The Modern Hotelier #110: Earned Wage Access: Revolutionizing Employee Compensation | with Tate Hackert
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Steve: Welcome to another episode of The Modern Hotelier. This episode, we're excited to release our conversation with Tate Hackert from Zayzoon. One of the things that I really liked about this conversation, David, was A, I like this guy. He is a young entrepreneur. He seems like a real go getter. And B, really liked learning about earned wage access, how employees can basically Get their pay on demand.
I thought, I thought that was really cool. I know I've heard about it, but hearing kind of the back end of it, you know, makes sense. And I love what he's doing. What about you?
David: Yeah, no, it's incredible. I mean, I, I mean, I, back in the day in New York City, there was a cash, a check cashing place right next to the hotel I worked at. And that's how, like, a lot of hospitality employees, you know, would go to get their money right away rather than wait for that check to clear through the bank.
So they'd go and, you know, they'd pay 7 percent or what have you. So this was something that was just kind of, you know, a more modern cutting edge way to accomplish the same thing, make employees happy and everybody wins.
Steve: Absolutely. Well, we hope you enjoy the show.
David: All right, enjoy it.

David: Welcome to The Modern Hotelier, the most engaged hospitality podcast. I'm your host David Millili.
Steve: I'm your co host Steve Carran.
David: Steve, who do we have on the program today?
Steve: Yeah, David. I'm excited. Today we have on Tate Hackert. Tate is the founder and president of ZayZoom. ZayZoom provides a fast, efficient, low cost, and convenient way for employees to access their own pay, reducing their financial stress, and saving them money. Welcome to the show, Tate. Absolutely.
Tate Hackert: Hey, thanks for having me on.
David: All right, so we're gonna go through a couple different areas. We're gonna do a lightning round, we're gonna get to know you better, your personal background, about your career, and then we're gonna dive into some industry topics. Sound good?
Tate Hackert: Let's do it.
David: All right, so what was your first job?
Tate Hackert: So my first, it's funny, we had a board meeting yesterday and, uh, after the board meeting, we ended up at dinner, um, and big round table. And we all went around and we actually asked that same question. What was your first job? Um, so I'm well prepared for this one. Uh, my first job was I, I ran the cash register at, uh, Goods Groceries, this local convenience store.
I was 12 years old. And I made 6. 25 an hour.
David: Not bad for 12 years old. So what's
Tate Hackert: I mean, also, also the west coast of Canada. So I think it was, uh, a little bit different probably. But, um, yeah, it felt like good cash at the time, certainly.
David: Alright, what's something that you wish you were better at?
Tate Hackert: Something I wish I was better at. I love playing music. I love playing instruments. I wish I was a lot better at it. I wish I could play the guitar very well and, and not just know a couple songs. I wish I could play piano. I wish I could play a lot of instruments,
David: What's a luxury you can't live without?
Tate Hackert: clean socks. I don't know if that's a luxury, but if I had unlimited dollars, I would have a fresh pair of socks every single day. Donate all the other ones.
David: What's a place you've never been to that you'd most like to go?
Tate Hackert: Japan. Yeah. We almost went to this past, uh, two weeks ago. We almost went to Japan and a typhoon hit, unfortunately. So we rerouted and went to Italy instead. But, um, that was, uh, that was a place that I've been wanting to go. And, uh, yeah, I still want to.
David: Yeah, not a bad second choice, Italy. So if you had your own late night talk show, what Who would your first guest be?
Tate Hackert: Oh, that is a great question. Um, there are so many people I want to speak with. You know, it would probably be, a renowned entrepreneur or someone that I think is a really clear and good thinker, in the entertainment space. So, so the first one that comes to mind is Terry Crews. I've, I've, I've listened to Terry Crews on a few podcasts.
I'm always so impressed with his takes and just his way that he communicates. And I'd love to go, you know, 10 times deeper on, uh, on conversation with him.
David: Yeah, that's a good choice. All right, this is the last one. If you had a time machine, which way are you going into the future, into the past, and what year are you going to?
Tate Hackert: I'd go. Into the past, if anything, um, because I, I want to be part of shaping the future. So I, I don't want to be going into the future and seeing what's there without me. Um, I, I want to go back to the past and, and, and shape it better. So, uh, year wise, I have no idea. I mean, I'm, I'm a nineties kid. I'm 32 years old.
