January 12, 2025 • 38 mins
What do you get when you cross SaaS Platforms and Cashflow Management software? In our latest episode, we promise you'll gain valuable insights into both as we sit down with Blaine Bertsch, co-founder of Dryrun. Blaine shares his remarkable journey from a designer facing the financial challenges of the 2008 crisis to an entrepreneur revolutionizing cash flow management. Discover how Dryrun's intuitive approach helps businesses, from small enterprises to financial professionals, maintain sustainability during downturns like COVID-19, using scenario modelling and effective visualization.
Join us as we shift our focus to the importance of understanding customer pain points when selecting SaaS platforms. Find out how Dryrun, initially aimed at small businesses, found unexpected success with larger enterprises by maintaining open conversations and transparency with clients. We explore the complex challenges executives face, where technology is just part of a broader strategy involving process and people management. This segment emphasizes the necessity of genuine dialogue to identify true needs and craft solutions that fit.
Continuing in that vein, we explore the evolving role of AI and SaaS tools in enhancing, not replacing, human decision-making. Learn how businesses can optimize their SaaS investments through regular audits while selecting the right tools for specific needs. Hear personal anecdotes about software costs spiralling out of control and the transformative power of AI in business efficiency. This episode underscores the value of adaptable tools like Dryrun in financial management and business planning.
Find Blaine at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/blainebertsch/
https://www.dryrun.com/
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Sell Me This Podcast is brought to you by the team at Deliver Digital, a Calgary-based consulting organization that guides progressive companies through the selection, implementation, and governance of key technology partnerships. Their work is transforming the technology solution and software provider landscape by helping organizations reduce costs and duplication, enhance vendor alignment, and establish sustainable operating models that empower digital progress.
If you believe you deserve more from your technology partnerships – connect with the team at:
www.deliverdigital.ca
This episode of Sell Me This Podcast was expertly edited, filmed, and produced by Laila Hobbs and Bretten Roissl of Social Launch Labs, who deliver top-tier storytelling and technical excellence. A special thanks to the entire team for their dedication to crafting compelling content that engages, connects, and inspires.
Find the team at Social Launch Labs at:
www.sociallaunchlabs.com
Sell Me This Podcast is brought to you by the team at Deliver Digital, a Calgary-based consulting organization that guides progressive companies through the selection, implementation, and governance of key technology partnerships. Their work is transforming the technology solution and software provider landscape by helping organizations reduce costs and duplication, enhance vendor alignment, and establish sustainable operating models that empower digital progress.
If you believe you deserve more from your technology partnerships – connect with the team at:
www.deliverdigital.ca
This episode of Sell Me This Podcast was expertly edited, filmed, and produced by Laila Hobbs and Bretten Roissl of Social Launch Labs, who deliver top-tier storytelling and technical excellence. A special thanks to the entire team for their dedication to crafting compelling content that engages, connects, and inspires.
Find the team at Social Launch Labs at:
www.sociallaun
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I know this is really important.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I am probably embarrassed to admit this a tiny
bit.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
And businesses have failed because of that.
How many pieces of software onaverage companies use?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome to Sell Me this Podcast.
I'm Keith, and today we'retalking with Blaine Birch,
co-founder of Dry Run, acashflow management tool
revolutionizing financialforecasting.
From designer to entrepreneur,blaine built and sold his first
business before creating Dry Run.
Inspired by his experiencesduring the 2008 financial crisis
, his platform helps businessessimplify cash flow management
(00:39):
and move beyond spreadsheets.
We'll explore what makes Dryrun unique in financial
management, discuss AI's role inSaaS and share Blaine's insight
on tool selection and teamrelationships.
Whether you're interested inSaaS, business or financial
innovation, there is somethinghere for you.
Let's explore dry run and thefuture of cash flow management.
(01:00):
So, blaine, thank you so muchfor joining us today.
Really appreciate having you onthe podcast and really excited
for the conversation in front ofus.
Let's dive right into thingsand would love to hear a little
bit about your journey as anentrepreneur and what led you to
starting.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Dry Run.
Oh, that's an interesting onefor the journey.
As an entrepreneur I was.
I'm a designer by trade.
I have a couple of differentdegrees in design and started my
first business in 1999.
Suddenly, a few years later,you turn around and look and I
got a whole room full of peopleand a partner and a giant office
and everything else and itsneaks up on you.
The real pivotal moment for mewas 2008, 2009, when the economy
(01:41):
came to a grinding halt andthat had a big impact on us.
70% of our client base weregovernment agencies up in Canada
and the 30% were corporate.
And it was this weirdtransition because the
government dollars stuck arounda tiny bit longer, which was
good, but when they closed thosebudgets, they closed for years
(02:01):
and we knew it was coming.
So we had this rapid shift onall of our biz dev to get
corporate clients coming in.
Now, during this time, cashflowwas absolutely essential to
track.
Right Can we make payroll?
Because, right or wrong, wedidn't want to lay anybody off.
We wanted to keep everybody,and cashflow became a really
(02:23):
critical point for us and alsoour sales funnel and our sales
forecast as we do this bigtransition.
And so I was buried inspreadsheets, but those
spreadsheets, I think, had a bighand in us bouncing back really
quickly and getting our feetunder us really quickly.
Fast forward a few years I soldthat business and kept coming
back to this idea thateventually became dry run, where
(02:45):
I'm like this is a problem thatbusinesses face and maybe I can
help and get people out of aspreadsheet and get them into
something that's much faster,much more intuitive but also
something really visual, being adesigner.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Right, and I totally understand what you're saying.
Where there's these?
First of all, on the COVID side.
I think that COVID blew up alot of businesses and I think
that the challenges that existedwere different.
For some right.
Some ran into big customerproblems, some ran into scaling
issues, some ran into identityissues during COVID staffing
issues.
I think that the stories thereare endless, but I think that
(03:21):
they all tie back to cashflow atiny bit, and I totally
empathize with what you'resaying where there's these
spreadsheets that can continueto grow and they can get grosser
and more complex.
And so what is the exactproblem then that dry run solves
, and what was the first kind ofkick in the can you took when
you were trying to solve thatspecific problem and launching
the business?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, like when we specifically there.
There's two things that reallywere.
Important to me was visualizingour cash flow and modeling
scenarios to understand all ofthe what ifs.
When you're tight on cash flow,that's what you're looking at.
