Claude Club, Tipsta and the long game of building

The swing towards digital payments means we often don’t carry cash anymore, which is not great news for car guards. EasyEquities CEO Charles Savage has assembled a small team that’s working to find a solution.

A few weeks ago, Charles issued a call: “I was looking for a small group of young South Africans willing to commit 30 minutes a day, Monday to Saturday, for 365 days, to learn how to build with AI,” he says. “No prior experience was required; just discipline, curiosity and the willingness to show up.”

And show up they did.

“We attracted a fantastically diverse group of people, ranging in age from 16 to 52. They’re professionals, students, creators and deal makers. They’re all investors who understand the long game.”

They called it the Claude Club – and they’re already working on something that’s set to help make small payments to the estimated 200,000 car guards who take care of our parked vehicles across South Africa.

Building something real

Claude Club is not a programme in the traditional sense. It is not about certificates or content modules. It is about consistency. And once it was started, it needed a focus.

“We needed a real problem,” says Charles. “And there had to be a business idea behind it.”

Enter Tipsta.

At its core, Tipsta is a digital tipping platform for car guards in South Africa that enables payments via QR codes and tap. It’s useful, practical and increasingly necessary in a cash-light world.

But Charles and the Claude Club are aiming well beyond payments.

“It’s a fully automated intelligence layer that serves car guards, tippers and the business itself through WhatsApp,” he says. “There’s no dedicated app or data literacy required. The recipient replies with one word and the money moves.”

That shift, from payments to intelligence, is where things get interesting. Because payments solve a moment, whereas intelligence builds a system.

Ownership changes everything

Then came the twist. Once the club was formed, Charles made a decision that flipped the usual script: active club members have an equity stake in the app.

The initial stake sits at 23 percent, which each members holding an equal share.

“Future investments will grow that pool,” says Charles. “The only requirement is participation. There was no equity on offer to attract sign-ups. It came after commitment. After people had already raised their hands.

“That order is not accidental. It is the point.”

Why this matters beyond the club

It would be easy to frame this as a niche experiment – a small group working on a single product. A contained idea. But the context makes it bigger.

Most of South Africa’s car guards operate on the margins of the formal financial system. Cashless payments have reduced income certainty for some, even as digital options expand. Platforms like Tipsta are already helping to bridge that gap. But most are focused on enabling transactions. The bigger opportunity sits one layer up.

What happens when a car guard can not only receive a tip, but also:

• check balances in real time
• build a savings habit
• access guidance and financial coaching
• eventually tap into credit
• and, crucially, own a piece of the platform itself

At that point, you are no longer talking about a tipping app. You are talking about access, about participation, and about a first step onto a financial ladder that has historically been out of reach.

Charles connects this thinking to a broader idea: “If you can put financial intelligence into the hands of 200,000 car guards via WhatsApp, you are not building a tipping app. You are building the first rung of a financial ladder for people who have never had access to one.”

There is also something refreshingly grounded about the way this is being approached. There are no grand claims about AI replacing everything overnight and there’s no obsession with tools for their own sake. Just a simple question: will you show up?

Charles puts it plainly: “AI is not a threat to builders. It is a force multiplier for them. The question is never whether the technology is ready. The question is whether you are willing to show up for 30 minutes a day and find out.”

The Easy thread

There is a thread that runs through everything EasyEquities has done over the years, which is making investing accessible, encouraging participation and treating ownership as something ordinary rather than elite.

Claude Club feels like a natural extension of that thinking. Just applied in a new space.

“The best time to start was then,” says Charles. “The second best time is now.”

And maybe that is the real takeaway here. Not the tech. Not even the structure. Just the idea that small, consistent action, combined with shared ownership, can compound into something meaningful.

Charles’s parting shot: “Stay curious, stay invested and stay in the game!”