Sheila Gunn-Reid explores BarterPay, founded by John Porter, which converts $150,000 of Niagara greenhouse excess into barter credits for 4,000+ Canadian businesses across 22 markets. Porter’s new BarterIt platform, launching late spring 2023, enables person-to-person exchanges via digital "Bits" (1 Bit = $1 CAD), targeting pandemic job losses and inflation distrust, with a small subscription fee. Meanwhile, Gunn-Reid critiques Ottawa’s $60,000-per-person climate policies, defending farmers like Carport Carl against urban narratives while championing barter as a rebel solution to broken financial systems. [Automatically generated summary]
What's old is new again, including commerce, bartering for goods and services.
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gunn Show.
Over the course of the last two and a half years, a lot of people are discovering or rediscovering the old ways, the ways that worked for, well, millennia.
I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that the systems and institutions people thought they could trust and rely upon broke down with very, very little pressure or strain.
People took up baking and gardening and foraging for their own food and preserving their food and even hunting because they were worried about supply chain issues.
I know it sounds crazy in a modern society.
I think people are starting to rethink their relationships with their communities and their neighbors and realizing that those connections should probably be a lot stronger and our connections and trust in our institutions should probably be a little bit more decentralized, which is why I was so interested to learn about this parallel financial system right under our noses.
It's been there for a while, built by John Porter at BarterPay.
I won't explain too much of what John does.
I'll let him actually do that for you.
He does a much better job than I do.
But the pandemic has locked a lot of people's assets and services because of business shutdowns and lockdowns.
Businesses had a lot of money tied up in assets that they couldn't use, that maybe somebody else could use elsewhere.
So along comes this parallel system, BarterPay, to sort of unlock all of that.
Although BarterPay has been around for much longer than the pandemic, it was there poised at the right time to help businesses.
And now BarterPay is rolling that business to business connection out to the people.
Given that a lot of people have a healthy distrust in their own financial institutions these days, as many Canadians are now worried that their political opinions might disconnect them from their financial assets, I think bartering is a wonderful way to make sure that people can still get the things that they need without subjecting themselves to a bankster political litmus test.
All that being said, I'll just zip my mouth and let's hear from John Porter of BarterPay in an interview we recorded earlier Wednesday morning.
So joining me now is John Porter from BarterPay.
John, thanks for coming on the show.
There's so much I want to talk to you about, but I find it fascinating that your business has really done something special in that you address these, for lack of a better term, stranded assets that so many businesses were left with during the pandemic because of shutdown.
So, you know, businesses with cash flow problems were really able to address that problem and unlock the things they already had.
But before we get into that, tell us, you know, what barter pay is all about and maybe even a little bit about yourself, how you sort of turned back the clock on commerce.
Yeah, made what's old is new again, right?
It's barter pay, the oldest, newest way of doing business.
So yeah, I mean, I was heading to Waterloo University for Engineering back in 1996 and took a little bit of a left turn and got involved with some sales and marketing and door-to-door sales and whatnot, realized I liked, you know, that sort of world and met somebody who was sort of starting this barter company in Toronto.
And I thought that was a really great idea.
And long story short, they hosted a convention.
There was a couple of people there that were wanting to launch a business in Canada, the same, you know, similar type business.
And so I just came on board and got involved with that brand, did that for about 15, 20 years.
And then in 2017, I actually bartered my way to a meeting with Gary Vaynerchuk in New York and came back from that, got a lot of social media coverage off of that, but came back from that and then really launched BarterPay in 2018.
So we've been in the barter payment space for over a quarter century, but really it was way too early to market.
Back then, business owners weren't ready.
Their mindset wasn't there.
Nobody was thinking about alternate forms of payment, that sort of thing.
And so we just stuck with it long enough.
And along the way, my wife and I just celebrated 26 years married, but we've had four boys, age almost 16 to 23.
So that's obviously a busy time.
So building an unconventional business in a time where really nobody understands it or wants it and the technology is not there.
And then obviously growing a bigger, bigger family of busy boys was an interesting time.
