Pich

Q: How did you come up with the idea?
A: I came up with the idea when Gamon (my cofounder and COO) and I were at a bar and the owner refused to take credit cards as a payment method because he said the fees he was charged were just not worth it for his business to consider the option. We then looked into his problem and saw that this was a problem that has been experienced by many people and businesses that want to accept electronic payments. So then I decided that we were going to find a way for businesses and people to send and receive money for the lowest price possible. This is how the idea for Pich was born.

Pich is an alternative payment method online, which enables users to realize payments immediately and in a cost effective way. Munya Gwisai (22) and Ignacio Gamoneda (20), founders of Pich as well as Business students at IE University, came up with the idea of their start-up in a bar where the owner refused to accept payment via credit card.



 

Q: What is your business about?
A: Pich is an independent payment platform. We are something similar to PayPal but without the fees and a bit more of a social element to it. We believe that sending money should be fast and for the lowest price possible. We think that someone living in a different country should be able to send money to someone else in another country and for him or her to receive it immediately and for a low cost. This principle can be applied to businesses that would like to receive payments from customers for fees lower than those provided by credit card companies and banks alike. We have built an independent payment platform, which can be used online with your desktop and to make purchases from online stores of your choosing and also offline at your favorite stores with your mobile phone. No extra hardware is needed by stores, only an internet connection.

​​"The journey that takes an idea from something in your head to an actual business is a quite challenging and that in itself is were people often fail."​

Q: What are the challenges you faced?
A: The journey that takes an idea from something in your head to an actual business is a quite challenging and that in itself is were people often fail. Pich is entering a space that is highly regulated and has large competitors with vast resources at their disposable to compete with our product. Some of the personal challenges are convincing people to believe in our abilities despite our age and inexperience. Also there have been legal and regulatory hurdles that we have faced in terms of obtaining a license that will allow us operate as an e-money issuer in Europe. We have also faced challenges with our business model and ensuring that the “low-cost” model that we are trying to provide is something that could turn into a sustainable business over the long term.

Q: What does your business bring new to the market?
A: We bring quite a few things new to the market from a business standpoint and also from a consumer standpoint. On the business side, we are enabling businesses and people to receive money transfers in real time and for a fixed fee of 25 cents no matter how much you are sending. So that means a transfer of €100 euros and a transfer of €1000 euros would cost the same. We also only ever charge one fee for sending money and that is 25 cents to the person or business receiving the money. This has large potential impact as people and especially businesses that receive multiple payments daily, saving money on the transfer fees charges\d by other methods would draw them to our service. Speed, efficiency, and low cost is what we would bring to the market. For consumers, we have tons of features and services that we think would attract them to our service, being able to make purchases with your friends in real time and being able to collect money online from your friends or family to pay for a group gift to or to raise money for a trip. We believe that along with a lot more surprises that we have in store for our customers we can offer something clean and efficient that people will want to use when making payments.

Q: Is the business doing well?
A: Because we are building a completely new payment platform we have a team of software developers currently building the essential technology that will make what we are trying to do possible. We hope that once we finish building the essential parts of the technology, we can get a basic version out to customers so that they can give us feedback that we can use to improve and to meet their needs. We hope to have launched by the end of this year.

Q: What are the hope for growing/expanding your business?
A: We are trying to raise more money for investors after we release a product that has been tested b customers. We are hoping to raise quite a significant amount of money in the next 6-8 months, which should help us further develop and improve the capabilities of the product, hire a few employees, and expand our customer acquisition efforts.

Q: Where do you see your business in 10 years?
A: I see Pich being the premier payments provider in Europe and perhaps in emerging markets such as Latin America. I see Pich offering a variety of products to our customers that will help them meet all their needs with regards to any payments needs. I see us as a profitable company with operations all over Europe employing a few hundred employees. I also see the business venturing into complimentary business models such as offer redemption and couponing.

Q: If you could give people that have ideas but have problems concretizing an advice, what would it be?
A: The journey is the reward.