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HOT TOPICS
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
Making SMEs Run Smoothly: René Lacerte’s Cashview (Part 1)
René Lacerte is the founder and CEO of Cashview, a Web-based cash management solution delivered as a SaaS. Prior to Cashview, René founded PayCycle, which I covered recently. In this interview, we will trace the thinking of a serial entrepreneur who brings substantial SME and SaaS expertise to the table. SM: René, I would like
Speeding Up the Internet: Algorithms Guru and Akamai Founder Tom Leighton (Part 10)
SM: What kinds of problems have you identified as big open problems you are going to tackle in the labs? TL: We are always working on making the service faster, scalable and more reliable. We have a team of folks that are looking for the 1 in 10,000 to the 1 in 100,000 “nasty thing”
Cracking the Very Small Business Market: PayCycle CEO Jim Heeger (Part 12)
SM: You may have to do some of that equity/liquidity swapping due to the structure of venture funds. JH: One of our funding sources may have to close out their fund, and in that case we will go find someone to help do that. In fact we just recently had a conversation about this amongst
Cracking the Very Small Business Market: PayCycle CEO Jim Heeger (Part 11)
SM: I was reading an article about how a lot of startups are using credit cards to finance their early days. American Express is a very common way of financing startups, and I have used it myself. JH: Rene used to use that as well. It was a big day when he got his name
Cracking the Very Small Business Market: PayCycle CEO Jim Heeger (Part 10)
SM: That is good insight to carry to the audience in this particular type of business. I have heard that about the GoToMeeting product as well, that they have no vertical bias at all. They are trying to focus on very small businesses as well, and are finding no vertical alignment whatsoever. Switching topics, you
Cracking the Very Small Business Market: PayCycle CEO Jim Heeger (Part 9)
SM: Out of 5.2M small businesses, only 800,000 are using a software service for payroll? JH: It is under 16%, and that is why this is an attractive space because it is un-penetrated. All 5.2M of those people have some solution, but our belief is that a lot of them are doing it manually and
Cracking the Very Small Business Market: PayCycle CEO Jim Heeger (Part 8)
SM: Financial institutions seem like a great distribution channel for small business payroll. JH: I think the distribution strategy is to be where people are likely to buy payroll. Be on the web, be at retail, be at the accountant, and be at the banks. SM: You do the tax portion as well. How about
Cracking the Very Small Business Market: PayCycle CEO Jim Heeger (Part 7)
SM: Okay, so August Capital funded Series B and you came in after Series C? JH: No, actually I came in 2005, after Doll Capital had done a series D, and put in another $9M. SM: How far along was the company when you arrived? JH: We had 60-70 people, and about 13,000 customers. SM: