How a Simple Compliance Problem Became a Scalable Business
- Harvest Growth
- 3 hours ago
- 15 min read
In this episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, Jon LaClare sits down with Ron Tobb, Founder & CEO of Minor Decliner, to expose a startling statistic: more than 10% of IDs scanned with advanced detection technology are fake.
Not expired. Not suspicious. Fake.
For any business selling age-restricted products — alcohol, tobacco, vape, cannabis, or operating in casinos — this isn’t just a compliance issue. It’s a serious legal and financial liability.
Ron shares how Minor Decliner provides easy-to-implement age verification solutions that scan government-issued IDs, instantly verify age, and layer in advanced fake ID detection powered by continuously updated technology. The system eliminates math errors, detects sophisticated fake IDs in seconds, and creates a digital compliance record retailers can rely on.
Ron explains how the company was born after his daughter worked as an underage compliance investigator and discovered how often businesses unintentionally sold to minors. As a quality engineer, Ron saw a solvable systems problem — and built a company to fix it.
In today’s episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, we’ll cover:
Why retailers sell to minors up to 15% of the time without ID scanners
The real scale of the fake ID problem — including 20–40% fake rates in some college markets
Why traditional ID scanners fail to detect high-quality fake IDs
The three biggest risks retailers face: fines, lawsuits, and reputational damage
How a recurring software model strengthened Minor Decliner’s business
Why hardware-based systems build more trust than app-based scanning
Lessons learned from pivoting to Amazon and hiring experts to unlock growth
New innovations including theft-reduction beer cooler access, mobile driver’s license scanning, and biometrics
You can listen to the full interview on your desktop or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Or, click to watch the full video interview here!
This episode is essential listening for any retailer or entrepreneur operating in a regulated environment. It’s not just about avoiding fines — it’s about protecting your business, your license, your reputation, and potentially even lives.
To learn more about Minor Decliner, visit MinorDecliner.com.
Interested in launching or scaling your own product? Visit HarvestGrowth.com to book a free consultation and learn how our team has helped generate over $2 billion in product sales.
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review — and we’ll see you next time on the Harvest Growth Podcast.
Prefer reading instead of listening? Read the full transcript here!
[Jon LaClare]
If you're checking IDs at your business, here's a stat that should get your attention. More than 10% of IDs scanned with advanced detection technology are fake. Not suspicious, not expired, fake.
And if one of those leads to a serious accident, the liability doesn't fall on the person with a fake ID, it falls on you. We unpack this in today's episode.
[Announcer]
Harvest the growth potential of your product or service as we share stories and strategies that'll make your competitors nervous. Now, here's the host of the Harvest Growth Podcast, Jon LaClare.
[Jon LaClare]
Over the past 20 years, our team has helped launch and grow hundreds of consumer products, generating more than $2 billion in revenue for our clients. On this show, we break down what actually works in product marketing, real stories, real strategies, and lessons you can put to work in your business right away. Whether you're getting ready to launch or looking to scale what's already working, you're in the right place.
Let's jump into today's episode. Well, Ron, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you on the show today.
[Ron Tobb]
Thank you very much. It's great for you to have me and I'm thrilled to be here.
[Jon LaClare]
So for our audience, I wanna introduce Ron Taub. He is the CEO and founder of minordecliner.com. And Ron, I'll let you describe what is Minor Decliner.
What do you do as a business?
[Ron Tobb]
Thank you. Well, Minor Decliner provides easy to implement age verification solutions for retailers trying to make sure they don't sell age restricted products to minors. We also do several other things that we've grown into over the years, but that's really our core business to prevent underage sales to minors.
[Jon LaClare]
And can you talk about the technology? How does it work? So, you know, you go into, let's say a bar or a liquor store, things like that, or, you know, the first ones that come to mind for minors wanting to make purchases that they're not allowed to do.
How does your system work?
[Ron Tobb]
So it works in a couple of ways. We basically scan the barcode that's on the back of all US driver's licenses and identity cards. We can also scan passports.
We extract the data from that, which is the birthday, the expiration date, several other data points. And then we compare it to today's date to make sure that the person's over 21. And in addition to that, we layer in some technology to find fake IDs.