So tell me exactly what barter pay does, because I find this fascinating.
But as an Albertan, I can definitely relate.
I'm a rural Albertan.
So we're trading and horse dealing on things all the time out here in the country.
I mean, you're just far away from town.
It's what you do.
So I understand it, but I think it's really interesting that you've brought this to sort of the e-space, which I think is incredible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're very, you know, grateful for this opportunity to serve businesses in this way and soon to be people.
We'll get into that in a bit.
But at the end of the day, Barter Pay, what we are a company now that helps hundreds, sorry, thousands of Canadian businesses, all Canadian businesses that want to participate get the things that they need without having to use their hard-earned cash.
And so, yeah, we do that across the country and in multiple different cities, but we all know that, you know, like you've already mentioned, bartering is really the oldest form of commerce.
It's how business was invented a long time ago.
And so, but we also know that for two parties to enter into a fair trade, each side has to want what the other person has at the same time and value or they can't make that deal.
It's actually called the coincidence of wants.
And so, yeah, to solve that problem, we've just created this platform that allows a business to open an account with barter pay.
They can establish an account number, then they can offer up their goods or services onto the system.
And we only really focus on what we call, you already alluded to this, their spare capacity, possibly stranded assets, that type of thing.
For a service-based business, that's time and space that's expiring.
For a product-based business, that's extra idle inventory sitting in the warehouse or on the shelf that normally they'd have to discount.
And so, yeah, they offer up this spare capacity onto the network and they're able to bank barter credits in exchange.
And one barter credit equals one Canadian dollar for valuation purposes.
And as they bank this new revenue stream of barter credits, they're able to then take that barter value and go and barter and trade with anybody in the entire network.
They're not restricted to those that acquired their good or service.
So instead of this one-to-one conundrum of bartering, it's now this one-to-many ecosystem, this sharing economy, this bartering network that allows all these businesses to monetize their spare capacity in real time and all get what they need through the barter credit system.
So how many businesses are actively using this?
I think it's, as I said before, I think it's just fascinating that you figured out this way to connect people with things that they have, but they can't use with people who want it and have this other thing that they can't use.
So how many businesses are involved in this?
Yeah, and I'd love to chat about a couple of examples.
Sure, that'd be great in a moment.
But just to answer your question, like we have about just over 4,000 businesses in about 22 different markets across Canada.
It's a very painstaking process to grow a parallel economy, especially a bartering system that's dealing in a new form of digital medium of exchange, right?
So, which is the barter credits themselves.
If you can picture 20, 25 years ago, I was 20 years old and I was starting this barter system.
And I would go through the yellow pages to try and find different potential clients.
And one of them was an office furniture place.
And so we just found out that he had been pulled out a bunch of used furniture from McMaster University and put in a bunch of new stuff.
Anyways, long story short, I'm chatting with him.
Hey, can we barter some workstations for our new office?
He says, sure, 3,000 barter credits is good.
And so I made that deal.
And as I'm filling out the actual application to onboard him as the very first customer, he's like, well, where can I use my barter credits once I gain them?
I said, sorry, Terry, like you're the first guy.
Like, you just got to trust that we're going to build this.
And so it's been very difficult to grow.
But again, we just stuck with it long enough.
And, you know, for such a time as this, we now realize 25 years later that it's actually going to become mainstream and really help a lot of businesses through these times, right?
You know, when you and I were talking the other day before I was so intrigued that I thought you better come on the show, you were telling me about how essential this is for people with perishables.
Absolutely.
There's a number of examples there from both from the time and space side, you know, service-based businesses and the product-based businesses.
You know, products have shelf life, most of them.
But for example, we did a deal recently, about a year ago with a greenhouse in Niagara region where I live.
And we found out that they were going to be putting in their compost pile about $400,000 worth of really great quality plants.
They just had, you know, they're a pretty big operation.
They just had extra plants that they didn't sell.
And they're used to kind of having that dump pile kind of built at the end of each season.
