie to you i think i've also said it on this so they can't lie to you legally because they're listed companies but they can say things to um make things sound like something else and they can also not say certain things until they absolutely have to and oftentimes they might be holding off on saying something because they know it might they're not ready yet it's not part of the plan blah blah blah exactly omission by omission is only for you and your girlfriend wow

that i still put it out that fire boy all right so so not just lie by omission but it's funny because they might yeah so they are omitting something but they're acting and because they legally they have a fiduciary responsibility in how they act they have to tell us certain things so imagine that right it's like well since then it to relationship. You and your partner live and you plan to leave, right? But you can't tell them, say, you plan to leave. So you start pack. Every time you leave the house, you put something in our bag. Where you leave with this bag for?

You're not going to tell them why you're leaving with the bag yet. Maybe you don't say anything or you move past it. But the actual why you're leaving with the bag yet maybe you don't say anything or you move past it but the actual act is you leaving with the bag same way maybe gk is doing something or planning something and they can't they are they can't they don't want to tell us what it is yet they don't want to come out yet but they have to prepare themselves in certain ways and this might be one example of them preparing themselves in a certain way, them freezing the register. So when you see that immediately, you go, hmm, where are you putting that bag there? Or you, I'll drop this there, which just seemed to me to be common sense.

You just go and check to see, okay, they say that, what was the actual wording you said? I'll just read the whole thing over. They say it was a dividend. They said they freeze it for dividend. No, I did not say that. What did they say that what was the actual wording you said you don't have to read the whole thing or what they say it was a dividend they said they freeze it for dividend no they did not say that what did they say what was the actual freezing for they did not

tell us why they didn't give a reason for the freezing so I have advised on May 14 the board passed the following resolutions pay a dividend on May 29 on record on May 29 from the close of business on May 29th, for people on record on May 29th, I was closing their list off from the close of business on May 29th. Nah man, they said that, I remember a reason, I'm working from memory here but, yeah.

No, no, not the second notice, not that second notice, the very first one. The very first, okay, we'll find the very first one. Yeah. okay we'll find the very first yeah declares it even an aging that the company closed from the post of being 16th of march 2020 to 23rd of march 2020. hmm and they don't say why they're either that is not that is that is even that's even more suspicious what is in that bag What is in that bag? Ah, wow. I feel like I read a reason in something,

but it might have been in the financials. It don't matter. The point is that this is what we do. This is how you make the money, guys. You look at the signs, and you go and see if it's a red flag or a white flag or whatever. You go and you see if it actually represents something or nothing.

So like we said, remember, we said that at at the start it could be nothing you're not straws right yeah exactly we could we could just be there gasping at straws and there's absolutely nothing there but then i seems to have a really good track record of it not being straws so i trust him yeah i trust you um speaking about dates passing which we weren't the we are when we were recording this early june but the date has not yet passed but it's close you remember that time when proven did say them suspend the apo but the new closing date will be june 5th was the date you know i actually went and looked it up earlier so we're recording this june 3rd so um yeah yeah it lets you what happens maybe maybe i'll be in a good mood i will put this out early we'll put this out early before june 5th or on j June 5th or on June 5th, which would be a Friday. Is that so? Is that right?

Yeah, it's a Friday. Yeah. Or maybe you're hearing this after June 5th, so you already know the answer, but I can tell you at this point, I'm excited to see what happens because I have not heard any mention of that date since. And I don't know if the suspension of the APO makes that date non-binding to the public, the Jamaican public, that is, you know? Yeah. Because, but then again, the suspension notice is what had it in there. I found that very, very strange. It's very interesting what's happening there.

5th of June seems to be a very popular date. 5th of June seems to be a very popular date yeah so June June dividends from GK and a closing of the registered members from the near the end of May to now and prove the two things

that stood out to me also SOS dropped their numbers actually you saw those didn't i yes were they good i i opened them as i said it to you were they good i don't think the covid quarter will be looking good for them whoo they're right they were just starting out in the COVID time. They started the COVID period and basically mid-March

is where they close off the numbers to March 31st. So they fought half a month of COVID and of course we're down on the quarter. Down significantly enough enough you think I mean I'd say so you know what I'd say maybe not exactly

it's not so bad for what's going on for them right now to be honest last year they made 57.5 million in the period and this year they made 43.8 million in the same period I mean you're looking at that that's that's a let me get my math right then I deny the math genius could tell me I know but you know it's a claim this

place the value 76% of last year's total profit is what they've made now. Here's my thinking, right? March may have been a quarter of, well, increased business under normal circumstances and maybe coming close to exams for some for some people so on i just think there's enough reasons for less stationery generally to be used more less people working in the office more people working from home so the office supply of of paper and stationery generally just didn't run out

that starts at the four months I work from home but if I work from home exactly ah you tell me you work from home now right no more right yeah who remembers point is yeah I think it's a valid reason and I think this is a case

where you need to see a company really quickly jump to anticipate what's happening and change or adjust their business model to deal with what everybody's facing now, right? Because if you think exactly how I said, no complicated thing, if you think exactly how I said, everybody in the office, they use up the stationery, the pen, the paper, the printer get used all the time, right? Not everybody's home. So a lot of the, especially the unnecessary printing,

the printing of your child's report on the company printer at seven o'clock at night. And I'm not judging anybody, right? Because I don't have a child, but I've printed things on the company printer at night also. He would have seen. But the business model has changed and so a lot of savings,

that's how the company is spending on them stationary, I would think, are now in place. I'd expect SOS to then instead find a way around that. But that's easy for me to sit here in this seat and say it's a completely different thing when you have to run a new company. I don't think it's a big hit

but I know it can continue. And the man in the just buy the company now. Seek. Yeah, I was saying that in general. Right? You definitely have to find a way to shift the model. You have to get those kids at home but still

get the books to them. Yeah. The Matt Daniels have their get the books to them. Yeah. The Matt Daniels have their work cut out for them. Tough. So you go. Literally. Anybody else? Who else was at the top of my mind recently?

Wigton paid a dividend again, against all odds. Yeah. Yeah. Jesus, the dividend's small. and yeah that is the dividend small who complained it's a dividend small yeah no name but i mean what kind of people have you heard it from don't be too specific i don't want nobody fix vex with with us i mean regular investors speak from the group oh they're hoping on dividends because there was a rally in the price, the price went up

the price did go significantly right as I'm talking to you now the price closed today at 85 cents and it has traded in the 90s yeah it has traded all the way up into the 90s I think 2 or 3 days ago

I saw it trade at a high of 95 cents. Remember I said Wigtown was down to like, when was it down to? Like in March, you could get Wigtown for below 60 cents, you know? Yes. Middle of March, I believe. Yeah yeah march 19th so that time so you can get a good amount yeah big up i mean to weakton's credit it it it almost every day has strong enough volumes you know yeah go ahead wait on the special case wait on all right so it's something i've said in the group whatever you usually hint hint not get spoon feed but I always hit the comment and spoon feed anyway yeah thing there Wigton gives me a lot of positive outlook for Wigton is that they have people that are buying strongly so the thing with Wigton is that thing that it's not held heavily on a certain by a certain so there's nobody that's owning 80 percent of the company and in 20 percent out there

for everybody to grab up so there's a big issue with boy it's so wide the health it's hard for you to move up without somebody saying i want this i want a lot of this stock if you look at if you look at the numbers that are released you realize that certain parties, from IPO time to now, they have been increasing their stake over and over and over. So VM, initially, they moved up to the 10% threshold. I think they had to sell down at that point or something like that because within the group, they had 10% or over. Just an article about saying that in the show.

Yes, please. So VM took a strong position. To me, it seems that VM is looking to own a lot of this stuff. Maybe. I don't know what I thought about it. I was going to do it for you. I was going to say that your company lead, your company principal, Chris Berry, on IG, on one of the IG sessions, actually asked that question about the energy sector, and he pointed out how excited he was about Wigton. And then he said, his words, not mine, I apologize if I get it wrong, but I don't think I did, he said that Mayberry is the lead shareholder, or one of the

biggest shareholders in Wigton. is the lead shareholder. The biggest shareholder in Wigton. I know he's either the biggest or the second biggest. Yeah. How I look at it. To me, basically, if it could have gotten Wigton at 56,

Wigton was a buy at 56 to me because what's really changing in their market because of COVID a lot that's the thing I'm excited about for them what's changing for them the majority of Jamaicans are now home and spending

time in front of devices that is pulling electricity to the point where we're actually having blackouts again and brownouts again in Jamaica the people who are complaining that actually having blackouts again and brownouts again in Jamaica. The people who are complaining that Wigtown never makes sense at IPO, they only have one customer, that's their strength. That one customer is under pressure right now.

So I'm pretty sure, all things being equal, anything that Wigtown can produce, that one customer can buy, that one customer in JPS will buy and has use for. So you were saying that? So yeah, so the company fundamentals, I'm not saying we're going to be a large change in them. And then on top of that, I need it. Like I said earlier, I need somebody to be buying heavily to actually get the stock out of my hand, actually move the price up. You need liquidity. buying heavily to actually get the stock out of my hand, actually move the price up. We need liquidity.

So, think there. And I'm again with this strong signing from Mayberry and VM. The first numbers after June 2019 numbers, VM had 591 shares. 591 million shares. That's 5.37%. You look at MJE

at 40 million shares as 36.37%. You look at MJE at 40 million shares, that's 36.36%. Right? So, and then you look again. I'm sorry, that's what percent? 0.36%. Oh, sorry. Yeah, man.