So that's how we can help protect the retailer. They won't make a mistake with the math error to figure out if somebody's 21 or not. And they get a very easy to use system with a compliance record that they can show the people that look at their records in this area.
[Jon LaClare]
You know, it's funny, you, in a previous discussion, we were chatting about how people at the counter as they're checking IDs and trying to do the math of the dates, I kind of would have figured, well, hey, if you're checking IDs all the time, you should know the dates that work. But you said it is a common mistake doing the math. How often does that happen where they get the ID, they look at it and they think they're of age, but they're just frankly not?
[Ron Tobb]
So everybody who sells an age-restricted item in the US, and this goes for alcohol, tobacco, vape, generally, cannabis also, but casino. But if we go to our core use case of alcohol and tobacco, they are tested by a local authority. And that could be the police department, it could be the ABC board, it could be the local health department.
And they're tested generally at least once a year. So the data we have from that shows that without ID scanners, people make a mistake and sell to a minor about 15% of the time, okay? So that's the data point.
So it's over one in 10 times where they're busy. The average retails transaction in a convenience store is seven to 10 seconds. The lines are long, people are tired, and it's very easy to get the date calculation wrong, or to not spot an expired ID.
And that's what the data tells us. And that's what ID scanners solve as a problem.
[Jon LaClare]
And thinking about this business, oftentimes we start businesses in fields that we're familiar with, right? So I almost would have thought like, are you a previous bar owner, et cetera? Like you've been in this world for a long time, but in reality, you're an engineer by trade, right?
So you were an engineer before launching this business with no direct connection to fake ID detection. So how did you get into this? How did it start?
[Ron Tobb]
Yeah, thank you. So as I was saying, everybody who sells age-restricted items is generally tested by the police or ABC with a real minor, with a real underage ID. And my daughter was one of those underage investigators.
So she got started working with the local police department, testing people for alcohol compliance. And she found out that in her particular, in our particular area, one out of three people was selling to her. So she would go in, try to buy a pack of cigarettes at 16.
They would look at her ID. Sometimes they would make notes on a napkin and then they would sell it to her. She would go out, police officer would come in, write a ticket, and she would witness all this.
And as we were talking about this at our family dinners, as an engineer, a quality engineer specifically, I was really appalled at this mistake. I said, and I had to think about, there's gotta be a way to solve this problem. So I found a developer.
We developed the application. We put it on some tablets and we started selling them. And we had great market acceptance right away.
And I said, wow, well, we're gonna form a business on this.
[Jon LaClare]
Yeah, there's something here. It's funny, you first shared that story with me. I thought back to a long time ago, way before your daughter, when I was in college, 18, 19 years old, I actually did the same thing.
So I was brought in by, I assume the local police department, I can't remember, whoever does that, right? And I was shocked. We would go into liquor stores and try to buy, and I actually don't even drink, but so it didn't mean no good, of course, but I was amazed at how often it would happen.
And I didn't think at the time, I just assumed they didn't care, but I think as you're talking about a lot of times they do, but they just don't notice, or they're not doing the math correctly, or it's a long line, they're in a hurry. I certainly didn't look, I barely look my age now, but I did not look 21 when I was 18 or 19. But again, just that hurry and no fault or intent necessarily at some of these stores, but mistakes happen.
And there have been other scanners or I'll call them traditional ID scanners on the market, but they can do a little bit to catch dates maybe, but they don't catch fake IDs. That's I think a big difference, right? Between your technology and others.
How does that work? How does yours operate or function different and better than other scanners in the market?
[Ron Tobb]
Well, thanks. So there are ID scanners on the market and they all basically will do the same thing, which is extract the birthday, give a sale or no sale answer. We do it in a very modern, clean interface that's very easy to use and train.
And we back it up with great customer support, nights and weekends when our customers work. Additionally, we've partnered with a company called IntelliCheck and they're a large financial services company. And they have the technology that's constantly being updated to find fake IDs.
So almost everything that's on a driver's license that can be faked has been faked. The hologram, the micro printing, the color, you know, latent images, all these different things. And it's very difficult forensically to tell.
So IntelliCheck has developed a very unique proprietary technology set that allows us within three seconds to find fake IDs. So not all our customers use that. Most customers that are more concerned about fakes, we have that technology now available to everybody.
