Hello fellow Redditors,
I would like to validate a need for accounting services handcrafted for startups.
First, let me introduce myself. I'm a French citizen who has been living in the Philippines for the past 16 years. I'm a CFO by profession but an entrepreneur by heart. I have 3 failed attempts under my belt: an enterprise social network (2010), a recruitment tool (2012) and a fixed-assets software management (2013). Objectively, I failed because I did not have sufficient funds to invest and, as you all know, tech people don't work for free (and it's totally understandable!).
A friend of mine, who has been more successful on the startup scene, told me that I should look into offering accounting services (for which I have 20 years of experience) instead of trying to venture into fields that I may not master entirely. I have been thinking a lot about that and I am now ready to move forward with a project that is definitely not as sexy as building an app but could hopefully turn into a success.
When building a team, the minimum viable partnership (MVP?) is composed of one tech and one non-tech partners. But what about the administrative tasks? At first, you will handle them by yourselves but it's time consuming and you may not have the knowledge to do it right. Then, once you start having some revenues, you will retain the services of a bookkeeper. And...that's about it. You will wait until the first round of funding before hiring an in-house accountant or a C.F.O. if your first round allows you to do that kind of investment.
What I want to offer is the services of a C.F.O. to startups. A C.F.O. is not just a glorified accountant. He is an adviser who will help you with your business plan. He will setup your accounting system, design your financial dashboard, advise you on cost management... But I can also take care of your payroll, billing, cash management, monthly reporting, yearly financial statements. In fact, the possibilities are endless. Think of it as a remote team dedicated to handling your administrative, accounting and HR tasks.
In order to do that remotely, I will work with all the wonderful tools that I offered online. Xero, Wave, Quickbooks for the accounting, OrangeHRM for employees management, CRM tools such as CapsuleCRM or Insightly, Gusto for the payroll, Freshbooks for billing and basically any saas tool you may want to use.
The only thing I can not do is tax computation as this matter is too complex to be managed without a local knowledge.
Now let's talk about revenue! I am planning to charge a fixed fee of 1,000 USD to work on the business plan and do the setup of all the tools. Then, I will offer different plans depending on the number of employees and the number of customers.
Plan 1: 5 employees max., 100 customers: 500 USD/month
Plan 2: 10 employees max., 500 customers: 750 USD/month
Plan 3: add 10 employees or add 500 customers: 200 USD/month added to Plan 2.
Plan 4: more than 100 employees, more than 5,000 customers: congratulation, you are successful and it's time for you to have you own in-house team who will benefit from all my work!
The idea for me is to grow as your business grows.
What do you think of that? Do you think there is a market for my services? Is there anything else that you might think could be important to offer?
I am really looking forward to receiving your outputs on my soon-to-be very own startup!
I would like to validate a need for accounting services handcrafted for startups.
First, let me introduce myself. I'm a French citizen who has been living in the Philippines for the past 16 years. I'm a CFO by profession but an entrepreneur by heart. I have 3 failed attempts under my belt: an enterprise social network (2010), a recruitment tool (2012) and a fixed-assets software management (2013). Objectively, I failed because I did not have sufficient funds to invest and, as you all know, tech people don't work for free (and it's totally understandable!).
A friend of mine, who has been more successful on the startup scene, told me that I should look into offering accounting services (for which I have 20 years of experience) instead of trying to venture into fields that I may not master entirely. I have been thinking a lot about that and I am now ready to move forward with a project that is definitely not as sexy as building an app but could hopefully turn into a success.
When building a team, the minimum viable partnership (MVP?) is composed of one tech and one non-tech partners. But what about the administrative tasks? At first, you will handle them by yourselves but it's time consuming and you may not have the knowledge to do it right. Then, once you start having some revenues, you will retain the services of a bookkeeper. And...that's about it. You will wait until the first round of funding before hiring an in-house accountant or a C.F.O. if your first round allows you to do that kind of investment.
What I want to offer is the services of a C.F.O. to startups. A C.F.O. is not just a glorified accountant. He is an adviser who will help you with your business plan. He will setup your accounting system, design your financial dashboard, advise you on cost management... But I can also take care of your payroll, billing, cash management, monthly reporting, yearly financial statements. In fact, the possibilities are endless. Think of it as a remote team dedicated to handling your administrative, accounting and HR tasks.
In order to do that remotely, I will work with all the wonderful tools that I offered online. Xero, Wave, Quickbooks for the accounting, OrangeHRM for employees management, CRM tools such as CapsuleCRM or Insightly, Gusto for the payroll, Freshbooks for billing and basically any saas tool you may want to use.
The only thing I can not do is tax computation as this matter is too complex to be managed without a local knowledge.
Now let's talk about revenue! I am planning to charge a fixed fee of 1,000 USD to work on the business plan and do the setup of all the tools. Then, I will offer different plans depending on the number of employees and the number of customers.
Plan 1: 5 employees max., 100 customers: 500 USD/month
Plan 2: 10 employees max., 500 customers: 750 USD/month
Plan 3: add 10 employees or add 500 customers: 200 USD/month added to Plan 2.
Plan 4: more than 100 employees, more than 5,000 customers: congratulation, you are successful and it's time for you to have you own in-house team who will benefit from all my work!
The idea for me is to grow as your business grows.
What do you think of that? Do you think there is a market for my services? Is there anything else that you might think could be important to offer?
I am really looking forward to receiving your outputs on my soon-to-be very own startup!