Making SMEs Run Smoothly: René Lacerte’s Cashview (Part 7)

SM: How do you recruit customers?

RL: A number of ways. The Web-based marketing techniques out there have worked very well for PayCycle. Search engine optimization, search engine marketing are all things we are doing here as well. We are just in the beginning of working on that.

SM: What are the keywords people have been using to find you?

RL: It is interesting because we are testing hundreds of keywords right now. It is a very small test, we are not spending a huge amount. One that was surprising was the word “disbursements”. It seems like a very old fashioned word, but it is actually working. Of course, there are all the online bookkeeping, online accounting and online service keywords. We have plenty of examples there. That is one channel.

Making a play directly to accountants, which worked well with PayCycle, is an area where we are starting to see some traction. We are going to an accounting conference in a couple of weeks where we can meet with more accountants and get a feel for that channel.

Then there are the typical partnerships we have done at PayCycle that we need to look at here, which can involve partnering with Intuit, PayCycle itself, as well as some bigger banks. There is something about the application which Cashview has … there is a viral capacity which exists that did not exist with PayCycle, and that is something we have to learn. If Company A signs up, and they are paying 20 different bills, then we should have a way of getting half of the payees to sign up to communicate with Company A much more easily. We can then tap into that resource to illustrate to all of those companies how we can help them be successful, and help them focus more on how to grow their business, without having to worry about the day-to-day financial operations. There is more of a viral opportunity here than I have ever had before.

SM: When did you start this company?

RL: I left PayCycle on April 14th of 2006, and I incorporated April 21st and had a term sheet on May 4th. I was not expecting to move that fast.

SM: Same investors as PayCycle?

RL: One of them, yes. I had a lot of time off in the summer, so I really got started in August of 2006. It has been about a year. One year ago we only had three employees, and now we have 15 employees.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Making SMEs Run Smoothly: René Lacerte’s Cashview
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