Do we take in money?
What if we land this client?
What if we don't?
What if we land this big joband have to expand rapidly?
(04:01):
How do we do it?
All these questions came up andhave to expand rapidly, how do
we do it?
All these questions came up,and so when we rolled out dry
run, I thought we were rollingit out to other business owners
small business owners, I'membarrassed to say this I
remember when when saying to myco-founder early on, like first
year, where we were just gettingout of the gate and I'm like, I
don't know.
I think accountants might laughat us, but I know this is really
(04:24):
important because in my mindaccountants were all about
reporting and taxes and to alarge degree that's a big part
of it is compliance and taxesand all that.
But then we rolled out andalmost immediately guess who
comes knocking at our door?
We were picked a top 10 new appby Intuit.
Aicpa invited us into theiraccelerator and within the first
(04:46):
couple of years out in the wild, we realized oh, it turns out
the pros want us and businessowners really struggle.
There's a lot of business ownersthat weren't like me that get
under the hood and figure thisstuff out.
And we also found out thatthere's a level of complexity
where it becomes a real pain.
Like you said, it's thosespreadsheets that grow into a
friend of complexity where itbecomes a real pain.
Like you said, it's thosespreadsheets that grow into a
friend of mine called afrankenstein, because I some
(05:08):
stuff I'll do in a spreadsheetreally quick and I love it, it's
so fast and easy and thenyou'll see that there's that
point where it's like uh-oh, nowI've got two tabs, three tabs
four, and also you're like I'mthe only one that knows it's
like a house of cards any littlemistake.
Another embarrassing thing Igotta mention was one time I
(05:29):
actually drove over to myaccountant's office to sit down
and say what is going on here,and and I had a spreadsheet and
he said it's a broken equationthat's an expensive drive there
it's an expensive drive all theway there for him to tell me I
have a broken equation and I wasso sure I had all my equations
Absolute sort of silliness, butit's so that's.
(05:51):
We set out to help businesses,but what we realized is
equipping the pros to helpbusinesses might be the best way
so that they could worktogether, collaborate, and so
we've got these two sort ofpillars that we always stand on.
Number one is make it easy fora business owner management team
and I'm talking managementteams in the hundreds of
millions also want somethingthat's simple, high level, easy
(06:13):
to understand.
So they're talking about theproblems and how to, where
they're headed, not explain thespreadsheet.
It's the same problem, right?
And the other one is giving thecontrol and flexibility to the
finance team, without thecomplexity of a spreadsheet, the
broken equations, everythingelse, because you can have a
large team all with their handsin this forecast and you need it
(06:37):
approachable and easy, to easyto use.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I think that from a spreadsheet standpoint, I am
probably embarrassed to admitthis a tiny bit, but I'm someone
that I love Excel.
I love some of the models inthere.
I love what you can do.
I also used Excel to some pointas like a thinking tool.
Sometimes I'll start to plotthings out and I'll morph into
these giant spreadsheets, but Itotally understand where they
just morph out of controlsometimes more vote of control
(07:05):
sometimes and it's aninteresting time where you can
combine some of those businessspecific challenges with the
ability to now create some ofthese platforms that can solve a
very specific businesschallenge.
And I think that's really whereI'd love to lead.
A little bit of the conversationtoday is specifically around
your very unique perspective andA being the founder or
co-founder of a platform thatsolves a very specific business
(07:28):
challenge and are helping toyour point the pros solve that
with ease and a really coolsolution but also as a business
owner that has to consume someof these same niche technologies
yourself, and so I thinkthere's a really interesting
balance there If we start offfrom your perspective in terms
of and this is a big questionwhat makes a great SaaS platform
(07:50):
From your perspective andfinding that product market fit
and bringing this to market.
What actually makes a greatSaaS platform?
And if you were talking to yourcustomers, how can they
identify the right SaaSplatforms for their needs?
Speaker 1 (08:04):
What makes a great SaaS platform there's?
Obviously it solves a reallyfundamental pain, a really
fundamental problem.
Of course, what makes it great,you hit the nail on the head,
it's product market fit, whichis the buzzword in the industry.
It's more than the buzzword, ofcourse, but if you, it's a real
struggle, like even for us.
Like I said, we startedthinking we were solving a
(08:25):
problem for small businesses andturns out it was more of the
pros.
And then when we started to getexposure further up market,
that's where people were almostkicking down our door and we
realized they just have a lotbigger pain point, a lot bigger
problem because there's moredata, there's more systems, it
just gets more complicated.
(08:45):
And so, finding the true painpoint who do you solve a massive
pain for?
But then the next step isreally understanding that pain
point and building somethingthat's going to be the solution.
The biggest tool tactics,strategy, whatever that.
We've used that and we continueto use every single day as
(09:06):
talking to customers.
We thought we did that early,we didn't do enough of it.
We are absolutely like justfrantic to talk with customers
and learn from them and, yeah,to understand the problem and
how we can better solve it.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
So, when I'm talking to your customers, you have a
very specific audience, whichare finance people which,
without applying too manystereotypes, are usually focused
on cash, focused on tangiblecomponents, and so, when they're
evaluating some of theseplatforms, what are some of the
areas that you're havingconversations in that will allow
(09:41):
them to really quantify thevalue of that spend and make
sure that they're providingvalue along with that SaaS
platform they've chosen?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah, I think there's some insight on how we deal
with customers that I think isalso very useful from the flip
side, and it's just sort of bornout of hundreds and hundreds of
conversations.
The first thing we do when I'mtalking like I'm talking with
CFOs every single day, and thefirst thing I do when I talk
with a CFO is I don't tell thema dry run.
(10:10):
The first thing I do is saytell me about your business,
tell me about your challenges,tell me about your clients or
tell me about the problem yousolve.
You know and and I want tolearn as much about them as
possible so that I can put thesolution in context.
But there's also plenty oftimes where, after they've told
me that I have literally said tothem I'm not sure we can help
(10:31):
you.
I don't think that.
Let me tell you what we do.
I don't think it sounds likewe're necessarily a fit and I
think there's that level oftransparency and honesty that
you'll want to see from a vendorwhen you're trying to solve a
very specific problem.
Let me show you.
It was the opposite.
Let me show all the stuff we do.
And then it was like playingwhack-a-mole to try and answer
all the questions because thequestions were related to
(10:53):
nothing.
