BEATING THE BIG BOYS
DUANE JACKSON, FOUNDER AND CEO OF KASHFLOW F
ew entrepreneur’s journeys have been as colourful and successful as Duane Jackson who turned around a troubled childhood to found and grow Kashflow, an
accountancy software provider which today has over 7,000 customers and is valued in excess of £10 million. Entrepreneur Country Magazine met Duane and got his views on accelerating your business growth.
Spot the Gap
Kashflow came about because there was nothing on the market that did the job. I was hunting for easy to use accounting software so I could get on with my startup, building websites. I hunted around for recommendations from other small business owners and they’d all tried Sage and Quickbooks but had gone back to spreadsheets and word. It took me a while to realise “hang on a minute, I’ve got something here which I could be building and selling to these people”.
David’s Agility is What Outfoxes Goliath
We regularly take on the big boys and win, both in terms of customer feedback and industry awards and it’s down to agility. We can be much quicker than the Sage’s of this world can in terms of setting the agenda. While they’re convening next months board meeting we’ve reacted, implemented and moved on to something new.
The Banks Aren’t Lending
Kashflow has never borrowed money from a bank but from entrepreneurs I’ve spoken toowho’ve got good businesses which are generating cash and are trying to raise capital to expand- they are just not able to get it. To me the problems seems to be the government pulling banks in different directions, telling them to increase capital whilst at the same time telling them to be lending to
36 entrepreneurcountry SME’s.
On the start-up side, I’m mentoring 3 or 4 startups at the moment and the cash they need is relatively small. What I’ve said to them is that if you believe in your business then racking up personal debt is sometimes the only way to get it done. Beyond that its family and friends and beyond that it’s finding somebody in the industry, where what you’re doing is complimentary. That’s an easier route than filling out forms at the bank.
Government Needs to Focus On Fixing the Short-term
I think that startup’s and SME’s are equally as important but at the moment it looks like there is
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