Summary
Fair Play Exchange is a betting app that allows friends to place bets and settle payments online. The app was created to solve the problem of friends not carrying cash for bets. The initial target market for Fair Play Exchange was golfers, as golf has a strong betting culture. However, the app has expanded to include other sports and activities. Obtaining a gambling license and a bank account were major challenges for the company. Building trust and providing excellent customer service are key priorities for Fair Play Exchange. The app aims to create a community of users who can bet and have fun with their friends.
Takeaways
Fair Play Exchange was created to solve the problem of friends not carrying cash for bets.
The initial target market for Fair Play Exchange was golfers, but the app has expanded to include other sports and activities.
Obtaining a gambling license and a bank account were major challenges for the company.
Building trust and providing excellent customer service are key priorities for Fair Play Exchange.
The app aims to create a community of users who can bet and have fun with their friends.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Problem Statement
01:24 How Fair Play Exchange Was Created
03:53 Target Market and User Base
06:29 Challenges in Obtaining Gambling License
09:03 Initial Target Market: Golfers
10:28 Expanding to Other Sports and Activities
13:51 Future Features: Sweepstakes
16:36 Community Building and User Acquisition
18:08 Challenges in Obtaining a Bank Account
19:54 Building Trust and Providing Excellent Customer Service
21:28 Importance of Onboarding and User Engagement
25:20 Creating Community through Golf Events
26:31 Promo Code and User Incentives
28:25 Conclusion and Call to Action
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Well I’m Ben golf lover UK as you all recognize my dolit slightly bristolian tones and I am joined by a very different accent from the right the other side of the country Mr Billy going Billy welcome thanks Ben thanks for having me on and for those that don’t know Billy who
Might not know Billy you probably will have heard of his his betting app which is fair play exchange um I was promoting it the other day on one of my putting videos and what happened was how it came about I found it is I literally sat in
The bar of my mates and I was sick and fed up of us all saying let’s put a f in let’s put a tener in and there’s always two people that don’t have any cash on them I’m not getting into the politics of cashless Society that’s not for
Today’s episode that’s another day that that’s let’s not get into naming your friends either mate let’s not get we don’t want to go down a slippery slope here do it do you know what I mean keep your friends but both friends and and people don’t often have money on them and I
Said I just wish wish there was a way of doing this online rather and then literally my friends well have you heard about this thing this new thing he said I’ve not looked at it but apparently mates can place bets and that’s how I found fair play
Exchange and me being me I reached out to Billy to find out more so Billy thank you for solving my problem and tell us how did it come about why did you solve this problem how how did your vision become what’s now become a quite a successful fast growing betting
App yeah cheers Ben um pretty pretty much similar scenario to what you guys had in the pub so um we play a lot of golf me and my mates big group of us local Swindle uh Club we’re all a member at and every Saturday there’d be our
Usual game about 20 odd players going out and you know we we’d have a wage on it um teners in the middle and then we’d split that up between the winner second place third fivs for par frees and you know load side games going on and every week
We’d be going around trying to organize collecting the money half of the group never had cash and it just sort of rendered the whole you know bet and wages completely um void because you know there just wasn’t enough money in the PO to go around and
Me and my two of my best friends at the time we was playing together and we just said there must be an app online that does this um and lo and behold there wasn’t so we went away and started sort brainstorming how this would work and it
Was just you know we we like to have a bet on anything whether it’s you know game snooka going to darts sitting in the pub having silly bets um and yeah that’s where it all came from really just group Pals trying to get bets on with their mates and no one ever carrying
Cash well people don’t carry cash sorry Mark they don’t anymore it’s huge yeah like the the the idea that you can quite literally bet on anything because what fascinates me about like startups like this is that they can sound you know if it’s not pitched right you know if it’s not
Dialed in in terms of The Branding and if you’ve not if you’ve not nailed the name down something so simple can almost sound a little bit trite it can sound a little bit well what’s the point in that but actually the way that you’ve positioned it the way that you’ve named
It the way that you’ve put the fair play wording in there it’s it’s really interesting positioning because you know you can just go and get smashed down the pub and have a life you can bet on anything who can do the most be M flips
You can have a bet on that but you can also see this like at the club you can see at your golf club you can see comps being run on this side bets being run society’s being run on this sort of stuff so how’s how’s the reception been
Across the ball like what type of people are you attracting with with this product yeah I mean so I think we were crunches numbers the other day 75% of our activi been based around Gulf I mean you guys know there’s big I’d say gambling culture around golf but you
Know it’s it’s more having that bragging rights where it’s not necessarily about winning a fiver but you want to win your mates fiver you want to take that money off your power and it’s that bragging rights and kind of a it goes hand in hand with golf right so yeah we see