Uh, I, I, I definitely, you know, there's some nineties nostalgia and I love it. So maybe that makes sense.
David: All right, cool.
Steve: I'm not going to disagree with you there on that one, that was great. So now we're going to get a little bit, find out a little bit more about you, your background, what makes you tick. So you grew up in Kitchener Waterloo, Ontario, but then you moved to Vancouver Island when you were younger. How did that shape you into really who you are today?
Tate Hackert: Yeah, so, uh, I mean, to, to, to, yeah, very much so clarify. So, like, I, I was born in Kitchener, uh, Waterloo, which is, is probably now sort of famous, um, for the, the home of BlackBerry. Uh, and so BlackBerry was started in Waterloo and it's, it's really this interesting place because it's, it's a, it's much bigger city now, but, um, it was very small. And I mean, the, the BlackBerry campus, you have these beautiful glass buildings and they, they butt right up against a farmer's field.
And Waterloo is infamous for Mennonite community. And so you have all these horses, buggies, riding around as well. But, you know, I, I, I go back to Waterloo quite often because my extended family lives there, but I actually moved to Vancouver Island when I was like four or five years old with my family.
And so when I think of my upbringing, it was really Vancouver Island that shaped me. it was, yeah, west coast of Canada, uh, small town, um, sort of this interesting mix between, I would say, like rednecks and hippies, um, which is, you know, they're kind of at odds with each other, but, uh, it was a really interesting, um, it was a really great upbringing, interesting upbringing.
I, I grew up on a farm, uh, my, my dad, um, had cattle, uh, Or my family had cattle. and, uh, yeah, I think like from the, from a young age, it always put me in the mindset of if I can outwork people, then I'll, I'll be successful. Um, of course, you know, you, you grow up, you move to a bigger city, you realize that there's a lot of people that can.
Outwork you in a lot of ways. Um, uh, but also you, you recognize that, you know, working smarter and not harder is sometimes the way to do it. Uh, but I do think those initial 30 years and, and, uh, growing up on Vancouver Island and, being involved in a lot of like blue collar industry did two things. It allowed me to get a sense of, A lot of different jobs and a lot of different people.
And I think analogies are very, very important in any business. and so they're every single day now, you know, uh, there's something we're doing at ZayZoon where I can draw on an analogy of You know, my time in construction. Uh, and, and, and we can use that to better a processor or, you know, better efficiencies in, in, in a tech organization, seemingly super unrelated, but I think, um, you know, very important.
And then the last thing is you get ex, or the second thing is you get exposed to, yeah, a lot of different, uh, jobs, but also a lot of different walks of life as well. Um, and so I think that that sets you up greatly for, yeah, success and, and everything else.
David: you attended University of Victoria to study economics and then you finished your final semester at City University of Hong Kong. So two questions. What make you, made you choose economics and what was it like studying in Hong Kong?
Tate Hackert: So economics was a choice. It wasn't really a choice rooted in much. Um, you know, I didn't know if I wanted to go to university. Uh, but my, my parents said to me like, look, if you don't know what else you want to do, like go to university because it's, it's a great next step and, uh, treat it as a, as a way to network and, and, um, you know, meet people.
And, uh, one thing that I always say to university students is, it's a very unique point in time where you can reach out to anyone. And you can use the card of, Hey, I'm a curious student at the university of X, and I would love to chat with you about Y and nine times out of 10, that person will take the meeting.
And so I think, you know, I, I really appreciate that about university. I used it as really a way to book coffee meetings and meet all the local entrepreneurs in the community. Economics was really just something that I was interested in kind of at a more macro level, like I'd always been involved in entrepreneurial pursuits from a young age.
And so always this like idea of like, Arbitrage and trying to make a buck and hustling here and there. It always was attractive to me. So I think economics fit in very well. Also, you know, I went to university. I started my first year of university in 2009, which was right after the financial crisis.
But leading up to that economics was a super hot industry. Um, because if, if, if you had an economics degree, you kind of go and do anything from that. Right. And the university in Hong Kong was stellar. We had this great exchange program at the University of Victoria, and we could have gone anywhere, really.
