IAM996- Founder Creates Digital Retail Experience
Podcast Interview with Helene Berkowitz
Helene Berkowitz is a Retail Tech executive and startup founder with a background in finance and international payment systems. She is passionate about technology with a human component. In 2017, Helene founded ReceetMe to create a digital retail experience focused on the customer experience.
- CEO Hack: Forcing myself to take a break
- CEO Nugget: Mentorship and surrounding myself with people who are better than me
- CEO Defined: Being the face of your company and answering to a lot of people
Website: https://www.receet.me/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReceetMe
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/receetme
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heleneberkowitz/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/receetme/
Check out one of our favorite CEO Hack’s Audible. Get your free audiobook and check out more of our favorite CEO Hacks HERE
00:19 – Intro
Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. GRESTS values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.
00:47 – Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Helene Berkowitz of Receipt Me. Helene, it's awesome to have you on the show.
00:56 – Helene Berkowitz
Thank you so much for having me.
00:58 – Gresham Harkless
Super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Helene so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Helene is a retail tech executive and startup founder with a background in finance and international payment systems. She is passionate about technology with a human component. And in two thousand seven two thousand seventeen, I'm sorry, Helene founded Receipt Me to create a digital retail experience focused on the customer experience. Helene, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
[restrict paid=”true”]
01:24 – Helene Berkowitz
I am.
01:25 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So to kinda kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.
01:35 – Helene Berkowitz
Sure. So my story sort of got, sort of began through a very normal everyday occurrence. My husband is one of those guys who really does not like to buy himself things. So when he needs something I am being the nice wife that I am, volunteer to do that. Anyway, my husband needed a new pair of jeans. And like I said, he really doesn't like to buy himself some, of those types of things. So I offered to go to the store and get him a pair of jeans, but I accidentally bought the wrong size. Something that happens to many of us probably on a daily basis. So I wanted to go and exchange her for the correct size, but I couldn't find the receipt.
And as I was going through kinda digging around like we all, kind of have experienced, I couldn't find it anywhere. And other receipts from other purchases that I did have were either, the ink was smudged or, it was just illegible. And I sort of had that moment, that light bulb moment where I realized, we're living in an age of incredible technologies from drones and robotics to all kinds of incredibly rich deep tech solutions. And yet something as very very common as buying a new pair of pants has remained kinda stagnant and old school. It hasn't really evolved.
And it's a real pain point for consumers. We can't return or exchange things easily if we don't have the receipt. So we lose money on the things that we bought or we're stuck with things that we no longer wish to keep. And it's a real consumer pain point across all kinds of retail, whether it's clothing or pet supplies or, whatever it is. And so I started looking into what the digital options were because it occurred to me if I've thought of a better way to do this digitally, clearly, others have as well. And what I found was some digital solutions were better than others.
Most of them either weren't thinking bigger scale or or they were doing things they were issuing digital receipts in ways that were weren't really solving the pain point. they were sending receipts via email, which already crowds are already, large crowded inboxes. And I've realized there could be a better way to do it. I started my own company to put my plan into action, and here we are.
03:55 – Gresham Harkless
Nice. I definitely appreciate that. I love I think some of the best ideas, I think, sometimes we think that we have to, like figure out, how do I don't know, cure whatever, in order to to be able to create some big, huge solution. But I love the heart of what you've been able to create because I think that we forget that entrepreneurship is all about creating solutions to problems and pain points. Sometimes the pain points that we just assume, like, there's not a better way, but you actually drill down and figure out, okay. This is how I create something that does solve that pain point so that people can, be able to to to have a way to find their receipts and all of those things. And I think those are the best ideas because it's something that we're doing on a regular basis, and we just haven't found that solution for it, sounds like.
04:41 – Helene Berkowitz
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly so. And it's interesting because on the retailer side of things, you know, one could make the argument we're already so paperless or people are satisfied with emails. Why reinvent the wheel? But the thing is, on the retailer side of things, they are investing millions in technologies that enhance and personalize the retail experience. So even though e-commerce is huge now, mobile, social commerce, all those things are happening, retailers are still spending money to bring customers into physical stores. And so there's this benefit of, of course, it helps the consumer going paperless, no emails, no text messages, but retailers benefit too because it just helps increase ROI. It builds a better brand. It delights customers. So it's it really helps both sides of the spectrum.