You look at September 2019, VN is now the number one shareholder with 976 million shares 8.8 percent and mayberry has 304 as 2.7 percent if you look at the volumes trading in that period realize hey these guys were big buyers during that time yeah and they look again vm is still number one with 1.018 million shares that's 1 billion shares wow and set a percentage again

so they increased their stake in that period since December 2019 that's just what it is Mayberry 6.7% 737 million of shares. To me, they're buying, they're signing on early to the race. We always talk about

five years after we've done this, we expect to be in a race with the thing they gave. I think these guys are positioning themselves to be, hey, we are in the best position when that time comes to take more shares because our average price will be near our five years of the price when we're buying heavily into it, when we can't actually buy into it. So to me, weak ton falling was our next moment where somebody like Mayberry and VM, VM can

move up as close to the 10% as they can. And Mayberry can buy even more with a 3 point, if they're on 6.7%, then boy, this can be a time when they can move to the 10 as easily as possible because the price falling. And with that level of buying, the price most move in my mind. And the funny thing is the more they buy,

is the more they reduce almost outstanding shares trading around from it. Reduce the supply. So, with that heavy buying, you can look at the thing there you can look at the amount of volumes trading in that period and look at the amount of memory and vm was during that period and said boy i know they really bought a lot of the shares that were ever traded so i don't know to me victor was going through rally and i believe somebody big was saying let me buy into it. I think Mayberry might have been the people.

Mayberry's stake has moved quite a bit and for Sir Berry to and that man don't miss you know and plus i mean maybe i did list them so they know the intrinsic value in it yeah and and i always say unless you think that we're going to stop using electricity anytime soon we're not going to to go anywhere yeah moreover we can gives us electricity without requiring oil imports, which is a major plus in their favor. So every kilowatt that Wigtown generates is a kilowatt that we didn't have to pay oil for. Yeah. Somebody has a rough metric, Stuart. He said he's watching the wind speeds during the period.

Which Stuart is this? Stuart South. Yeah, big up the man properly, man. Big up Stewart South. Big up Stewart South. I think it was Sajid Khor's employee of the year last year, 2019.

Yeah, big up Stewart South for that. Stewart predicted the move for Wigdon from he said, hold on, let me to find it you had actually mentioned it to me

you know you had actually mentioned it to me you had said let me see if I have it right something I think, something about his bet on Wigton being at least 84 cents by the end of May.

I sent his message and I saw that he was thinking that. He hit the mark. Well, I know. Did that matter to you? 85 cents today and at the end of May, when they sent the message, I thought that was impressive because I just looked at the range and I was like, okay, that's somewhere that I'd have cents.

But I'm looking actually now to realize on the last trading day of May, Wigton closed at 94 cents. The day before that, it was... On April 8th. Yeah, wow. On April 8th, in predict how he thinks it's going to look, May.

And on April 8th, Wigton was trading at, I will tell you, Wigton was trading, Wigton closed the day on April 8th at 70 cents. So, that's all I think he was saying. He corrected me on something I said, actually, about JMNB, how they'll book the dividend income.

They won't book it in the P&L because of the profit thing. So they'll book share of profit only. They won't book share of profit and dividend income in the P&L. The P&L goes straight to the cash flow and the balance sheet. And why won't the dividend? Because of the method of booking.

So because they own an associate stake, they only book share of profit from an associate. If they had booked, if they had it on an equity method, equity stake, so below 20%, then they're booking the trading gains. Or if they held it that way. If they held it that way, trading gains. Or if they held it that way. If they held it that way, yes, true. If they held it that way, then it would have been...

The trading gains, all of them, they will value the thing. They will value the asset, the movement in the price of the asset, and then the dividends from the asset will be booked in the P&L. But because they say, oh, it's an associate company, they book a percent of the profit

based on how much of the company they own so they own say 22% then they'll book 22% of whatever profit or loss

Sadiqor makes and then the dividend will go straight to the straight to the cash flow statements and the balance sheet so the next guy will cash flow seat them every now and then

whenever Sadiqor pays a dividend they wouldn't seat in their profit and loss statements saying oh we've got some more dividends from Shalikor so you can't really tell me what it is

Aha, and if that's so then that shows a lot, that shows a nice strength of what would, what should have been a nice show of strength from the cash flow statement because the cash flow then that would show that they get about half a billion

half a billion worth of dividends since since March, I think or since February February or March half a billion worth of dividends from Sajikor Financial hit

JMNB and that means also that, oh that means I might have said something incorrect at a grow I need to update those grow people then because we spoke at one of the girls we were going through um JMNB and I found what I one of the things I found very impressive was the dividends that are hitting them from their new holding, Sajikor Financial. So that hasn't changed. That money coming in and it's going to be really, really good. However, it wouldn't hit the P&L per se,

but they would have the money in their hand, which is an even nicer thing, which is the thing that they'll tell you in any accounting class about cash flow and why it's important and why the net profit might not always show everything. That's funny. Yeah. I think some guys would be

surprised we said that for some reason. But yeah, speaking about moving on. Did you sell Bond? Yeah, funny guy. Oh my lord, did you sell I would have spent too much time Yeah, Digicel Bond. Yeah, how are you doing, guy? Oh, my Lord. Digicel, I say that nice.

I won't spend too much time on it, but there's a nice, I'm going to put it in the show notes. Check the show notes right now. If you don't know where the show notes are, there should be a little area in whatever app you're listening to us on that shows it. If you listen to us on the website, then it's on the same page that you listen to us with.

I want to put in there the Digicel Bond article where it shows that it would appear that companies linked to the Digicel founder, Dennis O'Brien, would have been getting paid money through the expense line consistently for a few years now, even after he, as a board member board member i think or as company principal would have officially stopped paying dividends to himself while they go while they get their

finances in all in order so they can make the bond payments which they're having trouble with even after the restructuring I feel it for you guys I guess we learn a lesson every day right? some people learn it rather than some yeah that is true but the point is to actually learn the lesson so it would appear

that the equity holder in this case is still benefiting ahead of the bondholders despite everything and it's not illegal either he's following the line yeah turns out that when people have money and they have interest in certain things their money is the most interesting thing to them and most important thing to them and they don't care what you call the money that hits their pocket as long as it hits their pocket. Yep. Yeah. Even in our expense. Yeah. There is.

There is. Exactly. There is a lesson there. So, Digicel, which is not listed, obviously, but that'd be great. I always wanted them to maybe list their individual country companies. With the hope that it would give it would give a nice it might be on SEC's website actually because it comes from

some further disclosures and they went apparently went really deep into it they just haven't gone through it as yet yeah but yeah interesting it's really instructive you can get a real

look at how companies are actually running yes yes oh wow but yes let's move on to somebody who runs a company and does it well here we go so danai with the segue so we'll pause stocks guys and we haven't forgotten the market review but you know all in good time. Then I would a great intro there where we can move over to our guest which I didn't tell you who it was but I am proud. Surprise surprise. Our guest this week is the one and only Monique Powell of Quick Plate. Found and CEO is that what we call you, Monique? That's good.

That's good enough. Yes, that's fine. I don't want good enough. I want you to... What do you call me? Yeah. Monique, introduce yourself. All right.

So I am the founder and CEO of Quick Plate, which has recently expanded to also include Quick Cart. We've been at it for a while, about four years now. Started in March of 2016. Wow. Starting when? Say that again? March 2016.

Started in March 2016. So just a little over four years now. Wow. Congrats. Thank you. Wow. 2016 so just a little over four years now wow congrats thank you wow they said the first three years is when you know whether or not you have a business you know here we are saying year four she's proving her worth four years congrats monique so go ahead money sorry to interrupt you i just i just i didn't realize it was that long no no no that's fine fine. Yeah, so we've been about for a little over four years,

and I feel like we're still in the startup phase in terms of, you know, constantly adapting, constantly innovating, constantly learning more about our customers and what they want, and doing that all while trying to build a business that is sustainable, profitable, and is set up in such a way and structured in such a way that it's likely to be our own for the long haul. I like that. You're going deep though, Monique. Start back from the early stuff, man. Somebody listening now has no idea who your wife is.

Oh, as far back as you want me to go. As far back as you're comfortable going. Who is Monique, Paul? We can start there. Who is Monique Powell? We can start there. All right. So I'll start out with my journey right after high school. Which high school?

I went to Immaculate. I went to Immaculate. Big up every Immaculate girl everywhere. And I think right after leaving high school, I realized that I had an entrepreneurial streak. So I started out doing freelance web development and freelance graphic design. I would literally walk in the sun from store to store and ask for the owner and show them a portfolio

and ask them if they wanted a business card and website and things like that. I did that for a while and it eventually led to a freelance contract with the cleaner company and they liked the work that I did and when a full-time position became available there they they asked me if I wanted it. And that's how I got into the 9-to-5 world. I stayed with the Greener Company for seven years as their internet specialist. Moved to Digicel, where I was for a year and a half as the web specialist on their marketing team. And my next stop and last stop before QuickBlade was at Scotiabank where I spent five years.

And I was eventually the regional marketing manager with responsibility for digital marketing across the Caribbean. So that was my last nine to five stop before going full speed into entrepreneurship. Boy. So Dana, you're shocked as I am? Yes.

