Simplifying accounting and bookkeeping for small businesses

Transcript

Full transcript page · Interactive episode

============================================================
TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
============================================================

[00:00] SPEAKER_00: From unsolved mysteries to unexplained phenomena, from comedy goal to relationship fails.
[00:05] SPEAKER_00: Amazon Music's got the most ad-free top podcasts, included with Prime.
[00:10] SPEAKER_00: Download the Amazon Music app today.
[00:15] SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Canada's Podcast.
[00:20] SPEAKER_01: Yes, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Canada's podcast. My name is Rivers Corbett.
[00:25] SPEAKER_01: I am your Atlantic Canadian host and just bringing you entrepreneurs from coast to coast to coast
[00:33] SPEAKER_01: in the Atlantic Canada region. And today, really pleased and honored to have Rob Boins'
[00:38] SPEAKER_01: is my guest, Rob is the co-founder of humans. And we're going to talk a bit about
[00:45] SPEAKER_01: the spelling of humans as part of this conversation today. Canada's first modern accounting
[00:50] SPEAKER_01: and bookkeeping company aimed entirely at small businesses, built by the people behind
[00:57] SPEAKER_01: wage point, humans at huumans.com is focused on helping to make it running a successful business
[01:06] SPEAKER_01: as successful to as many people as possible through the democratization of data and knowledge.
[01:14] SPEAKER_01: A recent resident of Nova Scotia, welcome Rob. Rob's career has been based predominantly in
[01:20] SPEAKER_01: product first, early stage technology, start-ups throughout Europe and the US, with an earlier
[01:25] SPEAKER_01: foundation in media, broadcast and brand. So welcome Rob to Canada's Podcast.
[01:33] SPEAKER_03: Thank you. It's great to be here.
[01:35] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, like, let's just kind of dive in first with the typical, you know, the aha moments
[01:40] SPEAKER_01: I call them. When you started humans, well, first of all, give us your view of what humans is
[01:46] SPEAKER_01: about and then what I want to know is what made you want to get into into starting humans?
[01:53] SPEAKER_01: What was the aha moment that you said, I got to get into this and solve this problem?
[01:57] SPEAKER_03: I got to say, man, the one thing I never imagined I would do would be starting a bookkeeping
[02:00] SPEAKER_03: company. So that's that is the self-winner line. You know, why? My background has always been
[02:07] SPEAKER_03: solving problems. And so I've worked in transit startups, I've worked in ticket sales startups.
[02:14] SPEAKER_03: These are things that kind of necessarily when you start out and you're creating a thing,
[02:18] SPEAKER_03: well, that's where I'm going to end up. But the problem is interesting. And so humans is
[02:24] SPEAKER_03: interesting because it's trying to solve a problem with an industry that's, you know, pretty
[02:30] SPEAKER_03: unmoved. Like, it hasn't really developed very much. It's not really
[02:35] SPEAKER_03: appealing to people who are running modern businesses, e-commerce businesses,
[02:39] SPEAKER_03: in an environment where data is moving in real time and markets are crashing and burning 24 hours,
[02:46] SPEAKER_03: you know, in 24 hour cycles, you can't really be in a position as a business owner now to rely on
[02:53] SPEAKER_03: annual tax returns as a way of an indication for your business or how it's progressing.
[02:58] SPEAKER_03: Right. And so humans kind of raised that kind of that problem.
[03:04] SPEAKER_03: When we started discussing it, obviously working with Bill and Richard from
[03:08] SPEAKER_03: WagePoint, they had a very clear understanding coming from the small business environment
[03:14] SPEAKER_03: about the needs of how, you know, incumbent parts of the small business ecosystem pretty much
[03:24] SPEAKER_03: haven't really developed very much. And they were very disruptive payroll business. They came
[03:30] SPEAKER_03: into that market and they made it transparent and they made it simple and they made it accessible.
[03:36] SPEAKER_03: And so when we started looking at projects that we could sort of tackle and problems that we could
[03:41] SPEAKER_03: kind of solve, we'd all come effectively from a small business background but from very diverse
[03:47] SPEAKER_03: backgrounds. There are. One of our big issues as well. It's really difficult for a business owner
[03:53] SPEAKER_03: to work at what the truth is in that business. Like, it's very, very difficult. And to get advisory
[03:58] SPEAKER_03: or advice or just even the knowledge of how to move things forward is, you know, incredibly
[04:03] SPEAKER_03: difficult. You know, if you're a, you know, the majority of people who start a small business
[04:08] SPEAKER_03: and not business people, like they didn't go up through an MBA. They didn't be, they didn't come
[04:14] SPEAKER_03: from the mindset of like, oh, I'm going to work out all the ways that I can create a small business.
[04:18] SPEAKER_03: And then they go to do their MBA and they're like, you know, what the profit margins in cardboard
[04:22] SPEAKER_03: boxes are insane. I'm going to start a cardboard box business and they go up and do that. People
[04:26] SPEAKER_03: don't do that. They start a restaurant. They start a retail business. You know, these businesses which
[04:31] SPEAKER_03: are notoriously difficult to do. They go up and start a landscaping business. They go up and
[04:37] SPEAKER_03: they go off and turn a hobby into a passion, a passion into a business. Right. And
[04:42] SPEAKER_03: and those people have no business support. They realize it's usually too late that they need an
[04:48] SPEAKER_03: accountant or a bookiever. They need to really understand how tax works. They need to know how to
[04:54] SPEAKER_03: employ somebody, how that works. It's incredibly difficult. And if they want to grow or expand
[05:01] SPEAKER_03: their business, they have to go into their bank and inevitably or broke and talk business about
[05:06] SPEAKER_03: how they're going to progress that business forward. And those conversations are not natural to them.
