JJ Rathour Of WondaPay: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became a Founder

Don’t start something you have zero domain knowledge of. If the ‘opportunity’ is worth pursuing, it will likely wait for you to get insight by working in the sector and gaining direct experience. A cousin pitched a business concept in the dental industry to me where he felt we could ‘make a killing’. Both of us have finance backgrounds and neither had dentists in our networks to sanity check. Thankfully, I had the sense to pass up on that one.

As part of our interview series called “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A Founder”, I had the pleasure of interviewing JJ Rathour.

JJ Rathour is the CEO and founder of WondaPay. He is an experienced entrepreneur with 20 years’ experience in managing a wide range of successful commercial projects. WondaPay is an FCA-regulated platform devised by the founding team, to end the issue of late and unpaid invoices for freelancers.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

For the last decade, I’ve managed the development of a great many web projects. Most of them have been completed with the involvement of freelancers from around the world, sourced from freelancer marketplaces. The cost of the commission fees was, in the opinions of many of the freelancers I spoke to, hefty. This was both eye-opening, and actually tapped into an interest I already had in online payments for quite some time.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

Even before graduating in the Summer of 1996, I was excited about the possibilities of online payments, and peer-to-peer payments in particular. Back then, it was a completely different time in the development of payment infrastructure. To most people, the notion of SaaS, Regtech and API-driven Paytech seemed impossible. Despite spending a year on the project, I couldn’t bring it to fruition. I had a young family and felt I could no longer afford to spend time and money on the project.

And then in 1999, PayPal emerged. It was immensely and immediately successful in the peer-to-peer payment space. And I found myself brooding on what might have been. It’s probably the greatest regret I have.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

I’ve always been driven. It’s an integral part of my character, and has helped me through many aspects of my life. When I trained in Tae Kwondo, the tenets of the art were painting on the wall of our dojang (training room) The first of which is ‘An indomitable spirit’. And that’s what I’ve always sought to aspire to.

I’ve also got to say that I couldn’t have done it without my wife. She has given me every encouragement to pursue my projects. Having her fullest backing, even with a growing family, has been incredibly helpful. She’s always actively willing me on and giving me a boost when I most need it.

So, how are things going today? How did grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

Things are going considerably better today! Right now, there is an alignment in all the necessary elements for us to realize WondaPay. As well as paytech and Open Banking, there is an upward trend of remote working. That existed before Covid, but was arguably accelerated by the pandemic.

Resilience is helped significantly by a belief in the merits of an idea, the fact that it can be commercialized and perhaps most significantly the self-belief that you have been fortunate enough to have accumulated the skills, experience and network to realize a project.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

To quote Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory, ‘they say that comedy is tragedy plus time’. Things that are looked at now with a certain sentimentality seemed incredibly serious at the time. One example is when I was at a pitching competition in a room full of around 150 investors and other pitchers and halfway through the pitch I completely froze up. I had paused, and the words were just not coming into my head or out of my mouth despite much practice. I felt the weight of the stares on me, which compounded seemingly exponentially for every passing second. Then someone from the audience shouted. ‘You can do it!’ and started clapping. Then other members of the audience followed her example and clapped and then there were some whistles. I gave a yogic thanks, and possibly with a tear in my eye filled with gratitude, I managed to complete the pitch. At the end the claps were even louder. I did not win the competition! But, looking back, it was kind of funny. And it taught me a lot. Not just about myself, but about how to treat other people.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

I believe the company stands out for a number of reasons. But mainly because despite the fact that there is a massive increase in remote working, payment for services is still either by invoice on 30 days terms, or via marketplaces using escrow mechanisms. This can leave people waiting for the money they’ve worked hard to earn or facing fees that can equate to 30% of their earnings.

We want to bring trust and transparency to freelancers, entrepreneurs and SMBs. People need to be able to have confidence that they will be paid in full and on time so they can get on with their business of delivering their best work. WondaPay provides an online escrow mechanism — or secure payment holding account — allowing payment to be taken in advance and released immediately on delivery of the service. Meaning no late or non-payments.

