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What is a Zeller? And advice on Tablets and Cameras
What is a Zeller? And advice on Tablets and Cameras
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About this episode
The conversation covers a range of tech topics including a recent data breach at Ionet, advice on choosing Samsung tablets for seniors, and the challenges of capturing still photos on motorcycle cameras. A deep dive into Zella, an Australian fintech startup competing with Square, reveals how it offers affordable, fast payment solutions and integrated financial tools for businesses of all sizes, including major brands like Domino's. Listeners also share experiences with improving home internet via mesh routers and troubleshooting budget external hard drives. The episode blends practical tech advice with insights into innovative payment technology and evolving digital workflows.
Topics:
ionet data breach
samsung tablets for seniors
motorcycle cameras
zella payment terminals
small business fintech
mesh wifi routers
external hard drive issues
ai in architecture
contactless payments
video vs photo capture
Bernie's thinking of getting some epic photos while doing stunning Aussie road trips on his motorbike - but how?
Shane solve his internet woes, we'll find out how, and Sergio's got a good result on his hard drive.
While Matt is trying to look after mum with a new Tablet.
And we catch up with Josh from Zeller - could this be the payment terminal for your business or community group?
Get in touch, thanks to Vodafone text 0477 657 657 or email me via EFTM.com and click ASK TREV
All thanks to Swann security!
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Great to have you company once again on the EFT and podcast couple weeks before we go to EFA in Berlin and a bit
to get through before then. So if you do have a tech question, get on the blow up because
I'm going to be away for a couple of weeks. So we'll try and get an episode out here and there.
But I won't be recording for a couple of weeks in early September. So get in touch if you've got a burning
tech question or you want advice on something to buy. Happy to hear from you anytime.
A bit of breaking news on the day of recording. We'll unpack a little bit on two blokes.
But yeah, Ionet customers should be aware that Ionet has announced internal systems have been
hacked essentially. They say an internal ordering order management system.
So think of this like not their customer database, but the computers they use to book your
NBN installation to send you a new router to order new services for you.
That's been compromised or the system. 280,000 people's active email addresses have been
obtained. We don't know exactly how much extra as well as that.
But there's 20,000 people with active landline numbers, bunch of inactive emails and
numbers, but also 10,000 usernames, street addresses and phone numbers.
And the one that worries me a little bit but not too much is 1,700 people's modem
setup passwords. Now look, the chances of them matching all that coming to your house,
lurking outside your home, cracking into your modem and resetting your Wi-Fi is pretty low.
But the chances of you as an Ionet customer now getting contact from scammers
purporting to be Ionet is high. So you basically need to be on high alert for any
contact from Ionet that wants you to update your account details.
Click this button. Do this thing. Don't. They've set up a phone number for people to call.
You can find that at EFTM.com. Look, it's not great. It's bad.
And that's frustrating for these companies for sure. But unfortunately it's the
world we live in. These things are going to keep happening to us.
It's not Optus level, but it's still a bad breach in any sense.
And hopefully Ionet customers can now be on high alert for any phone calls,
emails or text messages that claim to be from Ionet, claim to be about your account.
Anything, just because they know your street address and your username does not mean
they're Ionet. Just remember that, okay? Hang up the phone or the text or whatever it is
and ring Ionet directly yourself. That's the advice. Keep it simple.
That's how you deal with these things. So try and keep that in mind.
0477657657, the number to call. If you want to get in touch,
we'd love to hear from you. We've got follow-ups from a couple of people.
We've got questions about cameras and tablets plus.
I'm going to talk to the growth director at Zella.
If you don't know what Zella is, then it's a competitor to Square.
If you don't know what Square is, you haven't been paying attention.
But if you're a business, small or large, or a community organization
that accepts card payments, then you want to listen to this interview
because Josh will hopefully sell you on Zella.
I came across them for a bunch of different reasons
and I tested out their device and I think it's a fascinating product.
It's an Aussie company. So if we're going to be doing stuff,
should we support Aussie companies? And why have you?
Why are you paying the banks a monthly fee for your F-POS terminal
when you can get them on a per-transaction basis
from an Aussie company who isn't making billions on the stock market?
I don't know. I'd prefer to go with a fintech startup
with hundreds of thousands of customers than a bank making billions of dollars.
Ah, that's just me. Anyway, we'll talk to Josh from Zella shortly.
But in the meantime, get in touch anytime.
EFTM.com, click on Ask Trev.
I'll send me a text. Hope for double seven, six five seven, six five seven.
Helping Australians with tech questions for over 15 years.
The EFTM podcast with Trev along.
Great to have you company and would love to hear from you
if you've got a tech question.
It doesn't matter what it is, happy to help out.
Uh, over double seven, six five seven, six five seven is the number to call.
And Matt's on the line today, Matt.
Hey Gary.
Yeah, really good mate. What can I do for you?
I am in the market for a new Samsung tablet for my mother.
She is tabs, not that savvy with technology,
but we've got some Samsung right through the place
and just wanted something to match the Samsung atmosphere.
Yeah, yeah. When you say through the place,
as in she have other like a Samsung smartphone
or is it the you that's going to support it and that's why you want to know?