[05:12] SPEAKER_03: So we wanted to create a company that was that was focused on supporting that that owner,
[05:18] SPEAKER_03: which is the majority use case, I guess, in small business, to support those people and how they
[05:24] SPEAKER_03: could become successful and build successful businesses. And we know statistically that around
[05:29] SPEAKER_03: half of businesses, some of this is fails in the first four years. Yeah. Typically, that's usually
[05:37] SPEAKER_03: due to a combination of factors. So there's factors that we can help with in this factors we can't.
[05:41] SPEAKER_03: If you have a product in the market, in the market, doesn't fit the product that you are
[05:46] SPEAKER_03: a different change. But you know, that, but part of that also comes with understanding how do you work
[05:52] SPEAKER_03: out the key indicators that you haven't got for it month, right? Right. So the other major
[05:59] SPEAKER_03: fell fact is primarily those cash and cash seems incredibly simplistic. For a lot of business
[06:05] SPEAKER_03: founders, that's checking the bank account. But that's not what cash is. That shows maybe what
[06:11] SPEAKER_03: you're free cash, as we call it, would be, but it doesn't show your liabilities. It doesn't show
[06:14] SPEAKER_03: how much money you owe at the end of the month, how much money is chaining out of payroll, how much,
[06:18] SPEAKER_03: how much is moving at any one time, how much of that is affected by localized rates or federal rates.
[06:24] SPEAKER_03: So sometimes the money that's in your bank account is actually not the money that you're actually
[06:28] SPEAKER_03: able to spend. Sure. And that causes major issues, the small business. And
[06:35] SPEAKER_03: the main, and it's magnified in the small business, because if you're a small business owner,
[06:40] SPEAKER_03: you maybe get one mistake, right? And if your business fails or you miss payroll, really hard to
[06:47] SPEAKER_03: come back from that. And that's one of the things that we talk about about accessibility, that,
[06:52] SPEAKER_03: if you are a serial founder and you have cash reserves and you've done it before, the business
[06:59] SPEAKER_03: is very accessible to you. If you're maybe your father is a CEO of a business or an account and
[07:04] SPEAKER_03: know what a business is more accessible to you. If you are a female founder or a personal
[07:09] SPEAKER_03: caller or you come from a minority group, it's actually harder. It's not as accessible to you,
[07:22] SPEAKER_03: access what good business is and also how to be successful. And the chances of you
[07:28] SPEAKER_03: failing are going to be higher because you don't have that safety net that's behind you.
[07:34] SPEAKER_03: So humans is really there when we talk about democratization. It's the data is already in your
[07:40] SPEAKER_03: business and those numbers are already in your business, but you don't know how to interpret them.
[07:44] SPEAKER_03: And you probably don't have access to them. And we have built an ecosystem, a product that
[07:50] SPEAKER_03: accompany around those kind of core talents and said, you know what, let's be transparent about it,
[07:57] SPEAKER_03: we're transparent about how we run your transparent about your business and we can provide you with
[08:01] SPEAKER_03: that with an environment to sort of move to a success. So who came to who, was it,
[08:06] SPEAKER_01: waste point came to you or you went to waste point today? They've been involved since the very
[08:11] SPEAKER_03: beginning. Yeah, we'll build, build, build and reach it both. Exited waste point. Both
[08:17] SPEAKER_03: exit there are that's with position and waste point. What was I think with an aspect to try
[08:23] SPEAKER_03: and slow down the lies a little? I think that was quite keen to have an experiment with what
[08:28] SPEAKER_03: retirement might look like. I think that lasted about three weeks. And these are these are
[08:34] SPEAKER_03: several entrepreneurs and and you know those, you know, these these names I think in the Canadian
[08:40] SPEAKER_03: in the Canadian ecosystem kind of a kind of nod. They started to come about looking at
[08:47] SPEAKER_03: new problems in the space that they just kind of actually don't want to record. Obviously we
[08:50] SPEAKER_03: loved the Carol part. They had some issues that they wanted to scratch. I was introduced
[08:56] SPEAKER_03: in and through the sort of an dynamic started community. So we started playing with some ideas
[09:02] SPEAKER_03: and started talking and then it sort of snowballs as these things often do until the point where by
[09:06] SPEAKER_03: you're drawing up top tables and raising money and then it becomes very serious indeed.