It was a mismatch, right?
Even if the product might'vereally helped, there was a
mismatch in them usunderstanding or what they
needed, and vice versa.
And so that's an approach wetake it's just all about the
client, it's all about theirproblem.
And then I can say, hey, we, Ithink we might be able to help,
maybe we can't.
The interesting thing isthere's been several times where
(11:13):
I said, based on what you toldme, I don't think we're the
right tool for you, but just letme show you what we do, just so
you know, and then I'll showthem what we do and they're like
yeah, you're right, you can'thelp over here, but, holy cow,
we need this and I didn't evenknow.
So it's this clarity, and very,very narrow, very narrow clarity
(11:33):
is what, what helps, I think,on both sides, to really truly
understand if you're solving theproblem.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Do most of the people when you're engaging them, with
them off the bat.
Do they understand the problemthey have?
Or are they out searching for,maybe, an antidote for some
other symptoms and they arriveat the fact that it's cashflow?
Or are they really clear thatthis is the problem that they
need to solve when they'researching you out?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
We actually, honestly , we get a little bit of a mix
of both the ones that areobviously that are.
Much smoother is when they knowthe problem they have and they
come walking in the door and I'mlike, yeah, we have four
locations and three currenciesand five finance staff and it's
(12:18):
just hours a week.
Like the thing is, what they'redoing tends to work, but they
understand.
It's like I had one.
I had a cfo not too long ago,just exasperated, said we did 30
hours of work to get to thisand I'm like, oh my god, I think
we could do that in about twominutes, but there was no easy
way for them to do what we do.
(12:40):
So some of them, when they knowthey have the a problem, it we
can be very it's just veryfocused on the solution.
But you do sometimes have peoplethat come in and I got five
different problems and acashflow sort of one of them and
it's this big weaved web ofstuff.
That's a little bit more of achallenge.
But it's also the conversations, I think, also help give them
(13:01):
clarity on what parts they mightbe able to really solve with
the solution and what partsthey're going to have to maybe
work through on their own orit's likely a multi-task Point
solution.
Right, it's oh boy, okay, we'regoing to have to do what we
thought.
Just get a new ERP in.
It helps them get that claritythat sometimes to get to a true
(13:21):
solution it's not a quick fix.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, and I agree with you.
A lot of the executives that Italk to they'll have this idea.
They have a problem to solve,but especially with out of the
hype, the first point sometimesis technology, and so they'll
search out the technology thatsolves it.
But they'll realize they havean underlying process problem,
or they have an underlyingpeople problem, or maybe the
problem is much broader.
As they start to define it, doyou run into scenarios often
(13:46):
where people come to you andmaybe these are the customers
you're talking about that aren'ta good fit, yet that they come
to you and they're justtechnology isn't the answer for
them.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah, I think technology may, like you said,
be the answer.
Down the road, there's a lot ofsteps in between.
So sometimes people come to usand they're ready to go, or
they're 99 there.
But there are a lot of timesthey'll come in with a problem
and it's first of all you haveto truly understand the people
in your organization, right downto the like everybody, and what
are the problems that each oneis facing, and it's you almost
(14:20):
have to really understand thatand map it all out and work your
way up and then look for thefirst step in the solution.
It's amazing how many cfos thatwe talk with, especially when
there's an interim one, and theycome in and they're like yeah,
the number one problem we is,the systems and processes are so
broken that the data is so outof date, it's so messy, it's so
wrong, and that's a really biglift, but on the other hand, at
(14:44):
least there's someone coming in,going.
Okay, first step is we have totake control of this data and
these processes before we can doanything else.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, and I think that a lot of leaders sometimes
they'll look at the end state orthe solution and be like, oh
man, I can't wait until we gethere.
But there's this whole body ofwork that's the data cleanup,
all the non-sexy stuff that noone really wants to do.
It's not the stuff that'sincredibly rewarding, but I'm
sure that from your perspective,it creates such a better output
at the end of it.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Oh yeah, and when.
Sometimes we'll talk withpeople and they know down to
some real detail.
I was talking with a CFO notlong ago and they're talking
about multiple locations andthey said, part of the problem,
we don't even have the samesystems like accounting systems
and ERPs at each location, butwe also don't have the data
structure the same way.
(15:33):
They're named differently,they're categorized differently
there.
So as they try and do someconsolidation or roll up and
they they want to be able tocompare apples to apples and
this we can't even.
We can't do that.
There's a lot of thoughtfulnessthat has to go into it and when
you're working across all thesedifferent locations, that can
be a real challenge.
(15:53):
But they can see at the end,man, when we get this all set up
, we will have visibility acrossa business that we've never had
before and that's just powerfor them.
That's so essential.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Fantastic.
So when you think about some ofthese different buyers, if you
were to flip roles with them andyou were to wave some sort of
magic wand and all of a suddenyou wake up in a Freaky Friday
scenario and you're one of theseCFOs, what's the advice that
you would give yourself, or whatare the things that you wish
you knew when entering one ofthese transactions?
And I think you can maybe applythis from a dry run perspective
(16:27):
, but also from a broader SaaSperspective.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yeah, I'll take a fairly broad perspective because
over the last few years, we'vestarted to take a much closer
look at the technology thatwe're using and we found that we
had myself, or even some of theteam members we were into
different contracts that wedidn't really pay that much
attention to and I started toget really frustrated with what
(16:50):
they were delivering but alsohow the contracts were
structured, and I really likesome of the tools that we used I
really felt were takingadvantage of us, that they
weren't very transparent.
Instead of coming back everyyear before we would sign for
the next year and say, let'sjust see if this is still
fitting you and everything, itwas almost like if I don't say
anything, it'll renew.
Okay, that's not great, and weactually changed over a fair bit
(17:14):
of our technology over the lastmaybe three or four years and
we're being a lot morethoughtful about how it works
for the team, talking with theteam and figuring out how we
want to do this, and it's a very.
It's a slow.
There's no snap judge.
It's a slow move, but I feellike the technology and the
partners of SaaS companies thatwe're using today.
(17:34):
I think I feel like we justhave a better grasp on how it
all fits together, how it allworks and cost-wise, has
actually been a lot moreeffective for us, and so it's
businesses today.
I think there there are so manypieces of software that you use.
