Help me out! Vote for my startup in the MintChip Challenge! | GTAMotorcycle.com

Help me out! Vote for my startup in the MintChip Challenge!

H

HorizonXP

Well-known member
Hey everyone!

I've been a bit quiet in the forums lately because I've been hard at work on a project. I put an entry into the Royal Canadian Mint's MintChip Challenge (http://mintchipchallenge.com/), which I'm pretty proud of.

I would really appreciate it if you guys could help me out and show your support by voting for my entry everyday. If you could share the link, I'd really appreciate it!
http://bit.ly/votetaab

I actually encourage you to review other entries and compare them to mine. You can actually vote for multiple entries, so don't worry about having only 1 vote to give.

You can also check out our website at http://taab.co. There's more content there for you to review.

I was also quoted by The Globe and Mail, and The Record today. I've included the links below.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/tech...ce-developing-a-sense-of-hope/article4496233/
http://www.therecord.com/news/busin...developers-at-local-blackberry-jam-conference

Finally, here's the promo video we shot for our entry. Hope you enjoy it.
[video=youtube;0cDEnh1h9ME]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cDEnh1h9ME&feature=plcp[/video]
 
No GTAM love? I figured one of you would at least flame me and say this is a stupid idea, and I'm an idiot for supporting BlackBerry and Android over iPhone. I'm surprised I didn't even get that!
 
Its not a "stupid" idea but you've been beat to the punch by MUCH larger competitors who are already in the payment industry.
 
Red695 said:
Good idea, voted :)
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Thanks!

mmmnaked said:
Its not a "stupid" idea but you've been beat to the punch by MUCH larger competitors who are already in the payment industry.
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I beg to differ, because if that were true, we'd all be paying for things with our phones, skipping lines, and sharing money with each other as easily as sharing a picture on twitter.

I'm not (totally) delusional, I know that there are big players in the space and that it'll be akin to climbing Mt. Everest to accomplish this. However, I think I have distinct competitive advantages compared to others, not least of which is being in Canada. Yes, that's an advantage, rather than being in the U.S.

Regardless, these are all forward-looking ideas and concerns. What I've submitted to the MintChip Challenge is a limited subset of the entire solution. But it does give you the idea of where I'm taking this.
 
We're not all using it yet, but we will be soon... PayPal and Square are striking deals with some big players in the retail market. The trouble with anyone else wanting to get in on the game is penetration. Do I wanna download 3 or 4 (or 5 or 6) different apps for retail payments, depending on which store Im visiting? Nah. If Im a retailer, do I wanna use a small new outfit, or use what all the other big merchants are already using?

What I hear of Square (they struck a deal with Starbucks, others in the process) its gonna be a good thing. You basically don't even have to pull your phone out of your pocket if GPS is enabled.

Definitely a steep hill to climb. Good luck.
 
mmmnaked said:
We're not all using it yet, but we will be soon... PayPal and Square are striking deals with some big players in the retail market. The trouble with anyone else wanting to get in on the game is penetration. Do I wanna download 3 or 4 (or 5 or 6) different apps for retail payments, depending on which store Im visiting? Nah. If Im a retailer, do I wanna use a small new outfit, or use what all the other big merchants are already using?

What I hear of Square (they struck a deal with Starbucks, others in the process) its gonna be a good thing. You basically don't even have to pull your phone out of your pocket if GPS is enabled.

Definitely a steep hill to climb. Good luck.
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I'm more scared of Square than PayPal, but it would be foolish to ignore any of the incumbents.

The issue with any of the players is that they are choosing to go against the grain, and create a solution that can/will cut out the large players in the space, like Visa, Mastercard, etc. A lot of startups do this, where they would rather work against existing enterprises than with them. There are a lot of good reasons to do this, not the least of which is the ability to react quickly (as a startup) rather than wait for the big lumbering enterprise to catch up.

However, there are good reasons to work with the enterprises too. I don't think many startups have explored that side of things, and I think that's wrong. However, I could be wrong too. I'm going to try it, and see what happens. It'll be fun. ;-)
 
Considering the strong ties PayPal already has with the likes of Visa, Discover, and all walks of financial institution I'd be worried about them most.