[09:12] SPEAKER_01: But it's been it's been fun journey. Yeah, that's so cool. So talk to me about the first six months
[09:18] SPEAKER_01: of your business. This is an entrepreneur show. Not chancepreneurs conversation. Talk about that
[09:22] SPEAKER_01: first six months of humans. And first of all, I do want to get this question asked before I forget
[09:27] SPEAKER_01: you spill humans H.U.U. M.A.N.S. Now that's a branding that's a branding. I'll just say dogs breakfast
[09:37] SPEAKER_01: when you start off because the word humans is not typically spelled that way. Can you talk about
[09:42] SPEAKER_01: your rationale for for that and how you have dealt with that very close version of humans but
[09:49] SPEAKER_01: if they don't spell it right they go someplace else on the web. You think that weirdly it actually
[09:55] SPEAKER_03: it's actually a pretty good actually a pretty good SEO. Bogg it. Okay. Most people who are searching for
[10:02] SPEAKER_03: sort of bookkeeping or they're searching for our names specifically would you usually go like
[10:07] SPEAKER_03: what humans will keep in humans whatever and it will still show up with you type of humans. And
[10:11] SPEAKER_03: so you know you can always you can always navigate around that. I mean I've been working in
[10:16] SPEAKER_03: startups since that whole day when we started dropping bells and consonants just to try and make
[10:20] SPEAKER_03: be oral work. And it's it's you have to become more of a destination for sure but
[10:27] SPEAKER_03: Sure. Modness mod messy all kind of allows you to get around a lot of that as long as you're pretty
[10:32] SPEAKER_03: right doing that and you got it. I recommend anybody who wants to do sort of digital lead gen
[10:38] SPEAKER_03: even if it's sometimes it's worse if you have a name that's more insensitive and something
[10:41] SPEAKER_03: recognizable like it was humans would be dealing with a whole other problem. To really just start
[10:47] SPEAKER_03: talking to at least start talking to really good lead gen operators who know what they do. They
[10:53] SPEAKER_03: know how to be expensive. They use you on your side. They're an intelligent. Modern lead gen is
[10:58] SPEAKER_03: a scientific bot and I haven't recommend anybody in the first six months who's considering that
[11:04] SPEAKER_03: to be one of that major models to seek someone out with disappointment. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool.
[11:09] SPEAKER_01: Okay. Yeah. So let's like what your first six months with what transpired. Did you what was your
[11:14] SPEAKER_01: strategy for the first six months how did you make out with it? The first six months of humans it's
[11:19] SPEAKER_03: difficult to kind of remember that for a while because it's one of these things once you kind of
[11:23] SPEAKER_03: get past your one it also starts to snowball. There was a lot of discussions really about trying to
[11:28] SPEAKER_03: find the problem space. You know we're kind of unusual I guess none of us at first time is this
[11:36] SPEAKER_03: is not like first rodeo stop. We've all been in overheated incubators and you know we've all sort
[11:44] SPEAKER_03: of dealt with the dash cache that happens sort of in the mid 2000s and you know all of us have
[11:50] SPEAKER_03: worked right through to kind of seriously. So we were very much in the position of we kind of wanted
[11:57] SPEAKER_03: to have some fun. I know that sounds ridiculous because most people when they start up a like
[12:02] SPEAKER_03: when we have to get around and we have to hit profit you know we have to sort of stop making revenue
[12:06] SPEAKER_03: we've got to get our ARR online we got to all that sort of stuff. But there's a sense that I
[12:11] SPEAKER_03: certainly learned coming into this and this is one of the first times I've kind of in my career where
[12:16] SPEAKER_03: I've got myself to the level of confidence where I can quite happily come into a day one startup
[12:22] SPEAKER_03: and really be impactful is probably not the right word because I guess I've always done that but
[12:29] SPEAKER_03: take a lot of the lead the lead on stop. Right. It's taken me probably until I was in my late 30s to
[12:34] SPEAKER_03: get to that stage. Rather than just being the supporting act it's the ability to kind of slow down
[12:41] SPEAKER_03: to be honest. So the first six months were us trying not to spend money on things until we'd
[12:48] SPEAKER_03: really done our thought research and and played with the ideas of what it could be. You know when we
[12:54] SPEAKER_03: started humans it wasn't actually designed as a book even company. We came out of from the point of
[12:58] SPEAKER_03: you coming at it from SaaS and how could we expose business a business's data. So we started
[13:07] SPEAKER_03: pretty quickly I was working with some ex colleagues in mine that from the UK tech scene we were
[13:13] SPEAKER_03: coming up with ways of using bank accounts through a myconvictal plaid which allows you to take
[13:22] SPEAKER_03: people's bank fees or test bank fees and you can plug in the deposit. But you've ever run a
[13:26] SPEAKER_03: budgeting app or anything like that you probably connected your bank account. You will be used to
[13:31] SPEAKER_03: play. Right. Okay. So we started we started mocking up stuff around with that working out what we
[13:37] SPEAKER_03: could actually do with the concept of cash and we pretty quickly realized that it wasn't really
[13:43] SPEAKER_03: solving any of those problems. It was it was it was nice it was fine it was cool but it wasn't
[13:48] SPEAKER_03: really solving any of those problems. But we had to go back to really what the core requirements were
[13:54] SPEAKER_03: for SMB not to get too distracted and realized well maybe we have to start looking into
[14:00] SPEAKER_03: the bookkeeping and counting space which was good I mean both of my founders co-founders or
[14:05] SPEAKER_03: CPA designated so they understood that. Right. And then it was a very boring two months of me trying
[14:11] SPEAKER_03: to figure out how CPAs operate. And someone from a design in UX and sort of product backgrounds
[14:18] SPEAKER_03: these used to you know working at places like NTP and buycom sitting down and trying to work out
[14:22] SPEAKER_03: how CPA kind of does its job and how they do price of accounts was a how they do it. And you get
[14:29] SPEAKER_01: through it in two months that's pretty good that's pretty fast. Well see the great the great
[14:33] SPEAKER_03: technique is learning what you need to learn and not trying to master the space. Right right right
[14:40] SPEAKER_03: good story. And yeah and and I guess that that kind of goes for anyone who's down in business is
[14:45] SPEAKER_03: like there's so much that you can try to master but you can't master at all because you still have
[14:50] SPEAKER_03: to be true to what your skill set is. And I think it's identifying what this skill set is as soon
[14:57] SPEAKER_03: as as quickly as you can. And if you can I mean it's it's a luxury to say that you can delegate
[15:01] SPEAKER_03: it to other people because there's other co-founders around you for a lot of small business owners
[15:05] SPEAKER_03: this just you and you everything. But just get enough depth of knowledge where you feel comfortable
[15:11] SPEAKER_03: but don't close if you have to master everything because it's impossible and you'll end up
[15:16] SPEAKER_03: down sidetracks and side routes as soon as you get to the point where you can delegate something do it
[15:21] SPEAKER_03: because I'm always quite happy to be the most stupid person in a ring. That's usually my goal.