Yeah, a bit of both.
Yeah, it's actually both.
Fair call.
You know what? My mum, who I guess she'd be 75 this year
and it definitely not tech savvy,
has always used a Samsung tablet.
I just had an extra one, you know, five, ten years ago,
gave her a tour to use and then she's worn through them.
So she's probably about a third one.
She's just playing Sudoku, reading Facebook,
reading the news, doing whatever she needs to do
and it's the perfect device for her sitting on the couch.
So I see where you're coming from.
Has she used a tablet before or is it a first tablet?
No, she's gone through all my tablets.
And I've got my tablet that I can't give up at the moment.
So that's why it's like, need to get her one.
What are you prepared to spend on mum's tablet?
That's the big question.
Well, yeah, I don't really need to spend that much.
So it's just probably the baseline
because all she's going to do is Sudoku and Facebook.
Yeah. I mean, look, you know,
you can still get the Galaxy Tab A series.
They're under $400.
That's an 11-inch tablet.
Like at JB's, the A9, which is an 11-inch tablet,
is $379, like $400.
I think there's one a bit cheaper,
but I'd stick with the A9 over an older S series personally.
There are a bunch of others.
You know, there's a TCL tablet,
it's 11 inches for under $300.
And honestly, I think it's worth it
if you can have a look at one.
It's just unlikely a lot of the retailers
will actually have one of those out and about.
The TCL is probably a very nice tablet for the price.
Honestly, I don't know the...
You've got to remember Android's Android, right?
And you're going to put a bunch of apps on the home screen
that are the ones that she uses.
And in terms of support, you know,
she's going to hand it over to you to do things anyway.
So you know where the settings are.
I don't think the Samsung ecosystem is as important
as you might think.
I think the Android ecosystem is
because changing to iPad might be a bigger kind of leap.
Oh, no, that's not happening.
But yeah, price-wise,
I would, if you can have a look at the TCL Tab 11
just for value, crazy good value.
Otherwise, mate, yeah, the Samsung Galaxy Tab A9.
The only reason I think I had my mom in a S series,
you know, the Galaxy Tab S was
I wanted to get a keyboard for her.
And you know, it's much easier to get an accessory case
for the higher-end Samsung models.
They just sell more accessories, you know?
So the cheapest Tab S series would be the S9,
still 500 bucks.
I think it might be refurbished, the one I'm looking at actually.
So you'll call.
But mate, it depends on what you spend.
Obviously, if you want to go to the S10 series,
you're talking about 650 bucks.
Okay.
But a stunning, beautiful thing.
But just knowing that the A9's out there,
for Wi-Fi only, 379 bucks,
it feels like the right solution, you know?
And then, you know, you still get the call now
and then about why this is happening
and how do you shut that and what's going on.
But hey, if that's the reason my mom wants to call me,
I'm cool with it, you know?
That's how we roll, isn't it, Matt?
Yeah, no, that's good.
And what phone do you use?
You got a Samsung?
S25 Ultra.
Yeah, Ultra, yeah.
So you're on the big end.
Do you get that because you like the stylus
or you like the bigger screen?
I'm an architect, so I need the screen.
So would you not consider a fold?
I've got the S10 tablet,
or is it S or Harrymore, the big tablet.
Yeah.
And I use that to sketch on.
Yeah, 100%.
Well, you can't sketch on the fold anymore anyway.
The new folds don't have S Pen support.
So if you are sketching, it feels like, you know,
Tab S10 is perfect and premium
and everything you need.
So do you, like, you're an architect
and I've got another listener, Andrew,
for many years he's been a listener,
at least in an architecture firm,
because I remember talking about the Ikea building in Sydney.
Weirdly, it's a, I have a very bad memory,
but it's a factor that sticks with me,
the edge of the building angles down
and it's because of the airspace.
Yeah, literally they couldn't build it into the airspace.
It's wild.
Anyway, he told me that story.
It's got to be 15 years ago.
Anyway, so do you do sketches
and then convert them to a digital, like, diagram?
Or do you, like, is that an automated process or?
It is an automated process,
but I do markups at the top of PDFs.
Yep, yep.
And then give them over to juniors and do it that way.
And is there great specific software that you run
on a tablet device for architectural drawing?
Yeah, there's a program called Bluebead,
which is, it's got the PDF behind
and then got a sketching tool over the top of it
and then you can start typing over the top of that as well.
Wow, right, okay.
So basically it's all about the hard works done
on big computers and stuff.
You go on site, you've got the device.
You can do all that kind of stuff as well
as just when you're at home or at the office,
just marking up changes that need to be made.
You can do all that on a tablet.
Correct.
Is it the norm now, obviously?
You know, everyone in the business
would be doing that kind of thing.
It's changed exponentially in the past two years
and AI is really starting to come into
designing of floor plans and things for office fit outs.
So, yeah, it's really starting, well, very complicated
and I had no idea that how people do it.
You can type in numbers that need to go into a certain floor area
and it spits out in 10 seconds a floor plan
that someone can design off.
Are you on TikTok?