I actually think you and Imight've been talking about this
one time how many pieces ofsoftware on average companies
(17:55):
use, and I, if memory serves meright, I think you were saying
something like 30 to 40 piecesof software on average, and I
went, oh my God, that's so many.
And then I started to look atwhat we use and I'm like, oh
yeah, there is a lot of toolsthere, and boy, it's not just
even one at a time.
What's the whole picture?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
costing us.
It's crazy, and I think that Iwas remembering that
conversation as well.
I feel like the number of moneywould be higher.
It's bonkers how many differentplatforms, subscriptions I'd
like that these thatorganizations have.
And then when you think aboutthe complexity that gets added
on the cost, like it, itdefinitely can spiral out of
control pretty quickly.
(18:37):
It's a really interestingconnection to cash flow as well
when I think about almost likethe netflix, like the tv dilemma
, where everyone used to havetheir cable tv and then as soon
as netflix came out for ninedollars a month or whatever it
was, everyone was, oh my gosh,this is so much better and
cheaper.
And all of of a sudden, fastforward 15 years and people have
their Netflix, their Disney,their Amazon Plus and they're
(19:00):
spending far in excess of $150for these agreements.
To your point that ought torenew, that don't have a ton of
visibility.
I don't know if anyone's everread the T's and C's on their
Netflix agreement and they'rejust this kind of mountain that
keeps building and building.
Are you seeing any data or anytrends from the customers you're
(19:23):
working with from a cashflowperspective around some of these
subscription?
Speaker 1 (19:27):
models.
I don't know if we're like wecan't see behind the curtain, so
I don't know, unless they'reactually sharing with us, like
telling us directly.
We don't know that much maybeabout how they're doing it, but
I do know that, like, even whenwe started to look at our own
did a full audit.
We have spreadsheets now thathave all of our software on
(19:47):
there and the interesting thingto me is there's some of the
software that is actually quiteessential to us and we use daily
, and everything isn't even themost expensive right, like it's
sometimes the price and value.
I don't know if it totallymatches, but I know even with
dry run, we've been like we'vedone a bit of a transition as
we've pivoted and moved more upmarket with a much higher focus
(20:09):
on the success of our customers,because I think early on we had
a lot of customers come in andwe just, oh yeah, great, good to
go.
They came in and they boughtfrom us with the aspiration
maybe to use it with theirclients or whatever, and we
found that some of them are justlike not using it and that
obviously was an impact on thatis a real impact on us as well,
(20:29):
and so from our perspectivewe're trying to be, but
transition much more to it'salmost.
Let's slow the client down abit.
Let's make sure this is workingfor them, that they're actually
making great use of it, becauseI know the customers that do
that are with us for years, likethey.
Just they are with us long-term.
And so we've changed ourapproach with a real focus on
(20:52):
success of the customer.
And so I think, even when you'reout buying software, that's
where are they concerned withyour success, or are they
concerned with you signing on adotted line?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
That makes complete sense.
What advice would you give,outside of just this body sense
side of things, to a buyer of aSaaS platforms?
Are there red flags, are therealarm bells that they should be
watching out for?
Specific to the onboardingprocess that customers should be
aware out for specific to theonboarding process that
customers should be aware of.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I think, yeah, pressure to sign deals, pressure
to sign long-term deals not alot of attention maybe to your
problem.
It's that you have to dovetailinto our systems and our models,
and those things to me are alittle bit of the alarm bells
because we know we have some ofthe tools that we we use, we can
.
There's an approach of there.
It feels like they care moreabout us and the problem we're
(21:40):
solving and it makes sense andit works.
And it's like we have one toolI'm using and I almost it feels
like they're in there probablynewer business, but it's almost
like they're going over, bendingover backwards for us at times
and I feel you guys are doingsomething really awesome here.
This is super handy.
Like you guys don't get it.
And then there's other onesthat I'll say some of the ones
(22:00):
that we've had the moststruggles with are the ones that
have scaled and they're large.
And now you're dealing with thesales teams and you can just
feel when it turns from success,bottom line dollars, net profit
for them, you can just feel it.
And we have moved away frompieces of software.
There was one, it'll remainnameless, but we used it for
(22:22):
probably six or seven years andthen basically woke up one day
and went you guys are, you'vechanged everything you do to
feel like you're grinding everylast nickel out of me.
The one, and I will say this isa warning, for what we saw here
is when they changed their, theway they priced to usage and
the way they did usage didn'tseem to really make a lot of
(22:44):
sense to us.
But boy, the prices scale up soincredibly fast and it didn't
match the value.
We went to a different system.
Now that is probably more thanmatching for a fraction of the
price, because it matched ourbusiness and what we're doing.
You can wake up one day, and afriend of mine mentioned to me
one time he literally woke upone day and looked and found out
(23:06):
they were using a piece ofsoftware that had crept up, and
I think he said they were oh man, he thought they were paying
tidbits a month and it wasthousands a month.
And then he found out thereason it slid under the radar
is because none of his team werereally using it anymore, and I
think he maybe found it on hisfinancial statement or something
and went oh, this does not makesense.
So some of those things I wouldbe really cautious of when it's
(23:28):
a usage, whatever it is, thatcould ramp up really quickly and
it could be something you couldslip by you or you don't have
control over.
It could be a real big alarmbell.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
And I think that's one thing a lot of these
organizations have got reallygood at too is finding those
costing models that get startedand add this use case, add this
use case and add this use case.
And if that value doesn't scaleat an equivalent ratio to the
cost, then you can find yourselfin some pretty weird scenarios,
especially, it sounds I've seenthis before the story of your
(24:01):
friend where someone leaves anorganization, someone turns over
.
The person that originally madethis investment might've left
and all of a sudden the tickerkeeps going and creeping up and
all of a sudden you've spentthousands of dollars on
something that no one has usedin two and a half years.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, and honestly, we've done that.
We got caught on a contractthat flipped over that we didn't
.
I never got any notification.
It had been a staff memberpreviously that had got the,
signed the contract, everything.
The big learning lesson for me.
And then, when I stumbledacross it and reached out to the
company, it's you have 10 moremonths spending a horrific
(24:38):
amount of money every month forsomething we weren't even using.
And, of course, like I get it.
It can certainly happen.
It's just, I guess, what, I,what, and it's not like they
were being malicious either,right, but yeah, this is not
working for business.