She started with entrepreneurship and then she went into the 9-5. You're like, boy, I'm going to tell her it's 9-5. But I just went into it just because everybody said I should do it. And then going into the 9 to 5 you're just like, wow, I'm a 10 out of this 9 to 5 that I just went into just because everybody said I should do it and then going to the entrepreneur she started as that and then she went into the 9 to 5 excelled more than so and here she is again, excelling

outside of the 9 to 5 crazy you know, it's one of those things that I think it's always been in me and even while I was working at various companies and happy doing so, I always kind of knew within myself that there would be a point. I didn't know when it was going to come,

but there would be a point where I would be going out and kind of forging my own path. I always knew that it would come at some point. Wow. But what's beautiful is that you did that thing that a lot of people do before, like Danae said. Entrepreneur, corporate, and then you go back to your dream. But the corporate section allow you, I would hope, allow you to learn a whole heap.

But what's bothering me is say i load i got a lot of money up now too he said she tell me before we start say oh you know she don't really know much about the market you hear the places to work she started with glena listed glena um matter of fact i got glena have two things in there because if you were doing digital at gleaner monique you would have were you there when they were doing the g or yeah the g but the g what is that d i space oh no that came after i think that came after i left actually okay i remember i used to use that a lot because i had a lot of data there. But why I ask that is because I think some of their online properties might have stayed with 1834 when they did that.

1834. Yeah, when they did the split and merger thing. So that's two corporate companies, that's two listed companies you have experience with right there, if I count both of those and then that's Gleaner and RJR and the second one was where money? Second one was Digicel and then after Scotiabank. And them listed all over and then Scotiabank. Wow so you really know you really do have a good idea how this thing works at least from the inside because you then understand what inside of a listed company is like and how that pressure works. Wow.

I didn't know you're doing the thing that truly speaks to your soul, the quick plate four years in. And what do you call yourself? I wanted to get that. What do you call yourself a quick plate? I always try to make sure I get people's titles right for the companies uh it's it's it's it's really not a a big deal to me or something that i focused on i started referring to myself as managing director that's how i started referring to myself and and uh eventually people started saying ceo and i just went to the show so it's not that you're not there to me really i know exactly what you mean yeah well that's good but you are found and i think that's important

right right um so you started off four years ago you say so i don't even know where to ask you it's like you hit me so many things that even i wasn't expecting so first you went into tech which is good i don't i mean as somebody who did tech too i don't you don't see a lot of of women being as entrepreneurial with the tech as you some really so what what pushed you to that money well i mean it it always has been a male dominated space uh Even when I was at the cleaner company for a very long time, I was the only female internet specialist slash web developer that they had there. And that I was there for seven years, like I said, and I'm trying to think now as to whether there was, oh yes, I think eventually there was one there was one female

web developer and this is over years of seeing a number of them in and out of the company so i got used to being in a space that was dominated by men in terms of numbers and it wasn't, I never at any point though found it to be a neutral or uncomfortable space in any way. I found my colleagues to be very supportive even you know egging me on whenever I would you know launch new projects or whatever it was. So there was support from my male counterparts. And technology, it was just always a space that I was drawn to. I think I built my first website at about 14 years old,

I think, in the summer between fourth farm and fifth farm, in the height of summer boredom and i just i just never look back nice i love that i love that is a true a true push because now you own one of jamaica's freshest newest internet businesses and and as a result of that as as a result of the coronavirus that has hit all of us over the past few months you have seen i think a huge boost in your business no i think so uh yes i i can definitely say that there has been an uptick. It didn't happen right off the bat like a lot of people would imagine. It wasn't a case where, you know, the lockdown started and business tripled. It still took a few weeks for people to start to change their habits.

So, you know, persons who had never ordered online, it took a while for them to come around and decide, okay, let me try this out since, you know, nobody really wants to go on the road right now. You know, people who ordering takeout for delivery or ordering food for delivery was a once in a while treat. You know, it took a while for them to start ordering multiple times per week until it became a part of their routine. So what has happened is in the last, I would say the last three to four weeks is where we've actually seen the biggest spike. And I think it's indicative of what's to come. I think even as people start to go back to whatever normal looks like for them now, or will look like, I think there are some new habits or new behaviors that are picked up during this time that are not going to backtrack on.

So if you discover that there was a way that you could get access to all the best food from all the best restaurants without leaving your yard know that you are or when we get to the point where you can freely move about and feel comfortable freely moving about i don't think you're gonna suddenly give up that convenience that you recently discovered so you know i think i think there's to be a lot of longstanding behavioral changes among consumers out of this COVID-19 crisis. That's true. But I don't even want to jump ahead.

I don't want to shortchange the... I was going to say, we haven't even said how to contribute this. Yes, I don't want to short the journey so you stay high school in michaelette you went to work for a couple of places um and then you started out quick plate what made you say oh all right i'm done with the 95 journey because it was a journey you started somewhere you went somewhere else and then you're back here in entrepreneurial world. So what made you say, I want to do this entrepreneurial thing? Well, I think it was the collision of a couple of things happening in my life

and in my mind at the same time. I think I had gotten to a place where I was starting to experience some degree of burnout on a job. And I think it kind of triggered off a lot of introspection for me as to whether I was still doing what I wanted to do, whether I was still happy doing what I was doing. And in a separate part of my mind, an idea was forming because at that time, I often worked late and I would get home seven o'clock, eight o'clock in the night.

And at that time, I wouldn't even want to look at a stove. Not that I was into cooking to begin with, but I wouldn't even want to look at a stove. Not that I was into cooking to begin with, but I wouldn't even want to look at a store at that time. So what I would order, I would order pizza because that was the only thing that you could find at the delivery at that time. And I started to realize that there was a gap in the market. So yeah, you know, if you have a beer or a courier that you know personally, you can call them and they'll go and stand in line for you. But that's not exactly

the most efficient system is it so i started to explore you know whether there was room for that sort of thing here in the in in this market i mean we're not the first to do something like this in the world you know there are other similar companies in in other countries but I don't think anybody was doing it on a larger or what I would consider to be a serious scale here and I spoke to a few restaurant owners I spoke to a number of persons like myself you know just to assess whether there would be some demand both on the restaurant side and on the customer side. And the feedback I got was enough for me to say, all right, let's do this. So I started building out the platform, and it was something that happened very, very quickly.

I think I started building out the platform in February of 2016. And by March 2016, we were live. And already by March. Yes, we went live on March 31st. Did you leave the job before? I left two weeks before the company launched

So everything planned upon and ready now, sorry, time for me to leave Makes sense Something like that Smart moves Yeah, that is a smart move But then, to get it ready in that time is you coding by yourself just

at night no no um so the work in terms of on the technical side was split between myself and a developer who i had worked with on a previous project uh so before Quick Plate, I had this online dating site. So he and I... No, you can't jump past the thing, mum. You passed that one. Yeah, on a profile in a one year ago. Online dating site, local online dating site, one year ago. Right. So I think it could have been about a year before I did QuickPlate. I decided to start one just as a hobby project, really.

And the initial response to it was great. I think within three weeks of launching, we had about 600 users on the site. So, you know, and that was with minimal marketing and so forth so people wanted it so something people gravitated to but then I started to think alright this thing cost money to run how am I going to earn from it? So I decided to do a bare bones free package and then put on a paid package that you could upgrade to for all the bells and whistles. Not one person.

Free meal model. Not one person. So now I'm going to go for free. Money that you want to spend on the movies and we're spending so you know people started finding ways to go around the system because i think i think i think what set up was that with a free thing like you could only exchange one message or something like that so people would put all their contact information in there. And then they had a platform. You know, so I quickly realized

that the amount of effort that I would have to put in for that thing to even pay for itself, it wasn't worth it. So gradually I allowed that project to die. But we still maintained the relationship we had, the developer who worked with me on that.

And then we also started working together on Quickplate. So I focused a lot on the front end stuff, the design, front end coding. He focused mainly on the back end and on the actual platform development. Wow, Okay. Sorry, go ahead. It sounds good from easy dating to easy food.

But I noticed that we played started with a demand for the personal demand or the dating side started out as well. Well, it wasn't a personal need at that particular point in time but i mean those type of sites weren't you know i had no problem with using them and i saw where a number of people were able to meet people and have fulfilling relationships from those sites so it was yeah why not why not give some people in an opportunity to meet new persons makes sense makes sense makes sense yeah i think that's actually amazing so so you ever consider going back to that i think that might have just been a a matter of timing You're going to need to eat something here on this side.

Do you really want this to happen? It's unlikely. It's unlikely. It's unlikely. It's unlikely that you would do that again? It's unlikely. I mean, at this point in time, Quick Plate takes up so much of my time that I can't imagine launching something else anytime soon so

I won't say never I won't I won't tell you that in 10 years time or 15 years time I may not decide to do something that's similar to nature similar in nature to that project I did before but in the short term I don't see that happening. Oh. Okay. Hmm. Well, I mean, I just want to... Yeah, it kind of hurt. It kind of hurt. Because, I mean, I don't know if you've ever used Quick Plate. Quick Plate is very convenient with a dough. Oh my God.

Yeah. Though I've used that word, but I haven't used it at my house. Is it available in Spanish though? No, it's not. So we are... You see at this point we still don't tell people what QuickPlate is, you know? People, I'm so sorry. I can go ahead and shed some light on what exactly QuickPlate is. So QuickPlate pretty much allows people to go online, see and browse the menus from a number of restaurants, order online, and have the food delivered to your doorstep.

So in a nutshell, that is what QuickPlate is. and have the food delivered to your doorstep. So in a nutshell, that is what QuickPlate is. A way to connect customers or diners with restaurants around them. It allows for online payment. It allows you to track the position of the rider or driver. It allows for SMS notifications, so that you have full visibility over the order process. We basically use technology to enhance the whole experience of ordering online in a way that provides the customer with what we consider to be a seamless experience.

