Trimbia

Small business matters.

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Därför bör småföretagare ha bättre kontroll på sitt företags finanser

Som småföretagare finns det framförallt tre områden där det gäller att vara på tå när det gäller att driva en framgångsrik verksamhet - kärnverksamheten, kundrelationer och den finansiella situationen inom företaget. Få skulle argumentera emot de två första av de tre områdena. Det är en självklarhet att det gäller att ligga i framkant vad gäller kärnverksamheten, fokusera på det man är bäst på och se till att ligga steget före sina konkurrenter. På samma sätt är det kritiskt att vårda och följa upp sina kundkontakter över tid och att utveckla sitt varumärke för att skapa än starkare band till sina kunder. Ser vi dock till den finansiella delen av ett företag stöter man på mer motstånd. Varför är det så och varför är det så viktigt att ha koll på den finansiella situationen inom ett småföretag?

Man kan dela upp småföretagarfinans i två huvuddelar, en legal del som innefattar bokföringen och en strategisk del där man som småföretagare kan fånga upp finansiell info som strömmar genom företaget och använda denna info i beslutsfattande situationer. Många småföretagare lägger idag ut sin bokföring på en redovisningsfirma vilket är helt rätt val om du inte har någon tidigare erfarenhet av bokföring. Problemet som uppstår när man lägger ut bokföringen som småföretagare är att det är lätt att känna att man tappar kontrollen över den finansiella situationen i sitt företag och man börjar förlita sig allt mer på de månatliga rapporterna som bokhållaren skickar ut. Dessa månatliga rapporter fyller sitt legala syfte men består av utdaterad data och information om vad som redan har hänt, men vad hjälper det när man ska ta strategiska beslut inför framtiden?

Fokusera på att extrahera värde ut det informationsflöde som passerar ditt företag och fundera på vad som är viktigt att för dig och ditt företag, för du bör fokusera på ett par KPIer och inte försöka hålla koll på allt. Är det viktigast att övervaka hur många besökare du har på din hemsida och hur länge de i genomsnitt stannar på sidan, eller är det viktigaste att ha koll på hur ditt kassaflöde förväntas utvecklas de kommande månaderna? Utgå från ditt företag och ditt företags strategi när du undersöker vilka data ger dig mest värde och bäst underlag för framtida beslutsfattande.

För mer information om vad vi sysslar med: www.trimbia.com

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Tillväxt kostar – ha en plan för att undvika likviditetsproblem

Många av oss drömmer om att växa våra företag, men för snabb tillväxt kan få vilket stabilt företag som helst på fall. Att växa sitt företag kan innebära ökade kostnader för exempelvis lokaler, transporter, utrustning och bränsle. Den största likviditetstjuven är dock det ökade lagret av inventarier eftersom du behöver betala för inventarierna innan du själv får betalt.

Genom aktivt använda en likviditetsprognos kan du undvika akuta likviditetsproblem. Se till att ha en prognos minst en månad fram i tiden och uppdatera prognosen kontinuerligt. Om du ser att ditt kassaflöde förväntas bli negativt inom de kommande veckorna kan du agera direkt genom att antingen erbjuda dina kunder rabatt mot en kortare kredittid alternativt kontakta din bank för att öka din checkkredit.

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Parallel Road Mapping

Today we begin rolling out the first minimal version of the software. This Minimum Viable Product, or MVP, is to test the core functionality which was defined through solutions interviews and iterations and development. However as design and the overall user experience has been disregarded up until this point there is a risk of confusing or alienating some users, which is why we have separated our customer base between test users and potential customers. Both groups come from the Early Adopter segment but the first batch is people we have already spoken with and met with and who have demonstrated a real need for the solution, and a genuine interest in what we are trying to achieve.

The plan is to make a controlled release to 5 users, ask them to try to break the software, find the cracks and bugs, fix and then release to a following 25. However after that we must then expand into a more unknown group of people. This expanded test user base may be less forgiving and will undoubtedly demand a more intuitive and better designed solution. So then, are we to hope that they ignore this ugly solution, hope that they can work it out and risk annoying some potential customers, or do we hold off on the mass release, spend time designing and perfecting and then release once we are content that it looks as well as it works?

Lean methodology would tell us that we should release now, and design later, but does this hold true when we are trying to get business owners to adopt a new way of managing their business? This isn’t just file sharing or photo editing software; this is a tool for helping you to improve how you manage your cash flow.