And I guess the biggest thingis it's really important for
businesses to have a full auditregularly of what they're using
(25:01):
and understand when thecontracts start, when they end,
and that's a big task.
If nothing else, it's useful tohave a spreadsheet here's all
of our software, here's therenewal date, here's what we're
paying for, and so that you canactually try and stay on top of
it Comes back to the spreadsheetblend.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
But I would imagine as well, if people are
monitoring their cashflow andthey'll see some of those spikes
differently, and if somethinggoes from a dollar to a hundred
dollars or a hundred dollars toa thousand, they'll notice some
of those things differently andsome of those anomalies will be
less easily swept under the rugif they're keeping it closer on.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah, truthfully, the one that costs us way too much
money.
That's where I I'm not tootingyour own horn, but I picked that
up in dry run and that's notreally necessarily what dry run.
But you're forecasting andeverything.
But I can glance down and lookat all my chart of accounts and
my expenses and go, why is thatone, why is that account so high
(25:54):
?
And then I go look and go, oh,my God, it's like pulling on a
string, right, it's like you'realso, you're, you're looking,
and so, yeah, that's where thesethings come out.
It's just visualizing thesethings helps, because if you're
looking at a massive spreadsheetof data, stuff gets hidden,
like I've heard people, it'slike ants walking across the
(26:14):
screen.
One person, like you said, oneperson built it and one person
understands it.
Or it's a data dump and you'relike, okay, it dumped this data
out in a CSV and it's thecolumns are all.
And I have to expand all thecolumns.
I can't even find what I'mlooking for.
It's amazing when you havesomething that can visualize it
and you can just look at it andgo, oh, looking for.
It's amazing when you havesomething that can visualize it
and you can just look at it andgo.
(26:34):
Oh that's, I can see that planethis day as a problem.
So, yeah, there, there aremassive advantages in in in like
from our perspective for dryrun.
But I know there's other toolsthat kind of do something
similar in some way that canbring massive efficiency, saving
hours and hours every week,sometimes every day, but then
helping people visualize things,and that's I know we're.
(26:56):
I don't necessarily want to gototally down this path, but I
know we're in a world of AI andthere's a lot of tools that can
help.
But to me that still comes downto you're helping.
You're equipping people to makedecisions.
Yeah, you're not letting thebot make critical decisions.
You're trying to communicatewith the stakeholders, with the
management team, whoever it is,to help them make decisions
(27:19):
based on where they're headed,not what happened last year.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Yeah, and I think that also brings it back to a
point you mentioned earlieraround that foundation in place.
Ai is powerful, as some ofthose AI platforms and tools are
in place.
Ai is powerful, as some ofthose AI platforms and tools are
.
You still need to have afoundation of data that you can
trust, that's reliable, that'scorrect, because otherwise you
were just going to exasperateproblems that you already had,
or you're going to just use amap that brings you to the exact
(27:44):
wrong place.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, I had a CFO literally last week asked me
about showing him something dryrunning.
He said are you using ai to dothis?
And I, literally I just saidI'm like no, because you guys
are so much smarter than ai.
Basically I said, look, if weused ai, what it'll do is it's
going to analyze past records,but we all know over the last
(28:05):
five years how much every yearhas changed when historics are
useful.
But you can't.
It can't say, based on lastyear, you're going to grow 10%.
You're like inflation just wentup by X, like that's not going
to happen.
And or you look at thesemassive, giant data sets in the
industry and go, yeah, but itdoesn't know some of the
specific problems or challengesthat you have in your business,
(28:28):
whether it's local, whether it'swith a supplier, whether it's
with clients that you're.
You are either going topotentially land or lose one of
your largest clients.
We're.
We're here to to give you astarting point, but the CFO
knows infinitely more than AI onwhat's where they're headed
right or what they have to do totry and move in that direction.
(28:49):
So you can get bits ofinformation that can be really
helpful and really insightful,but we still believe we're
equipping the CFO to makedecisions, not trying to replace
the CFO.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
And I think that's a really important distinction as
well, because there's such anappetite, I feel, right now to
implement some of thesetechnologies, to be the first in
line to make sure you have AI,x, y and Z, and I think that it
is a powerful tool, just likethe.
Some of these SaaS applicationsare very powerful tools, and
the ability for leaders andbusiness owners to be able to
(29:19):
say, here's where I use thistool, here's where a hammer
makes sense, here's where ascrewdriver makes sense, here's
where a jackhammer makes sense,is very important to selecting
the right tool for the job yeahexactly to selecting the right
tool for the job.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, exactly, and sometimes the spreadsheets are
the right tool Sometimes a pieceof paper, but there's this
point where it's like I alwayssay spreadsheets like riding a
bike, you can go anywhere, um,you're not limited to a road or
tracks or you have moreflexibility, but there's points
where you just can't competewith a car.
(29:54):
So it's the point where it justbecomes an absolute, essential
addition to your business tohave a SaaS product that's going
to help you.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Amazing.
So if you're looking at thatvalue side of things and the
right tool for the right job,are there recommendations that
you have to ensure thatbusinesses are getting maximum
value from those investments inplatforms like Dry Run?
Speaker 1 (30:16):
I think that from our point of view and we're still,
I guess, smaller and nimble thenumber one thing is we want to
talk with customers, we want toimplement it, get them using the
software, make sure it actuallyis doing the job, taking a lot
of that feedback and workingwith them for a solution.
It's simple solutions like areout of the box because there are
(30:39):
SaaS tools like that that arevery plug and play.
But when you start getting intothese more complex business
situations that you need a lotof back and forth with the team
and you need to make sure thatit's actually set up right and
solving the problem and there isgoing to be more of a lift, but
likely the payoff is going tobe infinitely more than
(30:59):
sometimes what you'll get from alittle plug and play system to
businesses still done people topeople Right, and you want to be
able to talk with and trust andwork with the people that
you're buying the tool or asolution from, because if it's
just simply coming down to achecklist and price, that likely
(31:20):
won't work for anything.
That's more sophisticated thana little plug and play tool.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
No, I could not agree more with you.
So, if we zoom out a little bit, I'd like to talk about the
SaaS industry in general.
You have a unique perspectiveas someone that leads a business
that also has built out a SaaSplatform.
When you look across thecommunity, when you talk to
other founders, are there trendsthat you're seeing that
businesses and business leadersshould be aware of when it comes
(31:48):
to the SaaS marketplace overall?