05:31 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And I think that's where really phenomenal adventures start to take off is when you create not just a win opportunity, but a win win win opportunity. And when you kinda see that synergy and how you can kinda make sure that that happens. And so I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper here a little bit more on how it works and how it serves the clients that you work with.
05:49 – Helene Berkowitz
Sure. So what Receipt Me is in essence is a two, two I call it a two-pronged system. So on the one hand, we have we've built an API that kind of piggybacks onto a retailer's point-of-sale system. Just real quick, I don't I'm not sure. Assuming that some in your audience may not know what a point of sale system is. Yes. Point of sale or POS is, basically, the computerized cash register. The clerk will swipe your card or you'll do, like, a tap-and-pay solution. Whatever it is, it's the computer system that accepts your payment for whatever it is you're buying. So our API, think of it like a kinda like a software integration tool that sits on the point of sale.
Once, a transaction has been completed, regardless of pay we call ourselves payment agnostic, so it's not really connected to any specific type of payment, whether it's, you know, credit, debit, cash, whatever it is. Our API kicks in. It captures the transaction record that would normally go from the point of sale to the receipt printer, and we disrupt that flow of traffic as it were. We capture that record, and we route it to the shopper's smartphone. What we do is we the way that we uniquely identify each shopper from another think of if you're if you have five customers in line, they can't all be getting the same receipt.
So we take the shopper's mobile phone number, which is unique to them, and we send the digital transaction to their smartphone. So that's one. That's our back end behind the scenes, high-tech API. On the front side of things, we've built a mobile application that consumers use to aggregate all of their digital receipts into one system. So I think all of us are probably familiar with let's say fifty retailers have fifty different apps. So rather than the consumer having to use Walmart's app and Target's app and, you know, a million other apps. They're using one system that puts all of that into one place. So that's, in essence, what Receipt Me is. Software and a mobile application kind of work hand in hand together.
07:58 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And I absolutely appreciate you for breaking downPOS and and and the API aspect of it as well too because I love that. And I think the beauty of everything that you just described is it integrates into an already existing kind of flow. It doesn't necessarily mean that, okay. Well, I have to do anything sometimes differently as a merchant or sometimes as a consumer, because you get that opportunity to have that sent to your, smartphone, and you can, of course, download the app to aggregate everything. But it also allows a retailer to be able to just kinda plug and play for lack of a better term, and then you're able to continue to kinda go through that same process.
08:32 – Helene Berkowitz
Exactly. So there's no, like, heavy installation. There's no physical hardware involved. It's completely a simple software integration tool. Takes maybe about an hour to install, for the retailers plus or minus a few minutes. And, yeah, that's basically it.
08:49 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And you get that, as you mentioned that brand loyalty, that greater experience for the clients and customers, hopefully having them the opportunity to to continue to kinda have people come back over and over again. So I absolutely appreciate that. And so, I want to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce, sauce, and this could be for yourself personally or your business. What do you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?
09:10 – Helene Berkowitz
I've always been fascinated by technology that has some sort of human element. I mean, I am one as well. That's how I got started, that pair of jeans story. As you can see, I mean, I am one as well. That's how I got started, that pair of jeans story, as you are as we all are. And so I think my secret sauce is thinking simplistically. I always joke that what's most exciting in retail tech today are all these, really incredibly, incredibly amazing experiences in terms of augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, biometric payments, and all these incredibly deep tech solutions. But at the end of the day, consumers really want simple things.
I mean, when is this kind of a joke? That's not a joke. When was the last time you were at a grocery store and saw a consumer holding their phone up to the cereal to the cereal aisle to, like, visually visualize how that might look in their pantry? No one does that. Right. So, like I guess, again our secret sauce is simple. What do people really want to make their lives more convenient, make things faster, cheaper? That's that's what we're all about.