So we said, well, don't do that.
Why don't you join the barter pay system?
We'll advertise out your, you know, these SKUs to our network.
We'll sell off some of those plants into barter credits and then you can use the barter credit.
So anyways, thank goodness it was about it was about October and it was a warmer week that October, thank goodness, because we ended up selling off about $150,000 worth of plants.
He then banked those barter credits.
He was able to use them for things like printing and marketing and web development.
And he even gave, I think, 50,000 or more to charity through our Barter Pay It Forward foundation.
We also have a charitable arm in the whole thing.
So yeah, it's like a super cool story of what was going to be going into the compost pile is now being, you know, is capturing that value and now being redistributed for his own use and also to local charities.
Now, tell me about that charitable part, because I think that's an incredible thing too.
Not only are you helping businesses connect with other businesses so that they can utilize the things that normally would just be a write-off, but you also are giving back to communities.
Absolutely.
We really want to be a community impact business in that way.
One of our biggest whys, it is our biggest why right now is helping small businesses and helping the community as well.
So essentially, we've got thousands of businesses that are on the platform and that's growing.
We're teaching them to barter that spare capacity, monetize it, capture that value and use those barter credits to offset future cash expenditures to boost their bottom line, help with cash flow.
But at the same time, we're saying, hey, in order to be competitive in today's environment, you really have to be connected to your community as well.
But we also know that these small businesses don't have much cash to give back.
And so we've just invented a new way for businesses to barter, but also to fund charity.
So we established the Barter Pay It Forward Foundation, a Canadian registered charity.
And now we've got thousands, hundreds of thousands of barter credits being donated to our foundation from these businesses.
We take those barter credits.
We issue a charitable tax receipt.
We give them a great pat on the back and a social media shout out and they're happy about that.
But then we take these barter credits in our foundation and we distribute them to charities across Canada in all the communities that we're in.
And then those charities, this is the best part, take those same barter credits and spend them right back into the same ecosystem from where they were generated to begin with.
So, again, it's this closed loop exchange of value where now we're looping in all these charities to offset their admin and overhead costs.
Like they need, you know, video production, website production, swag, you know, printing costs, you know, all sorts of things that they need for their charity to run their charity.
And we want to help them reduce those admin and overhead costs so that more of the precious donor cash can go to the end cause instead of administration.
So yeah, it's such a great feeling for us and our team loves it.
It's why we come into the work, come into work and do the work that we do.
Now, yeah, I think that's it's it's great because I think at the end of the day, the charities probably those barter credits go a little bit further than cash would if you're out spending cash in the real world because of the ability to sort of negotiate what they want for what you know for the cost that they're willing to pay.
But what's the point of entry for a business that wants to get involved in the system?
Because I think it might be a little overwhelming.
So what's the point of entry and how is it easy?
Is it scary?
I'm a little scared, but I'm also scared of crypto.
So tell me how this works.
So we're really big on making sure there's a, there's a right fit.
And so our process for onboarding new businesses into the platform, you know, we're actually building out an app that will help this onboarding process and sort of teaching and training and make it more self-serve.
But in the meantime, our process is working.
What we do is we go to our website, barterpay.ca.
And from there, you can scan the website, get started, watch a few videos, and hit the get started button.
All that's going to do is book you into a quick 15-minute discovery call with one of our business development people, mainly Cody.
And Cody will spend 15 minutes just kind of asking about your business.
He will assess whether or not there's a fit, make sure you actually have spare capacity, whether it's time and space or extra inventory, because that's the best way to kind of enter the network.
And it's all about just banking some barter credits and then utilizing some barter credits.
And then there's no contract, there's no minimums, there's no nothing like that.
It's just a matter of trying it out.
And if you like it, you'll keep doing it.
If you don't like it, that's okay.
We part ways, knowing a bit more about each other's business.
And if we don't feel there's a fit for your business right now or for the prospect business, we'll just say, hey, you know what?
This isn't a good time.
We don't have a need for this in the network or whatever the case may be.