Um, and I picked Hong Kong because A, no one else from the University of Victoria was going there, and B, I thought it was the biggest cultural shock that I could get. And so that was sort of the thought process that I had. and yeah, very, very, very thankful that I did that. It was a really good experience and, it really introduced me to sort of the startup life.
Uh, being able to attend meetups there and, uh, network with other, you know, aspiring entrepreneurs, all of that. It was incredible.
Steve: That's awesome, and you also have your own podcast or video podcast as well. It's called Iceberg Principles. What made you start that, and what do you talk about on that podcast?
Tate Hackert: Yeah, so, um, actually, the last few months, there hasn't been consistency there, unfortunately, but the Iceberg Principle really was a sort of second iteration of one thing that we were doing at DayZune. So, we do these things called Drink and Thinks. Every single Friday, a team member presents on something that they're passionate about that can be work related or it can be something, you know, entirely personal life.
Um, and it's a way to sort of keep people connected, right? We're, we're a team of 170 now. and we're fully distributed. And so being able to bring people in and, and have them, curious and hone in on that, that sort of, uh, core value that we have of mastery, that thirst for knowledge and learning is something that's really important to me.
And so Drink and Fix is one way to accomplish that. And one thing that I started to do was bring in individuals. To kind of have fireside chats, if you will, and I realized, like, you know, this is great for the ZayZoon team, but there's probably a way to actually open this up to the broader community.
We have lots of partners, lots of small business, um, small business owners that, you know, have the exact same interests as you. Everyone here at ZayZoon has, right? They want to, uh, better themselves, better their knowledge. And so the iceberg principle was a way to bring in, really awesome, amazing guests doing really cool things and open it up in a intimate type way where it's a podcast, but it's a live format podcast where you can ask questions.
And so, um, you know, we had, Uh, like Cole Bennett. Cole Bennett is, is, uh, from Lyrical Lemonade. He's done music videos for the likes of, um, you know, Eminem and Blink 182 and, uh, forgetting, uh, you know, all the, all the big ones that, uh, in any case, like to have him on and have the team be able to ask questions and whatnot.
It was a pretty cool experience.
Steve: As a 90s kid, blink 182 and Eminem, it doesn't get bigger than that, you know?
Tate Hackert: That's exactly why I like those are the first two names that. I'm going to go over a little bit of the artists that come to me, but um, there's a lot more cooler artists, if you will, that uh, he's worked with since then. I
David: we, um, started recording just about, you know, some of your plans, some travel plans that just recently got changed. What's the favorite place you've been to so far?
Tate Hackert: love Mexico. I'm like, I go to Mexico, uh, often. I went to, I'm, I'm, I'm, I don't know if I'm pronouncing this correctly, but I went to Oaxaca, uh, for Day of the Dead last year. Um, so Halloween. And it was just, Such a spectacular city. Um, and so, yeah, sort of like some beach life, some city life. Uh, you know, Mexico has it all for, for me.
I'm learning Spanish and so it's always fun to be able to, to try to converse down there. Um, yeah, just really always enjoy it.
Steve: That's great to get to learn a little bit more about you. Now we're going to move into your career, how you got to where you are. So your first couple jobs were, were more blue collar. You were a deckhand at Evergreen Shipping Agency, and then you started your own company called Hacker Holding. How did these lay a good foundation for being a CEO and founder of ZayZoon?
Tate Hackert: Yeah, um, president and founder of ZayZune. So Dar yeah, no, no, no, no worries, no worries. Darcy is my co founder and CEO here at ZayZune, um, and uh, functionally what that means, um, just for, for clarification. Uh, Darcy, a CEO, um, you know, the, ultimately the, the, the whole team's, uh, you know, accountable to, to him, right?
Um, he, he, he, uh, manages, uh, accountabilities there, team structures, um, investor relations and, and our, our board governance, um, at ZayZoon, uh, product, uh, is, is, is something I look over, uh, kind of being the arbiter of the brand and the, and the customer voice. Um, and then a lot of the. Uh, big swing partnerships that we do here as well.
so, yeah, uh, you know, growing up on Vancouver Island, uh, and I'll kind of talk about how it shifted into ZayZoon. So, I, I, I, I did commercial fishing, I was, yeah, like a deckhand in that capacity. Um, did lots of construction, but commercial fishing was really the big thing and the big moneymaker. Um, and so as a 14, 15, 16 year old, I was able to take a couple months off school.