And I think the customer experience is only going to get better from here as we continue to make process improvements, as we continue to innovate internally. You know, it's only going to get better from here. Wow. you know it's only going to get better from here wow um yeah i've been deliberately not trying to skirt you touching where we're getting by me we can't get there so quick plate essentially is deliver food it's it's it's something that jamaica has needed for a long time and it's you is you handling the online logistics and the delivery logistics of food delivery. So people can actually, even the cook shops can get our money.

How many restaurants do you have on your platform now? So in total, we have about, I think it's about 80 merchants at this time. Both restaurants and other types of partners. Wow. 80 restaurants and you and your that in then I asked you say if you're in Spanish stone and you say you say no but what was that was your radius currently right so we primarily cover Kingston and St. Andrew we're also in Portmore. Nice. We're hoping that you know, in the medium to long term

we will be able to expand to other areas in Ireland as well. Nice. How's the Portmore thing going now? Because Portmore must be a nice place to be, especially now. Or a busy place to be, I should think. Well, I mean Kingston is content in terms to be especially now or a busy place to be i should say i should think well i mean kingston

is content in terms of auto volume kingston is is is still way ahead of portmore i think uh a food delivery service that operates in the way that we do is still relatively new to the space in port more so we have a we have customers over there who are out all the time so we do have um some loyal customers there but i think it's going to take time for us to pick up the kind of steam in port more that we have going in Kingston and St. Andrew. Only good time. I mean, it's just a matter of advertising. I mean, I wholly support more people online now.

I think it's just a matter of them just not knowing. So the marketing will help. It's just blowing my mind. And then, Monique, you sound so calm. What's this calm? Have you always been this calm? Is this calm exterior that you bring in? Well, I'd like to think so.

I mean, nobody's calm all the time, but I try as much as possible to not. I think when you run a business, there's so much that happens on any given day. So many fires that need to be outed. So many decisions that need to be made on the fly. You need to learn how to chill out. You need to learn how to approach things with a certain level of calmness. Or else it is very well likely to drive you crazy.

So this might just be a side effect of adjusting to that. Yeah, I like that. So how do you do that? Because people need, I know I need that. And you're right. The day-to-day is fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, sleep. Wake up, fire, fire. It's something, it feels like, yeah, it feels'd be like it never ends how do you do that

meditate well i'm still learning i'm still four years and i'm still learning how to to best handle all of that uh one of the things that works for me i'm not sure how healthy this is because what it means is that i i don't get the kind of sleep that I should. But what works for me is getting up super early most mornings. So when I start working at 5 o'clock, by 8 o'clock, when the rest of the world is ready to start buzzing, I've already gotten quite a few things over the way. Because from 8 o'clock onwards it's just fire out and decision making and unexpected things popping up. It basically for me I mean

despite all the try that I try, you more or less lose control of your day once the rest of the world is up. So you know kind of structuring your day so that even in the midst of all that craziness you still have a little bit of control over what you get done at least in that you know early part of the day so that's one of one of the the techniques for want of a better word that I use to to to try to to keep someone out of control outside of that I, I don't know if it will ever, I think it's just part and parcel of running a business. I don't know if there will be a point in the near future where it's going to be any less crazy.

Probably not. You're in an upside, probably get worse. Yeah, yeah. and people people always people i mean you are doing a service that people need out if everybody would never think we needed it after corona when yeah we we definitely know that we need it um you you you said though i won't go back to the start the start because I feel like you're skipping over so many things. After you leave that where you were before thing, I mean, think about the start.

That's what I want to hear a lot about because I would feel bad if I'm listening to this. Monique has what I think is a successful online business in Jamaica at the time. I've been running it for the last four years so even if people think it's successful no yeah online delivery never sounds successful as a jamaican product in 2017 or 2018 you know no absolutely absolutely not i mean when we so even in terms of the number of restaurants that we had on board. I think we ended, I don't think we ended the first year

with more than about 12 or 14 restaurants, somewhere there about, because it was very difficult to convince restaurants that this is something that would take off. This is something that would be worth the time that it would take for them to set it up. That people would be going online and using credit cards to pay for delivery and all of that and paying a delivery fee. It took some convincing, you know, and then by the end of the second year i think we tripled the number because in that second year people started to say oh i think i think these guys answer something let's see if i can get in on that you know but it wasn't convincing people that this was something that

would take off in king or Jamaica and a hole. It wasn't necessarily an easy task in the beginning. Okay. Then I want to hear about mixed up about it. You see, what are you, what are you so afraid? The actual struggle.

That's what we want here because I want, what I want is to be able to, to, to have somebody listen to this and not just appreciate what it is that you've built, but also appreciate the journey that you've gone through and that somebody

looking to go that road might have to expect to go through. So, I mean, I know that it wasn't easy. You know, more you tell the people how hard it was

because, I mean, you started off where you get the money from. The bank, they just give you money. I know know you say used to work at the bank the bank they just say money i like your idea here's five mil absolutely not i wish i wish absolutely not um so it came from my life savings so uh basically well the plan was not to put my entire life savings into QuickLate, but eventually that's what happened. Because when you're first starting a business,

especially when it's your first full-fledged business, you're overly optimistic about every revenue projection, and then you totally underestimate every expense that you had put in your projections. So what that means is that you're burning through cash at twice the rate that you thought it would have. And, you know, of course, the banks, the banks didn't even look at me when I eventually went out and applied for loans. None of them did. applied for for loans um none of them did so it even got to the point where i said all right um i've come too far with this business to allow it to shut down so i went on a pension which uh at the time was a couple million dollars and i just shut my eye and put it in the business

you know so it's it hold on hold on man you're you're running you're running big you start the business and it was working fine or it wasn't working fine you say i mean it's early startup i think is that the first year you did finished with less a small amount i don't remember the exact number you said. A partner. For a series. Yeah, yeah. But somewhere about 14, there was interest upon that. But it was, it, like I said,

you know, with, and it happens with just talking with other entrepreneurs, it's a common thing. Especially, like I said, with your first business. So.

I know it's common, that's why I'm always telling them. You have this, you have this pretty looking revenue chat. Of course, you know, you say, yeah, of course, the first few months are going to be rough.

So the first few months, the line level. And then after that, the line starts going up and it goes up steadily. That's how your revenue projection is looking. And for expenses, you pretty much have no idea what's really coming. Go up and then flatten your revenue projection. You may need to rent a little office somewhere. You're going to have some electricity. But you're really, really proud of it,

especially with a business that is as complex as ours in terms of a logistics business. There is a lot of complexity involved that people don't even understand. And with that complexity comes, you know, there are costs associated with putting ourselves in a position to run a business like that effectively and efficiently. You said people don't understand. Help us understand what kind of complexity.

So food delivery, for instance, is as simple as it may appear on the surface, is one of the most difficult logistics business to run because everything has to happen within an hour. The order being picked up on our end in terms of our dispatcher making note of that order, in terms of the restaurant making note of that order, in terms of the restaurant, being aware of that order, processing it in the kitchen, us dispatching somebody,

that person getting to the restaurant, waiting on food prep to be complete, getting to the customer. That's a lot that needs to happen within an hour. And the thing is that once an order goes over an hour, customers start to- To- To- To-

To- Right. Right. So to ensure the best customer experience, all of that has to happen within an hour and it has to happen within an hour consistently. So to ensure that we do that, we have to have certain internal processes in place.

We have to have certain logistic software that we use so that we can set a position at every ride and drive at any given point in time. There's a lot that's going on on the back end to make sure that that meal gets to the customer in a timely fashion and it's not as

simple as just regular delivery because regular restaurant i mean i'm cooking here and the bite man is outside but you literally you you have a two-step delivery because you have to leave wherever you are or find a bite man leave wherever closest and they have to then go and get it and then come to double customer, the person buying the food is your customer and the restaurant in some degree is your customer as well absolutely

wow not to some degree they are our customers in the same way that the person goes online and places the order is our customer. Okay, so that 36 is one area that you have a lot of difficulty in. What other areas do you have? What are your biggest difficulty areas well i mean the thing is that i think most of our our biggest lessons in terms of logistics in terms of the toughest hardest lessons i think or i would hope are behind us i mean we we went through an entire

phase where we had our own fleet of motorcycles and we had to suddenly become concerned with maintenance of these bikes and constantly fixing, constantly repairing them. And to the point where even myself, I had to learn how to do some minor repairs and that sort of thing to motorcycles. and how to do some minor repairs and that sort of thing to motorcycles. And, you know, we went through the whole phase of trying various ways to make the operations go as smoothly as possible. I mean, that's no longer something that we do in terms of maintaining a fleet of vehicles,

but that's just one of the things that we did that ended up costing a lot costing us a lot that we we learned very tough lessons from you know wow so you don't handle your bikes anymore you don't do internal logistics anymore well we all our contracted delivery drivers and riders have their own vehicles and that is our model now okay so you what you do is you pay instead for your employee to manage the tool that they use right so i should say so so so whatever we pay it is done with the understanding that they will cover whatever costs are associated with their vehicles because they are you know um they are operating as as as contractors and and their vehicle is a tool for the job just just as their cell phone with the app is a tool for the job

you know it makes sense to me right so basically i i have a motorcycle and i want to use i want basically i want to use it for a job i'm an entrepreneur of sorts and i think we'll be so so provide the service to be played well it's it's it's we have we have a couple of sub models um within our larger model in terms of how that works on our side uh one of the things that we launched fairly recently um less than a year ago i think is an uberstyle program that allows part-time persons or persons who are otherwise engaged, maybe they're students, maybe they have a day job, but they're looking for ways to make additional funds. And they log on whenever their schedules allow for it and that allows us to

have access to a wider pool of people while allowing a number of persons to earn a little bit more of the vehicle that they have. So they have that car

payment to make anyway. So why not use one Saturday every week and earn some extra money off of that vehicle that you have, you know? So it's something that has been working very well. And there's been strong interest from both drivers and motorcycle riders. And we use both in our fleet. How has that been working out? Yeah. The car.

