Paddy Delaney: RealStew

“Our goal is to have 1 billion users. How do you financially emancipate those who have been disenfranchised financially? Encourage them to do the most natural thing in the world; start a conversation.”

WHAT DID HE SPEAK ABOUT?

How to connect the world. Paddy shared his business model for how he’s creating a multi-dimensional social platform that allows people to interact with each other while redistributing wealth and supporting social causes. It has massive potential and there are already 350,000 people talking about it.

WHAT'S THE BACKSTORY?

RealStew is based on this: that people have strength in numbers, that communication is a natural phenomena, and that if you have the right power base you can financially emancipate everyone in the world. Tech giants in Silicon Valley already connect people, but the money only ever seems to flow one way (and it’s not your way). So Paddy had the idea of building a simple FTP site to help people combine energies and work together for social good.

The theory is that if you can encourage people to interact with each other every day – whether it’s through chat services, ecommerce, or QR codes – then wealth can be shared through the network between everyone involved in the transaction. With money changing hands and people making real money just from talking, RealStew has already overcome one of the biggest challenges that software services companies face – how to turn a profit.

WHAT IS HE DOING ABOUT IT?

After launching in New Zealand a couple of years ago, RealStew now has 350,000 users every day across 201 countries. In the last 24 hours, there were 1.6 million conversations taking place. As well as blogging and gaming, they also have an ecommerce platform that hosts around 290 stores, with 25,000 transactions happening every month. This all sounds pretty standard, but what’s interesting about RealStew is that they don’t have any employees.

Instead, the revenue from each transaction is shared between relevant members through an algorithm. This process is completely transparent, with everyone publishing details of their earnings. Even though it’s early days, turnover for March was £59,000 and they now have 10,000 members and a 30% month-on-month sign up. This probably makes RealStew the first ever software and services company to actually make a profit.

It’s a client-centric approach that is redistributing global wealth through conversation. Because it’s subscription-based, members can rely on revenue coming in every month. Some of these members have never had a bank account before but now have a steady income stream to support their families. And these are users that even Amazon and eBay can’t touch.

NEXT STEPS …

Reaching more people. RealStew has some amazing case studies that are attracting media attention. As more people sign up, they are creating a captive audience of people who are financially empowered and sharing their story. Facebook might have more developers, but RealStew is growing fast.

www.realstewcorp.com