Jamie Lim is a 42-year-old family man and entrepreneur from Singapore. He is the founder of Sticky Singapore (opens new window), Joo Bar (opens new window), 8 Korean BBQ and Juju Coffee. Jamie's passion is restaurants, music, and Bitcoin. What you may not know about him, is that his businesses were among the first to use BTCPay Server in retail, in physical and online stores he owns.
Jamie recently began using BTCPay's Point of Sale for his Jojo Bar & Juju Coffee, check it out. (opens new window)
In this quick interview, I wanted to ask Jamie a few questions about his business, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency adoption in Asia and tell his story.
Jamie Lim and his wife:
# How did you get into Bitcoin?
Got really tired of traditional payment systems that require a deposit for all the terminals they “lend” to the merchants. It was through all the frivolous fees that I was paying that led me to Bitcoin.
# Cryptocurrency adoption in Singapore and Asia?
It’s still early days I believe, traction is very slow despite the awareness.
# Bitcoin projects that you like?
Most definitely, specifically BTCPay and nodl (opens new window).
# What is Sticky Singapore?
Sticky Singapore (opens new window) was founded sometime in the August of 2008. My main inspiration was really the desire to be my own boss and also to leave the mercenary financial industry. We’re based in Singapore and we have outlets all over the world now. We currently employ around 15 full-time staff.
# What kind of products do you offer?
We offer customised candies in all shapes and sizes.
# What ingredients do you use to make candy?
Mainly sugar, water, glucose, natural flavours and colouring.
# Customized candy sounds like a perfect promo product for companies, even in the crypto space. Who is it for, how long does it take to make a fully customized candy?
Our main clientele are most corporate folks from all sorts of industries, crypto companies are well suited if they intend to give out customised candies with their logos inside. Our turnaround time is roughly 1 week and all that is required are their corporate colours and logo, do note that everything is crafted by hand, so slight deviations may occur.
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# How you discovered BTCPay and why you decided to use it?
On Twitter. I found it to be very intuitive with a nice tutorial to walk you through.
# How hard/easy it was to integrate it into your online store?
My online store runs on Wordpress. Once I installed the plugin (opens new window), it was pretty straightforward.
# Are there any features missing in BTCPay that would help you and your business?
None at the moment but if I had to nitpick, I want the BTCPay POS app to be more comprehensive. Just hoping for more adoption in the meantime.
# How do customers react when they see that you accept Bitcoin?
They mostly just go wow and that’s about it lol...
# How frequently do your customers pay in Bitcoin?
Not very frequent unless they’re bitcoiners themselves.
# What are some of the difficulties of being a business accepting Bitcoin?
Here in Singapore, most people are still not very receptive due to all the scams in the crypto space. I say the difficulties are that you may be seen in a not so positive light.
# You accept Lightning Network payments as well. Can you tell me about the integration process? How hard/easy it was to connect the external node in BTCPay?
Oh man, the integration was a breeze with Nodl, outrageously easy.
# Your Lightning Network experience so far?
I absolutely love it! Hand on my heart, I’ve had ZERO problems so far. The main issue Lightning Network solves is really the speed at which you receive a payment into your own private node with no dependency on any 3rd party payment providers, this is huge for me 😃
# What's next for Sticky Singapore and yourself?
We’ve been in the business for more than 10 years and we certainly look forward to more international franchisees joining the Sticky family!
As mentioned earlier, I run a few more other establishments which include a bar/cafe, a seafood restaurant, a Thai noodle house, and KOREAN BBQ!
# Where can people find you?
I’m mostly at my cafe in real life and of course, Twitter (opens new window) 😃
I hope you enjoyed Jamie's story and learned something new. If you own a physical store and would like to implement Bitcoin Point of Sale, like Jamie did, follow our guide. (opens new window)
If you're in Singapore, make sure to check one of Jamie's businesses where you can eat delicious food and drink amazing cocktails while paying with Bitcoin, on-chain or via the Lightning Network.
For those interested in Sticky Singapore yummy candies, you can check their website (opens new window) and make an order. They ship internationally. If by any chance you want to advertise your crypto project or business check their custom candies, where you can design your own candy (opens new window).