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Speaker 1: This is what the flucks. I'm Brett and I'm Justin

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Speaker 1: and it's Wednesday, the twenty first of January.

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Speaker 2: Get this, juzzy boy. The number of Australian businesses that

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Speaker 2: fell into insolvency hit a record high in the past

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Speaker 2: six months to nearly seven five hundred businesses. And that's

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Speaker 2: a forty seven percent increase on the six months friar.

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Speaker 2: Not a record that we want to be celebrating.

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Speaker 1: Certainly not Floxam. We all start the new year with

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Speaker 1: ambitious resolutions, but did you know that the majority of

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Speaker 1: Ossie's have already given up their resolutions by debuty Now

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Speaker 1: in the Flucks Academy this month, we've partnered with up

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Speaker 1: to launch a New Year, New financially Savvy you. It

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Speaker 1: will help you set financial goals for twenty twenty five

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Speaker 1: and actually help you hit them as well. So make

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Speaker 1: sure to download the blucks app and check out the

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Speaker 1: Academy this month.

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Speaker 2: Three mesmerizing stories Today, Juzzy boy, let's do it for

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Speaker 2: our first. West Farmers has announced it will be closing

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Speaker 2: its e commerce marketplace Catch after struggling with competition from

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Speaker 2: Timu and Amazon.

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Speaker 1: Yikes, and only a few years ago. West Farmers are

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Speaker 1: talking about Catches being the best thing since last Bread,

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Speaker 1: so tell me more. Well.

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Speaker 2: Catch launched back in two thousand and six as Catch

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Speaker 2: of the Day, which was a daily deal site with

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Speaker 2: one deal every single day.

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Speaker 1: You want a random one terribied hard drive for seventy

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Speaker 1: five percent off or about a suitcase eight percent off,

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Speaker 1: You've only got twenty four hours to buy it, and

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Speaker 1: Judsey bought.

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Speaker 2: By twenty ten. Catch grew to become Australia's most visited

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Speaker 2: online shopping site, and.

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Speaker 1: In twenty twenty the Catch founders sold the business to

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Speaker 1: West Farmers the two hundred and thirty million dollars and

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Speaker 1: it's fair to say this was looking like a pretty

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Speaker 1: good deal during COVID YEP. Shortly after the acquisition, Catches

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Speaker 1: sales jump by nearly seventy percent.

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Speaker 2: But as life returned to normal post COVID, so did choppers,

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Speaker 2: and Catches sales.

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Speaker 1: In fact be man In the past year, Catches P

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Speaker 1: and L statement has got hit harder than a clearance

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Speaker 1: rack on boxing day cost ninety six million dollars.

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Speaker 2: So now West Farmers has announced it will close down

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Speaker 2: Catch to stem the bleeding.

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Speaker 1: They reckon Catch just can't compete with your t moos,

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Speaker 1: your sheins, and your Amazon's anymore.

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Speaker 2: Mainly because Catch has lost its unique value proposition.

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Speaker 1: So what is the key learning here?

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Speaker 2: Big value proposition or UVP is critical for any business

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Speaker 2: to stand out in a crowded market.

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Speaker 1: It gives customers a reason to choose your business over

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Speaker 1: competitors and does.

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Speaker 2: Wait, would you lose your UVP, You risk losing your

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Speaker 2: spot in the market altogether.

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Speaker 1: You see b man. Catch thrived by focusing on daily

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Speaker 1: deals and big discounts.

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Speaker 2: But after its acquisition, West Farmers evolved Catch into a

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Speaker 2: broad e commerce retailer, which actually diluted what made Catch unique.

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Speaker 1: And be man. Without its differentiator, Catch found itself competing

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Speaker 1: on price against ultra low cost retailers like TMU and

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Speaker 1: shee in, where Cash just could not win. And on

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Speaker 1: the other side, it competed on convenience and shipping speed

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Speaker 1: against Amazon, where it also just could not compete. So

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Speaker 1: it's no surprise the Catches revenue dropped from three hundred

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Speaker 1: and sixty four mil in twenty twenty to just two

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Speaker 1: hundred and twenty seven mel in twenty twenty four, and

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Speaker 1: now it's all over red Rover For our second story,

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump and his wife Milania have both launched crypto

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Speaker 1: coins just before his inauguration, and these crypto coins now

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Speaker 1: form the majority of their wealth.

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Speaker 2: So you're telling me millennia made billions overnight. Just boy,

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Speaker 2: smells fishier than a Mari Lago buffet if he OUs me,

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Speaker 2: But I want to hear more. Go on.

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Speaker 1: So we know that on jan twenty eeth US time,

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump was officially sworn in as the forty seventh

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Speaker 1: presidente of the US.

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Speaker 2: But it wasn't the inauguration that had crypto bro's frothing

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Speaker 2: last Friday, Jazzy boy, it was a Trump tweet.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Donald Trump tweeted that he'd released a new crypto

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Speaker 1: coin called Trump and it was the only coin that

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Speaker 1: was actually endorsed by the preys.