Quite a bit of our bulk in golf um we’ve seen quite a lot of fantasy football bets so you know start Fantasy League season you’ve got 20 mates and you’ll say let’s put a tener in end of the season winner takes all nobody ever pays up and you know again it’s that same
Scenario where you’re not getting the money out so we’ve seen quite a lot of fantasy groups and weekly fantasy bets as well and obviously you see you know Arsenal and Tottenham fans saying who’s going to finish above each other and stuff like that so there’s a lot of uh
One upmanship against your mates on on the I think what’s interesting there and I want to for people who might not quite understand how this works let’s just run through the idea so the idea being let’s you Mark and I we’ve all got ignore golf in a minute which is easier to
Understand you Mark and I we’ve got three fancy football teams we want to place a 50 Quid bet each to see who’s going to finish the highest we go into the app we create the market in the competition so we’d create uh Ben Billy and Mark fantasy football league we
Select the three people that are going to take part we select the stake and how much the winner gets and and you just yourself yeah so I mean simplest way to put it is it’s just a communial wallet um to replace cash betting so the app
Holds the money in there for you and then at the end of the season Ben wins and we just administer the money over to your account and you can withdraw it just like a normal Ben account it’s interesting actually said to I said to my friend the other day about it he said
Oh I didn’t know you could use it for for Sports I’ve been using it for poker so like yeah my mate’s been using it for three months for poker yeah that’s exactly right we we get a lot of um private poker games on there um yes it’s another great user
Case just it’s another way where people just aren’t carrying cash anymore how far did you have to go with the compliance side because betting is notoriously challenging from a technical standpoint you got the whole PCI compliance area to go through you’ve got ID verifications obviously you’ve got
The the better way stuff to go through and everything around that because this is a user generated betting Market essentially how far did you have to go did you have to go as far as like a bet 365 or with a with a concessions like tell us a little
Bit about that I’m fascinated by that yeah um so certainly the biggest barrier to entry was getting completely compliant and regul regulated with the ukgc which is the um the gambling Authority in the United Kingdom and yeah that was a terribly stressful time for me because it was you know whether or
Not we was going to get this off the ground relied on us getting these licenses so um it took us I think two years in total from the start of the application to getting it approved so I had to get a personal Gambling License myself and then fair play as um a sort
Of combined remote encompassing license which covers everything um but yeah I mean the ukgc are very stringent in their measures so yeah there’s a lot of Hoops to jump through and a lot of um you have to prove to them but you know luckily through a lot of hard work we
Managed to get that license and the next thing is just making sure that you you stay within the the parameters of what they tell you you can and can’t do so you know compliance is my side of things within the company and it’s the license
Is such a great asset for us we have to you know look after it with everything we can yeah that’s that’s interesting M it’s my background is is product building building software and and startup background and I’ve took you know software from startup through to exit
And and that that is such a difficult journey to go on one one thing I’m fascinated by because you’ve got you’ve got a really fascinating inbuilt type of audience which is if you think about most startups it’s like okay here’s product Market Fair okay here’s a here’s
A product that is targeting this Market you’re solving a problem which exists but actually it can fit so many different markets we’ve talked about sports we’ve talked about poker it could quite literally create your own market and really really broaden the use cases which is as dangerous as it is exciting
Because you could go out there and be try and be everything to everyone or you can really focus in and and try and Target some verticals like how have you grown this thing what markets did you target to start with where did you where did you decide to start with that growth
Um it’s certainly golf you know um where it you the idea was born on the golf course and me and my friends you know the guys who I started the business with we bet you know all the time we play a lot of golf and that’s who we really
Went after U we went we went after golfers um we did sort of a few Partnerships we got involved with a couple of influencers um put on a few golf days got involved with few local Club to start off with it was pretty much you know few of the local golf clubs around
Essic just speaking to the management speaking to the swindles seeing what they thought would you you know would you use this app is it going to make your life easier a lot of people said yes you get a lot of push back as well because naturally some of the older Lads
That I i’ still got a roll of 50s on me you know what I mean um yeah so it was just always going to start with golf because what we knew the betting Market was there and you know we knew people were going to use this because we saw it
Every week for so long and you know the older Boys in our Swindle they they used to go mental us because anyone under the age of 30 just none of us have cash like we’ never do it and all of that awkwardness of oh I’ll transfer you and
I’ll owe you for next week like no one ever plays up on that and no one ever chases you for it so it all just gets lost in it it’s always a it’s a pain like my my brother-in-law Allan and he’s he’s a meticulous organizer and he’s a
Really calm bloke like anyone who spent time with me and Allan knows are the two brother-in-laws I’m not the calm one um but if you want to RI him right up don’t bring a five on a Sunday if you want to RI him up he he sent seven messages to