We also have the question of pre sales. Should you sign up customers on the premise of a, ”coming soon” software application?

It’s one thing knowing what customers want and how to build it, and who to build it for… knowing how to reach them is a very different question.

We decided, then, to test our hypothesis. We had stated in our business model and business plan how we plan to reach customers and what our channels to them would be. So as we are still in the safe comfort of the Encubator, we decided to test these channels and work out which will be the most reliable and successful. It’s one thing to write it and another thing to achieve it, and since we’ve tested everything else so far, maybe it’s a good approach to test our Customer Channels as well. In the mean time we can also put efforts into designing the user experience (UX) and the overall appearance as well as engaging directly with the first users.

We have considered this approach as a parallel development approach, which means that when the product is ready and verified by the early adopters, the routes to the mass market will have already been mapped out. I’m going to call this development process Parallel Road Mapping.

Stay tuned to find out how successful this approach will be and please feel free to share some of your reflections or experiences from this stage in the development process.

Post by: John @ Trimbia

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How much VAT are you paying this month?

Did the VAT come as a surprise on the mail yet again? Make sure you have a liquidity budget where you can project how much tax you’re paying and when it's due to get rid of unpleasant surprises and make sure your cash-flow stays positive.

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Today's cash-flow tip: Take action on liquidity before it’s too late!

Banks tell us that small business owners are applying for overdraft credit too late – often less than a week before the cash is needed. Take action straight away when your projections tell you that you’ll need more cash by applying for extra financing. Remember to bring a liquidity budget that shows when you will be able to pay back and have a set plan for how to do it. 

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The Art of Cold Calling

This week I decided to share some of our experiences with cold calling as that was an important learning milestone for us. It’s never easy and everyone hates it, so why not try to bring some fun into it. As we were struggling with booking meetings we decided that we needed to improve our cold calling technique. 

In software development there is a form of testing called A/B Testing, it’s a way of measuring reactions or feedback on two different options so that you can decide which feature to improve or focus on, or whatever it is you are trying to decide between. A typical scenario involves driving half of your user traffic to one feature set, and driving the other half to the other feature set and measuring the responses.

Anyway, we decided to apply this mentality to our cold calling technique.  Option A was to make the polite introduction, explain why you are calling and why you would like to meet with the person, and then try to book a meeting. Option B involved finding the name of the person you were calling, placing the call, addressing the person and then saying that you would like to meet on, for example, Wednesday morning. It sounded something like this:  “Jonas, Hej! I’d love to book a meeting with you. Does 11 o’clock on Wednesday work for you?” The usual response to that is, “Oh, how long will it take?” and then you confirm that it won’t take more than half an hour. By now they’ve already said that they can meet, or they might suggest a different time or a different day. And it’s not until the end of the call before you hang up when they ask….”oh, and what’s this about?”. So you can confidently and politely state your purpose.

Admittedly Option B may sound rude or brash, but it cuts to the point and it means that you don’t lose their interest with a lengthy introduction. Our issue was that we were at the explorative stage (see earlier blog post) so we didn’t have an agenda for the meetings, which makes it very difficult to meet with a CEO or CFO, they are very careful of how they spend their time. This problem was reduced when we moved into the Problem Interviews phase and even less so in the Solutions Interviews phase. However the effect of shooting straight for the meeting is still a very strong argument for trying it out regardless of your development stage. Try it and let us know how you get on, sometimes the reactions can be very entertaining.

To make sure we were as efficient as possible, Carolin, Daniel and I would agree a time to sit and cold call, and we would each decide a customer category to target, print off a list of contacts from the directory and the make the calls sitting around a small coffee table.  It was fast, energetic, fun and very effective. We went from dreading cold calls, to actually looking forward to them. Once we had discovered how effective the process was, we started trying to push the limits of what’s acceptable in a cold call in terms of being as sharp as possible. The results of that were less effective but the point had been made and we had learnt the optimum way to effectively book meetings from a phone book. Try it, it’s fun! 

Post by: John @ Trimbia

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This week we took a decision to begin a once a week blog post.

Why? Well, firstly it offers a good opportunity to reflect on what we've done during the week. It also provides a catalogue of progress that we can look back on. Those are of course internal benefits, from an external perspective though it offers people a chance to learn about who we are, how we are working and not just follow our journey but also to maybe learn from some of our mistakes and processes. Each of the Trimbia team will be writing a one-page reflection, so hopefully over time you will begin to develop a better understanding of who we are, how we differ, and how we like to work. You may even find a favourite!