I would think that people would shy away from the car delivery. Well, when you say shy away, you mean in terms of what I have a car versus a motorcycle oh no I'm much more likely to get caught in traffic that's a bad thing right well well the thing is that our as I said the interest from from from drivers has been great has's been quite a number of applications from drivers, more applications from drivers than motorcycle riders. And what we try to do,

I can't get into all of it because it would be like giving away the secret sauce. But we know... If something's proprietary, something's proprietary, I don't want to pressure you. We know how to use both the cars and the bikes in our fleet in the most effective manner so that the impact of things like traffic is minimized. Makes sense.

Wow. Wow. That's actually interesting. I won't touch anything too proprietary, but I like that. And you touch on a good point there because you do have competition, yeah? Absolutely. Yeah, you do have competition. So how do you, in general terms, you don't have to give her the secret sauce, but I mean, how do you handle that competition that you have? that you have? I mean, competition is for the most part

a good thing. A good thing for consumers in terms of choice and in terms of the various players constantly improving their service because they have to

compete for your business. constantly improving their service because they have to they have to they have to compete for your business right and it's good for the businesses that are involved in a particular space because now they have incentive to continually innovate you know it's innovate or die if you're in a space that is crowded so for me it's it's you know like i said before i can't i can't say everything that we do to differentiate ourselves i can't get into all the details but so enough to say that a lot of the innovation that drives businesses forward is not innovation that is readily visible from the outside. It's things like process improvement.

It's things like improvements in service delivery. It's a lot of innovation on the back end so for example there are things that we do differently on the back end to make it likely that any other you place is gonna get to you within a particular time there are things that we do on the back end to make it strongly likely that when you reach out to us via live chat or email or whatever method you use, there is somebody on the other end of that to respond to you and help you with whatever the issue is.

So a lot of the innovation is not necessarily bells and whistles that you'll see on the outside. It happens, a lot of it happens behind the scenes. And there's a constant commitment to customer service, customer care, and also process improvements. You know, constant process improvement. movement yeah it's it's uh it's uh you're you're in a game now where it's more than just the tech and i like that because seeing you do something successful in local tech meant a lot to me because tech often gets um devolved or or or simplified into just the actual tech yep yeah you find out yeah you find you find a lot of the i remember i remember especially at utech and the guys come out of utech i knew it

but they have a great idea and um they write something for it they put something together put together a website and it is a good idea you you know, a great idea. And so they think it will work and they're like, yo, I don't get it. Why the bank the Jamaican bank, they don't support you at all because they don't really want innovation because nobody gives me a loan. I'm like, yo, the tech is

a small right? So it is, when I say it is the least, of course it is let me let me let me take that back that part it is not right but it's not as important as some of these techies who are developing solutions early in the game i think uh and like you say you know we have a lot of very talented people who develop some very cool solutions that never go anywhere because they forget that there is a whole entire business that you have to build out behind all that tech there are people that you have to employ there

are people that you have to train there are processes that you have to employ, there are people that you have to train, there are processes that you have to put in place. There's a whole lot that goes on that has nothing to do with this very cool or doesn't necessarily have anything to do directly with the development of this very cool tech that you've built. And I think it's the inability to move from cool tech to sustainable business. I think somewhere in that journey is where a lot of people fall off. Yeah. Building the tech is just one part of the puzzle. And in order to build impactful businesses, more people, more of these talented techies who are building these solutions have to start thinking about the business side of it from very early. Thinking about what your revenue streams are going to be.

How are you going to sustainably build this out how are you going to make sure that this is profitable that whatever it costs you to run this service is less than what you're going to make off of it and those questions need to be asked at the very beginning even before you start to fall in love with whatever this cool thing is that you're building. Yep. Yep. That's what, and we've said this before. We actually said this when we had that Suebe episode.

That was actually the point that we're trying to get across. Lots of people got that one. I think maybe some people didn't. Yeah, you have to, no matter what you call it, no matter what you're doing in it at the end of the day it's a business and it's doubly true if you are looking for money from a bank especially i'm looking for money bank or private equity wherever you're going to have to know this through and through and not just know it it's not just something you you get somebody to help you

with and you just memorize it and you go you have to actually understand it you know many great ideas die because the person with the great idea can't rework that idea into financial terms terms that will make sense to not to an investor a potential investor a bank a loan somebody who might give you a loan even if it was a For me, my friends, when they come to me for business advice or talking about business or if I sit on a board and they're trying to help with a business, especially in the early stage, it is all about how it makes sense financially.

Just like money. I give the basic equation because you can start there. You'd have to be a numbers person. You'd have to be in finance. It's just revenue, which is money coming in, minus expenses, everything you have to be a numbers person. You'd have to be in finance. It's just revenue, which is money coming in, minus expenses, everything you have to spend on. And what you have left after that is profit.

And if that profit number is negative, then you need to rework your idea. And you also need to know little pieces. That's why I wanted money to go a little harder than so much is saying in terms of the details because those little pieces are really where the business is.

You see, you have to do the work, the thinking work, the great work that you want, the personal work early in the morning. Because once people come in the office and the others start coming in, you know, go into what the real business is day to day, which is actually a logistics business. So you have to handle a lot of logistics yeah so understanding what your business actually is and what each step of your business is and what it will look like is key for anybody listening and planning or thinking to do the same thing you know yeah i'm gonna put some ads on taxes in jamaica okay how are you going to get to the taxes yeah i read the greener there are 10 000 taxes all over jamaica i hear it how are you going to get to the taxis yeah I read the greener there are 10,000 taxis all over Jamaica I hear you how are you going to get the taxi man in Portland to put an ad on the back of his taxi that you gave him well I sent it to him you're going to send it to him how do you know him how do you get contact you know that's what I think the thinking that I think

doesn't go into it a lot of times but our set of numbers will get put together i get them all the time i get stuff all the time but that way you can tell that the person has thought a lot about how good the idea would be but not how the actual execution or operation of the idea will work out and i hate when they do that and i hate when the next step is that well you know i expected you would do that so i must figure out the business for them. But not that I have an issue doing that. It depends on the person, what they're doing and how I feel about them. But then I can serve as mentorship or aid or whatever. But on that point, Monique, you have anybody who does help you?

Anybody who aids with the mentorship? Well, I would say yes. I would say yes. So there is a board that we have in place. It's a

relatively new board. We assembled that I think it was February of last year. But I have been able to get valuable insight from them

guidance from them they're all experienced professionals in their respective fields so that has been very useful to me, you know, having a group of smart people who are interested in the development of the business that you're able to bounce ideas off that can,

you know, give you some guidance and, you know, give you some guidance and even a little bit of tough love in terms of telling you what you need to, what areas you need to pull up your socks in, what you need to be better at. And also I think Sandra Glasgow has been somebody who over the last couple of years I've been also able to bounce things off, to ask questions of in terms of how to proceed with particular ideas that we have or particular things that we want to get done you know whether it might be securing additional funding or it might be launching a new product that sort of thing and for context Sandra Glasgow is the one of the founders of and the

manager of first angels and first angels is an angel investment network that has invested in quickbait so you see yes you every time i press you we'll find out something else when he talked toique, talk to me about the journey, man. So when did First Angels invest? This is a relatively recent development. This was last

year. So we started the conversation with First Angels a year before last. But as anyone who is familiar with this kind of process would know is something that takes several months you know they have to do their due diligence and you know you have to put a lot of documentation together and you know they have to feel comfortable with the investment that they're making and that's that's that's understandable. So that whole process took, let me see,

I'd say from start to finish, maybe about six months, that entire process. And then the actual investment was made in February of last year. Aha. And are you allowed to say how much? Well i'm i'm i don't think there's anything preventing me from saying how much it is but i don't necessarily want to to give an amount if you don't want it that's fine that's fine that's what i'm saying that's that's what i wanted to know but you also touch on some of the process tell the people some of the things that you had

to get together for them you know so they have an idea what it is because again not only do you have a great company going but you also have you're also a case of i would say successful i mean not jinx it but well it's successful because you're running and it's growing successful um angel investing locally or uh i don't know if first angels is just angels investing would you what would they call your investment that angel investment or more private equity what are the angel invest it's it's it is it is i mean i mean it's it's equity that they're taking in exchange for the investment that they've made but um i suppose i suppose it's the standard term for what they're doing is angel investing maybe not i think there's like a difference between the two and it's some i mean to me to me to me them take a stake in your business

and they're helping you along right right yeah so so it's it's which is not really unlike what um what VCs do just at a... Venture level. At a venture fund. Right. Yeah. So there are some similarities. I'm with you. Right.

