Last Updated on January 9, 2021
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About Michael Astreiko
After completing a degree in physics, I began working as a Java software engineer and spent a decade consulting startups on technology. Having gained a lot of first-hand experience in helping business owners utilize technology to become more productive, efficient, and focus on true entrepreneurship, I decided that I could start something of my own.
In 2016, I founded CloudBusiness, a parent company to several popular solutions designed to automate bookkeeping for online businesses. Recently we’ve made a great leap forward with our app Synder, which now integrates the most popular accounting software (QuickBooks and Xero) with leading e-commerce platforms and payments gateways (Shopify, Amazon, Stripe, among others) to automate the bookkeeping for e-commerce businesses.
About Synder by CloudBusiness
Having gained expertise in the accounting software sector, I began to build tools that help businesses easily deal with complex bookkeeping tasks. This way businesses can ensure accurate bookkeeping and be free to realize their creative ideas.
From the very beginning, we also gathered a lot of positive feedback from accountants who were happy to use software designed with expert knowledge of their ecosystem.
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How Did You Get Your First Several Customers Or Users? How Many Users Or Customers Do You Have Now?
We deployed our first product on the Intuit app marketplace and started getting our first clients from there. Later on, we’ve added more marketplaces where Synder and other products are featured (Shopify and Xero, among others). Now we have several thousand users.
How Does Your Company Grow And Acquire New Customers?
In general, we focus on working with marketplaces and write about our expertise in our blog. We also present educational webinars that speak to e-commerce business owners and accountants and help them solve their pain points.
Another thing that helps us grow is investing in a high-quality support team. Every user that comes to us can expect to receive free live assistance. Users appreciate having human support, which results in our products having great reviews on all marketplaces where we feature. When a potential customer finds us, they are reassured that this is a trusted software and a true industry leader.
This way of working led us to form our company motto: Machine accuracy. Human approach.
What Actionable Tips And Tricks Do You Have For New Founders Who Are Looking To Get Their First Thousand Users Or Dollars?
You will understand that you found a market fit for your product once clients start to thank you for the software you provided, and begin purchasing it on their own – without telling you or your sales/marketing team.
Another important thing is to always keep the real people with real problems in mind, and think of how you can help them. In the wake of a pandemic, we focused on helping offline businesses transition their operations into the online sphere. One such example particularly touched me. I’ll share it with you, as I think it shows why it’s crucial to never forget about your customers and their needs.
A long-time customer of ours, Jade, contacted our support team to let them know that she will be unsubscribing from our service. She shared that she’s forced to shut down because of the pandemic.
Our support representative was saddened to hear it and brought it up at our next team meeting. We brainstormed to think about how we can help Jade, and realized that probably a lot of offline businesses like hers will be closing their doors for good now. We thought that we have to at least try to do something to help.
I must tell you that Jade is a beauty salon owner. So, we came up with an idea to advise her to use our payment link functionality, by adding it to her Instagram bio as a super-easy way to get paid online and offer beauty classes on Instagram live. We got back in touch with her, shared this idea, and it worked! She NEVER thought of teaching online, but it totally worked, and her loyal customers were more than happy to keep up their routine in a safe, responsible manner, and support their favorite local business on the way.
After this success, our team developed a whole series of online webinars, tutorials, and guides helping offline businesses transition into the online. This helped many businesses stay afloat, which is something that I am proud of as a founder.
What Is Something You’ve Learned That Would Not Be Obvious To Somebody Who Hasn’t Worked In Your Space Before?
Accountants and Business owners use the software in completely different ways. Therefore, I’d advise creating separate onboarding flows for these two cohorts from day one.
What’s The Craziest Thing That’s Happened To You (Good Or Bad) On Your Founder Journey?
In February 2018 few developers and I won a major Hackathon in London that had outlined our path afterward. The crazy part is that we were going there just to say hello and meet new people from our industry but we ended up winning it. 🙂 The vision we started building there ended up guiding our overall strategy for the next few years.
What Are Your Favorite Books?
I really enjoy science fiction. Among some of my favorite authors are Isaac Asimov, Dan Simmons, and Frank Herbert.
Anything You’d Like To Plug?
If you think that managing several online payment methods is a nightmare or that accounts reconciliation is supposed to be difficult, you should definitely talk to our experts to automate your bookkeeping and easily accept payments online. Try Synder for free (no credit card required).
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- Building A Social Justice Subscription Box With Shelby Kretz
- Building A Financial Planning Company With Spencer Barclay
- Selling Stuffed Animal Care Packages With Tyler Macke
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