Startup Competitors

CLA (CliftonLarsonAllen) is a national accounting firm with over 120 offices nation-wide and 6,000 employees. What really sets CLA apart from the other accounting firms is that, while they do the traditional services such as audits, reviews, and tax work, they also help clients with outsourcing work, talent solutions, and a wealth advisory group. In this episode, I talk with Chris Wright, the BizOps leader, and we go deep into some of the back-office operations for a small business, common mistakes, things you should be looking into as a startup company, and what they do at CLA. Hopefully, you get a lot out of this conversation and are able to apply some of these things to help your business grow.

Topics in this episode

What BizOps are, and what it looks like to be a biz ops client

Working with a company that is struggling with their financial concepts

Why it’s important to not over-buy and over-stock on inventory

Helping business owners communicate with their investors and board of directors

The new package at CLA for small and emerging companies

Common mistakes they see early-stage companies making

Working with a small bank versus a national bank

Partnering relationships CLA can provide to their clients

The value of creating connections and community

Contact Info

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 317-569-6159

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-wright-cpa-963ab425/

The New Paper is a digital media company that aims to overcome the sensationalization of the media by publishing a once-daily digest that does a couple of things: provide the 5-10 most important daily stories for a US-based consumer, and the top factual things you need to know about each story. It’s no secret that media and the news varies widely based on which outlet you are consuming it from. In my conversation with Michael Aft, co-founder, and co-CEO, he shares his frustrations with the current state of the media industry, and how The New Paper was created to be an unbiased first-touch news source for its readers.

Topics in this episode

Building trust with your audience

How to create an unbiased news source

Monetization strategy

Ad revenue

Consumer subscriptions

Handling news-fatigue and frustration with media

Making the decision to create a co-CEO organization, and what that looks like once the team and company grows

Keeping content and revenue-based decisions separate

Customer acquisition strategy

Books Mentioned

Cravings: Hungry for More, by Chrissy Teigen: https://www.amazon.com/Cravings-Hungry-More-Chrissy-Teigen/dp/1524759724/

Expecting Better, by Emily Oster: https://www.amazon.com/Expecting-Better-Conventional-Pregnancy-Wrong/dp/0143125702/

Never Split the Difference, by Chris Voss: https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-audiobook/dp/B01COR1GM2/

Who, by Geoff Smart and Randy Street: https://www.amazon.com/Who-Geoff-Smart-Randy-Street-audiobook/dp/B001H97LVO/

Contact Info

Website: https://thenewpaper.co/

Paxafe is a company that aggregates critical data from the supply chain, enabling more intelligent shipping and cargo insurance. In this episode, I am with Ilya Preston, CEO, and co-founder of Paxafe and he talks about how the company is aiming to address global supply chain insurance issues, such as a lack of real-time visibility, theft, counterfeit product, damage, and product loss, all of which results in a loss of over $600 billion a year in the B2B and B2C shipping markets.

Ilya explains that there are many existing solutions for shipping data, however, they do not provide real-time data or contextualization of the data, leaving manufacturers at a loss for how to improve the supply chain. Paxafe on the other hand has created machine learning and analysis in order to best understand the current status of a shipment and to explain any issues that may have arisen during the shipment. In addition to explaining their competitive advantages, Ilya also shares the pivot they had from a previous startup to where they are now, growing their network, and the impact they’ve experienced as a participant of an accelerator program.

Topics in this episode

Pre-commercial beta testing

How Covid-19 has affected current fundraising

Creating machine learning and analysis

Reversed logistics

Benefits of participating in an accelerator program

Pivoting a startup to a new target industry

Partnering with insurance companies

Contact Info

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://www.paxafe.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/paxafe/jobs/

Quote card: We provide contextual intelligence. We’re able to tell you precisely what happened with your package, and that enables us to partner with insurance companies.

Audiogram: 30:09 We’re trying to set the gold standard in asset tracking and asset IOT tracking. The market, as I mentioned, is very fragmented. There’s a lot of solutions out there, and there is no one kind of clear leader... so we’re trying to use machine learning and various analytics principles to set the standard in the accuracy, consistency, and reliability of the data to provide much more contextual insights so that companies aren’t just getting data, but are then getting data that can answer ‘So what?’.

Salesflare is an easy to use B2B sales Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) mostly used by marketing and software development agencies, startups, and other smaller companies and a lot of those in software as a service industry. Today we are with the co-founder of Salesflare, Jeroen Corthout and he talked about how Salesflare started out of frustrations from trying to use other CRMs that took a lot of time to update. Out of that frustration, they developed a CRM that requires less manual work, as it automatically gathers all the data for you.

He also shared how Salesflare started in 2014 as just an email plugin with no desktop application in Outlook or Gmail inbox. They got their very first customer in 2015 which eventually grew to 20 to 30 before doing a full online launch in 2016. And now there are thousands of active companies that are using their product. He also shares Salesflare’s competitive advantage over other CRMs and what they do to stand out in the market.

Topics in this episode

Salesflare and its Integrated tracking system

Detailed user experience

Customer acquisition through word of mouth and/or recommendations.

Explanation of the statistics between customers who quickly sign up for the product versus those who use the trial first.

Having product walkthrough upon signing up for trial.

Process of data migration for clients that came from another CRM Company.

Email workflows as the latest released feature.

More improvements geared towards SASS Companies.

Contact Details

Website – https://salesflare.com/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/salesflare/

The Prepared is a platform that teaches people how to get ready for emergencies. Today I am with John Ramey, Founder, and CEO of The Prepared and he talks about how The Prepared can help in all kinds of emergencies, ranging from everyday events like car accidents, or job loss, medical problem, up through natural disasters and black swan type of events and especially now with this COVID Pandemic.

The Prepared created a framework that teaches people modern emergency preparedness. They do gear reviews, teach skills through video courses in their community. Basically, what they offer is a collection of content and resources for people who want to be a modern-day prepper.

Also, he talked about the boost of growth for the company - from a one-man company in 2017 to now having fifteen employees in 2020, right at the start of the explosion of COVID Pandemic.

Topics discussed in this episode

Content, Community and Commerce in the business framework.

Providing direct, to the point, content by omitting ads, advertorials, and sponsored posts.

The organic growth of the company.

Catalysts that accelerated the prepping trend.

The events that encouraged the growth of the company

Scaling as the future plan for the company.

Releasing new products

More content about food production from The Prepared during this COVID Pandemic.

Contact info

Website - https://theprepared.com/