The group for the last 10 days don’t forget a FIV don’t forget a FIV don’t forget a FIV and then comes Sunday when five is in there’s three people paid that’s the only time you’ll see him lose his temper So you you’re you’re saving the world’s calmest man from ever having
To lose his temper but you’re right it’s like Bristol we don’t have roles of 50 with us we have rolls of tens and F as6 got a bit more cash knocking range but like silly things like I I go and watch a bit of live cricket and one of the things I
Love to do is is like and we don’t do it because someone’s got to write it down so you don’t bother which is like how many runs before the first Wicket if there’s if there’s how many of you let’s say there’s five or six of us going and
We all STI tener in you can have loads of one pound bets over the day can’t you or pound on when the first Wicket Falls for two to five runs six to eight runs whatever whatever it might be how many wickets who’s going to get the most
Wickets more more more how many more courts and Bows whatever it might dismissals whatever it might be you can set any of that right exactly that I mean so me and the guys in the office we went to the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth and we played up all day on a
Three and we just bet on how many balls we’re going to land on the green so whoever decided whoever was going first could pick how many blls going planning three balls so i’ say but looking at the free bow professional golfers three they going to hit the next person could
Choose whether they had zero one or two and we just literally all day betting on who was going to land on the green and then we was betting on who was going to make and you know exactly that just little one pound bets all day long and
Because the app’s been built in a way where he’s so quick to use and you know it’s it’s seamless you can just keep repeating those bets all day long and you know at the end of the day no one was coming out with loads of money it
Was just like one or two pound Changing Hands here and there but that’s what Ben should be about you know fun with your mates and enjoying it you know no one’s going to get strapped up on because it’s against your friends and you know we only see small Stakes really like 10 15
20 quids sometimes but it’s just all about having a laugh of your mates and you know taking one or two quit off them on silly bets that’s the beauty of it I think is that you and I think this is perhaps why it fits so nicely with golf
As well that there’s a bit of an honor System in play you know golf’s a very honest game if you if you wanting to play it how it’s intended to be played and it feels like this as you say you’re not going to attract people that are
Going to want to take you for a ride they not no one’s going to want to rinse anyone just because it is your friends and you’re building your own markets out there um when it comes to building something like this you you’ve got you got to pick
Your battles you know you got to say right okay here’s the thing that we’re building first here’s the thing that we’d love to build now but actually that might that might be a year out like what what’s what’s the next year what’s the next two years look like in terms of
Features in terms of what you’re going to be doing with fair play exchange um yeah definitely like exactly what you said there so true Mark like you have to build the core functionality of it before you put all the bells and whistles on right so what we’ve got now
Is is essentially our minimum viable product and you know we’re currently looking at new features now um the next step and phase that we we’re sort of planning and going to begin to build soon is a sort of sweep stake function so you know that classic thing Grand
National you come around the office and you got your teners and you end up putting in teners for people are working for you and that so you know a sweep stake function where you can easily you know set them up distribute them a way where fair play can set up sort of
Open public sweep Stakes so say when April comes around Masters is coming on um we’ll just set up fair play Master sweep State you can buy a ticket and then we’ll just give everyone you know the algorithm will give everyone a random uh player so it’s sort of giving
You an interest in it rather than you know some people obviously spend ages analyzing who is going to go well around austa and what not and who’s a good price but on our new sweep sake feature you’ll just be given a a random player and then that
Should play it to to cheer on that’s huge the the the S jump in B that really is interesting as well because you’ve got like my club will send an email around saying right Master sweep steti send me a tener via the bank and bank transfer it and we’ll wait until
Everything’s done and then we’ll spreadsheet it up and we’ll send it all out so the ability for clubs to be able to create their own sweep Stakes and be able to run what is actually quite a significant part of their business you know a lot of Pro Shops are trying to
Build revenue through so many different streams that they want the sweep Stakes every week they’re running comps obviously as we know but that everything is moving towards how do we generate additional Revenue that is not based on product it’s not based on the weather in saf far
As tea times and selling lessons and whatever else so I really like that idea I think it’s a an interesting way to get the Pro Shops interested because if you can get those guys if you can get each Pro each club advocating for this suddenly the trickle Down’s huge isn’t
It you just get every member using it of course and it’s you know it’s a huge acquisition tool for us hopefully when it when it launches even going back to the Grand National um user case 40 hes you get you know 10 offices involved that’s 400 users straight off the bat so
