“… a cheaper, easier way to do point-of-sale transactions”

Interview by Kevin Ohashi of Ohashi Media

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Tom Greenhaw is the founder of Cashier Live.  Tom went to Arizona State University and got his degree in Political Science.  His previous job was at a supply chain management software company; where he was the VP of Operations.  Tom founded Cashier Live in 2009 with a vision to create a web based point-of-sale product tailored to the needs of independent retailers.  Cashier Live is designed to be a cheaper, easier way to do point-of-sale transactions.

MO:
What was the reasoning behind starting Cashier Live?  Where did you get the inspiration?  How do you go about executing on the idea?

Tom Greenhaw:
I was inspired to start Cashier Live after working with a variety of other point of sale packages on the market. Other systems were expensive, hard to configure, and difficult for cashiers to learn and use on a day-to-day basis. It’s also pretty hard for a store to get started with traditional point of sale, especially since you need to commit thousands of dollars up front to get it installed at your store. I realized that software-as-a-service could make a lot of these problems go away, and give store owners an overall better experience with point of sale software.

From there, executing on that idea was a pretty straightforward process. As the software was developed it was put into the hands of a few of our beta testing stores, only adding features as we received feedback. That resulted in a product that was immediately useful, but without unnecessary features that no one ever uses.

MO:
You signed up 500 companies in the first two months after your launch of Cashier Live.  How did you manage to get so many companies signed up so quickly?  What sort of marketing strategies did/do you use?

Tom Greenhaw:
One of the big reasons I think we’re successful is that there was already a demand for what Cashier Live is, but there wasn’t anything like it on the market. So we basically harvested a lot of pent-up demand when we launched. Every store owner realizes there are huge benefits to using modern retail management software but the traditional model is too expensive for them to justify.

We’re still in the stage of harvesting existing demand and we use a variety of marketing strategies to do that. As long as there are stores out there using old-fashioned cash registers we’ll have plenty of demand for our software.

MO:
You’ve been working quite heavily with technology through Cashier Live and your previous job. What motivated you to study political science instead of something technical?  Where did you pick up the technical skills?

Tom Greenhaw:
I’ve been working with computers my whole life, and I’ve been on the Internet since day one. I still remember when Web Crawler was the best search engine out there! When I got to college I switched my major over to Political Science after taking a few classes that really interested me. After working for Barack Obama’s campaign I was looking for something to work on which lead me to Nova Libra, and that’s where I got involved with point of sale software.

MO:
You work with your father on Cashier Live.  He is also an entrepreneur in his own right.  What did your father teach you about starting up?  What sort of role does he play in Cashier Live?

Tom Greenhaw:
Yes I do, not only are we a startup but we’re also a family business! He’s taught me a lot about starting and running a business, and still does to this day. The number one thing I think he’s taught me is persistence. Starting something new is not easy, and you’ll run into all kinds of obstacles along the way. Technical problems, regulatory issues, finding your first customer, critics and naysayers, and more will pop up for any entrepreneur. You need to be persistent to get through it all, and I was ready for the challenge after seeing him go through it himself. He still works on Cashier Live developing key features, and helps with customer support when he can.

MO:
Does running a business with family make things easier or harder for the company?  What about the dinner table?

Tom Greenhaw:
The dinner table is admittedly a disaster; we probably talk about work way too much. Whenever we get together as a family my sister is always the referee telling us to give it a break. The best thing about it though is that we can disagree with each other on some key issues, but we’ll always work it out in the end. That’s not always the case with other co-founders.

MO:
What sort of innovations and changes in the industry do you expect and how are you going to capitalize on them?

Tom Greenhaw:
I think innovation is definitely on our side. The future of software is providing it as a service over the Internet, and we’re leading the way in SaaS point of sale. As time goes on more small business owners will be using web-based software to help with accounting, and point-of-sale software is the next logical step from there. There are also a lot of credit card security regulations that are beginning to take effect, and using a web-based point of sale application has some important security benefits for a small business. We’re ahead of the curve, and I’m committed to innovating as new opportunities arise.