No.
I've got to tell you, and it might draw you there,
it might not, but I, for some reason,
see a couple of different things on TikTok regularly
and one of them is there's this app.
It must be just software for a PC.
I might be on a tablet as well, but it's a very American thing
because they do big open car parks.
You know how Americans don't build multi-story car parks?
They build open car parks.
And this map allows you to look at like a geographical area,
like a satellite photo and mark the boundaries
and then just drag it out to be a shape
and it will automatically plot the car spaces.
Yeah.
Correct.
I'm just looking at that going, that to me is wild
because it really is just a set of rules, isn't it?
It's like a certain number of distance between the rows
and the spaces and this kind of angles
and it's just doing what a human brain can't do
that instantly and that would be saving crazy time.
Well, you'd go for drawing a test fit
or a floor plan for an office fit out
of 1,000 square metres in a day
and get the AI program to do it.
Because they could do that as well.
You could just drag, here's the floor space
in all these areas which are going to be open
and then the rest make it just fit it out with desks
and boom, it's just done.
And even down to, you can take measurements
with your camera off your phone,
go around, take the measurements off an old building
and then spit something out straight away.
The other one I see a bit is,
and this is a heavily engineered workflow
and it's probably flawed in some ways right now
but imagine how it's going to increase.
And it's someone that's taking,
I guess architectural drawings and diagrams or plans
and running them through a GPT,
like an AI that they've built, so they upload the plans
and then in their database of the AI
are all the codes, you know, building regulations, etc. etc.
And it essentially checks the plans against regulations
because, you know, state to state they might change or whatever.
And so it then spits out, you know,
this PowerPoint is too close to the water main order,
you know, like it spits out issues based on code compliance
and stuff like that and I just went,
and this is the thing that he says takes him normally weeks
and now he essentially funnels it down and goes,
well, here's my top line issues
and now I'll go on and still manually look at it.
But do you think that is wild
that it's even possible to do that?
Well, 20 years ago, we're drawing with a pen.
Yeah, true.
We've come a long way, Matt, we've come a long way.
All right, well, enjoy the tablet for your mum.
You'll be a good son.
Get her a nice new tablet, she'll be happy.
What does mum make for you?
Because my mum makes sure there's always rumbles in the fridge
when I come down for tech help.
That was a big dinner on Sunday.
There you go, done deal.
All right, good on you, mate.
Good to chat.
Thanks very much.
Cheers, no worries and good to hear from you.
It's always great to hear from people
who are in the market for things and just like Matt,
you can have a chat to me anytime you want
and happy to help with any question.
And I might ask you questions myself
about what's going on in your world,
just like we just learned a lot from Matt
about the world of architecture
and how it's changed in 20 years.
And we appreciate their support.
I've got cameras you're looking to upgrade in your home
and get yourself some swan
and they've got that great doorbell as well
that's AI powered.
So very cool technology.
Looking forward to seeing them at EFA in Berlin
in a couple of weeks as well.
I know their CEO is going to be there.
So we'll catch up with him and find out what awesome
new cool stuff is coming.
Let's get back to your calls.
Bernie's on the line today, Bernie.
Hi, driver, how's it with you?
Mate, really good.
What's happening?
How can I help you?
Well, it was.
I ride a motorcycle fairly frequently
and cover a few distances
and see a few nice bits of country.
So I've often wished I'd have a camera
on my helmet or motorbike
where I can just hit the button
and take a still shot
of what's immediately ahead
off my helmet would be ideal.
And then go over it later
and crop it to size
and fiddle with the exposure if needed and so on.
But most of the motorcycle accessory cameras these days
are video cameras.
You go pros or instant 360s or whatever.
And they don't.
Well, I believe you can set them up for stills,
but it's a bit difficult on a motorbike too.
And I don't want to have to review
hours of video
just to pick out a few still shots
that are a nice bit of scenery.
I just wondered if there was some camera
that would suit my needs
with a remote control
that could be attached to your left handlebar
in my case
to activate the still shot.
So I'm going to say to you, you're right.
Most of them are video
and I think you're going to struggle to find anything
that really produces the genuinely outstanding quality
of photography.
Yeah, I mean, it's all based around video these days.
But the higher the resolution video,
the better the quality stills you can take from a video.
So that's the first thing I'd say is
the good thing about video is
you're coming over a crest.
It's a beautiful sunset.
You take a photo,
but then two seconds earlier
it was better than what it is now.
And you know, it's great to have video.
It really is great to have video.
Now, the control of the camera
is the biggest issue.
And I honestly don't have enough experience
and don't know if there are
bar-mounted controls you can get.
I know there's voice controls
for things like the GoPro.
I believe you can get a Bluetooth.
Yes, a little button.
And the thing is,
and I know you want photos,
but I got to tell you,
having just played around a little bit
with these 360 cameras,
man, it is remarkable what they produce.
You know, you wouldn't need a camera
more than 50 centimetres off your bike,
like on a little pole.
And it could be done in such a way
that it's not at all obstructing your view, et cetera.