Usually a good place to begin is with introductions, so that’s where I’ll begin. Trimbia is a start-up company at pre-revenue stage, sitting in a business incubator. The team comprises of three business developers and two software developers (http://www.trimbia.com/about). We also have a business coach and an external idea provider. Any additional or operating support we may need comes from the incubator which is run by Encubator AB

As a lean start-up, the goal is to spend time working on what brings value and avoid spending any time on what could constitute as waste. This mentality, as presented by Eric Ries in “The Lean Startup”, sounds fantastic in theory but can often be challenging in practice. Nobody actively wants to produce waste or work on stuff that may not be completely necessary, but guiding your workflow to completely avoid waste entirely is a very different challenge. To that end, may I introduce the Bible, Running Lean, by Ash Maurya. This book sets out the steps one should take to achieve “Lean” in the development stages of a new product, through problem interviews to validate problem/market fit, and solutions interviews to validate solution/market fit.

In the problem interviews, Ash advises to focus purely on listening and learning not pitching. You present the problems as you see them, or your assumptions, and then allow the customer to explain them or elaborate on them or completely invalidate them. The ultimate goal is to determine whether these problems or assumptions are big enough issues for customers to merit building a solution and also to find who your early adopters will be.

Now that you have a better grasp of the problems, and the relative pain levels of the problems and also a list of how the customer currently solves the problem (if they don’t then maybe it’s not a real problem!), you can now set about designing a solution. This is where you tackle the top ranked problems in order of importance. It is sufficient to document this process in sketch format or even in wireframe drawings, whatever it takes to communicate the solution. The measure, though, of what is sufficient is whether or not the interviewee will need to make a “leap of faith” assumption in trying to understand the solution. So decide what you are trying to communicate and then build your communication tool accordingly. While you don’t want to build something you won’t need, you also don’t want to build so minimally that the solution interviews produce useless results.

We tried a number of different communication tools but the most effective were HTML mock-ups which looked and felt like real software that we could click through and bring the customer through. This allowed them to visualize the solution and relate it to how they currently like to work or would like to be able to work. Conclusion, build minimally, but sufficiently. 

Post by: John @ Trimbia

Picture: KISSmetrics 

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Don’t you just hate see cash running low? Here's a tip for you.

The faster you’ll send out your invoices the faster you’ll have the cash in your bank account. Make sure all customer details on the invoice are correct and call back to the customer after 4-5 days to make sure they've received and logged the invoice.

Post by: Carolin @ Trimbia

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A thought on small businesses and financing.

Roughly 90% of all European companies have less than 10 employees. Needless to say, small businesses have a huge impact of the European economy, and will have to play a leading role in the recovery of European economy going forward.

Unfortunately, an implication of the financial turmoil has been a tightening of borrowing abilities (not surprisingly, considering the root cause of the crisis in 2008), especially for small businesses and entrepreneurs who are typically perceived as a risky lenders. So, when overall economic activity goes down, a large part of the 90% or so of all European companies stand with few alternatives to survive short term due to negative cash flow.

Many argue that there are other means of getting cash than traditional lending; such alternatives often are either seeking money from Venture capitalists, Angel investors, or from family. The first two alternatives might be an opportunity for entrepreneurs seeking to revolutionize the market and create something mind-blowing, but for the typical small business owner VC funding is not an option. The third alternative is almost never a good option, for obvious reasons.

So, even though playing a critical role in the recovery, current systems fail in helping small businesses and entrepreneurs facing a tough business year. The results of the system are reinforcing: one bankruptcy leads to another, and so the downward spiral is lubricated.

Hence, small business owners face a huge challenge going forward, unable to count on someone to help them out when they cannot pay their bills. The toolbox is often limited to their own ability to manage finances, which small business owners necessarily need to get better at. Small businesses and large corporations may compete for the same customers, but not on the same terms. Remember that the famous quote “Too large to fail” also implies another truth: “Small enough to fail”.  

Post by: Daniel @ Trimbia

Picture: veolis.be

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Tycker du att det är svårt att hantera ditt kassaflöde? Kolla in den här videon!

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Let's make it even more fun to run your own business

Why not make it even more fun to run your own business, by removing the parts that you simply didn’t “sign up for”. Let us try to figure out how we can help you and your colleagues to speed things up and simplify your day.

This blog is about improving the heartbeat of your business. Your cashflow.

www.trimbia.com