To me... You just found a way to call this segment of it based on whatever the person is going for I guess yeah primarily focused on helping early stage promising businesses

secure just enough to get them to the next level where they are um able to sustain themselves and able to start to really pursuing growth up you know start to really pursue growth opportunities and that sort of thing i think that's their main goal helping um promising relatively entrepreneurs to get to that point yeah i love hearing that and i know i mean sandra big up sandra glasgow she has she has come up on this yeah about two or three times she's come up on this show i know tyrone mentioned her tyrone is coming to mind because i know she helped him especially in his early years um she really has helped a lot of people i know of

yeah a whole heap of people maybe she she i'd love to have her on just to talk about how she sees jamaica and what the output of what she's been doing but i like that so you've actually gotten an actual venture capital investment for a company that has continued to grow and and you're continuing to grow it has continued to grow and you're continuing to grow it and I'd say that you're probably at your most vibrant time now because you're expanding you're across

more than one parish now and you're under a whole parish the other thing I saw the other day was that you have a deal going I think with Visa something about Visa I got an email right so between now and june 30 every time you pay on quick plates with your visa card you just need to enter coupon code visa free and there's you get free delivery and no other processing fees. So all you're paying for is more or less the cost of

the food. That's on every order. So if you want to order every single day and make use of this fee every single day, you know, that's perfectly fine. You're allowed to do that. Wow. So, yeah, well

then I asked, what was that then I just saw? Visa debit and Visa credit card. And that's saw visa debit and visa credit and that's both visa debit and visa credit cards nice wow so from your car to visa on it you're good you're good to go yeah wow look at that free ad look at the free ad but that's the i want you to get the free ad i want you to get get that sort of push so people yeah if you're listening to this and you want all of some food quick plate is there it's free yeah i mean and it's free yep you're tired of that yo tired of the cooking thing you know you've been home for a whole long and usually walk to school across the road and buy from whatever cook shop i pretty sure everybody had a cooking thing you know yeah you know sit at home you place your order online

as i said you know if you're using a visa card it's free the delivery is free uh until the end of this month it doesn't get much more convenient than that it was not at that what has the response to that been like oh it's been excellent. I think, you know, I mean, a lot of the response has been coming from, in terms of orders, has been coming from our existing customers. But we've also seen a number of new customers coming since this offer started. And it just started last week, Thursday, I believe it was. So the response so far has been great and I expect it to get better as more people hear about the offer. Indeed.

I'm really, really happy to hear that. And then Visa, to hear that like I know Visa and MasterCard both looking on the region and Jamaica as a new battleground. So we know that from a bunch of, from the things that we've reviewed. And to hear that a local company is benefiting from that is amazing, especially a tech company like yours. You have the online payment. How is that going? How was that? How hard was that to set up i said that to you as somebody who is currently annoyed and i have pretty smooth online payments

but i can still be annoyed by some of the banks and what they do like there's one bank that's currently blocking everybody who uses the card on my site for some reason and um i know that that's a hiccup i know that's a pain point for a lot of local companies trying to be online so how was that process absolutely and if we're serious about driving e-commerce then we also need to be serious about making access to these e-commerce facilities as easy and as seamless as possible for small business people so when we started out we started out with stripe which for those who don't know is our overseas payment processor they set up with stripe and for people who follow me on Twitter, they'll probably hear me tell this story a million times. To set up on Stripe took me less than 24 hours.

But when it came time for us to switch to a local payment processor, that process took eight months. Wow. So we're talking about 24 hours versus eight months right so and and my situation is not unique my story is not unique i've spoken to a number of other um entrepreneurs who have online payments built into to to their platforms and their experiences were similar. Five months, six months, eight years. There's a lot of back and forth. I think there was a lot of internal red tape on the side of the banks, a lot of I's that they have to dot and T's that they have to satisfy while minimizing the friction and

the weight on the merchant side. And the fact that they've figured out how to do it, various services, various financial institutions have figured out how to do it in other parts of the world it means it can be done here as well but i think they need to be significant or are more invested in making that happen in order to make the changes that they need to make on their end but it's gonna be critical you know i hear i heard andrew holness and and um nigel clark recently talking recently talking about the shift that we need to make to e-commerce and purchasing goods and services online and that sort of thing. But if the process for getting that set up is one that any small business owner is gonna undoubtedly find to be a daunting one then the switch to that

is gonna be very slow very slow and it's not gonna be what we want it to be boy i'm i'm i'm silent on that because i have not been silent in the past. For years, I've been arguing about this. And I actually use it as one of the signposts to see when people in tech, local tech, are actually serious about what they're doing. There's a story I tell sometimes of one person who was in tech for a long time and didn't even know this. And he said to me that, oh, they've never considered actually getting money back from anything they've done online. They don't know how difficult it is. When I hear you say it took you eight months and other people take them five months,

I'm so surprised because I didn't know that it was down to eight months. Eight months to me sounds short. I'm actually still waiting on a call back from 2012. And the call back don't come yet. And my personal view when I'm actually still waiting on a callback from 2012. Oh, wow. And the callback don't come yet. And my personal view when I'm open with it is that the banks do it deliberately. It is a deliberate move

because if you open up online banking, if you open up the online space to local companies, they are now competing with people on the internet and multi-millionmillion some of them billion dollar companies in the u.s and other advanced countries where you can't imagine you call you have two options in front of you one a local bank and the other one um something overseas or something online and the online like she says it's pretty much like stripe less than 24 hours if so long you can get it done in an hour and that might still be long because i don't know if my it's like sign up for any website as long as you have information in front of you blah blah

blah um and on the other hand you call a local bank and oh you have to come into a branch so you know whatever anything ever come to the branch where you're losing a day immediately and you might not get what you want done that day and another thing i haven't already touched on money is the fees it's actually very expensive fee wise i think that can you say that right i mean i don't you have to tell people your business or your money but percentage wise using a local processor to be honest there isn't that much difference because using stripe as an overseas um merchant it gets pretty expensive because their base rate is 2.9 but what a lot of people don't know, unless they actually sign up as an overseas merchant, is that there is a 1% conversion fee if your credits are listed in anything other than their main currency.

And there is another 1% that you pay whenever international cards are used. cards are used so in essence you're paying 4.9 percent on every transaction to stripe which is not far off from what the banks are gonna ask of you and then also to transfer the money back to your local account in jamaica there's also absolutely absolutely so that was one thing that it was hard so you remember at the beginning i started talking about the fact that you underestimate your expenses so in that first year because we spent a million dollars just wiring money back into jamaica yeah and that's normal that's small right yeah um so you know it was and then the thing is that we realized four or five months into it that that wasn't

going to cut it but like I said the process of switching to the local bank took eight months we had to suck it up for another for the rest of that year even though we knew that this was terribly unsustainable and a terrible waste of money

yeah man I think you lose about 11% on each transfer. Yeah. So, you can't do the math. And then there's what you lose on conversion as well. Yes, because they set the rate. You set your prices in Jamaican dollars

and then in order to send the money to the US bank account, they convert that back into US and then that order to send the money to the US bank account, they convert that back into US. And then that comes to Jamaica and you convert it back into Jamaica. And by the time you work it out, you've lost quite a bit. Yep.

So that's coming straight from your mind. So imagine you're running all 20. I mean, tech tends to have a lot higher margins, but imagine you're running a business with 20% margins and you lose 11 or 12% of the margin just from fees. And that's not necessarily net profit margin. That's gross.

Exactly. Gross profit margin. If you're running a business properly, then you might have 25% of that was left. Nine is 20%. So 11 out. You have 9% left. And the 25% of that goes to the government.

So maybe less than two out of the 90 have seven percent left and and then imagine if you did not consider all of this before you start so it's a real thing it's a real painful thing and i put it all on the banks yeah it's all on the banks and it has been on the banks for a long time it's a deliberate thing as far as i'm concerned it's a deliberate thing that they did and time has come now where they just can't keep doing it but they don't have any great pressure um and maybe people like me just balling on twitter and that's very ignorable if however more people start to do it not ball on twitter actually try to access the service and see it i think then it will come out and i think because a lot of people don't even know about the problem, so they don't even know there is a

problem. So even if you see somebody calling about it, yeah, what a bank thing, that transfer, some numbers thing. And they just brush it off because you don't get the support because people don't know. Exactly. The second I delved into it, years ago,

I delved into it with all the major banks in Jamaica. All of them do it. All of them do it. All of them restrict it. All of them, I think, have their own reasons for restricting it. But at the end of the day, it comes back down to if you open that gateway, you have to fight with people who are a lot fitter than you are. Yeah. So they don't do it.

That's what I call the banking walls. That's why they don't fall. It's a deliberate thing that's done. Getting money back into Jamaica, there's don't do it. That's what I call the banking walls. That's why they don't fall. It's a deliberate thing that's done. Getting money back into Jamaica, there's a wall there deliberately. So it's honestly going to use the usual Western Union route. I'm sure somebody's listening to this and they're like, no, but I have a friend and I get my money through my PayPal.

And yeah, try to get it into your bank account and see what happens. Try to send from your PayPal to your bank account. The best thing you can do is to get that check from PayPal and then PayPal is going to tell you five weeks. Well, PayPal is not going to tell you five weeks. PayPal is going to tell you when they're sending you the check. The bank is going to tell you it's an overseas check.

