On October 21st, The Irish Network of San Francisco will hold a panel event entitled “Irish Entrepreneurs in the Bay Area” at which our CEO, Ian Sweeney will be speaking. This promises to be a great event with Ian joining a group of accomplished entrepreneurs . More information is available at the Irish Network of San Francisco website.

Ben Kepes of CloudAve and I have talked previously about making Small Business data common, as a means of allowing it to move where it needs to. This post is somewhat of a response to his post earlier today and another earlier one about OAccounts.

There seems to be a misconception that data needs to be standardized to protect the small business customer.  If everything is standardized then the customer can move wherever they want with their data. The problem is that’s not how it works in reality. 

Lets talk some real-world data portability needs: 

1) Operations Data – Moving operations data is all about freeing a business’s data to flow (intra-company) to the apps they use. This enables the product or service to be delivered most efficiently. 

2) Data Migration – If I want to move from QuickBooks to PeachTree, or MailChimp to Vertical Response I want to take my data with me.

3) Transactional Data – This data is shared inter-, rather than intra- company like Payments, Purchase Orders and Invoices.

The advent of the XML/Restful API means the operations data is being freed up at a very rapid rate. Intuit’s IPP and the Small Business Web are focused on this area. (Disclosure: billFLO is both an Intuit Developer and a member of the Small Business Web). What’s great about this is that the data is not standardized, it’s just fully accessible and open. Take what you need and use it however you want.

The data migration issue is moving a little slower. Some of that boils down to motivation on the part of the incumbents (Do I want to spend time building a back door so my customer can leave?). However, when the data is simple like a feed list or a calendar, standards do work (opml and iCal as examples). But, if we’re talking about complex data, like the data stored in an accounting system – standards don’t work. They are too time-consuming for the vendor to implement and the benefit isn’t there (Updated: A point Dennis Howlett appears to agree with in this old post). The good news is, the API that’s being used to get the operations data exposes all the data you need to migrate to a new app.  

Transactional data is a mixed bag. Payments are obviously automated on proprietary networks. On the other hand, procurement transactions (invoices, purchase orders, etc) have long resisted automation despite many attempts (EDI, ebXML, UBL).  Again, the data is complex and integrating to EDI is a pain. The payback simply isn’t there for the SMB vendors even though the pain is there for the customers. Again the right solution is make the data open, via an API, and let 3^rd party vendors like ourselves do the leg-work of integrations.

It boils down to this. If the data is simple, a standard works. If it’s in any way complex (or is complex to get), open access to the data is the way to go. Either way, the customer gets data-portability.

Your thoughts?

billFLO Ian

- Invoice Batching: Instead of a customer receiving one email for each invoice, billFLO seller now batches the invoices in one file and attaches it to a single invoice. This makes it a single- action for the customer to add the invoices to billFLO buyer.

- When customizing emails, added the ability to customize the subject line.

- Fixed bug where PDF Invoices were marked as paid even if they were only partially paid.

- Fixed bug where “Pay Url” value would persist in the billFLO invoice when not selected in preferences

And, billFLO seller continues to be one of the quickest and easiest ways to email invoices from QuickBooks.

To get your free copy, simply click here and select QuickBooks Desktop from the Accounting System drop down menu. To upgrade to this new version, click Check-for-Update under the Help Menu and follow the prompts.

- A significantly streamlined User Interface

- “My billFLO Stats” to keep track of your billFLO usage

- Support for sending billFLO invoices via the billFLO email server or your own email server

And, billFLO seller continues to be one of the quickest and easiest ways to email invoices from QuickBooks.

To get your free upgrade, simply click here and select QuickBooks Desktop from the Accounting System drop down menu.

Please let us know how you like it!

billFLO Ian

Today marks exactly one year since we launched the very first version of billFLO.  So, its time to take stock again and see what we’ve learned.

In preparation for this post I looked back at the post I made 42 days after our first launch . Suprisingly, the 4 points I made back then are all still valid, albeit I have a much deeper understanding of each. To the original lessons, here are a couple more things I’ve learned running a startup for a year.

1. Customers don’t tell you what they want

With all the metrics, real time data and customer discussions you would think it would be easy to know what people want. Its not.  It doesnt matter if you’re talking to a supplier, an investor or a customer; people just dont say what they really want. Its mainly because they arent quite sure. I now realise the converstation is the first step in a long process of working out what people want. Step 2 is ruminating, digesting, analyzing the information I’m hearing and Step 3 is deciding what you *think* you’re being told.

