Based in San Francisco
Employees 11-50
Specialists in cash flow
Founded 2012
Published on QuickBooks
App store 2013
“Year to date, we’ve seen a 51% increase in the number of QuickBooks Online users who have connected to Fundbox.”
Jordan MacAvoy
This is a story of how an ambitious start-up developed an app that solves a big problem for small businesses everywhere.
It’s also a story of how other developers can create a business-management app for the largely untapped small-business market and, by listing their app make it accessible to the 1M+ QuickBooks subscribers on Intuit’s QuickBooks App Store – Apps.com to increase their bottom line.
Intuit’s complete toolset for building great apps, its supportive community of developers and engineers, and the massive reach of its apps ecosystem through QuickBooks makes it easy to turn a great idea into an app that can make a real difference to millions of small businesses.
"With QuickBooks Online targeted in-product messaging, we exceeded our previous best day customer acquisitions by 280%."
Jordan MacAvoy
But first, let’s start with Fundbox.
Eyal Shinar, Yuval Ariav, and Tomer Michaeli founded the company in early 2012 to solve a huge problem that almost every small business faces: getting paid in a timely manner.
From solopreneurs to a B2B company with a few dozen employees, small businesses can wait up to 60 days or more to get paid after completing a client project. They may also find it hard to grow their company—think of a contractor who needs to buy supplies upfront for a big project—unless they have ready access to cash or a credit line.
Fundbox solves that problem by advancing the money associated with a business’s outstanding invoices. In essence, they act like a bank—but minus the piles of complicated paperwork, hassle, and long waiting periods.
“We’re on the side of the little guy,” said Eyal, CEO of Fundbox.
Through computer data science and machine learning, tools such as online financial databases, and the public’s increasing trust in cloud-based solutions, Fundbox can act more nimbly and efficiently compared to traditional financial institutions.
Their tagline: “Overcome Cash Flow Gaps. Get Paid Instantly.”
“The process for small businesses to get access to working capital is outdated and painful. QuickBooks plus Fundbox is a modern solution with a delightful customer experience,” said Jordan MacAvoy, Fundbox’s VP of marketing.
Today, Fundbox is at the forefront of online lenders who serve small businesses. But how did the company develop its service and get it in front of potentially millions of customers?
That’s where Intuit comes in.
In 2013, Fundbox partnered with Intuit to help develop an app that integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks Online, the leading accounting software for small businesses.
By developing an app, Fundbox tapped into the growing trend of businesses managing their finances and other operations in the cloud.
Research shows that on average, many small business owners spend four hours a day online running their businesses. The top three online business-management activities? Bookkeeping and accounting, generating invoices and/or accepting payments, and managing customer relationships.
Intuit helps developers such as Fundbox in every step of the app development process.
The company provides robust, well-documented APIs, SDKs, and a multitude of other developer tools and resources. Developers can also reach out to Intuit’s friendly developer team and developer community to help troubleshoot potential issues. Besides online forums, developers can tap into Intuit's developer webinars as well as a weekly interactive Q&A session on Google Hangouts.
"We want to help them understand what makes a good app great, especially from the perspective of the first-time user," said Lori Fraleigh, director of developer relations at Intuit.
Her advice: Be very clear on what your app does and what value it provides. "You don't want it to be everything plus the kitchen sink," she said.
In addition, be up-front about pricing (e.g. "Free for 14 days and $9.99/month afterward), and don't ask for extra information, such as a credit card number, in the sign-up process.
"You want first-time users to click as few boxes as possible," Lori said.
Once an app is in good shape, Intuit can help connect developers to influential beta-testers who can provide constructive feedback, she added. These testers include accountants who use QuickBooks Online--they're the trusted advisors best positioned to recommend apps to small businesses.
With all this support, a developer's experience in creating an app for the Apps.com platform can be akin to Fundbox's experience.
“That was actually an easy process,” said Yuval, Fundbox’s CTO, of developing an app. “Intuit has gone to great lengths to make sure developers are well supported and have everything they need to be successful.”
“Intuit really ushered us along,” he went on to say. “They have very good documentation, very good developer tools like [QuickBooks] sandbox and tools to test your integration. It was a very structured, well-communicated process.”
He’s worked with other app platforms before and “the Intuit ecosystem is far superior,” Yuval added.
Once developers create a powerful and useful app that integrates with QuickBooks, they can list it on Intuit’s QuickBooks App Store - Apps.com, exposing it to 1M+ QuickBooks Online subscribers.
With a conversion rate of 10% from app discovery to trial, Apps.com provides an excellent opportunity for developers to acquire new customers.
Those numbers will only increase; the growth of QuickBooks subscribers has
risen exponentially.
For example, Intuit’s second-quarter results showed that the number of
overall QuickBooks Online subscribers grew by 50% while the number of
global subscribers increased more than 170% to 127,000. In sum, Intuit just announced that QuickBooks Online has crossed 1 million paying subscribers. That’s 1,000,000 reasons to build an integration with QuickBooks Online and list your app on Apps.com.
In addition, the revenue potential of positioning your app on Apps.com is more sustainable than if you were to publish your app on a consumer-based app platform.
That’s because businesses don’t just buy your app. The app is a portal into your ongoing service, whether it’s subscription-based or event-based. As a result of its app, Fundbox is building--and benefiting from--a long-term relationship with its customers.
“Year to date, we’ve seen a 51% increase in the number of QuickBooks Online users who have connected to Fundbox,” Jordan said. “We anticipate that we’ll continue to see those numbers increase as we find new and exciting ways to work together."
“We recently worked with Intuit on targeted in-product messaging within QuickBooks Online. As a result, we exceeded our previous best day of QuickBooks Online customer acquisitions by 280%,” he said.
He emphasized that QuickBooks Online consistently ranks among the top providers for activating Fundbox’s customer base.
“It was a huge success and a great proof point of the value QuickBooks Online provides in reaching the right customers for our app.”
And if you want to see real, tangible ways the Fundbox app helps QuickBooks Online users, just read some of the 103--and counting--reviews of the app. Almost all of them give the app a stellar five-star rating.
“[That] reinforces the value an app developer can deliver," Jordan said, "and why it makes sense for Intuit to partner with third parties like Fundbox."
The partnership with Intuit doesn’t end with app development.
The company’s marketing team works closely with developers to ensure that their apps get in front of small businesses that would benefit the most from them. They especially keep an eye out for apps that generate a regular stream of good user reviews--that tells the marketing team that they are doing a good job of solving specific problems for small businesses.
“It’s all about having a good customer experience,” said Amy Ball, senior key partner marketing manager at Intuit.
Targeted emails, newsletter mentions, and invitations to showcase their apps at conferences and trade shows attended by Intuit’s influential ProAdvisor accountant community and other customers are some of the ways the company helps promote apps. Intuit may also suggest specific apps for a customer to try based on that customer’s needs.
"Intuit has gone to great lengths to make sure that the developer has to do the minimum amount of work to be successful"
Yuval Ariav
She gave this marketing advice to developers: Get reviews from your users and have an amazing onboarding experience. That could include a series of emails to your customers, a step-by-step tutorial, or an opportunity to spend 30 minutes with your team.
“Nothing speaks more about your product experience and raises credibility than getting customer reviews,” she said. “And once they connect your app to QuickBooks Online, how easy do you make it for them to see the benefit of using your app? You want it to be immediate.”
One big reason why the partnership between Fundbox and Intuit works is that they share the same goal, said Yotam Troim, Fundbox’s VP of Product.
“We share a common vision. We put our customers front and center,” he said. “Intuit has a very customer-centric and customer-focused mentality and we share that approach.”