[15:28] SPEAKER_03: If I go into any company or if I'm being involved in a merger acquisition and I'm walking
[15:33] SPEAKER_03: in that room for the first time and there's the company that we're purchasing whatever I want to
[15:37] SPEAKER_03: make sure I'm the stupidest person ever. That's that's when I feel my best that's probably my strongest.
[15:43] SPEAKER_01: So you spent you spent that first six months doing just sitting down and doing research getting
[15:48] SPEAKER_01: getting a sense of your surroundings getting a sense of the you know what were the realities
[15:56] SPEAKER_01: etc etc. As fair to say and the reason I ask that is you get a lot of entrepreneurs that hit the
[16:00] SPEAKER_01: road running and do their due diligence and so what I'm hearing is you're doing further due
[16:06] SPEAKER_03: diligence at first six months. Yeah I mean to be honest there was a certain geographical and
[16:13] SPEAKER_03: political climate around that we would you know we we started during probably the worst year of
[16:18] SPEAKER_03: COVID so there was a sense whereby you know we weren't able to all get in a room or go to dinner or
[16:25] SPEAKER_03: do any of those sort of things and geographically we split between how facts and Alberta as well
[16:29] SPEAKER_03: like building Alberta so there was there was never that reality of like let's just do this and
[16:36] SPEAKER_03: go all excited in a room and just start like plowing effort and the things that we had to
[16:41] SPEAKER_03: schedule stuff and we had to have kind of think and we have to kind of strategize. One of the things
[16:47] SPEAKER_03: that I've always found was really was really useful and I've done it in several startups before is
[16:51] SPEAKER_03: to generate memos and circulate those memos around the people who matter and it's a good way of
[17:00] SPEAKER_03: focusing it's it goes back to that that that that Amazon managerial piece which is that if you
[17:08] SPEAKER_03: want to create a new product you write the press release first and you work backwards on the press release
[17:12] SPEAKER_03: and I think that's that's kind of almost a cliche now in product but I kind of see that
[17:18] SPEAKER_03: that being a memo piece this idea that if I have something which I'm thinking about and working on
[17:23] SPEAKER_03: it and I'm trying to work out how it fits together and I'm not sure if I try to communicate it
[17:29] SPEAKER_03: with one of my colleagues or a Slack or by a Zoom call I'm just going to rumble on and I'm not
[17:35] SPEAKER_03: really going to get to the point of the matter the process of writing it down into 500 words and
[17:40] SPEAKER_03: coming back to it the next morning and looking at it and going well it's as genius for there's a huge
[17:45] SPEAKER_03: hole in this logic of fixing it and then distributing that for other people to read consider reread
[17:50] SPEAKER_03: consider and then come back for questions it kind of slows down the process a little so we did a
[17:55] SPEAKER_03: lot of memo writing or kind of I guess press release and press release writing when we started
[17:59] SPEAKER_03: to try and really figure out what's the what's the what problem I was having here and what's the USP
[18:07] SPEAKER_03: and you know how we I always feel like if you can't tell the narrative internally very well you've
[18:13] SPEAKER_03: got no chance telling it externally yeah totally and and it's a total waste dance is sort of
[18:19] SPEAKER_03: go to a PR and be like hey so we got this cool thing and it's going to take me to ask which point
[18:23] SPEAKER_03: it is and it's contradictory it's you have to kind of get your doctor in a row and and that once
[18:31] SPEAKER_03: you start scanning your business and once you start bringing in other people who are experts like
[18:34] SPEAKER_03: we recently hired us to our role for example it was great because I can then just hand them the
[18:39] SPEAKER_03: memos and say you know here it is I can consolidate those pretty quickly into a deck I can consolidate
[18:44] SPEAKER_03: those pretty quickly into the organizational structure because we're all in agreement like how
[18:50] SPEAKER_03: we got to where we're at and it kind of gives you a I don't know I find I find it it gives a
[18:56] SPEAKER_03: sentiment confidence that I have like 20 odd memos sitting in a Google duct somewhere that I can
[19:01] SPEAKER_03: pull off and I can look at them I could be like you're an idiot that was that was stupid you were
[19:05] SPEAKER_03: obviously going to make that mistake but at least I can go back through those things and see what
[19:10] SPEAKER_01: my book process was is the essence of the business a one company with employees or is it to bring in
[19:17] SPEAKER_01: I'll say freelance bookkeepers to be part of the journey what's it how does the structure of
[19:24] SPEAKER_03: a human's work one company one world it's yeah so the way that we do and I mean this is kind of
[19:32] SPEAKER_03: getting into again like when you when you go into an industry and you're trying to I hate saying
[19:40] SPEAKER_03: that I'm going into an industry to disrupt it because it immediately makes you sound
[19:44] SPEAKER_03: ecotistical that they got it wrong this entire time me when my me with my incredible my evening
[19:50] SPEAKER_03: is going to comment and realize within 30 seconds that I was maybe underestimate the situation
[19:54] SPEAKER_03: which is a little like what's happening at Twitter there's there's a sense of coming into
[20:02] SPEAKER_03: there's a sense of coming into it in a common market where there are sort of
[20:06] SPEAKER_03: disruptions that can be done on the raw marginal gains and all these sort of things having found
[20:10] SPEAKER_03: us who come from that industry as well and know what the defaults are it's huge and so culture for
[20:16] SPEAKER_03: us is really big and the way that we do the work that we do is culturally kind of relevant within