Speaker 1 (31:51):
I think that it's flip side, where it's getting
more and more crowded, there'smore solutions for everything,
and that's not necessarily a badthing.
Because the market is growing soincredibly fast, businesses are
seeing the value and jumping onboard as well.
But I think what's happening isthe more niche and focused you
are, the more you can help asegment of these businesses
(32:15):
really well, and so, even thoughthere's a lot of competition
out there in a really crowdedspace, a lot of times, when it
really comes down to it, ifyou've looked through all the
different SaaS tools, thereprobably isn't that much
competition.
You probably just have ahandful of potential tools that
could actually solve yourspecific problem really well,
(32:36):
because you just don't seegenerally in a lot of business
to business sort of applications, a single tool that just does
everything.
Great, it's no, I need this andit's going to do something
really well.
So it's challenging becausethere's more businesses and
people that are looking forsolutions, and then there's so
many solutions to pick from.
I guess the one bit of adviceis don't leap too fast.
(32:57):
Do your homework, because ifyou haven't found what you think
is a perfect solution, thereprobably is one out there.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yeah, I think that's sage advice to not just click
the button.
I know it's very easy to buysome of these things sometimes.
I feel like sometimes you hearthese stories of organizations
that enroll in platforms ortools without even knowing that
they're signing up for it.
But I think one of the othertrends that we talked about
briefly but I want to dive intoa little bit more, is the role
of AI in the future of some ofthese SaaS platforms, and so,
(33:24):
from your perspective, whatimpact do you think AI is going
to have on that SaaS market andwhat do you think it's going to
be able to do to empower some ofthese platforms to do more or
less?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I think we were early on, but we're already seeing
there's, I think, some massiveefficiencies in some areas where
it's just really good and itlikely isn't going to replace
people, but it's going to do alot of the heavy lifting.
Instead of hours, you're intoseconds or minutes, but still
there's this end point wherethere's still a person that's
doing something, that they'renot the bottleneck but the
(33:56):
ultimate client.
The other side we've we'reusing AI in some of our areas
and in dry run, we'reexperimenting a lot in the
background.
We're very careful and we'll bevery conscious of how and when
we roll things out, becausepeople are relying on the
information to be accurate, andthat's an area where it's.
I think AI has a massivepotential to offer insights that
(34:21):
can give a broader view andanother alternate perspective,
and ones that you may havemissed.
But you also have to be verycareful because it could also be
, even if it's technicallyaccurate, it could actually be
somewhat misleading and cloudmaybe cloud some judgment calls,
because the success of abusiness isn't just on dollars
(34:42):
and cents, it isn't just onincreasing sales.
Like we've all seen, businessesthat have risen and fallen
because they lost sight of themarket.
They've lost sight of the truevalue they're bringing customers
.
They lost sight of their brandand it came down to dollars and
cents.
That's something that I don'tthink AI is going to be really
good at is what did we do tomake the business suddenly not
(35:04):
cool?
And businesses have failedbecause of that.
And there's businesses out thereright now that you probably
know some of the biggestconsumer brands are struggling
and they've lost the love of theconsumer.
So I think there's the twoareas where I see a lot of
advantages, obviously in amassive efficiency at times and
also offering insights andalternate views, but I think
(35:25):
it's still there's so manyfactors that I don't think it's
going to be very good, at leastfor a long time, that people are
going to have to balance outthese other factors.
It reminds me of sports, whenthey were talking about sports
analytics right, and they alwaystalk about the eye test.
You know it's like you can lookat all the data in the world,
but it's what's the feeling youget?
(35:46):
Yeah, people watch it and go inlike, and they always talk about
intangibles.
The analytics nuts willprobably make fun of that.
But there are these things thatcan't just be numbers on paper
to make things really work.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah, and I agree, as long as it's people dealing
with people, then we're alwaysgoing to have that.
I think that if we have our AIoverlords transition to them
making decisions for us, I thinkmaybe it changes, but until
that point in time, I agree withyou completely.
I want to ask a fairly pointedquestion around dry run
(36:18):
specifically and you'd alludedto the fact that there are a
couple other players in thismarket but what makes dry run
really stand out in this fieldof financial management tools?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah, I think that the biggest thing for us is we
are quite different from a lotof the tools out there and
virtually every single personthat comes to us is doing
cashflow in a spreadsheet.
We are very much going to giveyou a weekly, sometimes daily,
view of your cashflow, allow youto model scenarios and get you
out of a spreadsheet, and thetimes where we really pick up
(36:46):
and run is when there's realcomplications and complexity in
the cashflow, whether it'smultiple location, multiple
currency, multiple people, orsometimes it's one location, one
person, but it's really lumpycashflow happen.
That just is an area that we'rereally good at and, rightly or
wrongly, smartly or not, we'retaking on the spreadsheet
(37:08):
because we see it.
As as much as we lovespreadsheets for some things, we
see where it starts to becomethat house of cards, where it
starts to cost hours and hoursevery week and it's a impediment
to a management team to makesmart decisions.
So that's, if you're in aspreadsheet and you're
complaining at all aboutcashflow, you need to come and
talk with us.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
I love it If you had to leave our audience with one
key piece of advice about eithermanaging cashflow or managing
some of their SaaS investments.
What would that be?
Speaker 1 (37:38):
I think that the talk , talk to your team Like again,
we've come down to people talkwith your team, truly understand
that the problems that you'redealing with, the problems that
your team is dealing with andnot just a checklist but the
sort of the true issues thatthey're facing and then talk
with people at the businessesthat you're either working with
or plan to work with.
(37:59):
Conversations and relationshipsare going to help you truly get
an effective solution.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Blayne, thank you so much for sharing your insights
today.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
You can come visit us .
It's just dry runcom.
You can contact us there.
We've got a chat chat bubbleright there.
You can also sign up.
There's links all over ourwebsite.
Sign up to talk with one of ourteam and you can also find me
on LinkedIn.
I'd love to have you come andconnect with me on LinkedIn.
I'm always happy to chat withanybody, so you can book a time
with me and I'd love to talk.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Thank you so much for your time today.
This was a fantasticconversation and really
appreciated you having me on theshow.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Thank you so much, Keith.
This was a lot of fun.
I know this is really important.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I am probably embarrassed to admit this a tiny
bit.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
And businesses have failed because of that.