But whether it's off the back or off the front,
it's remarkable the fact that you can then,
after the fact, you could have,
you could create a video that's like a MotoGP,
where it's kind of, it stays level.
You could create a video that just looks behind you.
You could create a video that just looks beside you.
You could create a video that kind of flows around
and gives a view of the whole scene.
So honestly, I'd love you to think about that
because the experience is unbelievable
what you get with these things.
I have seen some of the results of the 360-degree cameras
and they are brilliant.
I don't want to have to review hours of film
just to get back to whichever one I want to use a photo from.
Yeah, I think the same thing applies to the control.
If there's a control that will initiate a video or a photo,
then you can initiate and start a two-minute video
or a 30-second video.
It doesn't have to be two hours of video.
You can just take a video when you want to
and you're only then reviewing what mattered.
And you're finding the perfect shot from there.
Plus you've got this amazing video potential.
The only thing I'd say to you is,
and I'm sure you've thought about this,
is I would encourage you to either go
with something that is bike-mounted,
like a 360, or in-helmet-mounted.
So you know the ones that it's like the Formula One
where they put the camera inside the driver's eye,
they call it?
Because having a camera attached to the outside
of your helmet, I think is extremely dangerous.
Yeah, no, they're right.
You can mount GoPro's off your chin guard or your helmet.
And they're under your little camera.
My concern is, and I'm going to be completely morbid
with you here, but you know, Michael Schumacher
had an accident skiing.
He was wearing a helmet skiing.
Yes.
But he was wearing a GoPro.
And word broadly is that it was the GoPro
that essentially, you know, impacted the helmet
and caused the damage.
Whereas the helmet's made to take the damage
from an incident.
You don't want another thing taking the impact
onto the helmet.
So just be cautious about what you mount
outside of the helmet.
I'm very nervous about that for people.
But I mean, a GoPro has great mounting capabilities.
So yeah, look, bottom line,
I don't think there's a solution for what you want specifically.
But I think if you were to think about it more of,
what can I get?
That's a video camera that takes really high quality.
So what you want is the highest quality possible video.
4K, 6K, something like that.
And something that you can get a Bluetooth controller for.
Then mate, just snap at 5 second, 10 second, 30 second video
and you'll find great stills from that.
Yeah, sure.
No, I was trying to avoid paying the big bucks
for a video camera.
It's not going to happen.
No, no.
It's going to be big bucks, mate.
It's going to be big bucks.
Yeah, terrific.
The 360 degree cameras are brilliant.
I've seen some of the results of the shots from them.
Are you Western Australia based?
No, I'm in Queensland, but I frequently go to Tasmania
in summer.
Yeah, right.
Beautiful roads down there.
Yeah, they are.
And some of that scenery, you know, if you're on a bike
and with a bunch of blokes, they never want to stop.
They want to get to the destination.
And I'd like to be able to take a photo of some of the scenery
as I flick past it.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, good luck with it, mate.
Let us know how you end up.
All right, Trevor.
Thanks very much.
Good to chat to you, Bernie.
Cheers, mate. No worries at all.
I don't think it was actually any help, if we're honest.
But it was good to chat.
A tough, a tough question.
And I just have this morbid feeling about cameras on the side
of helmets because I want the helmet to protect your head.
I don't want any other issues with the helmet.
Okay.
You know what I'm saying?
It's just, it's just a worrying thing for me.
So yeah, stay safe out there, folks.
Tech, cars, lifestyle.
This is the EFTM podcast with Trevor Long.
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Great to have you company.
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Now, I think about this from a perspective
of both small businesses
and community sports organisations.
That's my only, I guess, involvement in this realm
I'm going to take you to, which is payment terminals.
You know, when you go and pay for petrol
and you tap and go, oh, look at those,
and I go, oh, that's a Commonwealth Bank terminal.
I often look at them and I think, why did you change this?
And I've recently noticed that I think it's shell or ready,
or whatever they are, you go there and you tap it.
And here's the stupidest user interface in the world.
When it's an approved transaction,
the sound it makes is like, ba-boom.
And I'm like, did that approve or not?
Anyway, I spend way too long looking at the little terminals
that are available at these places.
And when you go to a small business,
often you might see a different terminal
you've never seen before.
And if you've been in charge of a community sports club,
like my wife often does with the local canteen
for the baseball club, it's like, how do we accept
tap and go payments?
And there's a couple of businesses in this space.
You might be aware of Square.
They're a big global company that have been doing this
for a very long time.
And they originally had a little thing you stuck into
the headphone port of a phone to take the payments
through swiping.
And then they moved into different little gadgets and gizmos.
And there's an Aussie company as well.
And I've seen this at my local cafe
and I've since tested it out here in the office
and it's called Zella.
And Joshua McNichol, who's the director of growth
at Zella joins me on the line
because I want to unpack the difficulty of this market,
plus the Y Zella piece.
Josh, good to speak to you, mate.
Thanks for having me, Trevor.
Mate, it is a fascinating space
because you're competing with the banks
and you're competing with a massive US startup in Square.
So why?
Why is this a good market to be in
for a little fintech Aussie company?