[20:23] SPEAKER_03: the company we try to be very efficient we try to cut down on a lot of the sort of standard things
[20:30] SPEAKER_03: that happen in incumbent industries where you have large org structures and partners and all
[20:35] SPEAKER_03: these sort of things we don't have that we're very flat hierarchy or hierarchically we're quite flat
[20:40] SPEAKER_03: and so for us it's about trying to give our employees an environment or you know our bookkeepers
[20:45] SPEAKER_03: are tax specialists etc etc for payroll people a really great environment where they feel that
[20:51] SPEAKER_03: they can progress and grow and learn these skills and so I want someone to come to the company who's
[20:57] SPEAKER_03: going to come on as a technologist as we recall them which is someone who's primarily learning
[21:02] SPEAKER_03: the ropes of cloud accounting and tell them that they could be a CPA and get that designation within
[21:08] SPEAKER_03: sort of five years or however long have a quick to do that from my point of view that would be great
[21:14] SPEAKER_03: if they did that and we know that in in the industry as a whole that's not typically a supportive process
[21:19] SPEAKER_03: so there's there's a certain hierarchy of designations and everything else so we're very much
[21:27] SPEAKER_03: keeping it all within within the humans sort of I would guess and I think that's important to do
[21:34] SPEAKER_03: that I think the stuff that you can add so things like you know lead generation and PR and there's
[21:40] SPEAKER_03: a lot of these kind of things that circle around growth business which need people who are very
[21:46] SPEAKER_03: very highly motivated and well connected in that space but in terms of it being the core part of
[21:54] SPEAKER_03: our business I'm a big kind of not I'd show things that until you get the form there right right
[22:00] SPEAKER_01: you also mentioned about the democratization of data in your bio can you tell our audience what
[22:08] SPEAKER_03: you mean by that I know I was I was expecting that to come out as I was writing the bio I hate
[22:14] SPEAKER_03: writing bios because whenever I whenever I write one I think some sound like I don't know but
[22:20] SPEAKER_03: very kind of know what I'm talking about democratization of data is an interesting one it's it's
[22:26] SPEAKER_03: something which I've done in the past so I was one of the lead product city mapper so over years ago
[22:33] SPEAKER_03: and one of the big things that we did is we worked in the open data system and so if a you know you
[22:39] SPEAKER_03: want to know what a bus is going to turn off and you want to know it's going to turn off at a certain
[22:43] SPEAKER_03: time so that when you leave the house you get to the bus stop and time the bus takes you where you
[22:47] SPEAKER_03: want to go and then you can plan all the transit or you can plan a route you can plan the way that you
[22:52] SPEAKER_03: work and that's what based on data that's based on open data this is data that comes from the bus
[22:58] SPEAKER_03: manufacturer or the company or it comes from it comes from the local government and the standards
[23:05] SPEAKER_03: to that the standards for this open data AI and everything else that comes with it and that's
[23:10] SPEAKER_03: a real democratization of data and the interesting thing that happens when you have a community which
[23:14] SPEAKER_03: is using open data as a transit piece is that every single person in that community is basically
[23:19] SPEAKER_03: producing data as part of that trip and journey but it actually improves and is utilized as long
[23:25] SPEAKER_03: as it utilized correctly by the community as a whole to improve it so people realize that there's
[23:30] SPEAKER_03: too much demand they create more bus routes which is more beneficial they realize that there's
[23:34] SPEAKER_03: problems with sort of the disability access to to transit times so they create new disability
[23:39] SPEAKER_03: there's a lot of these things but transit data is a whole government data as a whole does
[23:45] SPEAKER_03: very well we're not doing that kind of open data humans what we're doing is in terms of how
[23:52] SPEAKER_03: where democratizing data is it's actually allowing business owners to see the data in their own
[23:57] SPEAKER_03: business which is incredibly difficult to do you point that because unless you so if I said
[24:08] SPEAKER_03: your cogs mean your first question is going to be is probably the business what is cogs
[24:12] SPEAKER_03: yeah which is cost of good self and then you're going to be like oh I'm going to google what the
[24:16] SPEAKER_03: calculations for that and then you're going to have to get all of your accounts which are probably
[24:20] SPEAKER_03: not reconciled you're going to have to reconcile them all make sure the real accurate and then you
[24:24] SPEAKER_03: going to explore them into CSV and you're going to run the calculations on it and then exhal
[24:27] SPEAKER_03: or however it is that you teach us the earth and you may off after about an hour or so with
[24:33] SPEAKER_03: a cogs figure and then I'm going to ask you in the days time what's your cogs and you're going to
[24:38] SPEAKER_03: have to do all over again and so that's one figure doesn't include like your free cash it doesn't
[24:45] SPEAKER_03: include your debt to interest it doesn't include your liability rate it doesn't include your life
[24:48] SPEAKER_03: payroll doesn't tell you how much of your employee benefits are going out and these are numbers where
[24:53] SPEAKER_03: you can see them spike really quickly where you can see them crumble because of a market factor
[24:59] SPEAKER_03: and so what we want to do is we want to create an environment because all the numbers happen
[25:04] SPEAKER_03: through the ledger it happens through the book when you submit your receipts and we reconcile
[25:09] SPEAKER_03: weekly which no one else really does you provide us with your receipts you upload them through the