There is a small extra cost for it because it is hitting against a database that's constantly being updated to find those fake IDs. But we have now thousands of people using this and they are, you know, it's become a mandatory part of their business and they're finding fakes. We find our actual average statistic is about one in 10 IDs scanned that way are fake IDs.
So it's a very prevalent problem. Fakes are easy to get. And we now put this tool in the hands of the retailer that makes it very easy and seamless to find the fake ID.
[Jon LaClare]
I gotta repeat that. So one in 10 IDs that are checked by the businesses that have this scanner in place are fake IDs?
[Ron Tobb]
There are. And that's an average. I've seen it.
I was working with a client just this week and they just got started with our system. They're seeing a 40% fake rate, huge. Another customer, and these are a lot of people that are in college towns or bars or convenience stores near a college campus.
They're seeing fake detection rate in the 20% rate. And again, the fakes are very tough to tell by looking at them, even a trained forensics person. And of course, I mean, go back to that retail transaction of 10 seconds of retail transaction.
You know, people don't have time to study an ID for 20 minutes to figure out and to get it wrong, particularly when the lines are long and so forth. So, you know, having this technology that really works, that's super effective, and it's not perfect though. It's not perfect, but it is a gold standard for fake ID detection.
[Jon LaClare]
And the risk if they miss it, whether it's a fake or whether they get the date wrong or whatever, there's a fine, right? And those fines may not be massive, right? But there are financial fines, but there's a bigger risk beyond just the fines that you've talked about before.
So what is the real big risk to these companies if they allow an underage ID through? Well, there's threefold risk.
[Ron Tobb]
The first is for the basic ID scanning, getting it wrong. The states in general, and there's about 3,400 municipalities in the US, and there's a lot of different levels of fine and enforcement going on through all those municipalities. Some have taken, and with the carrot and stick approach, they're taking the big stick.
And they're saying, if you get this wrong, you get, on the first shot, it's a $3,000 fine. And on the second shot, we're gonna pull your liquor license. And so they have gotten in certain areas to very low tolerance for just making the basic mistake.
And so an ID scanner that's well below $1,000 is cheap insurance to make sure that you don't make that mistake with tremendous payback. So that's the first area where businesses get help with this. The second, in terms of the risk reduction, is that it is unfortunate that when a minor gets a fake ID and uses it and is able to buy alcohol, it does occur that they go out and somebody gets hurt or killed.
And then there's generally legal actions involved, and that can be a huge risk for a business. So by having this very easy to implement system that provides this tremendous protection for fakes, that's a risk that has some mitigation by using an ID scanner. Of course, you have to use others' practices with training and making, there's basic things you do for checking IDs, and that's covered in most states' alcohol sales laws.
And the third is reputational risk, right? You don't wanna be in the newspaper for, and we see this all the time, that every time a business gets stung and sells to a minor, they hit the local newspaper. And the police actually send out reports, they name names.
They sometimes, they will name the facility. This is all public record. So this is reputational risk that businesses don't wanna be out there for.
Again, very low insurance to mitigate that risk.
[Jon LaClare]
Yeah, and not only the legal risk, but hopefully saving the lives of some of these youth that are drinking before the age, or may go out of control. And you certainly don't wanna be the business that is a part of that cause, but hopefully you're stopping it, right? Stopping it from happening in the first place and potentially saving lives.
So it's a fantastic technology to really help businesses and help people as well. So let's talk about the business side of Minor Decliner. So if I remember right, I think originally this started as purely hardware, and then you've added on this software over time where it's more of a recurring model, is that correct?
[Ron Tobb]
Yeah, and we basically still do hardware. We develop our own software. It's loaded on tablets that are specific use.
We're not an app-based company. So you don't go download this on the Play Store because really when you're a business, you don't want people scanning IDs with somebody's cell phone, right? That doesn't promote a lot of trust in terms of how that data is being secured and saved or being handled.
So that's why we think a corporate device is very important. We supply hardware and software with people in many different form factors. We've got countertops, we've got portables.
We have wall-mounted systems. We have systems where customers can self-scan. So we try to provide a hardware, software platform for people to whatever need they have for their business.
