Our Two Cents

 

Dear Valued Clients and Friends,

At inDinero, the health and well-being of our customers, employees, and communities is our top priority. I understand the concern and uncertainty you may be experiencing surrounding the coronavirus (COVID-19) and I wanted to reach out to share our response and commitment to the health and needs of our customers and employees as the situation evolves.

We survived the long Thanksgiving weekend (but barely). It’s time to put the unbutton-your-jeans level overeating of turkey and harrowing Black Friday shopping experiences behind us and look forward to the joyful holiday season. Celebrating the holidays comes in many shapes and forms and one of our favorites is #GivingTuesday.

Now in its seventh year, this global day of giving kicks off the charitable season by encouraging people to give to organizations, charities, and initiatives that are doing good. Raising an estimated $274 million in 2017, #GivingTuesday has grown into a motivational movement showcasing local and national nonprofits, charitable movements, and community events.

Looking for ways to participate this #GivingTuesday? Here are four of our clients’ and employees’ favorites to stir your charitable spirit:

True or False?: Every business needs a Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

Answer: True, every business needs CFO- or Controller-level insights but not necessarily full-time.

It’s clear why a later-stage operation would need a CFO—with growth comes complexity, but a brand new startup can also benefit greatly from some time with a CFO as they set up their business. Right off the bat, this can help them understand how their industry, business model, entity type, financing options, or team of founders might affect their finances at a long-term, holistic level. After that, they might not speak to a CFO for a few years or until a round of debt financing, for example.

With tempCFO joining the team, inDinero is making it possible for every business owner to work directly with a team of highly trained and experienced financial experts for less than what it might cost to hire a bookkeeper.

Elise Fajen is inDinero’s Sales Operation Manager, as well as the Co-Founder and Director of Human Resources at her family-owned sportswear company, Wind-Blox. When she’s not looking for new ways for inDinero’s marketing and sales teams to reach small business owners, she’s busy making our Portland office a wonderful and welcoming place to work:

 

As you can imagine, being CFO of a fintech startup can be a stimulating—and sometimes boisterous—job. Especially when you compare it to the more traditional CFO role at a larger enterprise company. Which is why when it came time for inDinero to find a fearless financial leader, it wasn’t easy—until we found Lisa Bunday. After all, it’s not every day you meet someone with Lisa’s background in accounting and finance who still finds a way to reference Ross Gellar and Excel Spreadsheets in one breath. Our COO, Keddrick Stuart shares why he’s excited to have Lisa on the team:

Each organization that inDinero serves has three teams working for them: a tax team, an accounting team, and a service team. In our series, “Getting to know inDinero,” we share more about the people behind these three teams -- everything from what they do at inDinero to their favorite things about supporting small businesses.

 

A quick intro from the editor: Steve Kornreich heads inDinero’s NYC-based consulting team that serves entrepreneurs east of Chicago. He is the proud father of a soon-to-be 5-year-old cockapoo named Mickey.

 

 

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I recently had the pleasure of joining founder and CEO of Justworks, Isaac Oates, and Founder and CEO of LawTrades, Raad Ahmed, on a panel sharing personal success stories and practical advice to entrepreneurs of all stripes. While I haven’t personally started a business, I do have the breadth of experience working with countless startups and watching them grow. I’ve worked for a big Wall Street firm and an early stage startup (we, unfortunately, did not make it), and led business development efforts for small and mid-sized financial institutions at Gartner before coming back to the startup ecosystem with inDinero.

Some people start a business because they have an idea and others because they never imagined doing anything else. But every long-lasting business started because someone saw a problem go unresolved for too long and wanted to fix it.

The excitement of doing something new can be enticing and the sense of accomplishment very satisfying. But it’s undeniable that starting a company takes guts. So it makes sense that we many entrepreneurs touted publicly for being “fearless” and “unafraid”. In reality, a lack of fear is not what makes a good business leader. And by no means do you need to be fearless to be an entrepreneur.

We’ve all had a vision so clear and perfect we can almost feel the tug of the finish line ribbon, only to have our expectations fall into a million pieces for us to pick up. To Jessica Mah, that vision was to be an entrepreneur. Leading a company is something she always knew she would do. But that certainly didn’t end up the way she expected at 8, 11, 19, or 21 years old…

Harry Stebbings is the founder and host of TheTwentyMinuteVC, a podcast on a mission to inspire and guide entrepreneurial listeners with insights and advice from successful venture capitalists on the rise. 

In this episode he speaks with inDinero co-founder and CEO, Jessica Mah  about how she has grown inDinero from zero to multi-million dollar revenues with over 100 full-time employees and has been featured in the Forbes and Inc 30 Under 30 Lists. 

This podcast recording and blog post were recently featured on Harry’s website, TheTwentyMinuteVC.com.

Listen and enjoy!