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Speaker 2: And get this one. The value of Trump's meme coin

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Speaker 2: soared higher than his hair on a breezy, breezy evening.

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Speaker 1: We're talking his coin jump to a market value of

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Speaker 1: more than seventy two billion US dollars in just forty

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Speaker 1: eight hours, and that meant that Trump's personal wealth from

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Speaker 1: the coin was more than fifty six billion US dollars

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Speaker 1: on paper, but then on Sunday night, Trump's wife Milania

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Speaker 1: got in on the fund with her own crypto coin

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Speaker 1: called Milannia. This all feels a little bit like a

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Speaker 1: reality TV show crossed with some meme coin mania. You

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Speaker 1: are most certainly not wrong.

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Speaker 2: Ahu so what is the key learning here?

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Speaker 1: Meme coins are cryptocurrencies that originate from an Internet meme.

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Speaker 2: They're often just jokes or cultural references that are built

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Speaker 2: to ride the wave off Internet trends.

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Speaker 1: And of course often these men coins have no inherent

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Speaker 1: value or utility.

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Speaker 2: In other words, these coins don't solve problems, that don't

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Speaker 2: offer services, and there is no specific technology now. For example,

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Speaker 2: the Millennia website makes it very clear that the Millennia

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Speaker 2: coin is not an investment. They call the coin digital artwork.

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Speaker 1: And be man. Recently, we've seen some men coins saw

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Speaker 1: and crashed for a whole heap of people and movements.

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Speaker 2: Well, there was the hawk coin for Hawk to a Girl,

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Speaker 2: which jumped to twelve and a half million bucks and

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Speaker 2: then crashed in a day.

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Speaker 1: What about Peppy the Frog, which which has a coin

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Speaker 1: called Peppy which is literally just a frog wheth five

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Speaker 1: hundred million US dollars.

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Speaker 2: But as Millennia's website wisely suggests you should never invest

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Speaker 2: more than you can afford to lose, which is.

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Speaker 1: Probably what's going to happen. For our third and final story.

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Speaker 1: Sports Bet, the online gambling behemoth, is facing a class action.

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Speaker 1: Arts or betters have lost millions of dollars on in

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Speaker 1: game live bets.

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Speaker 2: Not many good things ever start with class action lawsuit.

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Speaker 2: Juzzy boys, so go on.

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Speaker 1: Says sports Bet, as the name suggests, a sports betting

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Speaker 1: company that was actually launched back in Darwin in nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety three. Now since then it's grown rapidly through its

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Speaker 1: rogue and incessant TV and social media and in fact

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Speaker 1: be man. Sports Bet is now in the top three

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Speaker 1: betting companies in Australia with Tab Corp and the owners

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Speaker 1: of Ladbrokes and Nets.

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Speaker 2: But now sports Bet is facing a class action from

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Speaker 2: its customers.

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Speaker 1: Yeah you see, b man. It's currently illegal to bet

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Speaker 1: on sports matches when that match is live.

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Speaker 2: Except Jusie boy if the bet is made entirely on

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Speaker 2: the telephone. So sports Bet created a kind of loophole

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Speaker 2: which enabled bets to be created on the app but

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Speaker 2: confirmed via the phone. But now the class action is

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Speaker 2: seeking a refund for everyone who lost money on InPlay

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Speaker 2: bets over the past six years and.

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Speaker 1: Be man, this could really hit sports BET's finances as

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Speaker 1: well as their reputation.

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Speaker 2: Big coll So what is the key learning here?

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Speaker 1: There's always an ongoing cat and mouse game between regulators

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Speaker 1: and innovators, especially in fast evolving industries, and in this case,

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Speaker 1: sports Bet introduced an in app workaround to make bets

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Speaker 1: seem compliant. But the class action claims they were just

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Speaker 1: skirting the law and it ain't legal at all, and

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Speaker 1: does it? Boy?

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Speaker 2: Sports bet isn't the first to roll the dice with

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Speaker 2: legal gray zones.

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Speaker 1: Uber bent the rules when they disrupted the taxi industry,

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Speaker 1: and airbb rewrote the playbook for short term rentals.

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Speaker 2: But this ain't sports BET's first running with the law,

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Speaker 2: is it.

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Speaker 1: It is not at all? I remember back in twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty two when sports was fine two and a half

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Speaker 1: million bucks for spamming its customers with emails as well.

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Speaker 2: So if this class action is successful, the jig it

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Speaker 2: may be.

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Speaker 1: Up fox Am. If you haven't set your year's resolutions,

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Speaker 1: in particular your finance resolutions, there is only one place

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Speaker 1: to do it. It is directly in the Flex App

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Speaker 1: in our Academy. This month, we partnered with after Launch,

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Speaker 1: New Year, New Financially Savvy you help you kick off

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Speaker 1: the year on a high. To make sure to download

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Speaker 1: the Flex App and check out the Flex Academy.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening and we'll see you on Friday