10:22 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. I love that. And so, I wanted to switch gears a little bit. Yeah. And I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
10:33 – Helene Berkowitz
It's something again, rather simple and something that's, like, kind of kind of ironic in the entrepreneurial world. There's this whole vibe that you have to constantly be on. You have to go. You have to be on like, working from 6 AM till, midnight or whatever. Okay. And for a long time, I also felt that. I was influenced by that sort of constantly on never stop hustling attitude and that works for many. But for me, I find that I'm much more efficient if I force myself to take a break. It sounds kinda funny. It's not the most high-tech solution, but when I force myself to take a break, I come back refreshed. I come back with a new perspective, and I can do my job better.
11:14 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So that could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.
11:25 – Helene Berkowitz
I think that would be a mentorship. And I see this among women more than men. Mentorship is so key. A lot of times, they're this default push to do things on our own, to not ask questions because we're smart. We've got a clear vision. We don't want anyone to, like, get in the way. But I think again, especially as women, we seek mentorship. We want to surround ourselves with smarter people. And I'll speak of myself here. It's it's a key part of who I am as a a founder and as a person, a wife, a mother, a friend, whatever it is. Surrounding myself with people who are smarter than me, and who have different experiences than I do. It's I guess it's a more, like, lengthy way of just talking about diversity.
12:11 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. And so I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're open to different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So, Helene, what does being a CEO mean to you?
12:21 – Helene Berkowitz
Oh, gosh. Pressure's on. I think it's really about being the face of your company and answering to a lot a hell lot more people than you thought. I think there's this concept of, oh, you're a CEO. You're the big shot. You're the star of it. But, really, you're not. You answer to everyone else. You are everyone else is your boss in essence because you're answering to customers, to investors, to the public. You know, it's all out there. So when you're the face of the company, you are basically in service to everyone else. And that's something that I learned along the way, and something kind of surprising to me has been that sort of attitude. And it's been an eye-opener. I love it. It's taught me a lot, and I like to share that with others as well. When you're the CEO, you're a lot more than a face and a name and a title. You serve everyone else.
13:13 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And then this is another one of those kinda counterintuitive things that you sometimes think that you know, when you start something and you build it and grow it, I'm gonna be able to do whatever I want whenever I want and so on and so forth. But as you said Yeah. Especially as you start to scale and grow, you start to impact more and more people, more and more lives, and you have to answer to more and more people, and you serve more and more people.
So I think when you kinda understand that, it kinda puts those things in perspective on why you're doing what you're doing. But I think it's so important, I think, even in the beginning, to make sure that you do align and you are passionate about what it is that you do because you don't wanna create that, title, so to speak, or that job, so to speak, where you don't really love what you do or have that passion in in service that you're, ultimately providing.
13:58 – Helene Berkowitz
Yeah. Absolutely.
14:00 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Helene, truly appreciate that definition. I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome pages you and your team are working on.
14:15 – Helene Berkowitz
Sure. I see, a lot of potential founders. Let's call them people who have all these great ideas. And I think we've all, at some point one point or another thought, like, no. I've seen a company or a business person launching something, and we have the same idea. And we think why do we kick ourselves in the butt thinking, why didn't we do that? Why didn't I try that? I've never wanted to be that person. I've always been afraid of being that person. So I guess the message I would love to conclude with this, if you are that person and, you have an idea, you might think it's, invaluable.
You may think it's stupid. You may be afraid. Fear is a big concern, but it's also an incredible motivator. So my core message is don't let that fear control you. Try. Don't be afraid to try and fail. Seek help. Seek mentorship. People I feel like the higher you go up in your career, the more you're open to helping others because of what it's been like. So don't let fear rule. Try. The worst thing you could do is never try. So go for it. Give it a shot. I'm totally open to speaking to others and hearing your pitch, hearing you're your struggles and your challenges. Always happy to help others. I've been in that boat too.
15:29. – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And for people who wanna get a hold of you, what's the best way for them to download the app and everything?
15:34 – Helene Berkowitz
Yeah. Well, our app right now is in demo mode because it needs to be customized for every retailer and their unique customer needs, but definitely welcome to download that on both iOS and Android. The best way to reach out to me is either on LinkedIn or you can go to the website, receipt dot me, and reach out there as well, and one of us will be happy to be in touch.
