As part of my Internet business opportunities series I wanted to include a few pieces on some Internet only businesses detailing how they came about and why they are Internet based. This guest post by Duane Jackson of Kashflow is the first. KashFlow is an Internet based service providing accounting software to SME’s. I’ll let Duane tell you the KashFlow story:
I still firmly believe that one of the most unique selling points about KashFlow is that it was born out of a real business need and not just a bunch of marketing people trying to manufacture a product they thought people would want.
KashFlow emerged as a byproduct of a software development and design company called Key One that I also own. We needed book-keeping software to keep track of day to day business expenditure, sales and receipts etc and found that the likes of Sage and Quick Books were just too complicated. As a result I put my development skills into practice and created a tool that allowed us to do the basic things we needed and hosted it all online under the Key One domain.
At the time Key One was situated in a business enterprise office with a sizeable number of other small businesses. I got talking to the other company owners who said that they too needed something fairly simple to track their day to day business costs and expenditure and so I set up online accounts for these companies, free of charge, to help them out. At this stage in no way was it intended for it to become a commercial tool that I would charge for.
Word soon spread around the enterprise offices and one of the main selling points was that because it was internet based business owners could safely and securely log on from home, between meetings when out of the office and basically anywhere in the world where access to the internet was available.
Hey presto, KashFlow was born and early versions of a product that could be sold went into beta testing. Not long after the beta launch I had a chance encounter at a Princes Trust meeting with a venture capitalist who loved the idea and immediately offered funding to grow the business.
The fact the software is internet based is a key driving force behind its attraction and also allows back-ups to be managed by the KashFlow software itself to the extent that they are done automatically every 6 hours.
When it comes to the pitfalls of it being online and accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week KashFlow’s customers can get addicted to quickly logging in and checking/updating things which is always mentioned in terms of family disputes during the regular feedback sessions the company facilitates.
Many people ask, would I start another online only business and the answer would have to be a resounding yes. Online business and software is certainly the future and we are only now at the very start of the growth cycle in terms of increased functionality as technology advances.
This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
Have looked at the Kashflow website and it looks like a good system.
We built our own order management and accounting system with MS Access, but in retrospect it would’ve been much more time-effective to buy something off the shelf like this, especially since it looks relatively quick to master.
You’d also have been able to invest that time in growing your business.
We use Kashflow for all our accounts and it is absolutely brilliant. Simple, clean, works quickly. I have nothing but praise. Staff are great too. Get stuck? Phone them. Duane Jackson has emailed me personally to respond to suggestions. More, more. Needless to say, we are recommending it to all small businesses. And it costs just £9.99 a month. Bargain. (Of course they also do referrals. Type in ‘Powerchange’ as a Code (or whatever they call it) and you get a reduction and I get a few pounds. (Then you can do it from then on!) Go for it.