It’s just another way to hopefully we can start building up the audience and user base I suppose it’s thing as well that that people can offer on behalf of the people so we could we could set up the golf lovers United podcast Master sweep Stak so we could set one up and invite
Our invite our users to come in and and participate and whatever else it’s it’s a very clever thing and those that want to do unique Bets with themselves on whether John RL finished higher than Brooks kepco can do that but then if you want to go into partake in the just buy
A ticket in the stre steak you got that easy option too exactly I think when we first I think we first spoke that one of the things that reason so Jay’s not with us today obviously Jay’s the other the other host he lives in America but Mark
And I both have startups and scale ups and marks um transitioned and sold as well and things like that so Mark and I really like the business side of golf and we got a guy called Colin land Force coming on in a in a couple of weeks time
Colin’s like the number one sort of Guru in how to build Brands by going and finding suppliers for bit gloves te’s bags whatever it might be and this business podcast actually business tag on podcast that Mark and I are quite passionate about because our our love of business I think you you
Epitomize what we love about this you’ve seen a problem you fixed it it’s Rel related to golf which is why it’s on here but it’s not always easy so while you’ve overcome things and you it’s doing great and you’re just gaining users what what were the tough things
Was it all around the gaming license stuff are there been other things that been difficult um that was particularly difficult um probably one biggest par entur for us um believe it or not um a big headache was getting a bank account because they automatically the banks weren’t necessarily interested in
Hearing too much from us but as soon as you tick the box of gambling they knock you back for a gap for a bank bank account so I almost had to really try and get my face in front of a bank manager to say look I need to open
Account for my business and although technically we have a Gambling License it’s not necessarily A you know we’re not a bookmaker we’re not I don’t see it as a gambling product necessarily I think it’s more of a financial vehicle to pull people with money in you know um
So yeah eventually managed to get a bank account which was difficult um obviously raising money is exciting but you know very frustrating had to go to you know you have to get so many knockbacks before you can get someone over the line and then obviously
Once you get a bit of momentum it starts to get a little bit easier um building the product so you know the actual coding software side of it is out of my Realms of Competency but you know you have to pick the right partners and pick the right team who can build that
Product for you and have to have a lot of trust in them to build what you want to be built and you know solve the problem that we’re trying to solve so yeah many many different things that have been super stressful but also super rewarding you know so to build something from scratch
And get it out there and sort of prove the concept that people are using and you know we get great feedback that people really enjoy the product so you know it’s it’s incredibly rewarding to see feels like Community is such a big part of this growth as well it feels as
If not only allowing people to build their own own communities around things like the sweep stakes in the future and you know we three building our own books and and and me building books at at my club and you building books at your club and and and creating that sense of
Individual Community but but the the the the general bigger picture fair play exchange Community you know this idea that you’re almost you’re almost creating a movement where we all move forward with this fun aspect of whatever it is that we’re into is that something
That you you TR to focus on as as you grow the user base as you focus on on on user acquisition yeah definitely I mean at the minute user acquisition is just the main focus for us but you know what we’re seeing quite often is people inviting their friends to that which is
Great for us right it’s the cheapest way that we’re ever going to acquire customers but you know essentially if you enter the fair play app and you haven’t got any friends on the app it’s redundant you can’t use it so it you have to go on the app and invite your
Mates in order to be able to use it so Community is massive for us you know and eventually you know we’ve got loads of different aspects that are for the road future road map that we can hopefully build around you know people being able to bet amongst each other in the
Community but yeah for now the focus is solely just let’s build the build the audience and prove the concept before we start know really driving other features in yeah that’s that that stickiness as well is such an important factor isn’t it with with any kind of app based
Product we found it with our stuff where if we get if we get someone registered and the onboarding is so tight that by the by the time they’ve registered and finished that registration they’ve created a podcast and maybe even uploaded a trailer or certainly got to the point where they’ve put some cover
Art into the podcast platform they’ve put some a title for the show in there they’ve put a description in and importantly they’ve put their name into it they feel like they’ve got some ownership and the product just became we we did that almost from day one and the
Product just became that much more sticky the chm rate dropped to a really really low percentage because people they they had some skin in the game that they were invested it was okay here’s my thing on this platform and it feels as if there’s a bit of a journey
There for you as well where okay let’s build the onboarding out let’s make sure that okay one of the things that I do is make sure Ben and Billy are in here with me and I’m going to Chuck a I’m going to Chuck a quid at a new user so that they