[25:14] SPEAKER_03: my phone app or you know you can post them to us or whatever however you want to do it we put
[25:19] SPEAKER_03: the men we have bookkeepers who are working on your like a ledger in real time they know your business
[25:23] SPEAKER_03: um they create these live ledgers these then going to the dashboard which is unique to you no one
[25:31] SPEAKER_03: else can see it unless you choose the shirt we do those characters just for you but it's updated in
[25:36] SPEAKER_03: real time um and you can see that trend over time and you can see it we can give you a little bit
[25:40] SPEAKER_03: of a prediction over the course of your last three months how your next month is going to look
[25:44] SPEAKER_03: bang in mind the seasonal variants and that's a part where we want to start building you know more
[25:50] SPEAKER_03: and more powerful things on now if you were in a lot of business and you had hired a CFO that's
[25:57] SPEAKER_03: that job so they would come to you as the CEO of the business and they'd be like hey rumors like
[26:03] SPEAKER_03: I'm a bit worried that our payroll is down on a spike a little bit but look at the benefits
[26:07] SPEAKER_03: people aren't spending that benefits but you know look at the free cash we're holding too much free
[26:12] SPEAKER_03: cash so you know by the time tax time comes we're gonna have to try and move it somewhere
[26:15] SPEAKER_03: and they would do this because you would have a weekly finance maybe where you would be told
[26:20] SPEAKER_03: to hold this and your sales department would tell you what they're bringing in and finance would
[26:25] SPEAKER_03: say what's going out and then you would just see a work like a decision 99% of businesses ain't that
[26:30] SPEAKER_03: so what you're able to do in our world is we can't have filled that CFO COO crossover um you know
[26:38] SPEAKER_03: we're not here as a financial advisor but we're here to show you a mirror against your business
[26:42] SPEAKER_03: and show good facts and let you make those decisions and one of the biggest parts in making
[26:50] SPEAKER_03: decisions is the knowledge gap that comes with that and that's something that we're concentrating
[26:55] SPEAKER_03: on sort of this year which is we've just launched a knowledge center an insight center and we're
[27:00] SPEAKER_03: trying to create articles based on and sort of insight and reports based on stuff that's relevant
[27:07] SPEAKER_03: for small business um to navigate like why your burn rate is important how do you calculate it
[27:13] SPEAKER_03: what do I do with this burn rate like what does it tell me like if uh if my if my lender asks me for
[27:20] SPEAKER_03: a cash report what do I give them these are questions which if you google and you'll have 20 different
[27:26] SPEAKER_03: answers and so uh you know we're working pretty hard now to to start of really plug that knowledge
[27:33] SPEAKER_03: gap but but but but on us and give them a uh a trust trusted resource and so when that regard do
[27:40] SPEAKER_01: you meet uh does your team meet with your clients on a regular basis a weekly basis a monthly
[27:45] SPEAKER_03: basis to offer that value added service so we do we do work with you reconciliation and what we do
[27:53] SPEAKER_03: is which I I suppose I'm aware and this is where I'm sure that someone who's incredibly sharp
[27:58] SPEAKER_03: that I did market with her angle but no um we offer we offer pretty much next day service on support
[28:05] SPEAKER_03: it's free for you to bother us with your questions um it's not billed like most services would so
[28:12] SPEAKER_03: you email us you have a um you have an email that we give you which is you know it's not unique to
[28:18] SPEAKER_03: you but it will get you an immediate response from your bookkeeping team and you can ask any questions
[28:23] SPEAKER_03: you have like you know how does this impact my child on a bed we'll tell you within 23
[28:27] SPEAKER_03: um you know it's not it's not a big deal for us to to do that that's how we both our business to
[28:32] SPEAKER_03: provide that level support right from from our point of view the more knowledgeable you are
[28:37] SPEAKER_03: as an owner the more efficient we are as a business right so instead of support being this
[28:43] SPEAKER_03: right there's anchor on it on a business which is typically what it is our support actually for
[28:48] SPEAKER_03: us is a um is you know it's a mutual benefit for both the the customer and for us like everyone
[28:55] SPEAKER_03: benefits out of that that high level support um on some of the higher plans depending on how
[29:01] SPEAKER_03: complicated your businesses um we offer things like you know a monthly check in with the bookkeeper
[29:06] SPEAKER_03: where you'll sort of get half an hour to go through the reports go through everything that's on
[29:10] SPEAKER_03: your dashboard already they'll explain things that you don't know they'll give you a heads up on
[29:14] SPEAKER_03: certain things that may be changing that sort of stuff it really just depends how much involvement
[29:19] SPEAKER_03: you want from us but the baseline for us is on limited support which is usually same
[29:23] SPEAKER_03: more in x business day is kind of a key sla promise i would say which is the the thing that we kind
[29:29] SPEAKER_01: of you know love and dive on do you and if you heard if you get any pushback from the traditionalists
[29:37] SPEAKER_01: who do a bookkeeping it's uh have you have you ever had any any bites back from them
[29:42] SPEAKER_03: no yeah no no yeah uh i i don't know i don't go to a currency conferences so
[29:52] SPEAKER_03: it's um it's it's very strange because i'm not i'm not part of that world so um i'm just trying to
[29:58] SPEAKER_03: i'm just trying to solve problems i don't tend to get involved in the in the sort of the industry
[30:03] SPEAKER_03: the the deep part of the industry i'm just you know i was going to say myself as a coming from
[30:09] SPEAKER_03: the ux background um which is once once things transitions to icons and iPads i mean pretty