[Jon LaClare]
And with the recurring revenue that comes in from software attached to the hardware, how has that helped your business? So again, we know how it helps the bars and the stores that are selling these items. How has it helped your business to have this recurring revenue model built into your system as well?
[Ron Tobb]
Well, it's helped and it's an area that we continue to learn and grow in. But we do see that a lot of customers just, you can buy one of our ID scanners and sort of be one and done with it if you don't wanna do the added services of the fake checking. And we do see customers that do that.
So we wanna be flexible for people that say we want the one time or we're okay with getting that fake service. And we've tried to make it very affordable with different packages that are sized for any size business that might need it. Because we're sensitive to that.
Everybody's had their margins tightened with increasing costs. So we try to really have a very economical solution for people that fits their business. And we don't lock folks into any long-term things.
They can use it. Once they get those scan credits, they don't expire. And it goes back to being, we try to really apply the golden rule to everything we do with our customers.
The golden rule being we treat those as others as we wanna be treated ourselves. So we try to provide that great in-person customer service along with a really economical model. And that's how we've rolled with it.
[Jon LaClare]
I love that you've got the ability to have the subscription to help have the technology work better for the businesses over time. But they're not, quote unquote, stuck with it, right? You still got the hardware.
So if long-term that doesn't make sense, you can always try out the recurring model. But at least if not that, you've got the hardware that also works very well. Just misses out a couple of features that obviously you get with the subscription.
[Ron Tobb]
And we also have people that are seasonal too. They're in a ski resort or in a beach town and they get 100% of their revenue in eight months and the other four months they're off or they actually close. So we're able to work with businesses in that way.
So we can flex to their schedule.
[Jon LaClare]
And to date, I believe a lot of your success has come over the Amazon channel, which maybe wasn't the first channel you went on. But talk to us about how did you turn that corner, not just listing it on Amazon, but how did you, what was maybe the first step that made it really start to take off and start to be a success within the Amazon channel?
[Ron Tobb]
Well, I've tried many different ways to enter the market over the years. And what I've discovered is that I tried to do it myself with Amazon and it was, Amazon is a great marketplace. There's a lot of rules to follow and a lot of know-how there.
So we wind up hiring some experts and that was a really pivotal moment and we found the right folks to work with. And then that helped us to make sure we could get optimized listing, follow all the rules and has helped us to have great success there.
[Jon LaClare]
Fantastic. Well, my last question I have for you is, it's been 10 years since you founded this roughly. What are you most proud of over these last 10 years?
[Ron Tobb]
I think it's the accumulated growth of all the different things we've done and the innovation. I go back to my roots as an engineer and a tinkerer. I like to hear about different people's ideas from customers or use cases they have and then using my knowledge of the industry, develop solutions for them.
So the result of that is we've done a lot more with our ID scanners than the basic use case. We now have systems that provide age-restricted access to reduce theft. We've put our ID scanners on beer coolers and we've knocked theft down 80% because now you have to scan your ID to open up the beer cooler and it's been a huge innovation for us.
In addition, we've implemented mobile driver's license technology, scanning. That's gonna be coming soon where people no longer have a regular driver's license, they have a digital credential. So we've gotta keep ahead of the market and innovate and have that and we've done that.
We have biometrics coming where you're gonna be able to scan your face and compare it to what the image that's on the driver's license in a very easy to implement and cost-effective format. So we're always thinking about how to make this better and how to help protect the businesses and society really in general to follow the laws. That's what we're all about.
[Jon LaClare]
Well, it's a remarkable technology and I love that you didn't rest on your laurels but you constantly work to improve and look for other opportunities, other markets and really help people along the way. Ron, if someone wants to find more about Minor Decliner, what's the best way to connect with your business?
[Ron Tobb]
Yeah, just go to MinorDecliner.com and you'll find a contact us link there and then you can call, text, email or schedule a meeting.
[Jon LaClare]
Fantastic and as always, it's in the show notes. So anybody who's driving might be listening, check out or whatever platform you're on, check it out on YouTube, harvestgrowthpodcast.com or any of your major podcast platforms. You'll find links to MinorDecliner.com.
So check out Ron's business. Well, if you wanna take the next step in your growing your business, visit harvestgrowth.com to connect with our team and book a one-on-one conversation focused on your business. Well, thanks for listening.
We'll see you in the next episode.
Comments