I dont think there is any fix for this, other than understanding this is the way it works.

2. Remember your company values

This one really suprised me. At the very start of billFLO we sat down and spent some time discussing how we wanted to run our own business. A lot of it was around culture and treating customers right. I honestly felt it wasn’t worth starting the business if we weren’t going to do our damndest to have happy customers.

However, in the heat of the battle I’ve seen us slip, trip and stumble in this regard. It usually happens late at night around some feature and goes like this “Oh, that’ll be a pain to develop and we dont have time to test it. How many people will have this problem anyway? Lets put it in the next build”. The problem is the discussion is from our perspective rather than our customer’s.

There isn’t a quick fix for this. In the cauldron of rapid innovation some things cant be completed to the exacting standards we want.  But, I’ve resolved to make sure we get better at this.  The fix is probably somewhere inside of process and re-inforcing our customer focused culture. Stay tuned to see how we get better at this!

3. Startups are a f*cking roller coaster

I had definetly been told this and read it many times before. What I didn’t really understand is the extent to which it is an emotional, physical and mental roller-coaster. It’s compounded by the fact that you are so close to the details that its hard to get perspective.

The best way I can describe it is through my love of racing. My dad raced before me and many of my closest friends are car racers, so its something I understand intimately.   Strapped to a hulk of speeding metal and fibreglass, a single lap contains the range of emotions from real fear for your life when something goes wrong, to self-recrimination at not doing a corner well, to anger over another competitors actions, to pure joy at winning. All of this happens in a minute or two and when its over its hard to rationalize it. Startups have that same density of emotions and it’s tough to deal with.

The fix (or at least a salve) for this one is simple - have a group of peers in the same role as you. For me, I have group of CEOs I can call or meet up with at a moments notice when I need support. I think of it as my entrepreneurs anonymous group!

(P.S. for more on this topic, check out this great post by Mark Dowds, CEO of Brainpark)

4. Biases are dangerous

When you’re a small operation, you dont get the luxury of being a specialist. This means there is no chance to indulge a bias towards spreadsheets, copy-writing, usability-testing, customer visits or whatever it is you enjoy most.

The good news is that there is a long list of things to do and your favorite activity is on there. The bad news is you will gravitate to these activities and the scary stuff will get deferred. This becomes really dangerous in the context of strategic activities. As an exagerated example, not many of us like direct sales.  If your bias is to avoid having to do direct sales, you could convince yourself the business can achieve its objectives through online advertising. Its sounds silly I know, but it happens.

I’ve also seen this play out in terms of what people are comfortable with. It can play out as always wanting to do things a certain way or always leaning towards a particular technology or even favoring a particular individual.

The fix: Know your own and your team’s biases. Then watch for them showing up in the decision making process.

(P.S. Ironically I’m reading a book about this very subject right now: The E-Myth by Michael Gerber )

To wrap-up, I hope all the lessons above prove helpful to other entrepreneurs starting out. Please remember though, these are the things *I* think will ultimately drive our success. I could be very wrong.

In the meantime, I invite you to follow along with us and find out!

Your thoughts?

billFLO Ian

From Day 1 we said the aim of billFLO is to completely eliminate the paper invoice.  However, up until now we havent detailed how we are going to achieve that. Well, seeing as we launched the full version of billFLO recently, I think its time to elaborate on why we think billFLO will be world changing.

Every time two companies complete a commercial transaction, purchasing data needs to be passed from the seller’s accounting system to the buyer’s system, via an invoice. Think about this for a second, every time a company buys or sells something, an invoice is generated. Most of the time this invoice is in paper form (about 100 Billion annually). 

Here’s a couple of numbers to give you a sense of the cost of invoicing:
1. Studies show that it costs $14 to get a paper invoice through its lifecylce. At the level of the US economy, that works out as almost 2% of US GDP.
2. 40 billion pieces of paper are wasted every year in the US on paper invoices. That number suggests the world as a whole wastes 120 billion sheets of paper every year on invoices…or 13 Million Trees
3. Imagine the carbon emitted by moving 13 million trees worth of paper invoices around the world, every year.