[30:15] SPEAKER_03: squally away from sort of brown then sort of traditional media design into ux which
[30:19] SPEAKER_03: you've got me into the technology space right and it was drilled into me from day one when i
[30:23] SPEAKER_03: moved into that space that you are the advocate for the custom like you defend the customer
[30:27] SPEAKER_03: when you defend the customer against sales you defend the customer against bad actors you can
[30:31] SPEAKER_03: put you know and so that's that's kind of always stuck with me that um i'm defending my customers
[30:37] SPEAKER_03: i don't care what the industry the most pop things so what about what about sales give us a
[30:42] SPEAKER_01: sense as to how your how your sales strategies work sales strategies have been interesting so we
[30:49] SPEAKER_03: we we kind of acquired a bunch of clients early on who have been sort of great for us they've
[30:54] SPEAKER_03: been a great test bed we had to kind of figure out quite a lot about how we were going to work
[30:59] SPEAKER_03: we have things called pods which is actually kind of based on that it's actually based on
[31:05] SPEAKER_03: the Spotify model of basically creating small um effectively families that are self-sustaining
[31:11] SPEAKER_03: they can take on certain levels of workflow within their own teams and have what we would call ownership
[31:17] SPEAKER_03: over what happens in that team so we don't kind of have to directly manage them they kind of
[31:21] SPEAKER_03: manage themselves um they get the work done and needs to get done when they need to get it done and
[31:25] SPEAKER_03: they they figure out what training needs to happen what support a client needs and all of this sort of
[31:31] SPEAKER_03: stuff uh they're with the client they defend the client that's their job as well um so we just try
[31:37] SPEAKER_03: not to get in the way of those and that makes them super push and obviously much happier because
[31:41] SPEAKER_03: they have the serve what they do um but defining that model you know takes that takes that first 20
[31:49] SPEAKER_03: 30 clients right and you have to kind of like figure that out now we're kind of beginning into
[31:53] SPEAKER_03: this next phase which is okay so we've kind of figured it out and we know that it's not going to
[31:58] SPEAKER_03: break and we kind of know what our trajectory is going to be and we've kind of put enough planning
[32:04] SPEAKER_03: in place where if I refelt the big snowball we've managed to lift it to the top of the hill
[32:09] SPEAKER_03: um you don't want to make sure your snowballs too big so you don't want to invest too much effort
[32:12] SPEAKER_03: into that because you know as soon as it rolls it's going to go in the wrong direction but
[32:15] SPEAKER_03: at least you can get some momentum on it um that's that's a fine art and that's that's not where you know
[32:23] SPEAKER_03: um encroach the grateful learning way for the song like Dolma if he who knows exactly the size of that
[32:28] SPEAKER_03: snowball uh but the that that that that that stays then you kind of meeting you to kind of a growth
[32:35] SPEAKER_03: growth environment so it was good for us I guess in that first that first year to try and read
[32:40] SPEAKER_03: the term and you know anyone can say that they have PMF product market fit um actually
[32:46] SPEAKER_03: working out what the product market fit looks like there's a little bit more hard and a lot of
[32:51] SPEAKER_03: people don't really think about that and so being able to say well okay like we think we have that
[32:55] SPEAKER_03: now let's now double down and push and so we recently hired our uh we kind of took a bit of a risk
[33:03] SPEAKER_03: I guess you know a lot of companies at this phase wouldn't necessarily double down and bring in a
[33:09] SPEAKER_03: a senior sales leader um that's not the typical way that you would do it you would kind of bring in
[33:14] SPEAKER_03: somewhat it was just that sell on the phone but you know this industry demands um talents that
[33:20] SPEAKER_03: are very different um this is uh quite a jaded industry of business owners uh who sometimes feel like
[33:29] SPEAKER_03: you know and I we we've been said on the website and I I stand by that coffee stall that
[33:34] SPEAKER_03: running a small business is one of the longest hardest hardest things you could do and it I
[33:41] SPEAKER_03: I've started quite a few businesses um I'm still an org and even it does because I think like it
[33:49] SPEAKER_03: this this kind of like this cross-bed of like heroism and like stupidity that comes when you
[33:55] SPEAKER_03: speak the business and there has to be this kind of like this there's other vector of like maybe
[34:00] SPEAKER_03: that allows you to get through it or if you run a successful business or even a business before
[34:04] SPEAKER_03: just not the naively but the forgetfulness of what what pain is um but we we kind of know who
[34:11] SPEAKER_03: these people are and we know that you know they they you know the small business market whether it's
[34:17] SPEAKER_03: google mail selling you more google space or whatever is incredibly predatory um everyone's after five
[34:25] SPEAKER_03: bucks a month um and everyone's trying to get you to sign up and like as soon as as soon as I
[34:31] SPEAKER_03: created the humans the main I was getting emails to my Gmail asking me do I want to off
[34:36] SPEAKER_03: up to sure stuff do I want to do this do I want to do this do I want to do this is only five bucks
[34:40] SPEAKER_03: my this is 20 bucks a month right everyone's trying to get you the price of Netflix right for a month
[34:44] SPEAKER_03: what I'm saying this little thing that you want to do um you know I research was showing that there's
[34:49] SPEAKER_03: like you know at least at least sort of two three thousand apps that are purely based around that
[34:53] SPEAKER_03: specific area of the SMV market that are all charged in a cement amount of the free trial and it
