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@lightninglab 2014 overview for week 1.

First of all, apologies to you all for the lack of updates. Time seems to move differently in the Lightning Lab 2014 accelerator programme. We have barely had time to think let alone do a blog post. That being said, I make this promise to you all that I will make at least one blog post per week while we are here.

In fact, if I slip up at all on the regularity of blog posts, I will personally do 25 push-ups and post the video here as punishment.

So how has the lab been so far you ask. Well great question (and thanks for asking). Week one has been chaos surrounded in a layer of insanity with a light dusting of fatigue. However, I can honestly say it is well worth it.

As well as building a great product for you all, we need to manage up to 5 meetings with a mentor per day (which will increase in week two) as well as great group sessions and networking with fantastically talented people.

Common Ledger is growing rapidly and in the process both myself and Drew have personally grown exponentially.

I can't stress enough how valuable this time of acceleration, focus and growth is. At the end of this we will have crafted a product that is designed specifically with you in mind.

We have given ourself some pretty large goals to achieve and even laid down the gauntlet with the awesome guys in the Twingle team. Come demo day, one team will be buying all the beers (and it won't be us).

We have been blown away by all of your support, a number of you have even asked how you can help while we are in the programme. I will do a post later this week outlining how you can help.

Well, i better get back to the programme (we have more mentor sessions coming up), stay cool

Vince

#common ledger #coledge #lightning lab

Just a quick note from @commonledger about how excited we are to be one of the ten startups that have been accepted to take part in the Lightning Lab 2014 accelerator program. This is a huge vote of confidence for the team and product we are building and provides an amazing opportunity for us to accelerate our growth.

Lightning Lab is a three month programme that will provide an incredible amount of mentorship, opportunities and of course a chance to raise capital on Demo Day.

Have a look here for the official press release (and to see the other teams): http://www.idealog.co.nz/blog/2014/02/meet-10-teams-headed-lightning-lab

So raise a glass of bubbly (or if you are like us, a milkshake) and celebrate with us. Of course the celebration for us is very short as we are currently going at 100MPH and as of Monday (first day of the lab), it will be 150MPH.

Bring it on!

#coledge #common ledger #lightning lab

A non-traditional approach to handling any of our competition...

#coledge #tmnt #competition

The Coledge co-founders travel to #xerocon Auckland 2014.

Wow, what a crazy trip. First of all our flights on Wednesday night get cancelled due to fog, then our re-scheduled flights get cancelled the next morning as well. Rather than facing the option of not being at Xerocon, we quickly hired a car and embarked on the 8 hour drive, IMPROMPTU ROAD TRIP!

Finally we arrive in Auckland at night and prepare to cram two days of #xerocon into one. But first, it's off to Food Alley down lower Albert St. for some cheap and cheerful food where we had a chance encounter with bookkeepers who are also attending #xerocon.

Day two begins and we are greeted by a smiling Rod Drury and a welcome pack with a pad and pen in (which Drew passed on to a very grateful accountant who got caught without a pad and pen in theirs). Next up are a lot of presentations, networking, meetings, lunch and more lunch.

Some of the highlights for us:

Rod Drury re-did his state of the nation presentation for anyone from Wellington that missed it on day one because of the fog.

Amanda (Xero's GM of Sales) Armstrongs' presentation. We were both very impressed with the fact that Amanda gave clear stats and facts (warts and all) of where Xero is and where they need to be.

Lunch, we had a great healthy lunch pack. In fact, we liked it so much that when we found out they had spare, we both ate two.

We also talked and listened to every accountant and bookkeeper we could find the time to speak with. The message we got was clear: move quick as they are all waiting very patiently for what we are building (and as one person pointed out to us, don't rush it though as quality is important).

All in all we got a lot out of Xerocon. From the great connections to the wisdom imparted to us by some of the most passionate old school accountants we have met.

After all of this, we unwound in a way that Coledge do best, Mexican food and video games.

Now it's back down to Wellington to spend some well deserved time with our families before heading back to the office on Monday to continue building a quality product as fast as is possible. Oh, and of course, wait patiently to see if we are part of the Lightning Lab 2014 crew (fingers crossed).

#coledge #xerocon #common ledger #auckland

Preparations for Xerocon are well underway with the arrival of the Coledge bags.