Five weeks for it to clear, sometimes 10. And you're just going to wait there. You can't run a business off a five-week payment schedule unless you have that kind of business, but most people don't. So it's a hell of a thing. I wanted you to talk about that more because it's a pain point that I think more people need to know about. Right, but you know, like you said, it's not something

that is going to directly affect a wide cross-section of people enough for them to immediately care. Yes. Because unless you are a small business that is deeply interested in setting up online payments, you're not even going to get far enough along in the process out here for you to realize just how tedious it is exactly but on the flip side thanks to coronavirus all the small businesses now have to try and set up online payments and be online they have to know

um we one of the things that we did recently was to launch another service called QuickCart. Right? Ah. We were waiting to segue into that, but go ahead. Do it. Basically, what QuickCart is,

is us doing for merchants of just about any kind what we did for restaurants. What we did for restaurants was to allow them to basically flip a switch and have their own online ordering system and have access to an entire fleet of drivers and riders just waiting to deliver their product to the customer. What we've done with QuickCart

is to open that up to other kinds of merchants. So on the face of it, QuickCart is I think at this point, we're communicating it as a

or marketing it as a grocery and more type service. But it's the potential that it has goes far beyond grocery. So right now we have Fontana on board. We have Circle K, which is a chain of convenience stores. Yeah, we just mentioned it on a recent episode. We have Circle K, which is a chain of convenience stores. Yeah, we just mentioned it on a recent episode.

Yeah, I think the last episode or the one before. Tomorrow, we have Purity Bakery coming on. So, you know, you can get all the Miss Birdie goodies and all that stuff. And we have other merchants on board. And in the same way that those kinds of merchants have been able to come on board, there's nothing stopping an electronic store from doing the same. There's nothing stopping somebody with an art and craft

type store from doing the same. So what we're doing with a platform like QuickCart is making it easy for people to start or for businesses to start selling their goods and services online. This is a real Amazon of Jamaica, Andy.

We know that Amazon is associated with getting online and dealing with the banks and the back and forth. But what we are giving them is a solution that basically allows them to be online in 24 hours. In 24 hours? Of course, it depends on how expensive the adventure is. If you have a lot of time, of course it's going to take. Tell us about that.

But if you have a small list or a relatively small list, you can be online in 24 hours from the time when you sign the contract and send it to us along with your inventory. And we, we can turn that around in 24 hours and then have you online and up and running the next day. So compare that with trying to do the whole setup process on your own. And then you have to manage your own. You have to hire a developer to do the integration with the bank. And then after that, you have to hire your own delivery people and trying to manage the logistics surrounding the whole thing. You know, when you can just sign up with QuickCart

and have us do what we do best so that you can do what you do best. So that's essentially an offer to existing or potential businesses, but they have to send you the items. Right. So basically they would naturally have to share their inventory list with us and we would do the necessary

updates and uploads and so forth just to make sure that everything is in order and all the prices are listed correctly and all the images match the item description and that sort of thing. And you pick up from the locations, right? So you go to the actual place and bring it to the people. Right. So at this moment it's hyperlocal. Hyperlocal in the sense that

Kingston-based merchants would only be able to do deliveries within Kingston and St. Andrew. At this time, that's what it is. It's a hyper-local logistic solution. Whether we'll go beyond that in the future, who knows? Well, you know. So are you going to go beyond that in the future? Are you planning to? Well, you know, this is something that we launched two months ago

so we launched it it's been in the pipeline since last year but we sped up the process in terms of getting it to market because of what was going on at this time we felt like this is something that people would have use for. And this was a good time to push it out. But I think we're still fleshing out all that it could become. So we have a very solid idea,

short term, what this will look like and the steps that we're going to take to open it up to the market some more. But it has massive potential and we are open to exploring all the different things that this platform could become. What was the first place you want to go?

Was somebody who is listening to this, who is the perfect person listening to this right now and you're like, that's the person I want to contact me because I'm interested in helping them or going in their area or whatever? them or going in their area or whatever you know we grocery is something that is is is is always in demand and in regular demand so you know for people who own small supermarkets and and they want to be able to to provide a delivery option an online payment and delivery option for for their customers this is for them you own a small. You want to be able to quickly get online and get a logistics or delivery solution in place. You know, this is for you as well.

If pretty much, if you have, I think it's well suited to brick and mortar stores, existing brick and mortar stores. But if you have been thinking about getting online and you have customers who have been asking for an easier way to get access to your products then this is quick cart is something that i think you would do well to look into okay um how can they get to you for that how do you what's the contact method to that if somebody's interested? Right. So there is a separate microsite,

partnerwithquickplate.com, where merchants who are interested in getting on board with either QuickPlate or QuickCat can fill out a form and then our partner relations manager will reach out to them in charge so partner with quick play calm partner with calm yeah yeah well you know yeah that would be great but you know else I think about all the time? That is, you are empowering somebody who might have just an IG business. You might actually help make a t-shirt.

Everybody and them cousins always think of, oh, I have a t-shirt design and then become a t-shirt business. You might actually be able to make it make it up um viable again yeah viable again yeah right oh god i hate dm for prices i'm glad that quick plate is killing that so quick plate is killing dm for prices uh that's probably you know that's the episode name killing dm for prices um but are you okay telling us the pricing on that though episode name, Killing DM for Prices. Are you okay telling us the pricing on that though? Is it flat pricing or general? In terms of on the merchant side?

Yes. We'd rather have them contact us and then we'll share all the details in terms of what that might look like for them. Because it's dependent on what they are doing and how often you have to move and all of that right uh right so there is uh there is a commission-based fee structure so it's it's basically we've basically done it like that to ensure

that our goals are aligned with the goals of our merchants so if you don't sell anything we don't make any money either there we go we make a small percentage of based on right

you don't have no complication we're killing DM for prices, you're telling me to tell you for DM for prices? It's a pretty simple pricing structure. So once I go to partnerwithcookly.com and they fill out that very short form, somebody

from Orion will reach out to them and then we can have the full discussion around what your needs are and subsequently what it would cost you to to get on the platform oh wow but you don't want to tell anybody what it is i look at me thinking about that option i forgot i'm gonna fill it up myself says partner with quick play back on people when you go there it it is very simple. Name, email, phone, and message. In the message, say that you heard it on earnings season. Please. Tell us where you heard it from.

But I'm happy that you, I'm really happy that you're doing this. And of course, I was saying that with Quick Cart in mind, but this is also the site if you go to, if you are in one of those areas that you want quick plate to partner with you also if you have a food business right right so so whether whether it is quick plate the original that you want to get on board with or you want to get on board with a new kid on a black with carrot then you fill out you go to to partnerwithquickplate.com fill out like you said it's very short form,

just to get some contact details so that we can reach out to you. And then we'll take it from there. Excellent. And anybody extra lazy, the link is also in the show notes. Yeah, so partnerwithquickplay.com. So you've done, although at this this point i'm wondering what the heck you might have skipped you never like win a prime minister award or something in the in the last four years not yet not yet uh but what you've you've grown your business to the point now where

you're partnering. I mean, people like Visa, international company like Visa is looking to partner with you and they're actually partnering with you. And coronavirus has, you are part of the silver lining. You know, I'm really happy to hear you benefiting from it and showing a lot of companies the way that you can go online. Every time you see you're doing the thing where you step up, you're also helping other people to come up with you. I really like that. I'm really proud of that. I don't know why I feel so proud, but I'm really happy to hear that you're doing this.

I was going to ask what's next, but you have told us what's next. It's quick. It sounds like what everybody else fantasizes about that they're doing, and you're actually doing it the right way. So I congratulate you on that. Thank you.

Yeah, I really congratulate you on that. And the fact that you're speaking about the numbers, and I know that you're working with First Angels, and you have a board. You never told us what's on your board, or you don't want to tell that either. Oh, well, I mean, I don't mind sharing. We have Reece Gamble as the chairman. We have Adictive Demand. We have Arville Grant. And we have Current Vals.

So, like I said, all very experienced people in their respective fields. Nice. Nice. As you mentioned before that, you you know you can look to them for guidance and not just in the business sense but even when you're just looking for mentorship to run an idea by it to see how something might sound or look or whatever i'm really really happy to hear that and you're blowing up i don't know how much more we can say the money other than obviously the inevitable question because these days everybody want to know you know so when when do we get to put some money in when is the ipo well i mean it is it is something that that that that

could very well happen at some point in the future it is we don't have immediate plans for an IPO, but as we grow and as we expand, I am more and more inclined to think that it is a likelihood. This is something that is likely to happen at some point in the future. But as I said, no immediate plan. Wow. So Danai at the start gave us the Justin Trudeau

pregnant pause. And you at the end gave us the Justin Trudeau politician's answer, which is just something that we're considering in the near term. I mean, I am good at analyzing companies, obviously. I analyze yours. I think, you know what?

I think you're very, maybe I'll give you my analysis of your company. I full analyze your company off air, but I will say that I do like the company. I do think that there are great things in store. Yeah, great things in store for it and great things already happening for it and with you looking at the market as an option i like that's all i need to hear and i i i know that if you look at it in time that's all i needed to hear strike while the iron's hot that's what i tell you here um much like i said to learn in his episode i

am more than willing and ready to invest some money in in your company because i think i see the value in it so whenever you're ready i'm sure and i'm sure i'm not the only person who is more than willing to do it and especially a ceo that doesn't sound scattered so you know you're very you're very zen you are very zen you could have coached michael jordan you're so zen you are very zen, you could have coached Michael Jordan you're so zen I don't know I don't know if this is a common thing or maybe, you know what, maybe they're right we do need more women in leadership

positions in companies because if you can bring this to any other company when everything around is going to chaos, you just just deliver the sushi to the apartment. Randy's hungry.

Bougie cuisine. Right. We've spoken about the difficulty in the job and the

staff of the job. Tell me some of the fun parts. What do you still enjoy doing?