Also, something we are particularly pleased with is that WondaPay is the only standalone payment system with a reviewing function, This means that our community of users can read reviews and be better informed about the people they are considering transacting with, adding an additional layer of protection to all parties. This is unique to our platform, and we hope a really beneficial tool for our users.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

I would humbly remind all colleagues that mental health problems are very real and that they should educate themselves about what the symptoms and causes can be. Because anyone can be affected, and the sooner you seek assistance, the better things will be. As for burnout, clearly, nothing is more important than your whole health — physical and mental. So, to protect yourself and deliver your best work, remember that ‘tomorrow is another day’ and you can pick up from where you left off.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

I’ve already mentioned how important the support of my wife has been to me. But, as Ted Lasso reminds us (I watch way too much TV!) “If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together.” So, I have to say that my whole family — including my four children whose curiosity is contagious and is useful in reminding me to ask ‘Why?’ has been vital to my success. Without them and their support, I’d be working for someone else, regretting poor decisions, and dreaming about making the break. My business partners and associates have also been incredible.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Not nearly as much as I should do.

That said, I am very much directed by the notion that my business should make a positive contribution or difference to all the relevant stakeholders. I don’t want it to be merely a means for me to be able to afford to buy the things that I might want.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started leading my company” and why. Please share a story or example for each.

• Ask yourself how great you think the challenge is. Then multiply it by 3 to get to a likely more realistic impression of what’s required. Eighteen months ago, I met someone who talked about his business of ordering products from China and then having orders ‘fulfilled by Amazon’. She made the business sound dynamic, exciting, and very doable. I decided to apply my maxim of three times effort and felt this is not something for me.
• Don’t start something you have zero domain knowledge of. If the ‘opportunity’ is worth pursuing, it will likely wait for you to get insight by working in the sector and gaining direct experience. A cousin pitched a business concept in the dental industry to me where he felt we could ‘make a killing’. Both of us have finance backgrounds and neither had dentists in our networks to sanity check. Thankfully, I had the sense to pass up on that one.
• First, build a trusted network of awesome people with whom you can go on the journey. We often see stories of the lone mavericks who seemingly manage to build business empires. This is almost always romantic fiction. WondaPay has been made with some amazing people that I would like to call friends.
• Don’t go into a business that is highly competitive and price sensitive. I tried to commercialize a fashion website — with a twist (there’s always a twist!). Some very experienced team members and I tried to grow the business on enthusiasm and the goodwill of some early adopters alone. I should have known it wouldn’t work out…
• Don’t over-borrow to invest in a project. Hoping the projected income will enable you to cover your liabilities never works. I fell into this trap with a restaurant business. After purchase, it very quickly became a financial nightmare. Never again!

Can you share a few ideas or stories from your experience about how to successfully ride the emotional highs & lows of being a founder”?

My experience as a founder is that leading a company is uneven. There are higher highs and lower lows than you could ever imagine without being there. To the extent that it can feel like the proverbial emotional rollercoaster.

When orders were coming into our fashion marketplace it was thrilling and we got that hit that is the very human need for affirmation. However, order flows were very unpredictable, and we found that after marketing pushes we were quite literally staring at the screen, willing more orders to come through. This was very demoralizing. I realized I was disappointed mostly because I was pursuing something I was not particularly passionate about. Belief in your mission and objectives can massively help to calm anxiousness about your project as you can then contextualize the ups and downs as a means to an end.

If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I have an idea for an app that I call ‘When the dream died’. The observation here is that invariably people experience defeats. At the time, these disappointments can feel crushing and can be very real and genuine set-backs. The app I’m thinking about is to be able to connect people who have had a knock with vetted, knowledgeable, and experienced people who can contextualize the situation and offer constructive advice as to how to seek to recover, minimize the damage, or change course. Importantly, this concept is not about words of commiseration or encouragement from well-meaning friends, family or strangers. It’s about providing expert advice that could hold the potential to salvage the worst situations.

This would need a lot of work to realize. But it’s there in my dream to-do list!

How can our readers further follow your work online?

We’re at WondaPay.com and anyone can email me at hello@wondapay.com

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!