Can have a bet with their friends you know what that’s such a fascinating part of this for me m I think how you develop that is is going to be really interesting to see I’m I’m fascinated by all of this yeah we we definitely need to um essentially each person that downside
The app we need them to be a sort of um a Salman for us right we need them to go out and that’s a one reason you know I say to the team like the customer service for us is absolutely vital because you know if someone can’t get their account verified for whatever
Reason we need to be on hand to tell them you know right we can get this sorted out for you and you know if someone’s got a problem with drawing we need to be able to you know 10 seconds of their email coming through we need to
Go back to them and let them know there’s someone on the end of the line because ultimately You’re Building trust with your audience and trust with your user base and like I said before we need each user to be a a Salesman for us and
Go out and Shout about oh this new app’s great you know it’s really easy to use and you do have any issues you know they’re straight away sorting out for you that is so vital man and and I think a lot of startups get that wrong I think
Especially when you when you consider like you know in startup World everyone’s like a CEO which sounds like your Bill Gates or or or Steve Jobs and it’s all it’s a it’s a little bit bullshitty isn’t it and I always find that is it’s rabbit it’s mental and the
Idea and I even still do this like we created startups we’ve sold startups and even the one that I still work on now as part of of the bigger business like I still do support because yeah especially with the most angry people you know because they present such an opportunity
If you can give them the best experience and if you can say to them look I’m Bly I’m the founder this is what I do I’ve sorted you out the they become evangelists they become Advocates and they will until they simply die they will tell everyone how
Good you are and it’s so many people get that wrong so that is so refreshing dude I think that’s that that’s a very powerful way of doing it I’m I’m usually you know on the weekends I’m refes I’m I’m sitting on CMS the back end all day just constantly refreshing it seeing
What’s going on and I’m I’m sitting I’m getting involved with the admin I’m constantly you know going back to customers you know we we’ve got a in-house team of people here but you know I feel like it’s important exactly as you just said that I get involved in
That and no one’s too big here to muck in and do the admin in the customer service because you know it’s it’s a fluid environment where everyone’s got to be able to do a bit of everything you know I think I think it’s so key and again without Haring on about it’s we
Found exactly the same over with what we’re doing and with our on boarding we actually found an element of gamification really helped so users went through things turned green it bought it gave a bit of fun and experience to buy into it and I think it’s very different
On how you do it but it’s nice having three people doing three very different things having all the same problems and successes I think Billy the one thing I want to pick up on there is that that Community side you talked about Ro and golf days and I think that’s a really
Big thing because if you have a golf day in I just say Manchester leads Birmingham one in Essex one in North London one in South London I’ll do that one for you that’s my only impression I got mate U one in Bristol and then you’re doing that and you’re having the
The fair the fair play exchange series you’re you’re creating if you’re getting 70 80 people to each of those events you’re creating those users it’s a fantastic way of driving isn’t it and I think hopefully over the summer we can see a load more events and people just
Coming on board I know we got I know we got the the Glu uh code what’s the what’s the Glu code get people again Billy why you tell people so um if the guy sign up to the app um and just put in the promo code on
Sign up Glu we’ll put A5 fre betet in your account and you know you can test out the app have a play with your friends and yeah challenge your mates or something I lost that last night doing that putting video with prev I lost5 to him straight away my first bet done gone
That’s why that’s why you need those video lessons with prev mate so don’t be betting when you’re getting taught this is like putting 101 yeah we we got five we got five more lessons in the the series um by the time this comes out we’ll probably be about lesson five I
Think probably um we got five more lessons in the series and there’s a Tic Tac Toe in each one so as prev said he’s going to be 30 qu up that is easy money that’s the easiest money I’ve ever seen I love that that’s he’s PR a bit of a
Player he’s a pro yeah he’s a Pro and he’s a teacher so he’s a good mate of mine he’s building up he’s building up his Instagram channel to do some coaching and this that the other really good bloke and like I said well no one
Else is doing so as you’ve seen you saw the video I sent to you last night that we’re the only people in the world who are doing a winter Outdoors nighttime putting series there’s no one else doing that that’s because it’s freezing invented it first to do it yeah and last I
Imagine this has been awesome Billy thank you so much man the the uh the next thing I want to do is make sure everyone gets hold of fair play exchange I’m assum I’m assuming it’s Google App Store it’s the Play Store sorry it’s iOS I’ve downloaded myself on iOS but
Available on on all the app stores just by searching Fairplay exchange it’s exactly right yeah available on app store Google Play it’s completely free to download we don’t take no cut or Commission on the bets it’s free to use um yeah free to download so no reason
Not to get involved and have a bet with your mates I love it you can get that at Fairplay exchange. co.uk as well this has been fantastic thank you for joining us and to everyone out there thanks for having me get over there and get that app downloaded and let’s create some
Sweep staks and start having a little bit of fun