15:54 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much again, Helene. We will have the links and information in the show notes, and I'm a big believer. Sometimes we we think the the pain of failure is the worst pain, but I like you, believe the pain of regret is probably way worse than that. So I think trying and and and not going the way we want it to go, Sometimes it doesn't, you know, end up in really great things, but a lot of times we can learn from those lessons and it makes us better at the next venture and the next venture. We can learn so much from that. So I think the regret part is something that, we all should kinda keep in mind when we're we have these ideas and we haven't done them. So I appreciate you for reminding us of that.
16:29 – Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
00:19 - Intro
Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. GRESTS values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.
00:47 - Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Helene Berkowitz of Receipt Me. Helene, it's awesome to have you on the show.
00:56 - Helene Berkowitz
Thank you so much for having me.
00:58 - Gresham Harkless
Super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Helene so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Helene is a retail tech executive and startup founder with a background in finance and international payment systems. She is passionate about technology with a human component. And in two thousand seven two thousand seventeen, I'm sorry, Helene founded Receipt Me to create a digital retail experience focused on the customer experience. Helene, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
01:24 - Helene Berkowitz
I am.
01:25 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So to kinda kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.
01:35 - Helene Berkowitz
Sure. So my story sort of got, sort of began through a very normal everyday occurrence. My husband is one of those guys who really does not like to buy himself things. So when he needs something I am being the nice wife that I am, volunteer to do that. Anyway, my husband needed a new pair of jeans. And like I said, he really doesn't like to buy himself some, of those types of things. So I offered to go to the store and get him a pair of jeans, but I accidentally bought the wrong size. Something that happens to many of us probably on a daily basis. So I wanted to go and exchange her for the correct size, but I couldn't find the receipt.
And as I was going through kinda digging around like we all, kind of have experienced, I couldn't find it anywhere. And other receipts from other purchases that I did have were either, the ink was smudged or, it was just illegible. And I sort of had that moment, that light bulb moment where I realized, we're living in an age of incredible technologies from drones and robotics to all kinds of incredibly rich deep tech solutions. And yet something as very very common as buying a new pair of pants has remained kinda stagnant and old school. It hasn't really evolved.
And it's a real pain point for consumers. We can't return or exchange things easily if we don't have the receipt. So we lose money on the things that we bought or we're stuck with things that we no longer wish to keep. And it's a real consumer pain point across all kinds of retail, whether it's clothing or pet supplies or, whatever it is. And so I started looking into what the digital options were because it occurred to me if I've thought of a better way to do this digitally, clearly, others have as well. And what I found was some digital solutions were better than others.
Most of them either weren't thinking bigger scale or or they were doing things they were issuing digital receipts in ways that were weren't really solving the pain point. they were sending receipts via email, which already crowds are already, large crowded inboxes. And I've realized there could be a better way to do it. I started my own company to put my plan into action, and here we are.
03:55 - Gresham Harkless
Nice. I definitely appreciate that. I love I think some of the best ideas, I think, sometimes we think that we have to, like figure out, how do I don't know, cure whatever, in order to to be able to create some big, huge solution. But I love the heart of what you've been able to create because I think that we forget that entrepreneurship is all about creating solutions to problems and pain points. Sometimes the pain points that we just assume, like, there's not a better way, but you actually drill down and figure out, okay. This is how I create something that does solve that pain point so that people can, be able to to to have a way to find their receipts and all of those things. And I think those are the best ideas because it's something that we're doing on a regular basis, and we just haven't found that solution for it, sounds like.
04:41 - Helene Berkowitz
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly so. And it's interesting because on the retailer side of things, you know, one could make the argument we're already so paperless or people are satisfied with emails. Why reinvent the wheel? But the thing is, on the retailer side of things, they are investing millions in technologies that enhance and personalize the retail experience. So even though e-commerce is huge now, mobile, social commerce, all those things are happening, retailers are still spending money to bring customers into physical stores. And so there's this benefit of, of course, it helps the consumer going paperless, no emails, no text messages, but retailers benefit too because it just helps increase ROI. It builds a better brand. It delights customers. So it's it really helps both sides of the spectrum.
05:31 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And I think that's where really phenomenal adventures start to take off is when you create not just a win opportunity, but a win win win opportunity. And when you kinda see that synergy and how you can kinda make sure that that happens. And so I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper here a little bit more on how it works and how it serves the clients that you work with.