If you wish to catchup with the Coledge team while at Xerocon, send us an email on [email protected] and we will come to you.

Oh, and excuse the very Non-Zoolander pose.

#coledge #common ledger #xerocon

The ten tools we can't live without (plus one future mention)

As the team at Coledge prepare to venture up to Auckland for Xerocon, I thought we could deviate from the normal style of post and take a moment to talk about some of the awesome tools we use in the office.

This idea partially came from the fact that we have constantly been gushing over a new collaborative tool we have started to use.

So on with the list (and in no particular order):

1) Slack - http://slack.com/

To call Slack a collaborative tool is doing it a complete injustice. The way we use it, it would be better to call it a complete communication platform. As well as a chat function that the entire team use (including our distributed members), it also integrates into most of the services we use internally. Now all of our communications are in one place and totally searchable. We can't stop spreading the love for this service!

2) Trello - https://trello.com/

Trello is the simplest Agile project tracker I have ever used. The whole team use it, plus I am starting to use it at home so I don't get in trouble with the wee wifey for forgetting to do the household chores. Oh and the best bit, it is free.

3) Google Apps - http://www.google.co.nz/enterprise/apps/business/

The whole team are big fans of Google Apps and we use it a lot (and I mean a lot). We use it for everything from our emails, Google Drive for internal storage, Docs for collaborative writing, forms for doing surveys and signups, Calendar for meetings, Analytics and more.

4) Dropbox - https://www.dropbox.com/

We use Dropbox for our external storage. Anything we have to send to someone externally (including our due diligence) is stored in Dropbox and shared from there.

5) Evernote - http://www.evernote.com/

This one is a no brainer. The more we use Evernote, the more we would be lost without it. Personally, I use it to take notes in meetings (complete with photos of whiteboard sketches and audio recordings) and to store articles to read later on (using the Chrome extension).

6) Github - https://github.com/

Github is in essence 'social coding' and something the development team spend an obscene amount of time on.

7) Runscope - https://www.runscope.com/

Runscope Radar is automated testing for APIs and backend services.

8) Raygun - http://raygun.io/

Error and crash reporting tool to help our developers discover and resolve software bugs faster.

9) Choir - https://choir.io/

This is pretty damn cool, we use Choir to monitor everything and it uses different ambient and non ambient (for major events such as a new customer) sounds to notify us. No need to constantly switch contexts to see what's going on

10) Soundrop - http://soundrop.fm/

Soundrop is the office saviour. We have such an eclectic team with an equally eclectic taste in music. From my classic rock to Drews' video game soundtracks. From Marks' underground-hippy-thrash-metal to Patricks' One Direction. If we left the music up to one person, none of us would be happy. In comes Soundrop to save the day. Now we have an office playlist/radio station that the whole team can contribute and listen to even when they are working from home.

And our future tool:

a) Hoist - http://hoistapps.com/

We love the potential of what we can do on Hoist, Owen and the team are doing great things and we are even looking to build our billing system using their system. This is partially because we love new tech, partially to support another great Wellington startup and mostly to do with the fact we are looking for any excuse to catchup with them for a few milkshakes.

#coledge #tools #common ledger #hoist

Calling all accountants and bookkeepers, we need your help!

Coledge are about to enter into a pilot phase to test our Common Ledger web platform and we would love your professional opinion.

Imagine having access to all of your clients' accounting data in one place with one login. Soon it will be possible.

Coledge are standardising accounting data across all software packages and to do this we have created our web platform called Common Ledger. Common Ledger synchronises and integrates data between accounting applications such as Xero, MYOB, Quickbooks and Sage.

This is where you come in, we need you to join our pilot and become part of a world first.

The platform is designed so accountants and bookkeepers can access their client data where and when they need it regardless of the accounting package. In turn you can then extend the offerings of your internal tools by connecting them to accounting systems they were not designed for; through the Common Ledger platform.

Your input is going to be vital in helping us to build the platform and tools that work for you. So to show our gratitude, all participants in the pilot program go in the draw to win one of four $100 Prezzy or Amazon cards.

You can find out more information on Common Ledger and sign up for our pilot program here http://www.commonledger.com.

Once you have signed up for the program, a number of you will be selected at random and contacted by the Coledge team. The remainder will be contacted once we open up the platform for the next round of testing.

We would love you to be a part of this exciting journey with us.

Cheers