Um, this was well before the age of remote work, but somehow convinced the teachers to allow me to do that. And I came back with, you know, probably more money than I should have had at that age. And when I was 16, I did a second mortgage for someone. So effectively, uh, they, they were, um, they had poor credit.
They couldn't get a mortgage for their, for their home. And so I lent them money privately. And a year later, I got a check back with interest and I thought, wow, you know, that that's a pretty cool way to make money. Like I can give money out and get more money back. Awesome. And so I put an ad up on Craigslist that said something along the lines of money available.
And as you can imagine, I got hundreds and hundreds of emails and, uh, uh, I'd sift through those emails and Ultimately though, you know, you'd sort of run this like, at the time I didn't know what I was doing, um, really, beyond just intuitively, but you run this like risk algorithm in your head of, is this person worthy of this, this money?
Like, are they actually going to pay me back if I give them this, this loan? and so long story short, like between the age of 16 and 23, you know, while going to university and everything else, like I, uh, I lent out about a quarter million dollars in these short term small dollar loans. and what's really unique about that is as you're doing it, you, you see these trends emerge, which is, you know, lots of individuals making fairly decent incomes, but for whatever reason, they had, you know, Cashflow issues, uh, and they needed money to get by for, for, for a small amount of time.
that was really eyeopening for me. And it, it, you know, I'm, I'm a curious individual. And so it led me down this path of, uh, looking at like, what do these customers have available as alternatives? Like, why are they coming to me on Craigslist for money? And it turns out they have payday loans, uh, overdraft fees, or like, you know, pawn shops.
And it was just like these really egregious. the show, my name is Jon Bumhoffer, I'm the CEO of LodgIQ, and I'm here to talk to you about how to get started with the Modern Hotelier, David Millili, Steve Carran, Stayflexi, CRM, CEO, LodgIQ, Dr. Elizabeth Haas, Pierre Gervois, AIG, Dr. Elizabeth Haas, CEO, LodgIQ, Um, but can we do so in a way that, you know, wasn't credit, uh, was, was, was, um, acted on the wages that they already earned, but just haven't yet been paid for it.
So could we just simply accelerate their pay? Um, and then could we get repaid back through their employer? And if we could accomplish those things, we'd be able to offer a really seamless service, and not have any bad, uh, I mean, in the case of like a payday loan, bad debt, right? No, of course.
With, with ZayZoon, we're not offering credit, so it's, it's not debt, but you know, losses, I guess, on the money that we give out. And the net net result of that is we're then able to pass all those savings onto the consumer. And so today how that works is an employee can find ZayZoon in their lunchroom or in an email that they get or, you know, at their all hands meeting.
They can download our app or go to our site and within 90 seconds be signed up and have money in their bank account. And they pay anywhere between 0 and 5 to do so. So,
David: so you and your co founder came up with the idea, what was kind of the, the last thing that drove you guys to, to launch ZayZoom in 2013?
Tate Hackert: I always say that it's not really like this. Flash bang, like lightning in a bottle moment or, or, or, uh, uh, you know, light bulb moment. Um, I think you just pull on threads, right? So for, for, for me, it was how do I take what I'm doing in a really unscalable format and turn that into a scalable format?
And, so I had this thesis that, well, if I could include the employer in this process, Then, you know, I, I, I could offer it much better. And so the first step was, well, let's go to an employer. Let's go to an employer and, and see if they'd be willing to offer this to their employees. And so, sure enough, you find an employer and the employer goes, ah, I'd give advances to my staff all the time.
I'd, I'd love it if you took this off my plate. And so you go, okay, great. And now the first version of UNE was. Uh, an employee would come to our website. They would enter in their information and say, I'd like in advance, I would call up the manager and I'd say, Hey, you know, Steve is looking for a, for an advance.
Is he good for it? The employer would go, yeah, he's good. I'd log into my online banking and send money to Steve. And then, uh, I'd swivel chair over here and I'd send an invoice off for the employer. And, uh, uh, that was, you know, how we proved out the initial concept. And then, yeah, you sort of just continue to pull in threads and you realize, okay, well, there's, there's more demand for it.