05:49 - Helene Berkowitz
Sure. So what Receipt Me is in essence is a two, two I call it a two-pronged system. So on the one hand, we have we've built an API that kind of piggybacks onto a retailer's point-of-sale system. Just real quick, I don't I'm not sure. Assuming that some in your audience may not know what a point of sale system is. Yes. Point of sale or POS is, basically, the computerized cash register. The clerk will swipe your card or you'll do, like, a tap-and-pay solution. Whatever it is, it's the computer system that accepts your payment for whatever it is you're buying. So our API, think of it like a kinda like a software integration tool that sits on the point of sale.
Once, a transaction has been completed, regardless of pay we call ourselves payment agnostic, so it's not really connected to any specific type of payment, whether it's, you know, credit, debit, cash, whatever it is. Our API kicks in. It captures the transaction record that would normally go from the point of sale to the receipt printer, and we disrupt that flow of traffic as it were. We capture that record, and we route it to the shopper's smartphone. What we do is we the way that we uniquely identify each shopper from another think of if you're if you have five customers in line, they can't all be getting the same receipt.
So we take the shopper's mobile phone number, which is unique to them, and we send the digital transaction to their smartphone. So that's one. That's our back end behind the scenes, high-tech API. On the front side of things, we've built a mobile application that consumers use to aggregate all of their digital receipts into one system. So I think all of us are probably familiar with let's say fifty retailers have fifty different apps. So rather than the consumer having to use Walmart's app and Target's app and, you know, a million other apps. They're using one system that puts all of that into one place. So that's, in essence, what Receipt Me is. Software and a mobile application kind of work hand in hand together.
07:58 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And I absolutely appreciate you for breaking downPOS and and and the API aspect of it as well too because I love that. And I think the beauty of everything that you just described is it integrates into an already existing kind of flow. It doesn't necessarily mean that, okay. Well, I have to do anything sometimes differently as a merchant or sometimes as a consumer, because you get that opportunity to have that sent to your, smartphone, and you can, of course, download the app to aggregate everything. But it also allows a retailer to be able to just kinda plug and play for lack of a better term, and then you're able to continue to kinda go through that same process.
08:32 - Helene Berkowitz
Exactly. So there's no, like, heavy installation. There's no physical hardware involved. It's completely a simple software integration tool. Takes maybe about an hour to install, for the retailers plus or minus a few minutes. And, yeah, that's basically it.
08:49 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And you get that, as you mentioned that brand loyalty, that greater experience for the clients and customers, hopefully having them the opportunity to to continue to kinda have people come back over and over again. So I absolutely appreciate that. And so, I want to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce, sauce, and this could be for yourself personally or your business. What do you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?
09:10 - Helene Berkowitz
I've always been fascinated by technology that has some sort of human element. I mean, I am one as well. That's how I got started, that pair of jeans story. As you can see, I mean, I am one as well. That's how I got started, that pair of jeans story, as you are as we all are. And so I think my secret sauce is thinking simplistically. I always joke that what's most exciting in retail tech today are all these, really incredibly, incredibly amazing experiences in terms of augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, biometric payments, and all these incredibly deep tech solutions. But at the end of the day, consumers really want simple things.
I mean, when is this kind of a joke? That's not a joke. When was the last time you were at a grocery store and saw a consumer holding their phone up to the cereal to the cereal aisle to, like, visually visualize how that might look in their pantry? No one does that. Right. So, like I guess, again our secret sauce is simple. What do people really want to make their lives more convenient, make things faster, cheaper? That's that's what we're all about.
10:22 - Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. I love that. And so, I wanted to switch gears a little bit. Yeah. And I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
10:33 - Helene Berkowitz
It's something again, rather simple and something that's, like, kind of kind of ironic in the entrepreneurial world. There's this whole vibe that you have to constantly be on. You have to go. You have to be on like, working from 6 AM till, midnight or whatever. Okay. And for a long time, I also felt that. I was influenced by that sort of constantly on never stop hustling attitude and that works for many. But for me, I find that I'm much more efficient if I force myself to take a break. It sounds kinda funny. It's not the most high-tech solution, but when I force myself to take a break, I come back refreshed. I come back with a new perspective, and I can do my job better.
11:14 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So that could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.