How many pieces of software onaverage companies use?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome to Sell Me this Podcast.
I'm Keith, and today we'retalking with Blaine Birch,
co-founder of Dry Run, acashflow management tool
revolutionizing financialforecasting.
From designer to entrepreneur,blaine built and sold his first
business before creating Dry Run.
Inspired by his experiencesduring the 2008 financial crisis
, his platform helps businessessimplify cash flow management
(00:39):
and move beyond spreadsheets.
We'll explore what makes Dryrun unique in financial
management, discuss AI's role inSaaS and share Blaine's insight
on tool selection and teamrelationships.
Whether you're interested inSaaS, business or financial
innovation, there is somethinghere for you.
Let's explore dry run and thefuture of cash flow management.
(01:00):
So, blaine, thank you so muchfor joining us today.
Really appreciate having you onthe podcast and really excited
for the conversation in front ofus.
Let's dive right into thingsand would love to hear a little
bit about your journey as anentrepreneur and what led you to
starting.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Dry Run.
Oh, that's an interesting onefor the journey.
As an entrepreneur I was.
I'm a designer by trade.
I have a couple of differentdegrees in design and started my
first business in 1999.
Suddenly, a few years later,you turn around and look and I
got a whole room full of peopleand a partner and a giant office
and everything else and itsneaks up on you.
The real pivotal moment for mewas 2008, 2009, when the economy
(01:41):
came to a grinding halt andthat had a big impact on us.
70% of our client base weregovernment agencies up in Canada
and the 30% were corporate.
And it was this weirdtransition because the
government dollars stuck arounda tiny bit longer, which was
good, but when they closed thosebudgets, they closed for years
(02:01):
and we knew it was coming.
So we had this rapid shift onall of our biz dev to get
corporate clients coming in.
Now, during this time, cashflowwas absolutely essential to
track.
Right Can we make payroll?
Because, right or wrong, wedidn't want to lay anybody off.
We wanted to keep everybody,and cashflow became a really
(02:23):
critical point for us and alsoour sales funnel and our sales
forecast as we do this bigtransition.
And so I was buried inspreadsheets, but those
spreadsheets, I think, had a bighand in us bouncing back really
quickly and getting our feetunder us really quickly.
Fast forward a few years I soldthat business and kept coming
back to this idea thateventually became dry run, where
(02:45):
I'm like this is a problem thatbusinesses face and maybe I can
help and get people out of aspreadsheet and get them into
something that's much faster,much more intuitive but also
something really visual, being adesigner.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Right, and I totally understand what you're saying.
Where there's these?
First of all, on the COVID side.
I think that COVID blew up alot of businesses and I think
that the challenges that existedwere different.
For some right.
Some ran into big customerproblems, some ran into scaling
issues, some ran into identityissues during COVID staffing
issues.
I think that the stories thereare endless, but I think that
(03:21):
they all tie back to cashflow atiny bit, and I totally
empathize with what you'resaying where there's these
spreadsheets that can continueto grow and they can get grosser
and more complex.
And so what is the exactproblem then that dry run solves
, and what was the first kind ofkick in the can you took when
you were trying to solve thatspecific problem and launching
the business?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, like when we specifically there.
There's two things that reallywere.
Important to me was visualizingour cash flow and modeling
scenarios to understand all ofthe what ifs.
When you're tight on cash flow,that's what you're looking at.
Do we take in money?
What if we land this client?
What if we don't?
What if we land this big joband have to expand rapidly?
(04:01):
How do we do it?
All these questions came up andhave to expand rapidly, how do
we do it?
All these questions came up,and so when we rolled out dry
run, I thought we were rollingit out to other business owners
small business owners, I'membarrassed to say this I
remember when when saying to myco-founder early on, like first
year, where we were just gettingout of the gate and I'm like, I
don't know.
I think accountants might laughat us, but I know this is really
(04:24):
important because in my mindaccountants were all about
reporting and taxes and to alarge degree that's a big part
of it is compliance and taxesand all that.
But then we rolled out andalmost immediately guess who
comes knocking at our door?
We were picked a top 10 new appby Intuit.
Aicpa invited us into theiraccelerator and within the first
(04:46):
couple of years out in the wild, we realized oh, it turns out
the pros want us and businessowners really struggle.
There's a lot of business ownersthat weren't like me that get
under the hood and figure thisstuff out.
And we also found out thatthere's a level of complexity
where it becomes a real pain.
Like you said, it's thosespreadsheets that grow into a
friend of complexity where itbecomes a real pain.
Like you said, it's thosespreadsheets that grow into a
friend of mine called afrankenstein, because I some
(05:08):
stuff I'll do in a spreadsheetreally quick and I love it, it's
so fast and easy and thenyou'll see that there's that
point where it's like uh-oh, nowI've got two tabs, three tabs
four, and also you're like I'mthe only one that knows it's
like a house of cards any littlemistake.
Another embarrassing thing Igotta mention was one time I
(05:29):
actually drove over to myaccountant's office to sit down
and say what is going on here,and and I had a spreadsheet and
he said it's a broken equationthat's an expensive drive there
it's an expensive drive all theway there for him to tell me I
have a broken equation and I wasso sure I had all my equations
Absolute sort of silliness, butit's so that's.
(05:51):
We set out to help businesses,but what we realized is
equipping the pros to helpbusinesses might be the best way
so that they could worktogether, collaborate, and so
we've got these two sort ofpillars that we always stand on.
Number one is make it easy fora business owner management team
and I'm talking managementteams in the hundreds of
millions also want somethingthat's simple, high level, easy
(06:13):
to understand.
So they're talking about theproblems and how to, where
they're headed, not explain thespreadsheet.
It's the same problem, right?
And the other one is giving thecontrol and flexibility to the
finance team, without thecomplexity of a spreadsheet, the
broken equations, everythingelse, because you can have a
large team all with their handsin this forecast and you need it
(06:37):
approachable and easy, to easyto use.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I think that from a spreadsheet standpoint, I am
probably embarrassed to admitthis a tiny bit, but I'm someone
that I love Excel.
I love some of the models inthere.
I love what you can do.
I also used Excel to some pointas like a thinking tool.
Sometimes I'll start to plotthings out and I'll morph into
these giant spreadsheets, but Itotally understand where they
just morph out of controlsometimes more vote of control
(07:05):
sometimes and it's aninteresting time where you can
combine some of those businessspecific challenges with the
ability to now create some ofthese platforms that can solve a
very specific businesschallenge.