We're also, as much as we have a technology that sort of manages all the transactions, we actually really pride ourselves in being a human-to-human connection in terms of our relationship with our clients.
And so every business that comes into the platform, we assign them a real life barter coach, a real life person that manages about a 200 to 300 client portfolio.
And that coach is an extension of their team, both from helping them market that spare capacity out to the network so they can earn barter credits and capture that value, but also maybe more importantly on the spending side, on the utilization side, where they're like, hey, here's my wish list of what I'm looking for.
Can you kind of put together some deals and find me some vendors that I can use barter credits with instead of having to touch my cash?
And so that's a really great feature for the barter pay B2B side is the barter coach aspect.
Barterit: Moving Credits Forward00:09:34
You know, I think that's wonderful.
If you're a small business owner and you've tried to actually talk to a human being at the bank, it can be a days long challenge.
So to provide business coaching just as part of getting involved in the system, I think that's a great value to a lot of businesses.
But you've expanded this barter system to normal people out there who maybe have, again, I say stranded assets, or they want to barter the old-fashioned way, person to person, the way it was in the villages for millennia before the big banks and the government got involved.
So tell us about that.
Yeah.
So we've been approached numerous times over the last five to 10 years about how we can extend this.
Kind of like the charities were approaching us to make it part of the charitable sector.
People have been asking, how do we barter?
And we've kind of, we're just busy building the B2B side and the charitable side.
So we really didn't have time.
But over the last couple of years, obviously, with where things are at, it's become even more prominent and prevalent.
So my wife and I thought about it and we're like, hey, six months ago, four to six months ago, we decided to build a brand and we launched a landing page.
It's barterit.ca.
So just barter it.
It's going to be barter it is the name of the person-to-person barter system that we're developing.
And for such a time as this, right?
It's everybody wants community.
Everybody wants the sharing economy.
Everybody wants to be part of the heart of a new way to transact, that sort of thing.
Everybody's got, but the people also get back to the coincidence of wants, they have things that they want to offer, but it doesn't necessarily line up with what they need from somebody who wants their stuff, right?
So we have to create a way that these people can actually barter and trade their skills, their time, their expertise, their products, they're downsizing their home, extra goods that they might have, right?
And there's got to be a way that they can do that in an organized way.
And that's where the BarterIt app that we're launching in the next six months or so is going to solve those problems.
I think it's incredible because there are so many people out there who are suffering pandemic job loss, but they are skilled, or maybe they are liquidating their business because the government destroyed it.
And so they have, again, all these assets.
They need to connect to somebody somewhere else who needs these things.
And there are a lot of people who just want to check out of the inflationary system and go back to doing things the old way.
And you're giving them this opportunity.
Now, what's the cost to entry for people who want to get involved in this system once it's fully built out?
Yeah.
So once we're not going to be charging, like on our B2B side, we charge a commission, like a deferred sales commission for every transaction that we set up because we do a lot of work for those businesses.
For the people side, it's going to be very self-serve.
We're all about providing them the tools and the ability to barter.
And whether they use, you know, the digital medium of exchange in that system is going to be called Bits.
You know, one Bit equals one Canadian dollar for valuation purposes.
Whether they choose to barter directly because they got lucky, or they just want to give something away for free or have a coffee with somebody because they met them through the Barter It Community app, or they want to exchange within Bits.
It doesn't really matter to us.
The fact is, it's just going to be a small subscription fee, is likely the way we're going to go with that in terms of a revenue model so that we can continue to build it out and provide awesome features.
Think Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji, but only in a bartering economy with like-minded community and friends, right?
So that's kind of what's going to happen there.
You know, I really think that this addresses a real concern for a lot of Canadians who are worried about the imposition of social credit into our financial systems.
And I'll talk politics.
You don't have to, but there are a lot of people who are feeling the real threat of their personal, political, peacefully held opinions, disconnecting them from their bank account thanks to the government.
And I think for a lot of people, they're going to see what Barter It offers and say, you know, at least there, at least there, I can still exchange what I have with somebody else who wants it without my bank account being frozen because I gave five bucks worth of coffee to a trucker one time.
