I am often approached to help on-demand vendors figure out go to market strategies and feature issues. That’s all goodness because it helps me get a better insight into the industry. One thing I’ve felt for several years is that the data an on-demand vendor gathers is incredibly valuable. Perhaps more valuable than the application itself. We’ve already seen for instance that FreshBooks provides benchmarking updates. Enter stage left MyCake.org.
At first blush you’d be forgiven for thinking – what the heck is this? And in conversation with Sarah Thelwall, the person leading the MyCake charge, it is clear the company has a way to go in making itself visible. But scrape beneath the surface and you find this is a vendor that’s intent on radically changing the world of finance.
Over the course of an hour or so conversation, Sarah thrilled me with her vision for helping creative industry business people understand the often murky, annoying and just plain difficult world of finance. I didn’t know for example that according to the UK government, the creative industry is second only to financial services in terms of economic importance to the UK with an estimated £100 billion in earning power.
MyCake’s approach to accounting challenges many of the industry norms. In the MyCake world, book-keeping is the place you go to get valuable insights into what makes the business tick. In Sarah’s words: “Creative people are highly visual in the way they see the world so presenting them with pictures makes much more sense than a string of figures.” I’m guessing that many people would say the same thing but having that affinity and understanding is a leap that many professionals can’t make. It’s something I’ve tried and despite my ‘edge’ style of thinking, it is difficult for me to wrench myself away from ‘row and column.’
As you can see from the graphics, MyCake has an interesting take on how to present numbers. This serves as the jump off point for a quarterly bulletin the company sends to its users. In the bulletin, MyCake offers analysis and opinion that is easily digested and accessible. Here’s an example:
Do you have a feel for the ‘normal’ levels of key cost areas? If your business is young you may not have developed your views on these norms yet. There are various people who can help you set your expectations of what normal is … a business advisor, mentor or the folks on the MyCake team. If you’ve been running your business a while how do you gauge whether your costs are inside or outside of your normal range?
Why would a vendor venture into this space? Because no-one is doing it in the UK and because according to Sarah, UK government has almost zero insight into business that trades below the VAT threshold. That’s millions of people. Part of the reason is because this part of the economy is barely visible in government statistics but also because SIC code data doesn’t help. Given the claimed power of stats coming out of HMRC, this should be a revelation to professionals.
When I undertook tax compliance work, HMRC always threw ‘local business norms’ percentages at me as a way of attacking margins. In those days, little data was in the public domain so it was relatively easy to shoot down any zealous Inspector. Sarah’s insights confirm that things haven’t got any better in the last 20 years.
Right now, MyCake has a modest number of customers. However, Sarah says that once they see information in this way, customers feel they have a way of getting financial control. That’s something that is incredibly important yet proven to be elusive. It’s a reason why so many clients make a trip to see their professional advisors.
As a 30+ year vet in this industry it is rare for me to see something that gets my juices flowing. MyCake represents a genuinely exciting development. They’re making the right noises and demonstrate a feel for the industry segment that can only come from deep immersion in its ways.
This is one of those extremely rare situations where I would venture that government support is crucial. Professionals have a lot to learn from this type of enterprise and in return can add value back into the mix. The real question though is how can MyCake scale? That will require a team of industry specific experts who speak the same language. One to definitely watch and one which I hope does extremely well.
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