Dallas Johnson tackling new business opportunities

As part of RedZed’s Next Play initiative highlighting local businesses, Melbourne Storm are tracking down former players to see how their small businesses have kept them busy since hanging up the boots.

Dallas Johnson, who played 157 games for Storm between 2003-2009, has translated his success on the footy field to co-founding the world’s first match-on-cloud payment product, Digigo.

Integrating seamlessly with ePOS systems, payment kiosks, cashless wallets and vending machines, Digigo provides a quick, easy and secure payment method that is making big steps to provide equal access to financial solutions for First Nations people in remote communities.

Johnson played in four consecutive grand finals for Storm, of which he won two, going on to represent Queensland and Australia. 

Looking to find a new passion post football career, Johnson said the opportunity to get involved with the technology was something he knew he couldn't turn down. 

“I'm a bit of a lateral thinker and I'm always looking at different opportunities and so when I came across this industry I thought I’d give it a crack,” Johnson said. 

“We went on the search, came across biometric finger frame technology and internal biometric and it's your vein pattern inside your finger which is unique to each and every individual. 

“It'll take a really accurate map of your vein pattern, or install and encrypt that in the cloud and then what we do from there is you can link that with the payment method, your card details, so all you all that's required is to put your finger in the scanner to pay for a product.” 

Johnson said there were several key takeaways from his six years in the purple jersey that helped forge successful habits in the small business arena. 

“The things I got out of sport, especially in a Melbourne Storm system, the club really reinforced you need to have a strong work ethic and standards and expectations,” he said. 

“From football going to work for yourself, it's trying to find your tribe again and the people around that support you. 

“Resilience is a is a big one, having to stick with it and find a way to prosper and move forward, being in that system and that club really reinforced that.” 

You can watch Johnson’s RedZed Next Play video here.