And if we partner with payroll companies, we can. You know, distribute to businesses more effectively and we can take out all the manual processes. And, you know, fast forward today, we have 35,000 business locations. Lots of, uh, hotels, uh, uh, home healthcare, uh, quick serve franchisees, um, manufacturing, all, all of all of the likes.
Bouncing back to the things that are now, you know, using Zaytun to give their employees the benefit of on demand pay?
Steve: That's awesome. And most recently, you went through your Series B and raised 35. 4 million, and earlier in the year, got a 15 million extension on that. When you got this most recent raise, was that one of the most exciting times that you've had at ZayZoon or have there, was there, do you have another story like as you were growing something happened and it was like wow that either changed the direction of ZayZoon or it is able to enhance the company
Tate Hackert: raising money is very validating, right? Because it means that you're building a business that's, you know, valuable. You're building a business that's doing well and actually, so you Um, people are, are, you know, appreciative of the idea that you have.
And so I think that's, that's for sure like a super exciting moment, but it's definitely not like, it's definitely not the, the exciting moment. Like, um, it's, it's great to do, but it's one of those things where the press release goes out and you're like, all right, back to work. Um, so, so I, I think for me, like, I, I, I actually know, there's been a couple of really, really impactful moments as a, you know, I remember the first time where I was like, mind blown, super excited.
And that was the first time I ever met one of our customers in real life. So we, uh, flew down to, I'm going to forget the town name now, but it was in Pennsylvania.
Steve: Celensgrove, was it Celensgrove Pennsylvania
Tate Hackert: That might be right. Yeah, that might be right. Yeah. You know, you know, better than me. That's, that's amazing. So, so, so, uh, yeah, went, went, went to, went to the small little town in Pennsylvania.
And by the way, you know, we talked about Mennonites earlier in, in Kitchener. So Sullins Grove had like, you know, horse and buggies, uh, Amish, I guess. Right. And it was this crazy paradox between you had, you had a horse and buggy. And then you had this Holiday Inn Express hotel that had the most advanced payout system, you know, on the planet.
And that was integrated with ZayZoon. Their employees were able to get paid every single day when they wanted, when they needed. And we went to that hotel, chatted with the employees. Again, first time meeting employees that used our service in real life. And we filmed testimonial videos there, chatted with the staff, and we spent an entire day there.
And it was, um, It was so freaking cool. Uh, and then that sort of, you know, we, we, we've always tried to keep the, the customer at, at, at, at the, at the, uh, a major focal point at day Zoom, um, at the, at the forefront of everything we do. And so the second big exciting thing was this RV tour that we did in, in 2022.
Uh, and I, I, I, I mean, we can get into the story if you want, but you know, the, the, the tl, the TLDR is, we drove a, a RV. Uh, across 21 states over 75 days. And we visited, uh, visited all of our customers. So it was this big ZayZoon branded RV. and, uh, yeah, it was, it was spectacular.
David: That's 
really cool. So you're also the owner of Long Calgary and House 831. Can you tell us more about that?
Tate Hackert: Yeah, certainly. I moved to Calgary 10 years ago. and quite honestly, like Calgary wasn't a place that I very much enjoyed for a long time. And during COVID, I moved back to Vancouver Island. And it was, um, it was the move that I needed because when I moved back, I had been romanticizing this my entire life, right?
Like, like when I, when I moved to Calgary, it was fresh out of university. I was 23 years old, and still romanticized like the whole, you know, High school life and everything, everything there. And so moving back for COVID was perfect. After four months or so, I was like, wow, I, I miss Calgary. And so, um, ended up, uh, moving back to, back to Calgary, um, kind of, you know, 18 months into COVID or as COVID ended.
And, uh, yeah, I, I made this conscious decision to just like give it my all and, and really go for it. and part of what came out of that was, you know, I recognize that I didn't have a solid Network of individuals here in Calgary to really have like deep and meaningful conversations with. I found myself having amazing chats with scale up founders in San Francisco or New York.
And I wasn't having those same conversations in Calgary apart from with my co founders, of course, who, who are amazing. And so Long Calgary started as like a, Let's just bring some people together in a really curated format that are that are doing cool things. and so we started hosting lunch lunches for scale up founders that had, you know, revenues and employee counts over a certain amount so that we could talk about the same problems.
