Making SMEs Run Smoothly: René Lacerte’s Cashview (Part 11)

SM: You have a different business model which I think makes it OK to do it this way anyways.

RL: Yes, SaaS businesses tend to be a bit capital intensive. People tend to forget that. I think they are great businesses and the business model is really strong. In some cases, you can get something up quickly, but that is not what we are about. We are building something that if we had 500,000 customers a year from now it would still work.

SM: Have you looked at the SalesForce.com incubator?

RL: We have looked at it, and I have talked to folks about it. The conclusion we came to is that the stuff we are doing is so unique the SalesForce incubator and the DreamForce platform did not makes sense. I have two folks who know it well, but it just did not makes sense because of the issues we are probably going to hit. If you think about all of the documents we are going to have … storage will be a challenge.

SM: Storage will be a bottleneck.

RL: It will definitely be a bottleneck. The database will be simple, but if we have every bill you have ever received, and every contract and canceled check, that is a lot of documents. Each one can be pretty small, but it can add up quickly. There are a lot of things where if you are trying to build a business which is going to scale and support hundreds of thousands of users and customers, unfortunately there is no cheap way to get it done. You have to bite the bullet and invest. And for that, we need capital.

SM: The determining factor in your case is that you are not trying to just put an application together in order to get bought by SalesForce.com, which is what a lot of people are trying to do right now. You are trying to build a lasting full scale business.

RL: I never think about the exit strategy. I think about the best thing I can do for the customer and the small businesses. What drives me is making a difference for businesses out there. I want to make life easier for businesses. Nobody gets into the everyday financial stuff business if they can’t make a difference. If I can take my expertise, or that of the folks on my team, and turn it into something that can benefit other people, that is cool. To me, if you solve that problem, an exit for your investors will arrive on its own.

SM: This has been a good interview, thanks!

This segment is part 11 in the series : Making SMEs Run Smoothly: René Lacerte’s Cashview
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