Well, I think what we realized was that
many companies like the banks, like Square,
we're all doing different pieces of the puzzle.
Business owners need payments.
They need a terminal,
but they also need a bunch of other products as well.
Invoicing, transaction accounts, debit cards,
expense management, savings accounts.
So we wanted to combine all of those things
and create a unique proposition.
So while we started with the payment terminal,
which was a really easy entry point,
we knew how that worked.
We knew that the banks weren't doing it well.
We knew that we could offer better support
and better pricing than Square.
We've also created 13 other products in the Zella account,
which means that business owners can sign up once.
They sign up online and they instantly get access
to all of these tools.
They need to accept payments, manage their finances
and get paid really, really fast.
So it was a unique proposition that no one was really doing
and we have been doing it for four years now
and it's been very, very well received in Australia.
One of the things I've noticed from
looking at the Zella terminal I've been playing with,
and my wife, as I said, kind of gets very involved
in the local, she works at the school canteen.
Sometimes they use Zella and at our local sports club
they chose Square for whatever reason.
And you know, on the face of it,
is it hard to get that initial decision happening
because really the core principles are,
you know, what's the cost of the device
and how much do you take per transaction.
And on that basis, it must be pretty close
and comparative.
It's actually the other things that you do
that make you far more desirable
that maybe people aren't seeing.
Correct.
Yeah, I think that business owners, you know,
particularly now in Australia where, you know,
cost of living, the economy can be more tough.
They want to know that it's going to be affordable.
There's no hidden monthly fees and that's something
that the banks have done for years.
You know, they charge you 29, 39 bucks a month
for a terminal and they want to make sure
they're getting paid fast.
So when we made sure we set up Zella,
yes, we had all these other great products
and a really good looking piece of hardware
and great support, but we made sure
that the pricing was much more affordable than Square
and that the hardware was available everywhere
and it was really easy to get
and that people got their money seven days a week.
So that, you know, particularly if you're a market trader
or a small business owner,
you're not waiting two to three days
for that money to land in your bank account.
You can get it every day of the week.
And that's a huge deal, especially for a small business.
A little cafe, a market stall.
It doesn't matter whether you're a cafe
with 10 employees or one,
you're a market store that sets up once a month
or every day.
You've made these sales.
Where's my money?
Exactly.
Exactly right.
They want to get it fast
and they want to know
that it's going to be reliable in their account
seven days a week.
So as we looked at the market
and we realized, okay,
these are the things that business owners care about.
We made sure that we built that into the product
when we released it four years ago.
And, you know, now, you know, four years on,
we've got sort of over 100,000 businesses using us.
And so we know that it's being well adopted.
So now that we've got to make sure we continue to innovate
and we continue to ask Aussie businesses,
well, what do you need from a payment
to financial service provider?
So we're not just kind of sitting back and waiting.
We're always offering them something new.
And one of those innovations early last year
was the tap and pay on smartphones.
I mean, that's, you know, that's a huge change
to not require hardware.
So to put that in context for someone,
a market stall is a good example, isn't it?
It's someone who might be out once a month
or once a quarter selling, you know, homemade goods or wares.
You know, you've got to buy a terminal for a few hundred bucks
and set up an account.
It's a hurdle you might not want to go through.
Whereas if you've already got a smartphone that's compatible,
you can just have the account in an app
and you can literally have someone tap their card on your phone
and securely make a payment.
And also it means you can have multiple people doing the same thing
with different people taking payments at the same time.
Exactly. Yeah.
I think if you don't want to have to buy a terminal,
like you said, if you're transacting just, you know,
once a week or if you're a tradie on the go
who usually has invoices,
but just wants to capture that payment up front
for a smaller job.
It means that they can open the Zeller app.
They can take a payment and, you know,
literally within five minutes from signing up
through to a download in the app
and you're accepting payments immediately.
So it is one of the fastest ways in the world
to actually start accepting payments
without having to fill out lengthy forms
and go into a bank branch.
You can just download the app and get started immediately.
So it's really, really innovative
and we're seeing not just your small business unit
or your kind of micro business unit or your mobile ones,
but even, you know, over Christmas
some of the butchers and the fishmongers in the markets,
they got busy that have a lineup of people
waiting to pick up orders
so that they set up one of their staff
with tap to pay on their iPhone
and then have staff accepting payments down the queue.
So it's kind of a good cube busting tool as well.
And it is genuinely a very simple online process.
In fact, I've just realized it was you that was emailing me
when I was setting my terminal up.
I thought it was just automated stuff.
But anyway, I've just went back to my email thinking,
what was it that I had to do?
And you obviously, through the financial regulations
of everything, you're filling some forms and stuff
and then you looked at my company structure
and went, well, we need to know this as well.
And so I needed to get a copy of an accounting document
from my accountant and upload that very easily.
But it all happens online very quickly.
So it's quite possible that someone that, you know,
market stall or cafe could be up and running
within a day, really.
Faster, yeah.
I think we see about 85% of people who sign up for Zella
are onboarded and up and running with their account
within six minutes.
So it's really fast.
And that's because I guess business owners,
they don't have time to be going in
and filling out lengthy paperwork
or going into a bank branch to verify themselves.