11:25 - Helene Berkowitz
I think that would be a mentorship. And I see this among women more than men. Mentorship is so key. A lot of times, they're this default push to do things on our own, to not ask questions because we're smart. We've got a clear vision. We don't want anyone to, like, get in the way. But I think again, especially as women, we seek mentorship. We want to surround ourselves with smarter people. And I'll speak of myself here. It's it's a key part of who I am as a a founder and as a person, a wife, a mother, a friend, whatever it is. Surrounding myself with people who are smarter than me, and who have different experiences than I do. It's I guess it's a more, like, lengthy way of just talking about diversity.
12:11 - Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. And so I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're open to different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So, Helene, what does being a CEO mean to you?
12:21 - Helene Berkowitz
Oh, gosh. Pressure's on. I think it's really about being the face of your company and answering to a lot a hell lot more people than you thought. I think there's this concept of, oh, you're a CEO. You're the big shot. You're the star of it. But, really, you're not. You answer to everyone else. You are everyone else is your boss in essence because you're answering to customers, to investors, to the public. You know, it's all out there. So when you're the face of the company, you are basically in service to everyone else. And that's something that I learned along the way, and something kind of surprising to me has been that sort of attitude. And it's been an eye-opener. I love it. It's taught me a lot, and I like to share that with others as well. When you're the CEO, you're a lot more than a face and a name and a title. You serve everyone else.
13:13 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. And then this is another one of those kinda counterintuitive things that you sometimes think that you know, when you start something and you build it and grow it, I'm gonna be able to do whatever I want whenever I want and so on and so forth. But as you said Yeah. Especially as you start to scale and grow, you start to impact more and more people, more and more lives, and you have to answer to more and more people, and you serve more and more people.
So I think when you kinda understand that, it kinda puts those things in perspective on why you're doing what you're doing. But I think it's so important, I think, even in the beginning, to make sure that you do align and you are passionate about what it is that you do because you don't wanna create that, title, so to speak, or that job, so to speak, where you don't really love what you do or have that passion in in service that you're, ultimately providing.
13:58 - Helene Berkowitz
Yeah. Absolutely.
14:00 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Helene, truly appreciate that definition. I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome pages you and your team are working on.
14:15 - Helene Berkowitz
Sure. I see, a lot of potential founders. Let's call them people who have all these great ideas. And I think we've all, at some point one point or another thought, like, no. I've seen a company or a business person launching something, and we have the same idea. And we think why you know, we kick ourselves in the butt thinking, why didn't we do that? Why didn't I try that? I've never wanted to be that person. I've always been afraid of being that person. So what I guess the message I would love to conclude with this, if you are that person and, you know, you have an idea, you might think it's, you know, invaluable.
You may think it's stupid. You may be afraid. Fear is a big, you know, concern, but it's also an incredible motivator. So my core message is don't let that fear control you. Try. Don't be afraid to try and fail. Seek help. Seek mentorship. People I feel like the higher you go up in your career, the more you're open to helping others because you know what it's been like. So don't let fear rule. Try. The worst thing you could do is never try. So go for it. Give it a shot. I'm totally open to speaking to others and, you know, hearing hearing your pitch, hearing your, you know, your your struggles, your challenges. Always happy to help others. I've been in that boat too.
15:29. - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And for people who wanna get a hold of you, what's the best way for them to download the app and everything?
15:34 - Helene Berkowitz
Yeah. Well, our app right now is in demo mode because it needs to be customized for every retailer and their unique customer needs, but definitely welcome to download that on both iOS and Android. The best way to reach out to me is either on LinkedIn or you can go to the website, receipt dot me, and reach out there as well, and one of us will be happy to be in touch.
15:54 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much again, Helene. We will have the links and information in the show notes, and I'm a big believer. Sometimes we we think the the pain of failure is the worst pain, but I like you, believe the pain of regret is probably way worse than that. So I think trying and and and not going the way we want it to go, Sometimes it doesn't, you know, end up in really great things, but a lot of times we can learn from those lessons and it makes us better at the next venture and the next venture. We can learn so much from that. So I think the regret part is something that, we all should kinda keep in mind when we're we have these ideas and we haven't done them. So I appreciate you for reminding us of that.
16:29 - Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
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