[34:57] SPEAKER_03: continues on okay five-by-quad and so I think most small businesses are just you know an owner's
[35:04] SPEAKER_03: a overwhelmed but they're also jaded quite rightly um by a lot of people who claim they have solutions
[35:13] SPEAKER_03: to their problems right um and so that's why we we're not taking we never decided to take that
[35:18] SPEAKER_03: hard sell approach for us it's more about um setting up setting up the stall well um and certainly
[35:27] SPEAKER_03: the maritime's it's it's it's it's a different beast because it's um it's it's it's more of a word of
[35:34] SPEAKER_03: met in America yeah it's yeah it is people's level of trust is is is orientated far more towards
[35:39] SPEAKER_03: what their friend defined and I can't go out and just sort of like buy a huge amount of Google ads and
[35:45] SPEAKER_03: just say hey come sign up to my thing because everyone's gonna be like well I don't know
[35:50] SPEAKER_01: I really kicked the tires a bit is that is is that strange for you to work in an environment like that
[35:59] SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm risen from an ortho thing than words like that and so I'm a part of the book I was I was
[36:03] SPEAKER_03: blown up by the borders which is you know small small city and um and sort of you know a lot of the same
[36:09] SPEAKER_03: but this way I understand you understand different on this uh which a lot of people don't
[36:14] SPEAKER_03: that's just because of my my sort of my background but um there's a real sense of um yeah like trust
[36:22] SPEAKER_03: within trust within the community and it kind of sells quite a lot like if you if you say that you're
[36:26] SPEAKER_03: maritime trying to business that actually means quite a bit and it's amazing and the people have
[36:30] SPEAKER_03: asked me sort of like you know where the parents from well you know you know you know builds from
[36:35] SPEAKER_03: always a keeper and are okay right and that always kind of that's okay it surprises me but that's
[36:41] SPEAKER_03: just one of the things I love about the Atlantic as well so it's um you know people are very
[36:46] SPEAKER_03: are very supportive of small business and I think that's um especially in the maritime businesses
[36:51] SPEAKER_03: like I've always joked that if you open the business uh in in Halifax, the government and
[36:57] SPEAKER_03: you know there would be a queue around the block probably for the first two weeks while everyone
[37:01] SPEAKER_03: checked out your words right yeah um people are very supportive and very loyal and you know that's
[37:06] SPEAKER_03: something which you know you don't you don't get every day I couldn't launch a company in Toronto and
[37:12] SPEAKER_02: get that sort of no good response right yeah so what brought you there in Nova Scotia
[37:18] SPEAKER_03: wow combination of things I also put it in my wife yeah um you know so we I've been coming
[37:27] SPEAKER_03: up a quite long time uh primarily could be a family queue um and I I just been working in the last
[37:35] SPEAKER_03: the last sort of one of last jobs I did before I before I knew Terry was kind split between L.A.
[37:40] SPEAKER_03: and London which is really not the best times on blend no um and I sort of got to the stage of my
[37:46] SPEAKER_03: career where there's kind of like VP layer and sort of series CD companies and I if any if anyone
[37:54] SPEAKER_03: watching this is ever done that kind of role then you know the you're probably getting flashbacks
[37:59] SPEAKER_03: at panic hitting you in the face with the sound of a slack and uh everything else so it was it was
[38:06] SPEAKER_03: just something to sort of like the need to make a life change and of course you know my wife and
[38:11] SPEAKER_03: myself it sort of really find out if you were surprising around at times so it was it was a really good
[38:16] SPEAKER_03: opportunity to sort of really make a big new life change um and I already know a lot of the
[38:24] SPEAKER_03: very easy for us to kind of slip into this fit into this this environment it reminded me of you
[38:29] SPEAKER_03: know my time growing up in Newcastle and in the north of England it was you know the maritime is
[38:34] SPEAKER_01: very special space you know yeah it is a special space or this has been a very cool journey um learning
[38:40] SPEAKER_01: about uh learning about humans is there anything you'd like to lead with us um I'm gonna ask you how
[38:47] SPEAKER_01: do we get in touch with you how do we get in touch with the humans dot com which is really HUU
[38:53] SPEAKER_03: mns dot com as you know as bill revery call for put in the very corny way we put the you in humans which
[39:02] SPEAKER_03: I right I think we should never have that as a brand of family's terrible uh but it's yes it's HUU
[39:10] SPEAKER_03: M a n s dot com human's dot com um or you can just google humans bookkeeping however you
[39:16] SPEAKER_03: want to spoke humans will know that show up um and uh yeah so we we're not just in our sense with
[39:22] SPEAKER_03: when nationwide um and uh yeah we we offer payroll plans as well uh so if you only have to payroll
[39:30] SPEAKER_03: and uh we also have for those people who have got a new business or startup uh we have 50% off
[39:36] SPEAKER_03: in this year 25% of the second there's a startup plan program so if you want to need to need to
[39:41] SPEAKER_03: need the business have a look at that and yeah come on over and sign up and uh we'll get someone on
[39:46] SPEAKER_01: the phone with you that we're chatting and it's Rob Bio Y NES if you want to check them out on
[39:51] SPEAKER_01: your own LinkedIn yes yeah so Rob thanks so much for your time today and coming to do us a chat
[40:07] SPEAKER_01: about humans and the great things you're doing and uh all from from Nova Scotia which is of course
[40:12] SPEAKER_01: a key part of the Atlantic Canadian ecosystem so uh thanks so much for your time today I appreciate it
[40:19] SPEAKER_03: thanks very much for your time