And then I started facilitating the same sort of lunches for, early stage founders that maybe are one or two employees and, you know, raised a little bit of money or hadn't raised anything at all. and so that's sort of like what the long Calgary movement has been. And, uh, then Four months ago or so in, in, in May of, of yeah, this year, 2024, I purchased a, uh, an old coffee shop and turned it into House 831, which is this house for, ambitious Calgarians that are founders, builders, or creators.
And it's really meant to be this physical manifestation of the Long Calgary movement, where we can bring together really highly ambitious, amazing people under one roof, and host events, and it's a curated co working space as well, but ultimately, you know, fostering great conversation.
David: cool.
Steve: that is really cool. That is awesome. 
This episode is sponsored by ZayZoon. ZayZoon offers your employees financial empowerment with earned wage access, allowing them to access their wages when they need them most. This not only reduces financial stress, but also enhances workplace productivity and retention. ZayZoon's seamless integration with over 250 payroll providers allows for an easy setup and no change to your current payroll processes.
Plus, ZayZoon's services come at zero cost to employers, offering a win win solution that supports your team's financial well being. Empower your workforce today with ZayZoon's on demand pay, perks, and financial wellness tools. Go to ZayZoon. com to learn more or schedule a demo.
Steve: So now we're going to move into the industry thoughts a little bit. How Zaytun is not only helping hospitality folks, but like you said, also quick service and other folks as well. So can you explain what is earned wage access and what is the importance and how does it benefit workers?
Tate Hackert: Our knowledge access is the ability for an employee to access their pay As they need it when they need it. A lot of people live paycheck to paycheck. A lot of people have cash flow issues. Um, unfortunately payroll is set up in a two week payment period, typically. but you know, real life happens on a day-to-day basis.
And so earned wage access is simply that. It gives employees the ability to, uh, log into, in, in our case, in into the ZA Zoom app. They see how much money they've earned, but of course are not going to get paid for the next two weeks for it. and they're able to access that money in real time. Uh, and so, yeah, I, I think like a perfect example is let's talk about, uh, uh, that, that Holiday Inn Express that we visited, right?
There's going to be a, Cleaning staff at that Holiday Inn Express or even the front desk manager, for example, they made a hundred dollars. It's, it's, it's Friday today. They've made, you know, a couple of hundred bucks by this point in the week. And, uh, they still know that there's nine days until their payday, but Hey, they, they, they have an expense that just came up.
Their, their, their, their tire blew out on their car. and so they come into the ZayZoon app, they take 200 bucks. And, uh, on their payday at nine days, that money is automatically repaid to ZayZoon.
Steve: Wow. Can they, can they do multiple requests within a two week period, or is it just one time in between, in between pay periods?
Tate Hackert: Yeah, they can do multiple requests, and so when an employee requests funds, uh, there's also multiple ways that they can access that money. one way is they can simply send those funds directly to their bank account. and so if you have a Bank of America card or a Wells Fargo card or whatever it might be, you can send funds instantaneously to your account, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
and we charge a flat 5 fee for you to do so. however, we do have a ZayZoon debit card as well. And so if you're someone that's streaming your wages very often, you can take our, our Visa debit card and you can stream your wages. Every single day as many times as you want or not as many times as you want in a day But as many times as you want throughout the pay period every single day and it's zero dollars So there's there's absolutely no no fee attached to that and then we have a bunch of other payout options available as well Venmo and a gift card option and etc
David: Yeah, comment and a question. I was very surprised and I was working with advising a cashless tipping company and how many hospitality employees don't even have bank accounts. So that, this just seems like a winner. And, and, you know, last year staffing was such an issue. It was actually one of our like set questions under industry topics.
And so as we kind of move past that, everybody knows there is an issue. Maybe can we've talked a lot about the employee side. Can you talk a little bit about how, ZayZoon helps with employee retention and helps the employer do a better job of attracting or maintaining employees?
Tate Hackert: Certainly. we, like to think of earned wage access. Like the, problem that that's solving for the employee is it's. Giving them money that they can, spend on things that they need. for the employer, the, problem that it's actually solving is recruitment, retention, and productivity, right? So we, know that an employer that uses, that offers earned wage access to their cons, to, to their employee base, is gonna have 29% less turnover than an employer. That, doesn't, we know that they're going to fill candidate pipelines twice as quickly, than an employer that doesn't offer it. and we know generally that their employees are, happier and more productive, than, working in a place that doesn't offer earned wage access. yeah, there, there's absolutely a, ton of benefits there. Actually, the other benefit that, we don't talk about as much, but, And the last thing that is so interesting to me is TILtheft.