Up until a couple of weeks back, 99% of business were limited to using a paper invoice and a human to get the data out of one accounting system and into another. Over the years, various different attempts have been made to eliminate the paper invoice from the process, including EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) and PDF invoices. All have failed for various reasons; EDI is too complex to implement for most companies and PDF invoices work for the seller but have to be manually entered into the buyer’s system.

So, rewinding to two years ago, Alec and I were looking at this problem thinking we could solve it.  Despite the fact that many had tried before us, none of the products we looked at had the potential to be ubiquitous. We figured, if we could deliver a solution that made it easy for any size of business to quickly send, receive and import electronic invoices, that product could become a de-facto standard.

billFLO achieves this quite simply by allowing users to email machine readable invoices straight to their customers who can import them straight into their accounting system. Any business can install and be using billFLO in minutes. This usability opens up machine readable, electronic invoices to every single email enabled business in the US.

Time will tell whether our vision will become reality, but by launching billFLO we know we’ve taken the first step on the road to eliminating the paper invoice.

We’ve got another new feature for billFLO buyer users! Lets say you have returned some stock to your supplier or been given a credit for faulty goods you purchased. How do you import a billFLO invoice as a credit so that your books correctly reflect the credit?

Easy, use “import as credit” on the invoice detail window.

P.S. To get the latest release of billFLO buyer click here or, if you have billFLO buyer already, click “check for update” under the help menu.

We like to think billFLO invoices are a little addictive, once you’ve received one, you want MORE! So, in today’s new release of billFLO buyer, we’re adding (amongst other things) a cool new feature, “Notify My Vendors”. Its gets you more billFLO invoices, sooner.

“Notify My Vendors” lets your suppliers and vendors know that you are now accepting billFLO invoices and outlines the benefits of sending billFLO invoices.

Watch the video to learn more and let us know what you think!

P.S. Its quick and free for your vendors to send you billFLO invoices!
P.P.S. To get the latest release of billFLO buyer click here or, if you have billFLO buyer already, click “check for update” under the help menu.

Lets get something straight, not having a salary or income sucks. If you’re in your right mind there is no way you would wan’t to be in this position. But, when the dust settles, believe it or not, its not all bad.

Now, lest you think that this is some high-paid startup CEO spewing dribble, let me present my credentials to speak on this topic. All combined, Alec and I have worked for about 24 months without salary. We both have families, mortgages and healthcare costs to cover. And, we both live in the San Francisco Bay Area, not exactly a cheap place to live. So, sadly, mine is the voice of experience. However, through many days and (sleepless) nights I’ve come to the realisation that there are some positives:

5. Focus

Nothing helps you focus more than not having options. Its stands to reason right? You don’t have to worry about which color bmw to buy, because you’re not getting one. Seriously though, we do deal with a lot of decisions that complicate things. Not having the financial resources limits those options. I’ve found less clutter helps me focus on the things that are really important to me, and to forget the non-essentials. In a strange way that de-stresses me!

4. Liberation

Having no salary has an another benefit. When you’re job-hopping your current situation is your reference point. Would you move to another job that pays less? Probably not. The good news is that without a salary the only way is up. That gives you the freedom to make career choices based on what you want to do, not what you think you need, like a certain title or salary. You’ve been liberated! Now’s the time to make that switch. 

3. Environment

Recessions happen when we cut back on our consumption. Like it or not, we need this recession to get our consumption in line with our productivity. Put another way, we need to use only what we can pay for. I liken this to going back to my childhood days. My folks didnt but stuff on the credit card, we got one toy at christmas and my new trousers were the same ones my brother wore, except they now had a fresh patch on the knee! The point is our reduction in consumption is benefitting society, the environment and the economy (in the short term). 

2. Future

You’ve heard it said before. Its in tough times that the foundations are built for great things. Dell recently announced it is eliminating 1,900 jobs in Limerick, Ireland. To give you some context, the population of Limerick is 90,000. Assuming 60,000 are of working age, the dell job losses on their own equate to 3% increase in unemployment. Undeterred, the people of Limerick aren’t giving up, they’re re-grouping and starting again. So, while everyone around you is speaking of doom and gloom, put your head down, get yourself a plan and work your arse off to achieve it! I wish you luck.

1. Top Reason Not Having Income is good

Alright, you got me. I couldnt think of a 5th reason. A crap global economy with lots of folks without an income sucks. It sucks BAD. In the meantime, keep your chin up and when we do get back on our feet, lets appreciate it a little more!

Got other reasons not having a salary is good? Add a comment.