Nibbling Around the Edges – KashGuard for KashFlow
(Updates below) One of the exciting parts about watching SaaS companies gain critical mass, is seeing the business that start up around them offering a related, but not core, piece of functionality. It’s always a relatively risky place for a vendor to be – they’re reliant on the “parent app”, and the more successful their [...]
KashFlow Scores SE Asia and Moves Locations
Lots of exciting news for KashFlow this week – a shift of location and a new partnership. Firstly they’re announcing a shift from Essex to London (that’s in England for the US readers ), at the same time they’ve appointed two new directors to the board. Lord Young, (yes, that’s a real Lord) a major [...]
Crunch Gets It So Right, and at the Same Time So Wrong
I don’t want to enter into a debate about acronyms – Microsoft’s Software + Services moniker gets some die hard Software as as Service loyalists all fired up. For the purposes of this post I’m going to take it as read that we all accept the second “S” to be the most important one – [...]
Credit Where Credit’s Due, But the Proof of the Pudding is in the Eating
Just thought I’d mix my metaphors a little, but in this case it’s an appropriate mix. I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with Sage. Around the time of the ill-fated release of their SageLive product last year, I spent some time talking to the parent company in the UK about the offering and about SaaS [...]
Old-timers Getting SaaSy
I’m always looking for interesting tales that show the backroom moves of incumbent players manoeuvring into SaaS plays. My team of intel gatherers have picked up an interesting story along these lines. Late last year Michael Jackson, the ex-chairman of Sage, tried to buy UK SaaS accounting player KashFlow for £2.3m. At the time KashFlow [...]
Building Dialogue is the Most Important Thing
KashFlow recently announced its “HealthCheck”, a very simple report that is based on three areas of a businesses financial data and gives customers a score based on their performance. By KashFlow’s own account it is a simple introduction of a concept – as CEO Duane Jackson said to me; The report isn’t intended to be [...]
Finding a Babel Fish for Data
I guess the Babel Fish won’t mean much to the new generation of readers of this blog. In the 1981 series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Babel Fish was a creature that, when placed in ones ear, allows anyone to understand anything said, no matter the language being spoken – (see video at [...]
Solo Mixes and Matches a Complete Brew
Of late I’ve come across a number of SaaS accounting products that offer themselves in a white-label version. The value for the vendor is obvious, they stand to gain from the extra reach of a partner, without having to market the product themselves. It also doesn’t get in the way of any specific marketing that [...]
All’s Fair in Love and War – Ubikwiti Pushing Hard
I came across a press release (and oh how I love those) from SaaS business software platform Ubikwiti. In it they’re pushing hard to move users from Xero (or those considering using Xero) by saying; Why Pay $$s to Xero When You Can Have Ubikwiti for Zero $$s? From what I can see their offer [...]
More Integration from those Charming Canucks
I reviewed a little while ago IAC-EZ a start-up SaaS accounting offering that leverages the relatively huge and sophisticated FreshBooks customer base. Hot on the heels of that integration comes news that Clarity Accounting, another Canadian SaaS accounting company, has finished it’s integration with FreshBooks also To celebrate, those friendly FreshBooks people are offering Clarity [...]
A Tale of Two Strategies
KashFlow went public the other day proudly boasting that it had reached the 2500 paying customer mark. This figure puts them at roughly USD700k revenue and, according to founder Duane Jackson, they’re already at breakeven point and meeting the costs of their ten person organisation. The KashFlow strategy is very much one of local immersion, [...]
David and Goliath Part Two – Sometimes the Little Guys Can Be Cruel
I posted awhile ago telling the David and Goliath tale of Kashflow and Sage. Sage being the big boy of UK accounting software and Kashflow being a poor defenceless SaaS start-up being hounded to death by the behemoth. At the time I wrote that I thought Sage’s actions were unnecessary and unhelpful, a contention I [...]
Kashflow – Review
Accounting 2.0 at CloudAve In an ongoing series of reviews and analysis pieces, CloudAve will be taking a deep look into accounting software for the new world. See the other posts at this tag Introduction & Background KashFlow was created in 2004 when Duane Jackson, a web developer, couldn’t find an accounting product that suited [...]
