

InDinero (YC S10) sees huge market for small-business expense tracking - waderoush
http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2010/08/11/indinero-founder-sees-humungous-market-in-small-business-expense-tracking/

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futuremint
Isn't that what Excel is for? Seriously... I worked for a company that was
developing a web app for small businesses for their business processes, and
its amazing (and appalling) how many small businesses use Excel spreadsheets
for _everything_.

Even now I work on a product that manages data, and all the customers think a
"data export" is a CSV file. I've run into some folks who think the app stores
its data in "special spreadsheets"!

And frankly most small businesses don't care that Excel spreadsheets aren't
all that great. They work well enough. The market has an education problem
more than anything.

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samstokes
There are definite advantages of dedicated software over spreadsheets (as a
spreadsheet grows it comes to resemble software more and more anyway, so why
build software that yourself?), but you're right about the education problem.

I use FreeAgent, a UK-centric product similar to InDinero, and the tagline for
their very successful referral program is "free someone you know from
spreadsheet hell".

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mscantland
QuickBooks proper is nasty, but one very compelling reason many businesses use
it is that you can hand over your "QuickBooks file" to almost any accounting
firm; they can do your taxes or solve an accounting problem.

This is hugely valuable for companies like mine that don't have full time
accountants but do have an office manager that does bookkeeping.

I wish this company the best of luck, but I'm not sure how much room their is
between firms that are outgrowing spreadsheets but don't yet need something a
big accounting firm will also use.

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bentlegen
"Ultimately, Mah lacked the funds to keep buying equipment ahead of demand,
and shut the company down."

They couldn't keep up with demand, so they shut it down?

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jlm382
This is Jessica from inDinero. We didn't run out of funds. All in all a great
article.

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fabiandesimone
Jessica, I signed-up about 3 months ago. It took me quite a while to decide or
not to give you my Paypal password, but I did. I had a problem with my account
(Paypal being in Spain) because you had a problem with the dots and commas.
The app thought I had 14.000$ when in reality I had 14.00$ (the problem is
still there)

I wrote to you about it and never heard back. I left and haven't logged in
again.

Is not that the bug was a big deal, is that you expect me to trust you with my
money info, and won't even get back at me via email.

Maybe you should look into this.

Overall, I really like your startup. Congratulations!

~~~
BRadmin
I can attest that the InDinero team has been super responsive to our small
business.

In addition to the prompt & steady flow of email dialogue, Jessica has
actually called us a few times to get feedback and they've already started
implementing the features we've requested.

Just wanted to share another customer service related experience with them.

 _-We have absolutely no affiliation with InDinero or any of its employees._

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jcnnghm
I use a receipt document scanner for this. Unless this will categorize and
store receipts, I'm not sure how useful it actually is. Paper receipts are a
pain point, expense categorization isn't.

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thinkcomp
I have no way of knowing, but I find the claim that thousands of companies use
this product to be highly dubious.