Yeah, that's all great points there.
I mean, it's, again, bartering is the oldest form of commerce.
It's never going to go away.
It's, it's, you know, these direct trades are always going to happen.
All we're doing is making it easier for people to connect in this system, in this community, and then have this, you know, digital medium of exchange with the bits to be able to solve that coincidence of wants.
And so that people can offer what they have, get those bits, and then go get what they need.
And everybody's working together in this sharing economy.
It makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
Now, what is the timeline for development of this?
because I know you're sometimes, I don't know about you, but it feels like I'm trying to fix the airplane as it's in the air.
Exactly.
And so you've already got barter pay up and running.
And so you've got to manage that.
But what's the timeline for the build out for barter it?
Yeah, so we spent a lot of time last year designing with UXUI all the screens for our barter pay sort of app that we're going to be building out.
And that really can be transferable over to the barter it side.
So we got a bit of a head start on that in that aspect.
But really we're in this bit of a chicken and egg right now, no pun intended.
In fact, our technology company is called Chicken and Egg Technology Corp.
But yeah, we've been approached by a lot of people in the last month who've been hearing about barter pay and barter it, especially the barter it side.
And this is bigger than me.
It's bigger than my wife.
It's bigger than my team of 30 people with 150 years experience in this space.
We need help.
And so we've had people making some donations just out of the blue, which is amazing.
We really thank them for that.
But we're going to open this up.
We've got people that want to invest.
But the ROI for the investors is more than financial gain.
It's all about their helping build a new way of doing business, a new way of transacting, a new way of connecting people, like you've already alluded to.
So that's really cool.
And so we're just deciding what we're going to do there.
We've got a lawyer in Calgary, a great lady who's working on our shareholders agreement and some things there.
So it's really just a matter of mapping that out.
We've got a call this afternoon with an equity crowdfunding company out of BC.
And so we might go that route and allow everybody to participate that wants to sort of be involved, which is, you know, would be amazing.
So yeah, we're about to, you know, I think it's going to be about a six-month process from the time we actually get the funding that we need.
And then we can really sprint to the finish line and deliver the solution, hopefully, you know, late spring of 2023 kind of thing.
So how do people get involved at this point?
If people want to throw some money because they're moral investors and they see this sort of disconnecting from the existing financial system as a moral move, or if they're, you know, just money motivated folks and I'm a capitalist, so I get that too.
So how do people get involved at this stage in barter it?
So the best thing to do right now is to go to the barterit.ca website, www.barterit.ca.
There's a landing page there.
There's a quick little form.
You fill that form out so that we know we're connected.
We're then going to do all the updates via email to that group.
There's thousands of people who are signing up.
And obviously there'll be much more as we make the story known.
And so it's, yeah, we're excited about that.
So that's that's step one is get on that list.
And then from there, as we as we map out this plan and have a concrete way to move forward in terms of the investment side, then we will do that through that email campaign, right?
And make sure everybody's aware of it.
And then from there, we'll just find the right partners and move forward.
But actually, if somebody wants to make a donation even in the short term, just right down below on the screen, there's going to be an e-transfer email that you can send an e-transfer to.
So we'd be happy to take a donation, obviously.
But yeah, just whatever support that we can get, we're really, really grateful for and honored to be able to serve in this way.
I think it's wonderful because part of the Rebel ethos is to do things differently and build some success doing things as a response to the failed old ways of doing things.
And, you know, you're sort of that, but also backwards.
So you're doing something new with the economy and with transactions, but your new thing is actually the very, very old thing.
And I wish you the best of luck.
And I really appreciate that you're bringing this solution to normal people at a very low cost to entry because there are a lot of people struggling out there.
And I think this will help connect those people to other people who can sort of get their cash flow moving.
And that makes me very happy.
Awesome.
Yeah, great summary, Sheila.
And I really appreciate you taking the time to have me on here.
