5 learnings from 5 years of Chaser

Chaser launched 5 years ago on Monday. It continues to be an amazing journey. I've been fortunate to work with some incredible people as partners, customers and fellow team members, raise two rounds of investment and see Chaser help businesses chase $2bn of invoices from their customers. It's a journey that I feel very privileged to be on as Founder & CEO. I wanted to share my 5 key learnings from the last 5 years.

Choose something worthwhile to work on

Startups are marathons not sprints. It's imperative to be passionate and inspired by the end purpose of the work you do. It gives you a battery that recharges itself. Being able to see the impact Chaser has had is hugely important to me. It’s incredible to see stories like that of Signs & Labels. As a result of the cash that they freed up from their debtors by implementing Chaser, they were able to buy a new piece of machinery that literally changed the game for them as a business. Then there are the stories like this one:

This business was able to create a new job and increase their growth prospects by investing the cash they had boosted by using Chaser. 

I'm also really lucky that I love the industry that I work in and the people I work with. People do business with people. It makes such a difference to genuinely like the people you work with as customers, partners and team members. Working on something worthwhile increases the chances of that serendipity occurring.

The lovely thoughtful birthday gift we received from one of our accounting partners, Kinder Pocock.

Focus

Steve Jobs talked about how focus means “ saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are”. Over the last 5 years, I've realised just how true that statement is. As a startup, there will always be abundant opportunities to dilute your focus and chase the shiny new thing. We've made a lot of mistakes over the last 5 years. We'll doubtless make many more in the next 5. One thing I think we continue to do really well is focus on what we can be the best in the world at - helping our users sell more effectively on payment terms and get their invoices paid. 5 years in we've still got so much more we want to do. Without that singularity of focus, we'd have no chance.

It always takes longer

When you start a business, everyone tells you that it will take longer than you expect and to stick with it when it does. Entrepreneurs are by nature people who believe they have a unique insight on how the world can be changed. So I, like I imagine most fledgling entrepreneurs who received that advice, ignored it and reached my own "this time is different" conclusion. Only to duly realise that everyone gives you that advice for a reason. Like anything that's really worth doing in life, you realise that in building a business there really are no shortcuts, no silver bullets. Looking back at presentations I gave in late 2014, I was talking then about the opportunity for accountants and bookkeepers to deliver credit control for their clients - what has today become Virtual Credit Control. It has taken us 5 years to get to where we are now: launching ChaseAcademy, our industry and clients being ready in terms of their adoption of cloud accounting and this becoming the new normal for SMEs who don't have the scale to have an in-house finance team. It takes time for markets, people and technology to move.

Choose great people to work with. And bet big on them

One of the things that has surprised me most in the last 5 years is just how rewarding it is to see great people develop. It has many parallels with being a parent; seeing your talented team get things for the first time and grow. And surprise even themselves at what they are capable of. At Chaser, our philosophy has always been to hire for talent and hunger (or “youngry” as I have unsuccessfully attempted to coin with my team!) over experience. You have to bet big on that talent and believe in them completely. Now sometimes you get it wrong and your blind spots will subsequently be revealed. That belief will prove to have been misplaced. Hiring is hard and no-one gets it right 100% of the time. But there is no alternative, as belief is a binary and its absence is self-fulfilling. The benefits of the times you are right, which increase as you learn more, dramatically outweigh the costs of the times you are wrong. If I look at the last 5 years, a huge amount of our success has been a direct result of our betting big on talent.

Do everything yourself

On the face of it, this is terrible advice for a Founder & CEO to follow. And it is, if you follow it open ended. But seen in its intended context, it's hugely important. At some point in time, I've done pretty much everything that we functionally do as a business. I've done an intro to computer science course. I was our first Product Manager. I've done more product testing than I would ever have imagined. I've actively worked in Sales, Success, Marketing. I've even designed a terrible logo (we started life as AutoChaseIt).

This has all (well maybe not the logo design but everything else!) had two huge benefits. Firstly I've been able to learn an incredible amount. Secondly, it provides me with a breadth of understanding that I wouldn't be without as a CEO in managing the Company.

It’s been an incredible 5 years. I’m so grateful to everyone who has helped us along the way and to the fantastic team I have the privilege of working with every day. Greg LeMond, the Tour de France winning cyclist famously said “it never gets easier, you just get faster”. I’m so excited by how far and fast Chaser can go in it’s next 5 years!