The Accidental Entrepreneur

How Kieron James is Leading the Future of Instant Bank Payments

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Summary:  Kieron shares his entrepreneurial journey, starting with his web design agency and company formation business. He then ventured into telecommunications, offering telephony services to new businesses. Kieron explains how he exploited number ranges and provided free conference call services. Eventually, he transitioned into the payment system industry with Wonderful. The journey from telecoms to payments was unexpected but serendipitous. Kieron, the founder of Wonderful, shares his journey of creating an online giving platform that ensures every penny raised goes directly to charities. He was inspired to start this venture after his son participated in a fundraising event and was frustrated by the deductions taken from the donations. Kieron and his team built a proof of concept and launched Wonderful.org, which quickly gained popularity and support from charities and donors. They tackled the challenge of high card processing fees by leveraging open banking technology, allowing for secure and instant bank-to-bank transfers. The company is focused on serving SMEs and integrating with popular platforms like WooCommerce and accounting software.

Keywords:  entrepreneurial journey, web design agency, company formation, telecommunications, telephony services, number ranges, conference call services, payment system, online giving platform, fundraising, charity, card processing fees, open banking, bank-to-bank transfers, SMEs, WooCommerce, accounting software

Takeaways

  • Entrepreneurs often find success by automating processes and finding innovative solutions to common problems.
  • Corporate governance is crucial for small business owners, and it's important to keep all necessary paperwork organized and accessible.
  • Scaling a business requires letting go and delegating tasks to others.
  • Building residual income streams can be a sustainable business model.
  • Finding success in the online space often requires staying ahead of the curve and adapting to new technologies and trends. Wonderful.org is an online giving platform that ensures every penny raised goes directly to charities, eliminating deductions and fees.
  • The platform was created in response to the frustration of donors who believed that all their fundraising efforts would benefit the charity.
  • Wonderful.org leverages open banking technology to enable secure and instant bank-to-bank transfers, reducing the reliance on costly card processing fees.
  • The company focuses on serving SMEs and integrates with popular platforms like WooCommerce and accounting software to provide a seamless payment experience.

    • Titles

    • Scaling a Business: The Art of Delegation
  • Building Residual Income Streams: A Sustainable Business Model Open Banking: A Solution to High Card Processing Fees
  • Empowering Donors: Ensuring Every Penny Goes to Charity

    • Sound Bites

    • "Corporate governance is a real thing for small business owners and it is important."
  • "The most successful entrepreneurs do very little themselves. They're doing the big stuff, overseeing the development of the business and the direction of the business."
  • "We were able to provide services on the back of that and we were able to exploit number ranges and provide some really, really great functionality."
  • "He was kind of shocked and horrified when he discovered it wasn't."
  • "98% of our corporate sponsorship budget went on card processing."
  • "It allows us with that role in place to connect to the bank's APIs to do any number of things."

    • Chapters

    00:00 Kieron's Background and Entrepreneurial Journey

    09:38 Scaling a Business: The Art of Delegation

    32:40 Transitioning to the Payment System Industry with Wonderful

    39:48 Open Banking: A Solution to High Card Processing Fees

    56:19 Serving SMEs: Integrating with Popular Platforms

     

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    The Accidental EntrepreneurBy accidentalentrepreneur