Personally I like the idea of skipping Visa altogether, and I know most merchants would agree. If they roll out a mobile payment system which relies on credit companies, all it means for them is losing an even bigger cut per transaction, no?

I hate PayPal and I hope they burn to the ground... but it wont happen, they have momentum, capital, and huge industry ties. They'll be a big player here, I think.

And yeah I think its a big mistake not developing for iOS first. I think that avenue would be best for initial market exposure :)
 
mmmnaked said:
Considering the strong ties PayPal already has with the likes of Visa, Discover, and all walks of financial institution I'd be worried about them most.

Personally I like the idea of skipping Visa altogether, and I know most merchants would agree. If they roll out a mobile payment system which relies on credit companies, all it means for them is losing an even bigger cut per transaction, no?

I hate PayPal and I hope they burn to the ground... but it wont happen, they have momentum, capital, and huge industry ties. They'll be a big player here, I think.

And yeah I think its a big mistake not developing for iOS first. I think that avenue would be best for initial market exposure :)
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When the next iPhone is released with NFC, I'll be there.
 
What kind of hardware and software will the merchant need in order to take advantage of NFC? Will it be cross-platform compatible? Im sure the coming iPhone5 will have NFC, but the mobile payment market seems to be going in another direction altogether... so far, anyway.
 
mmmnaked said:
What kind of hardware and software will the merchant need in order to take advantage of NFC? Will it be cross-platform compatible? Im sure the coming iPhone5 will have NFC, but the mobile payment market seems to be going in another direction altogether... so far, anyway.
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NFC is the same tech that MasterCard and Visa use in their PayPass/PayWave-enabled cards. So a lot of existing POS terminals already support NFC. That's the direction they're going.
 
I voted for you, I think its a good idea, but my concerns for your business are the same as "mmmnaked". With large players already in this fight, I would be concerned, but definitely see it through. I would download it.. supporting Canadian businesses!! it helps the inner hermit in me not have to talk to people while I pay..

out of curiosity mmmmnaked why do you hate paypal? I use it quite often and I think its been great so far.
 
I voted, looks like you are winning. Thats awesome. Im always impressed when people really go for it and I think sooner or later big things are going to happen for you if you keep on trying. Early congratulations.
 
Horizon....... dont mean to hijack this on you...

but whats your thoughts on BB10 so far...... so so? game changer? or just at the same level as everyone else?

I understand you were highly regarded by many at the BB dev con. Congrats on your achievements.



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OOps.
Delete this
 
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thanks for the support everyone! keep it coming, only 2 days left and this race is coming down to the wire.

SunnY S said:
Horizon....... dont mean to hijack this on you...

but whats your thoughts on BB10 so far...... so so? game changer? or just at the same level as everyone else?

I understand you were highly regarded by many at the BB dev con. Congrats on your achievements.



.
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I think RIM is doing all the right things with BlackBerry 10. We don't know what the final user interface and hardware looks like, but we've been told it's pretty awesome. A friend of mine just left RIM to go work for Microsoft's gaming division, and he says that based on what RIM has right now, Microsoft and Android need to watch out.

There were 3 major issues with BlackBerry before, which were all related. The operating system was old and slow, making for a bad user experience. This meant fewer developers were willing to make apps for the platform. Moreover, the development process was atrocious, so developers had a hard time making good apps for the platform. This is why iOS and Android were able to overtake. In my opinion, RIM has not only fixed these issues, but they've leaped ahead of their competitors. Developing for BlackBerry 10 is amazing and easy. No contest with other platforms.

The third part that sucked was the marketing. That's ultimately going to determine BlackBerry 10's success, and it's a concern I've heard from employees too. Hopefully the new CMO knows what he's doing.

So RIM has all the right pieces to make BlackBerry 10 successful. But there are still a lot of factors that will determine if that will actually happen.
 
HorizonXP said:
The third part that sucked was the marketing. That's ultimately going to determine BlackBerry 10's success, and it's a concern I've heard from employees too. Hopefully the new CMO knows what he's doing.

So RIM has all the right pieces to make BlackBerry 10 successful. But there are still a lot of factors that will determine if that will actually happen.
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Well, they have several months to put something together and time will tell if they can pull it off. Can't help but think they will are running an uphill battle here.

Thanks for your insight. 2013 should be quite the year for tech watching!
 
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