So we have a large Wendy's that we work with, a large Wendy's franchise group that we work with. And after implementing ZayZoon, we got this testimonial from them, and they said, TILtheft Like stealing from the cash register had gone down by 80%. And so we were saving them tens of thousands of dollars from people skimming from the float.
because once they had availability to ZayZoon, they, they, weren't going to then take the risk of taking a 20 here and there. Right. and so I, I always thought that was a really neat use case as well.
Steve: absolutely. And one thing that we've seen in the hospitality industry is, more and more hotels and hotel, companies need to be flexible and they need to provide more benefits packages to really stay competitive. how are you guys doing that? And what's next for Zae Zoon?
Tate Hackert: yeah, I think we've taken the approach of being Very personalized in what we offer to our employee base. we do a lot of, employee surveys and, start stop keep meetings, as we call them. we, So we chat with employees and ask them like, what things that we're doing that, we should stop doing?
What things that we're doing, that we're not doing that we should start doing? and what are we doing that we should keep doing? And so we use a lot of that to inform, what do our staff, what does the
what does the ZayZoon team actually want? and look, we are not perfect. We are a scale up. We've gone from 80 people to 170 people inside of the last 10 months, and so we are very much having growing pains and trying to figure that all out and trying to please everyone.
while at the same time, knowing that if you try to please everyone, you please no one. And so it's always this really delicate balance point. But I think things that we've done that, we find helpful is, We offeZayZoonun internally for our employees. And ZayZoon has like a financial education component to it.
and then as well as the earned wage access component. And then we have a full selection of, worksite perks. So for example, we have a car insurance comparison tool that allows you to save money on your car insurance. on average, you save about 700 a year on your premium. And so these are like all really impactful benefits that, that we offer internally.
To ZayZooners, as well as obviously to our customer base. and the other thing that, that, that is really loved is just flexible health spending. instead of just providing people a set, X amount of massages, or X amount of, physiotherapy, whatever, just give them the health care that they need. wellness spending account and let them decide where they want to spend that money. whether they want to buy a mountain bike or a new chair for their office or, whatever helps them, be healthier and more better posture while they're working or whatever it is. Right. I think, we found that to be, very well liked.
Steve: Awesome. Zayzoon? What are you, what are we gonna see next over the next few years?
Tate Hackert: Yeah, we are going to launch other products that fall into that category of solving the problem of recruitment, retention, and productivity for the business. And so, like I said, Earned Wage Access is one of those products, but there are a lot of other things that we can do. You know, a little sneak peek right now in beta mode for us is a rewards and recognition tool.
The rewards and recognition allows an employer, especially these small business owners that are walking over to a target and grabbing a stack of gift cards. It allows them to do this digitally, um, in a trackable personalized manner along with, you know, messaging and, and, and what, what else? So, that's one product we're, we're really excited about that, um, you know, really feeds into the aspect of, you know, Helping clients retain their staff while at the same time, it actually feeds into our mission of saving 10 million employees, 10 billion, because it helps improve the money in our, in our customers pockets, in the employees pockets, uh, to these rewards.
So, um, that's just like, yeah, one of the many things that, that will be coming.
David: That's great. So this is one of my favorite questions, and you've already given a lot of great advice, but what advice would you give to the younger founders who are coming out there, starting companies?
Tate Hackert: I think it's very difficult to put this into tactical advice, but curiosity is so important. and curiosity with action specifically is very important. So I think you should be trying to, learn something. And iterate on that thing every single day. And so if you're trying to, we talked about the light bulb moment.
If you're trying to ship a company, if you're trying to create a company or create a product, don't build it into this big thing in your head where I need to raise money and I need to. build a product and whatever, break it down to very simple first principles of how, how can you go and prove this in the most manual fashion possible?
and go prove that. And then once you do that, like iterate, learn, iterate, go to the next step. And then, after, I mean, ZayZoon's been a 10 year in the making business, right? and so I think, curiosity and patience is super important.
