Helene Berkowitz created a Tech startup with a mobile platform for digital receipts
We are a Retail Tech startup with a mobile platform for digital receipts. Our product aggregates all e-receipts onto 1 centralized, easily searchable system. Retailers get sophisticated customer engagement tools - including customer data on cash transactions - while consumers enjoy an optimized retail experience.
I stay motivated by… focusing on the end-goal. I’m building something that will change the entire Retail customer experience. Change takes time.
Three adjectives that describe me are… funny, energetic, and reliable.
If I could have dinner with one person it would be… Theresa May because she has literally stood in the face of opposition while remaining focused and dedicated to her people’s wishes.
The most exciting innovation to me is… an epidural, something that made a physically painful and enduring moment virtually painless and easier to experience, without diminishing its importance and beauty.
What motivated you to become an entrepreneur? Is having your own business something you always wanted?
I wasn’t interested in becoming an entrepreneur, bur rather, solving a real problem in a smarter way than currently exists. Running my own business wasn’t something I’d given much thought to, but I’d held management positions in my career & enjoyed building up people, solving unique challenges, and making things happen.
How did you come up with your business idea? What inspired you?
It all started with a pair of pants. My husband hates to shop (REALLY hates it), so when he needed a new pair of jeans, I offered to get it for him, except I bought the wrong size. I knew I could only do that with the store receipt, and looking in my purse at the tons of paper receipts I had from many stores, I had my ‘aha!’ moment. Despite living in an age of drones, robots, and other incredible technologies, we still get small pieces of paper when we buy things. I knew there had to be a better, digital, paperless way.
What is one thing you find to be true that most people would disagree with?
Cash is dead.
It drives me crazy when people say this. As someone who has worked in Fintech for 20 years, I know this statement is false, yet we as a society have been led to believe that cash is irrelevant and everything is hi-tech biometric, cardless payments. It’s just not true and I have the data to back me up. For example, in the US, Dollar General has over 15,000 stores generating more than $25B in annual revenue, and theirs is a primarily cash business.