Chris Selland, CEO & Angel - DipJar: Frictionless Giving

Invest Alongside Boston's Top Tech Angels: Our Syndicates

DipJar makes charitable giving fast and compelling. 8,500 devices are deployed to 4,500 clients and the business is set to scale fast. My interview with Chris Selland, CEO was an excellent opportunity to learn more about this exciting company just after I invested.

Interview highlights include:

• Sal Introduces Chris Selland, CEO of DipJar
• The Story of DipJar
• DipJar Started Out as an Easy Way to Tip Waiters – But the Economics Did not Work Out
• Fixed Fees Charged by Credit Card Companies Become Meaningful for Small Transactions
• Devices Are Connected to a Platform – Charge per Dips Are Pre-Set
• People Saw the DipJar in Coffee Shops and Started Asking If It Could Be Used for Charitable Giving
• “…but the bottom line is 80% of the money comes in when they actually get the donors in person”.
• “…we can take a lot of donations very, very quickly”.
• About the Team
• Startups Love to Create Brands Having No Idea of How Hard & Expensive It Is: Brand-itis
• “So, the DipJar you just power it up and it works. And that's a big part of our selling prop too”.
• Sal Talks About His Investment in Fine Tune Learning
• Like DipJar, Fine Tune Learning Had a Restart – Hired CEOs Are Much Maligned But…
• Investors Like Syndicates Because They Don’t Have to Write $25,000 Checks
• Sal Asks the Burning Question for Angel Investors: How Am I Going to Make 30X on DipJar?
• DipJar’s New Head of Platform Is Building Capabilities Critical for Scaling Revenue
• “We've now got … I think about 8,500 DipJars out there in market and 4,500 customers”.
• “We don't need to raise more capital ever if we don't want to”.
• On Possible Exits: “I mean net, we're a FinTech company, we're in a hot space, right”?
• On Being a Hired CEO
• CEO’s Big Challenge: “…you have to be inspiring and you have to believe in the company when there's very good evidence for you not to believe in the company”.
• “…optimism is not shading the truth”.
• West Coast, East Coast
• “The West Coast is more about top line; the East Coast is more about bottom line”.