So we're constantly looking at that sign up funnel
to make sure we can go, how do we make that easier?
So you don't want to wait people's time.
Now, when your great PR team sent me a terminal
to mark around with, there was also a credit card in it.
And I thought, well, that's very nice.
Thank you very much.
I'll just tap and go on that thing.
But that's something very different.
Now, help me understand what that was there
for to represent.
It wasn't really a demonstration, but a representation of.
Because one of the arguments that we're having,
my wife is having with the local baseball club,
for example, is that we should switch to Zella
because it takes away a bunch of paperwork, essentially,
or also some inconvenience
for the people running the canteen.
So a scenario is this, my wife goes
and buys the bread on a Saturday morning.
She buys the sausages on a Friday night.
You know, you buy Gatorade and drinks
and whatever, and you stock the fridges and you do all that.
And then at the end of the weekend,
you've got all these receipts.
You've got to take a photo of all the receipts.
You've got to add it all up.
You've got to send it to the person
that's running the accounts for the club
who isn't full-time.
They've got a day job.
So hopefully they see it that day
and they log in and they transfer you the money,
which might take 24 hours to come across the bank.
Well, you might have paid and it come across instantly,
but they might also be busy for three days
and you don't get...
So you're out of pocket for multiple days.
Is that card
access to the Zella funds
instantly and therefore the person
running the canteen, the cafe, the stall
can use it to
pay costs of the business
and simply keep the receipts for normal accounting purposes.
That's exactly right.
So when we set up Zella, we realized,
if you're a new starter business,
you're literally just getting set up
and you need kind of three things.
You need an account to store your money,
you need a card, a way to spend it,
and then you need a terminal, a way to accept funds.
So while this isn't right for everybody,
naturally Zella works,
we work with big businesses
as well as small, we work with Domino's Pizza
and the Cheesecake Shop.
They all do their own banking.
We don't do any of that banking piece with them,
but for a baseball club
or a, you know, a market store,
they can get their money through the Zella terminal.
We settle that to their Zella account
and they can use that card to spend instantly.
So from a business owner's perspective,
you're not mixing your business and personal funds.
So it means that tax time
can be a lot more easy, simple
for your accountant, your bookkeeper.
But it also means
because you've got access to that money
and a more petty cash tool.
You can just issue a card immediately.
You can be a virtual card on someone's smartphone
or a physical card that we send you in the box
and that way you can start spending it
to reinvest back into the business.
Wow.
And can there be limitations on that?
I mean, I just worry about, you know,
I don't know who's got the card
and what it can be used for.
I mean, there's not really much you can do.
If you've got to trust people, don't you?
You're in your business.
No, exactly.
But we do give you all the security as well.
So the business owner or administrator,
they can put send spend limits on the card.
They can limit who gets cards.
They can control it all from the Zella app
or there's a dashboard.
So they can put a recurring limit on it as well.
So we'll give you all of that secure control as well.
But if you want to issue it to a venue manager
or a site manager or whoever's on the store for the day,
you can make sure they've got access to that news
as much as they need.
Now, I feel like you buried the lead there
as you just quickly mentioned Domino's.
Are you telling me Domino's uses Zella?
Yeah.
So we work with kind of the top end of town.
So your biggest enterprises as well as your small local businesses.
So we work with Domino's, the Cheesecake Shop,
Baskin Robbins, Gelatissimo.
So some really amazing, both global and national brands.
But we also work with the local market.
That is a huge endorsement of what you do,
because obviously they're looking at their financials
and they're going, well, hang on a minute.
So there's better value in us,
potentially more profit in using Zella
than using a big bank.
Great. Yeah.
So we, you know, we kind of, we understand that business owners,
no matter what size they are,
they need to be able to save money.
And they also need technology that's reliable as well.
And I think a lot of these bigger clients that we work with,
which is equally important as our smaller ones,
they've worked with a bank for 10 years,
but they don't get great support
or they don't get great technology
or the technology is unreliable.
So they look at a brand like us who's younger,
maybe more innovative and a bit more nimble,
and we can offer them that while still making sure
that we're competing on the commercial side as well.
Well, that's a big win for the director of growth.
Whoever that is, hey?
He's a good guy, I swear.
It's a fascinating business.
And I respect the fact that you are an Aussie company
taking on the world,
because you're not just taking on the four biggest banks
in Australia, but you are taking on a massive brand
in the square that dominate the business in America.
Where I spend a lot of time, they are just huge over there.
Do you have global intent?
We absolutely have global aspirations here.
No news to reveal at this stage,
but we definitely believe that the challenges
that business owners face in Australia
that we're hoping to support in a small way
are also faced by business owners around the world.
So we'd love to see them go global.
Do you know America much, personally?
I used to, actually, in previous roles.
I haven't been in a few years.
I'll tell you a funny story about payments in America,
and it's literally, we laugh about it every time we go there as a team,
but you go and you know, wherever it is,
but it happens at the hotel we stay at CES in Las Vegas.
You go down, you buy an orange juice in a Mars bar or something
and you tap your card because if they're tapping now,
that's huge.