I think my favorite parts there's some of the fun parts of your job what do you still enjoy doing i think my favorite parts of the business surround technology and marketing both of them are it could basically say both of them are my first loves, more so technology. But, you know, also I spent a number of years out of my career in marketing space as well. So it actually excites me when we have an idea or something that can be built out on the back end that can automate a process that we were previously doing manually or you know something that can significantly increase our efficiency in a particular area

i get excited about that i get excited about about new features not just for the you know not just for the sake of having fancy bands of and Whistles, but when I see something that can dramatically improve the customer experience or dramatically improve the way we carry out processes on the back end, that excites me. The creative part of my mind is also excited by the marketing part of it. You know, when we put our campaigns, our micro-campaigns together, we give us an opportunity to be creative, be creative in our messaging, in the designs that we use to convey, you know,

our brand in the way that we want people to see and receive the brand. I get excited about that side of things as well. How do they feel after every interaction with a delivery driver, every interaction with the customer service rep who picks up the phone, every interaction with somebody who responds to an email that you send in? How do you feel? And we want to make sure that we get closer and closer to having

100%. I mean, there'll always be things that go wrong occasionally. But we want to get as close to 100% as possible in terms of customer satisfaction, in terms of people feeling good about using us, you know, and that is very important to me.

And it's something that I try to have built into the culture of the business, that customer focused behavior. And you then know, I'm just'm just wondering definitely how are you so zen because my i know that that's the hardest part of the company you know dealing with customers because you have to make sure every single person feels like they are um they're number one because in that moment they are number one the second i spend my money you know you can't let me say you had a rough time you should have taken the money um and i would say i guess i'm back because i have used quick plate in the past and it has always been great service and even even if something go wrong there's something you see a very quick response from

from the company or even from just the riders there's um there's a there's obviously a mandate coming from the top like you said in terms of how customers should be treated i'm glad i'm glad that you muddle that into the business consistently and i know you don't you're not afraid to go hands-on i've seen you tweeting about you having to hit the road when when things are off if you have a go out there yourself yeah I've never been afraid of that there is no part of the business that I haven't touched personally that I haven't worked in personally

I've I've done deliveries and bikes and busy Friday afternoon of course you know as much as I would love to do that all deliveries on bikes and busy Friday afternoon. Of course, you know, as much as I would love to do that all the time, if I'm doing that all the time, it means that I'm not working on other areas of the business. So, of course, you gradually have to step back from the day-to-day involvement

and move gradually into a role where you're leading strategic planning and and you know the whatever tactics are needed to you know execute on whatever plans that we have and that sort of thing but I've never been afraid to to work in just about any part of the business. Anything that is required to keep the business running smoothly, anything that is required to help a customer to have

a good experience at the end of the purchase, at the end of them making that order, I'm willing to do it. She's right. Yeah, well, boy, Monique, I mean, I'm really happy that you've told us this. You actually surprised me so much at the start that you knocked me off the path that I wanted to carry us down, but we got all of it.

Yeah, she did. She did. She recovered quite well. I would have to recover because she has been quite on the ball from the start. We'll ask you however, the question that we ask all our guests, especially the CEOs. They so ask you to run the earning season gauntlet.

An earning season gauntlet is... I've done it in so long than i is it one or two companies it's usually two two all right two two companies that you believe um will have an increase in share price over the next year i'll give you a whole whole a year and and of course the important thing is the why, not necessarily just the companies, but the why. And don't worry, it's okay if you don't get it wrong. Nobody's not going to come and lock you up for getting it wrong.

And we know you're not a financial advisor. Neither am I. Neither is Danai. This show is not financial advice. But it's just an idea of seeing how different people see the market. And new people, regular people see the market. So people regular people see the market so fret not so which two companies you have in mind and why well without calling the name of

a company that has more or less now become a almost a direct competitor i would say that i think any that is in the business of selling convenience and coupling that with access to e-commerce facilities stands a chance of doing much better now than they were doing previously. And that includes logistics companies that allow for on-demand delivery of, whether it be food, grocery, or anything of that kind.

I think businesses like that are well-positioned to do very well in the coming months and the coming year if they organize themselves well and play the cards right. Outside of my immediate space, Outside of my immediate space, I would, I mean, I think a safe bet, and this has nothing to, you know, and so forth, I like the fact that they have solid, consistent performance. I like the fact that they seem to be very aware of the fact that disruption is inevitable and they're trying to be on the right.

So even things like their partnership with quiz you know that that i mean sure quiz is still finding its footing but even that alone i see as them thinking ahead and realizing that there will come a time when banking won't look the way it looks now. And they need to be ahead of that. Yeah. Yeah, they are actually very, very good at that and looking ahead. And at their size, what they're really good at is leading that effort, right? They act, in many ways, have to respect them because they act like a smaller organization than they are.

Sometimes you see the things that they do, they do act sometimes like they're smaller. And at all times, they act like the giants than they are sometimes you see the things that they do they do act sometimes like they're smaller and at all times they act like the giants that they are because giants have to act like giants at times yeah i'd have to love them but i do answer those with that question both answers very smoothly and with good reasoning yeah yeah probably prepped also but i don't mind that preparation is always good uh you put me on a bit of a larger company might have. And you have competitors that have those war chests. So I think that is part of why I'm impressed. And as far as I'm concerned in the current, what do you call it?

I call it a delivery market, but you call it on-demand delivery? On-demand delivery, right. In the local on-demand delivery space, I think of you as king. Well, apologies, queen. I think of your company as being the leader in that space. Certainly top of mind. Certainly top of mind for consumers. If you want food and we don't get it, order a quick plate.

I've even heard conversations where people say, order from quick plate. And I guess maybe something was happening or it wasn't available at the moment or whatever. And they're like, well, no, order from the other quick plate. Even when they speak about the competitors, they say the other quick plate. They think of the service itself as being quick plate. Yes. Whether or not it's the other person. Oh, like when they Google something,

regardless of which search engine you're planning to use. Yes. Although, of course, I'm planning to use Google. Exactly like that. I like how Jamaicans say, what do you think they say? Like Pepsi. They sell their Pepsi. Pampas.

Yeah. Pampas, Pepsi, Scotch Brite. Right. That's where we hope to eventually be. We hope to eventually be the top of mind throughout Jamaica as it relates

to the category of services that we provide. Keep doing what you're doing. You'll get there. Working towards. Yeah, I agree with Danaito. Just keep doing what you're doing. I mean, you're already there, but like I said, for the whole of Jamaica. And it's not, what is this service that you're here? It's, when is is quickly coming to yeah yeah and wow i i think

i i'd ask you this once around in theater coffee place but whenever you're ready to to expand heavily with the footprint the delivery footprint because i know a lot of people care about spain people like me care about getting delivery um and i and willing to put it there repeat that Monique? I'll definitely bear that in mind please, please, please do please, please, because it sounds like I'm saying it lightly but I'm not, I never am

yeah I think everybody else is bothered by the thing the no cooking thing I'm bothered by the thing, the no cooking thing. I'm bothered by the options. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Once you're outside of Kingston and the food options get really,

yeah, your options are the kitchen or whatever is on the tree outside. If you don't have the tree outside, you get juked. So with that in mind, I just want to thank you Monique for doing this for us. whatever is on the tree outside. If you don't have the tree outside, you get joked. So, with that in mind, I just want to thank you, Monique,

for doing this for us. And people, check out, yeah, check out Quick Play. Definitely. My pleasure. I mean,

it was, it was great being on, on, on the program with you both. Yeah, well, I mean, my pleasure also trying to get you on

and happy to have you. And I hope to actually bring you back, especially, definitely want to bring you back when you're doing your IPO road. So in that one into being around there and, and, you know, like I said, it's,

it's, it's a possibility. It's a possibility. Yeah. That's why I'm speaking it into being. That's what I do still. That's what I do. Yeah That's what I do, yeah. I'm very good at analyzing business,

and I'm very good at predicting businesses and how people and businesses, well, it's the same thing, how people move, because businesses are just people running things together, yeah. Really, really happy to hear this, Monique. I'm happy to hear it. People, check them out. If you listen to this in the month of June 2020,

remember she has a special going where thanks to the people who have partnered with her for June Visa, she's getting the food to you for free. You don't pay for it. You just pay for your food. No delivery costs, no processing fee.

Did I get that right, Monique? There's no processing fee? Right. No delivery fee fee no other processing fees so some my quick plate.com when you're on the checkout page you enter the coupon code visa free that's it no delivery other processing fees and it goes right up there there we go and if you are if you are a small business looking to get online, money can help you. Money can help you. Yeah. Again, with partnerwithquickplate.com.

Go there, fill out the form, say in the notes that you heard it on earnings season. And yeah, see if they can help you out. And I say it, although she never said it, I say it, as far as I'm seeing it, just means that it's a logistics business. So if you know you have something, whatever it is, you have some lampo you make and you want to sell them here you are partner with quickplate.com see if they'll take you on see what the rates are and yeah you can actually have your internet

business run out of your house yeah there we go that's not a light thing thank you very much again, Monique. And I will wrap it here. I'll say I am Randy at RT on Twitter. Right. And this has been this week's earning season. Thank you very much, guys. I don't think you can, having an opportunity to ride either on the front or the back or in the middle of someone else's bus doesn't dignify you. When you have your own bus, then you have dignity. When you have your own school, you have dignity.

When you have your own country, you have dignity. When you have something of your own, you have dignity. But whenever you are begging for a chance to participate in that which belongs to someone else, or use that which belongs to someone else on an equal basis with the owner, that's not dignity, that's ignorance. Currencys, bro.