And look forward to connecting with the audience and making sure that we stay in touch and build this thing for the people.
Yeah, as things move along, I hope to have you back on the show because I'm very interested in what the uptake is on it.
I think it's going to be exceptional, quite frankly.
John, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Well, friends, we've come to the portion of the show where I take your viewer feedback.
If you'd like to send me viewer feedback, it's really easy.
Science Over Emotion00:03:16
First of all, leave a comment on one of our videos wherever you might find it, either on YouTube, but YouTube is a censorship platform.
So if you're watching us on Rumble, leave a comment there.
I just might find it and read it on air.
Or if you want to send me an email directly, send it to Sheila at RebelNews.com.
Put gun show letters in the subject line.
So it's really easy for me to find because, well, I'm sure you realize I probably get a couple hundred emails a day and they're hard to sift through.
But if you make it easy for me to search, it'll be easy for me to read on air.
We care about what you think about the work that we're doing, unlike the mainstream media.
They just take your money and they want you to shut up and disappear forever.
Well, not us.
We actually want to know what you think.
And today's comments are from the YouTube comment section on my interview with Tom Harris from the International Climate Science Coalition from last week, where Tom discussed how citizens of Ottawa are turning up at municipal debates and absolutely hammering the local politicians on the issue of climate change and not so much the issue of climate change,
although there are some that are questioning the science for sure, and science should always be questioned.
But they are holding these politicians to account for the things they support.
If they support a multi-billion dollar climate plan that will cost, by Tom's analysis, I think it's $60,000 per citizen of Ottawa, including the babies.
Somebody should have some answers for these people when they turn up at the municipal debates.
They should have some very good answers before they stick you with a bill that is akin to the cost of an electric car.
You know, if you want an electric car, I wouldn't advise when they don't really work in Ottawa weathers.
Anyways, Cindy White Elliott writes and says, I appreciate how you cut through the narratives to expose the facts and the relevance of an issue.
The experts like Tom Harris always support the truth and facts as we know them to be.
I love, love, love your journalism, Sheila.
You know, that's the thing about Tom.
He wants to have a civil discussion on the facts.
Take the emotions out of it and let's talk about the facts, the science, the cost.
The problem is the other side wants to inject emotion into everything.
They want to listen to a little Swedish girl who's mad at all the grownups and insists that you be scared and panic.
And people like Tom and like our friend Michelle Sterling at Friends of Science, they say, no, let's have the grown-ups come into a room and we're going to talk about what we're doing, what we can do, if any of it is effective, if we even care if it's effective.
And for me, what does this cost my family at the end of the day?
For me, that's my big concern because I want to weigh the risks versus benefits.
And if Handing me a $60,000 bill plus my kids a $60,000 bill for literally nothing in return, I don't think that's a good risk versus reward.
Rejecting Emotional Threats00:01:58
Do you?
Moving along, Carport Carl says, yes, environmentalists, the climate does change.
It's called seasons.
You know, there's that too.
The weather does always change.
That's the nature of weather.
It is changing.
It's not cyclical.
It's different and different things affect it.
And do I think humans affect the climate?
Of course we do.
We affect everything.
We're just another variable in the grand scheme of things.
What I disagree with is the extent to which the left and environmentalists say that I've changed or harmed the weather.
You know, they keep telling me that it's going to get warmer and I keep saying, quit threatening me with a good time.
But what I really reject here is the idea that people who live their lives inside of a cubicle and call a 600 square foot high-rise personal coffin their home and who ride their bike everywhere because everywhere is concrete.
I reject the presupposition that those people care more about the environment than me.
I'm a farmer.
My livelihood depends on the health of the environment around me.
To write me off to say that I don't care about the environment because I think differently about my relationship with it is stupid and ridiculous.
And I just don't accept the criticism.
I spend more time in nature than the people who live in cities telling me that I don't care about it.
And I just, I don't care.
I really, I don't care about their cubicle criticism.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
Thanks to everybody in the office in Toronto and around the country who works hard to put the show together for you.
I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next week.