David: good advice.
Steve: with one last segment here where we're going to turn the tables and you get to ask David and I a question.
Tate Hackert: Ooh, amazing. Okay. So, so I, I have like more of a, a general question, I guess. This is a modern hotelier. And you asked me like, what are we seeing internally at ZayZoon for benefits that are being appreciated? what are we seeing the benefits of earned wage access look like? Obviously, like you're chatting with me, because you're, you're, you're, you're aware of the earned wage access industry.
I want to hear sort of like your take from the outside view of, of of this industry progressing? Like how have you seen earned wage access bubble up in your conversations? Um, how have you seen the progression of the industry and is it exciting to you? Is it scary to you? Um, yeah, just maybe, maybe general comments.
Steve: So I, I think hotels and hotel management companies need to provide more flexibility to their staff. we need to entice more younger people to get into the industry and really view hospitality, Not as a, not as a career, but as an industry, and you can do so much in this industry, whatever you want to do as your career, but providing flexibility is how we're going to be able to do that.
Like you said, a lot of these folks are working paycheck to paycheck, so when you bring a tool in like ZayZoon, that, man, It just eases your, I guess your, kind of your thoughts. If something does go wrong, guess what? You're going to be able to get your pay earlier to cover that blow and tire or something like that.
So it almost gives that, like, peace of mind to the users of ZayZoon. But I think that all plays into having more flexible work environments, and really, you know, Creating a better, better work space as well for all employees. So, I, I love this. I think this is huge for, for not only hoteliers, but really those people that are, are living more paycheck to paycheck.
Or anybody that has something come up unexpectedly, right?
David: Yeah, I think the industry as a whole has kind of had to wake up post COVID and say, okay, we've got an issue. We lost all these people that have left our industry and You know, it's very difficult for someone to admit they weren't paying people properly, or they weren't really putting together career paths for individual.
And I can say this because I don't think many owners listen to our podcast, but you know, there's a lot of whining. a lot of 
well, I'm just saying a lot of people complain when rates are really, really high and ownership is making a ton of money. There's nothing that really goes back. There's no incentive program.
There's nothing that goes back to the staff. and I mean, I'm not talking management company, Steve, I'm talking the owner owners, but anyway. But so I think there needs to be this shift where you are making it a career, and you are rewarding those employees, or helping you take care of the guests, make sure the hotel is maintained.
And, you know, we talk about ADRs and we talk about staffing issues, but we don't really talk about profitability and what's going back to maintain and take care of your staff so that they don't leave and they don't go somewhere else. And I always say that, you know, when I, a lot of people that I interview for certain roles, I always ask, what's your, career path.
And if somebody tells me, you know, that what they want, and I know that means they're going to leave the company in a year and they're just using my company or the company I'm managing as a learning place. I'm okay with that because. I need them and they need something from me. And so I think it's just really, if you take care of it, the industry starts taking care of their employees, we won't be talking about staffing issues in 2026.
Steve: A hundred percent.
Tate Hackert: It's amazing.
David: that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. So Tate, tell us. Uh, how people can find out more about Zayzoon, how they can get in touch with you. This is your shot to plug away.
Tate Hackert: Sure. Uh, we are extremely active on LinkedIn, uh, ZayZoon on LinkedIn, uh, as well as I'm, I'm probably too active on Twitter. Uh, so Tate Hackert on Twitter, T A T E H A C K E R T. On Twitter, yeah.
David: Alright. Great. Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier, the most engaged hospitality podcast. Whether you're watching or listening, we appreciate you. We'll see you next time and thanks for joining us, Tate. We appreciate it.
Tate Hackert: Yeah. Thanks for having me. That was fun.
This episode is sponsored by ZayZoon. ZayZoon offers your employees financial empowerment with earned wage access, allowing them to access their wages when they need them most. This not only reduces financial stress, but also enhances workplace productivity and retention. ZayZoon's seamless integration with over 250 payroll providers allows for an easy setup and no change to your current payroll processes.
Plus, ZayZoon's services come at zero cost to employers, offering a win win solution that supports your team's financial well being. Empower your workforce today with ZayZoon's on demand pay, perks, and financial wellness tools. Go to ZayZoon. com to learn more or schedule a demo.