They're tapping, that's huge for America.
And then, here's what happens.
They print out a receipt and they make you sign it.
And I look at the lovely lady, and it's not her fault,
and I go, I'm sorry, what?
She goes, we need your signature. I went, for what?
Like, that's how it works.
And I just laugh and I go, America,
you're so far behind and then I sign it and walk away.
It's hilarious to me how far behind America is.
So maybe, just maybe, you could absolutely
revolutionise the payments industry in America.
So good luck with the future,
hopefully anyone that's running a small or large business
listening to this and has always wondered about terminals
or perhaps you're running a business
and you've got your average bank terminal
and I'm not, nothing against the banks.
They've got some cool technology, but just maybe
you should look at the cost of the overall system
and work out whether or not there's,
it's in your interest to look at something new and different
like Zella.
Josh, great to talk to you, mate.
Thanks for your time.
Thanks, Trevor. Cheers.
Join the conversation.
Go to eftm.com and click Ask Trev.
Great to have your company and love to hear from you
by doing that or texting 0447 657 657.
Shane's on the line today, Shane.
Hey, Trevor, how are you?
Yeah, really good, mate. What can I do for you?
We spoke previously about your internet speeds,
didn't we?
That's the one, yeah, that's right.
The opto sum that we were given basically
dropped out.
Yes, the motor.
So you were looking at getting a different system.
Where did you end up and what have you replaced?
So we ended up replacing the modem because it was that.
I think you asked me this, you asked me this,
with the Wi-Fi dropping out to actually have a computer
plugged in.
Yes.
So what speed are you getting plugged in?
We were getting the full amount like 50,
I think that was the 50 megabyte second plan.
Yep, okay.
Yeah, and we're maxing that out.
So, because often the heal's impaired,
so it's not fast anyway.
But it was maxing out, whereas all the Wi-Fi was just,
it was 1.2, 1.5 on the speed test.
So we got rid of the modem.
I ended up getting, I went to JV,
ended up getting an ASUS extendable router,
AI mesh router.
Yep.
It was the ASUS AX5400.
Dual band.
And it's screening along.
So far we've had no issues with it.
Yeah.
So everything's been really steady.
Is that a single router, but it has mesh capabilities, does it?
That's right.
So we thought we'd just try it with that first.
And then if we needed to, we'd be able to extend it.
So that was the guy at JV who said to,
yeah, yeah, exactly.
As it stands at the moment, we haven't needed to.
So it's been pretty good.
No.
So you're able, so you're now getting the speed you're paying
for everywhere on the home, thanks to one router.
Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
We have a sort of a retina.
What about the cost down to about 400 bucks, so you should.
It was $369, I believe.
Nice, nice.
Yep.
That's it.
Oh, it's a big store.
Yeah.
So very, very helpful.
And yeah, did those tests that you asked us to do and
yeah, found the problem and now it's fixed.
As things change over the years ahead, I'm going to ask,
I'm going to ask the question of the NBN in a couple of weeks
when I have them on about the satellite upgrades.
I wonder whether or not people,
so are you on fiber to the node or fixed wireless?
Fiber to the node.
Yeah.
Cause we're in an older sort of area.
And you're not eligible for the fiber upgrade.
No, I did check it on the website and it says
there's no plans at the moment.
So I wonder whether, cause obviously there's going to be a limit.
Some places just too expensive to do.
I wonder whether you'll be able to apply for satellite,
for example, if you wanted faster speeds in the future,
because you're essentially in a slow footprint.
I mean, that'll be interesting.
That's right, yeah.
Interesting to see.
The only good thing is that the node itself is literally
on the front yard of my next neighbor's house.
Yes.
It's nice and close.
That is a win, mate.
You'll definitely be getting the good speeds there.
Well done, mate.
That's awesome.
Great feedback.
Good to hear it.
No worries, Trevor.
And thank you for your help as well.
It's finally solved the problem.
An easy one.
And I hope you enjoy many hours of good internet from now on.
Yeah.
Well, daughter's will anyway for sure.
Thanks a lot.
Good on you, mate.
Thanks, Shane.
Good to chat to you.
There you go, Shane.
Went and bought a simple router upgrade.
And I'm just looking at it now on JB's website.
ASUS DSL-AX82-AX5400.
Dual-band Wi-Fi 6 modem router.
I'm tipping that's the one he got.
Because it does also say AI mesh support.
So yeah, you can add devices if you need to or want to.
And I don't think you'll need to until he gets faster speeds.
So I feel like what will happen is, if he had 500 meg speeds,
he won't be getting the 500 everywhere.
I think it'll degrade at the other end of the house.
But for slower speeds, there's no obvious degradation.
So I think if he was upgraded in the future,
that's when you look to the mesh expansion.
Good stuff.
The EFTM podcast, thanks to Swanbuddy 4K,
the doorbell that answers the door for you.
And it'll speak to the person like it's really there.
It knows where your parcels need to be left.
It knows the person has got a parcel for you
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It's very, very cool.
Let's go back to the phone.
Serge is on the line.
Hey, Serge.
