
InDinero’s Jessica Mah: This Is A 20-30 Year Company - jlm382
http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/20/indinero-jessica-mah-tctv-intuit/
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adammichaelc
It's interesting that Jessica didn't distinguish between revenue and income
when she talked about the problem she ran into with the business she started.
"We thought we had lots of revenue but it turned out our margins weren't that
great." Revenue = money in. Income = Money in minus money out.

Revenue != Income.

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traskjd
It depends how you read it. She could have meant that they thought they were
taking in a lot of money (revenue) but in reality they found they weren't
keeping much of it (discovered their margins were thin, implying profits were
lower than they expected because they just knew they were making lots of
revenue).

I really need to stop using brackets so much.

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Dramatize
Brackets are great (when used correctly).

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il
I think it's really cool that Web 2.0 entrepreneurs actually want to build
businesses that have a clear business model, sell a product that people want,
and have a clear path to long-term, sustainable profitability.

That said, I don't know how well this type of business correlates with raising
such a large angel round- are all of those angel investors on board with that
plan?

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vaksel
what they say in public doesn't always match what they say in private.(i.e.
just take the whole demandmedia "we are super profitable...HONEST!")

in private, I'd bet that they are looking to build this up for 4-5 years, then
sell it off to intuit.

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speby
I wouldn't immediately assume Intuit is automatically the most likely
acquirer.

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scottkrager
They seem the most likely....who else might be in the mix? A large progressive
bank?

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alttab
Inuit already bought Mint, why would they need inDinero? Mint has way more
users, and already does the hard part - syncing with banks securely and
categorizing expenses. Mint/Inuit could add a cash-flow module to their
product and be done with it.

Depending on how Jessica decides to position it, I could see it exiting to a
buyer like Freshbooks, where the combination product makes a suite of small-
business finance tools. Like a mini-Microsoft Financal-Office (except in the
cloud).

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johnglasgow
She gripes about the A/R and A/P pains of a small business owner, but has
never owned a SMB...I'm rooting for her, but hope she has added people to her
team that really know this market.

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adammichaelc
Actually, she did own a small business[1]. She ran one from 12 until something
like 15 (the source below gets the ages wrong), and one of her biggest
problems was keeping track of the financial complexities, projecting cash-
flows, etc.; out of that frustration has come InDinero.

[1] [http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090301/university-of-
californi...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090301/university-of-california-
berkeley-a-place-to-find-great-int.html)

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chrisgoodrich
Question is...

How long until FreshBooks partners with Yodlee, builds some reports and has a
more complete solution?

Or... Intuit creates a version of Mint.com for small businesses? They have a
lot more cash and overwhelming marketshare in the SMB market. They'd be able
to do this in 5 years, not 20-30. I think this poses a huge threat to
InDinero.

That being said, the product that Jessica has already built is quite
impressive. But, if it takes 20-30 years to iterate towards solving all of the
financial pain points of a small business, you'll be too late because Intuit
has a huge head start.

~~~
nl
You could have made the same arguments about Mint and Intuit. If it's so easy,
why haven't they done it already?

For Intuit, this is close to the textbook example of the innovators dilemma.
Intuit cannot do this easily because it will cannibalize their existing
business. How would they introduce it?

They can't just add the features to their existing product, because the market
for this product is different (business owners, not accountants).

They can't sell it as a separate add on, because that makes InDinero seem
really good value for money.

They can't sell it for the same price or less than InDinero because it will
eat profits from their existing products.

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onan_barbarian
Good for her. Even if you are open to an acquisition, being ready to be 'in it
for the long haul' puts you in a better position to negotiate - especially if
there's only one really good potential acquirer out there. If you don't like
their price you can always tell them 'see you next year', rather than becoming
more desperate as the acquisition drags on.

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some1else
I don't think they can afford to solve those problems in 20 years time.
Somebody else will do it instead.

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thinkcomp
I was unimpressed by Jessica's failure to disclose that Eventbrite is a
"paying customer" because its CEO is an investor.

I think the product has potential. I have worked on something similar for many
years myself. I'll have a hard time rooting for its success, though, when
Jessica seems to routinely make mistakes like this.

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pc
"I'll have a hard time rooting for its success, though, when Jessica seems to
routinely make mistakes like this" is both pompous and mean. She's 20, and
seems to be doing a pretty good job all considered. If you really believe
she's screwing up, perhaps you should email her directly.

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thinkcomp
Last time I did it was with a customer service issue with InDinero. No one
replied, so I canceled my account.

Also, I started consulting at age 11 and incorporated at 15, so I think I have
the right to call out young people in business when I feel like they could do
better.

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jdeeny
I made an InDinero account to kick the tires a bit, and made a few comments
when closing the account. I received several emails from Jessica within 24
hours and an offer to discuss things on the phone.

Maybe she has increased her attentiveness since you canceled. Maybe she is
only attentive to people who are closing accounts. However it came about, I
was impressed with her responsiveness to my comments.

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jamespitts
A while back I was in an early-stage situation in which I was arguing for
using quickbooks so as to at least have some semblance of double entry
accounting (at least while we got our venture started). Another team member
insisted on implementing our own solution... in excel. There is a market for
this! Unfortunately, many small business-types just make-do, with paper if
they have to, so it may be difficult for InDinero.

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patd
I'm totally not in the market for InDinero but I've seent his happen on
multiple sites before. How do people agree to give the credential info of
their bank account ?

I can't imagine giving out a login/password that is not restricted to just
viewing my banking info. It seems to me that they are asking for full access
to your bank account just to retrieve your data.

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alttab
As Facebook-privacy scary as that sounds, many accounting start ups ask for
this information. Xero, inDinero, Less Accounting, and Mint all do.

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rumpelstiltskin
Is anybody here using indinero? How does it compare to quickbooks?

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ctide
It's nothing like quickbooks. It's literally like the main tab of mint.com, it
shows your current balance and you can drill down into transactions. If you
want a proper quickbooks-like experience, I recommend xero.com which is,
unlike indinero, actually useful for a small business.

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bretthellman
She is fearless!