Good morning.
How are you?
Very, very well.
We spoke recently and you had a hard drive problem.
I think you were getting it to work on one computer,
not on another.
And we were like, what could it be?
Could it be the cable?
Could it be a faulty drive?
What have you learned, mate?
What's happened?
Yes, well, so since then,
I've tried a number of new cables.
And that hasn't fixed the issue.
But the thing that really is,
it's a bit perplexing is that
the drive works fine on my PC,
but it doesn't work fine on my laptop.
And I think I mentioned previously
that I can get it fired up on the laptop.
I can read all the files on the drive.
I can open files.
Just to work on them.
But I want to go to resave them.
The drive disappears out of Windows Explorer
and so it doesn't access the drive.
But I don't have the issue on my PC.
Anyway, so I contacted the supplier,
basically told them that I've tried
all the new cables, etc.
and scared the internet and done
every fix that I could possibly find.
And I'm still having the issue
and they're sending me a new one.
So let's see what happens.
It's a no-name brand, Trevor.
But how did you find the supplier then?
Was it through the retailer or like?
It was an online purchase through eBay.
And so you contacted the seller
or you contacted the brand?
No, no, the seller.
So they must be a store, essentially.
Yeah, I'd say so.
So I just explained to them that
I tried everything new cables, etc.
but the problem still persists
so they said I will send it back
and I will send you a new one.
What's the capacity of the drive?
I think it's a terabyte or half a terabyte.
So it's not a big drive.
And it's an SSD, isn't it?
Correct.
What did it cost you?
40 bucks, 30 bucks.
I can't remember.
It wasn't expensive.
No, and you know,
you're essentially getting what you paid for,
it sounds like, in reality.
Yeah, it's interesting because
look, I'm pleased that you got that response,
to be honest, because that shows
real wherewithal from an eBay seller
who's probably just doing the best.
They're probably finding these things
at market stores in China
and importing 10,000 of them
and trying to make a business.
Good luck to them, you know?
Correct.
I always worry about eBay hard drives
because I think I did an article
and I think I just did a live video
or something once.
I bought this hard drive
and it said it had like a crazy capacity
and it was so cheap.
And it turned out that
what happens with these drives
is they can kind of rig them
so that they actually have on them
like a gigabyte of storage
and they can rig the chip
so that it tells the computer
that it's got a terabyte
and so it tricks your computer
and I'm not suggesting
that's at all what's happening
with this one, but that's why
I'm nervous about non-brand,
you know, non-retail
and that kind of stuff.
So, make good on them
for helping you out.
I think that's really admirable.
So, and you're also the proud owner
of some new cables.
That's right.
So, I guess that's just the way it is, mate.
And look, you know, if it happens again
we'd have to say to ourselves,
look, it's probably worth walking away
and spending the money on a Samsung
or a SanDisk or something else.
Yeah, correct, yeah.
All right, well, good on you, mate.
You've been really helpful,
really helped me a lot.
Oh, no, I'm happy to help, mate.
Anytime.
Good on you, mate.
Thanks for getting back in touch.
Okay, you're welcome.
Bye.
Cheers, good stuff.
Look, it's...
I can't remember someone listening.
I'm moving the mic so I can look around.
I'm sure I kept the thing.
Dude, I keep that thing or did I throw it away?
I had this hard drive that I bought on eBay
and it was some crazy storage.
But it just wasn't real.
There was no way it was real.
So, I had to run it through some PC tests
to discover that.
And you don't discover it until you try,
let's say it's a terabyte claimed,
but it's actually only, you know, 50 gigabytes.
You only discover it when you try and drop
a terabyte file on there.
It's a very hard thing to know.
Now, I'm not suggesting that's what happened
in Surge's case, but that's the problem
with going non-brand.
You know, if you go to JB's,
a Samsung terabyte drive,
you're looking at under $200.
That's a pretty good value.
A Sandisk portable drive, $149.
That's very good value for a portable drive.
Now, you can spend more.
You can spend $300.
I've got a, oh, there's one here.
The latest Samsung T9 is $229.
Samsung gave me a two terabyte version
of that to muck around with,
and we're using that now for the
roadcaster video for two-bikes sorting tech.
That's $400 for a two terabyte.
You know, storage is cheaper than ever,
but how it's packaged,
so if it's robust, if it's, you know,
durable, you're paying more.
But, look, I just worry about anything
under $100 in storage is a worry for me.
So, at least he got support.
That is excellent stuff to hear from an eBay store
that they got it sorted.
So, we'll see how that pans out for him.
Hopefully, he's got some new cables, regardless.
Get in touch anytime.
Go to eftm.com.
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Get in touch and Ask Trev today.
I would love to hear from you anytime,
any topic, anything.
I would love to chat.
Pretty much electric vehicles is the only off-limits,
because I'll take you on the other show.
No point having an electric vehicle chat here
when we've got Stephen Fennick and Trevor Long
talking electric vehicles each and every week
on two-bikes talking electric cars.
Come on, folks.
And of course, if you're enjoying this show,
I'd hope you enjoy many more of the shows
that we make every week.
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