And I think that's really whereI'd love to lead.
A little bit of the conversationtoday is specifically around
your very unique perspective andA being the founder or
co-founder of a platform thatsolves a very specific business
(07:28):
challenge and are helping toyour point the pros solve that
with ease and a really coolsolution but also as a business
owner that has to consume someof these same niche technologies
yourself, and so I thinkthere's a really interesting
balance there If we start offfrom your perspective in terms
of and this is a big questionwhat makes a great SaaS platform
(07:50):
From your perspective andfinding that product market fit
and bringing this to market.
What actually makes a greatSaaS platform?
And if you were talking to yourcustomers, how can they
identify the right SaaSplatforms for their needs?
Speaker 1 (08:04):
What makes a great SaaS platform there's?
Obviously it solves a reallyfundamental pain, a really
fundamental problem.
Of course, what makes it great,you hit the nail on the head,
it's product market fit, whichis the buzzword in the industry.
It's more than the buzzword, ofcourse, but if you, it's a real
struggle, like even for us.
Like I said, we startedthinking we were solving a
(08:25):
problem for small businesses andturns out it was more of the
pros.
And then when we started to getexposure further up market,
that's where people were almostkicking down our door and we
realized they just have a lotbigger pain point, a lot bigger
problem because there's moredata, there's more systems, it
just gets more complicated.
(08:45):
And so, finding the true painpoint who do you solve a massive
pain for?
But then the next step isreally understanding that pain
point and building somethingthat's going to be the solution.
The biggest tool tactics,strategy, whatever that.
We've used that and we continueto use every single day as
(09:06):
talking to customers.
We thought we did that early,we didn't do enough of it.
We are absolutely like justfrantic to talk with customers
and learn from them and, yeah,to understand the problem and
how we can better solve it.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
So, when I'm talking to your customers, you have a
very specific audience, whichare finance people which,
without applying too manystereotypes, are usually focused
on cash, focused on tangiblecomponents, and so, when they're
evaluating some of theseplatforms, what are some of the
areas that you're havingconversations in that will allow
(09:41):
them to really quantify thevalue of that spend and make
sure that they're providingvalue along with that SaaS
platform they've chosen?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah, I think there's some insight on how we deal
with customers that I think isalso very useful from the flip
side, and it's just sort of bornout of hundreds and hundreds of
conversations.
The first thing we do when I'mtalking like I'm talking with
CFOs every single day, and thefirst thing I do when I talk
with a CFO is I don't tell thema dry run.
(10:10):
The first thing I do is saytell me about your business,
tell me about your challenges,tell me about your clients or
tell me about the problem yousolve.
You know and and I want tolearn as much about them as
possible so that I can put thesolution in context.
But there's also plenty oftimes where, after they've told
me that I have literally said tothem I'm not sure we can help
(10:31):
you.
I don't think that.
Let me tell you what we do.
I don't think it sounds likewe're necessarily a fit and I
think there's that level oftransparency and honesty that
you'll want to see from a vendorwhen you're trying to solve a
very specific problem.
Let me show you.
It was the opposite.
Let me show all the stuff we do.
And then it was like playingwhack-a-mole to try and answer
all the questions because thequestions were related to
(10:53):
nothing.
It was a mismatch, right?
Even if the product might'vereally helped, there was a
mismatch in them usunderstanding or what they
needed, and vice versa.
And so that's an approach wetake it's just all about the
client, it's all about theirproblem.
And then I can say, hey, we, Ithink we might be able to help,
maybe we can't.
The interesting thing isthere's been several times where
(11:13):
I said, based on what you toldme, I don't think we're the
right tool for you, but just letme show you what we do, just so
you know, and then I'll showthem what we do and they're like
yeah, you're right, you can'thelp over here, but, holy cow,
we need this and I didn't evenknow.
So it's this clarity, and very,very narrow, very narrow clarity
(11:33):
is what, what helps, I think,on both sides, to really truly
understand if you're solving theproblem.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Do most of the people when you're engaging them, with
them off the bat.
Do they understand the problemthey have?
Or are they out searching for,maybe, an antidote for some
other symptoms and they arriveat the fact that it's cashflow?
Or are they really clear thatthis is the problem that they
need to solve when they'researching you out?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
We actually, honestly , we get a little bit of a mix
of both the ones that areobviously that are.
Much smoother is when they knowthe problem they have and they
come walking in the door and I'mlike, yeah, we have four
locations and three currenciesand five finance staff and it's
(12:18):
just hours a week.
Like the thing is, what they'redoing tends to work, but they
understand.
It's like I had one.
I had a cfo not too long ago,just exasperated, said we did 30
hours of work to get to thisand I'm like, oh my god, I think
we could do that in about twominutes, but there was no easy
way for them to do what we do.
(12:40):
So some of them, when they knowthey have the a problem, it we
can be very it's just veryfocused on the solution.
But you do sometimes have peoplethat come in and I got five
different problems and acashflow sort of one of them and
it's this big weaved web ofstuff.
That's a little bit more of achallenge.
But it's also the conversations, I think, also help give them
(13:01):
clarity on what parts they mightbe able to really solve with
the solution and what partsthey're going to have to maybe
work through on their own orit's likely a multi-task Point
solution.
Right, it's oh boy, okay, we'regoing to have to do what we
thought.
Just get a new ERP in.
It helps them get that claritythat sometimes to get to a true
(13:21):
solution it's not a quick fix.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, and I agree with you.
A lot of the executives that Italk to they'll have this idea.
They have a problem to solve,but especially with out of the
hype, the first point sometimesis technology, and so they'll
search out the technology thatsolves it.
But they'll realize they havean underlying process problem,
or they have an underlyingpeople problem, or maybe the
problem is much broader.
As they start to define it, doyou run into scenarios often
(13:46):
where people come to you andmaybe these are the customers
you're talking about that aren'ta good fit, yet that they come
to you and they're justtechnology isn't the answer for
them.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah, I think technology may, like you said,
be the answer.
Down the road, there's a lot ofsteps in between.
So sometimes people come to usand they're ready to go, or
they're 99 there.
But there are a lot of timesthey'll come in with a problem
and it's first of all you haveto truly understand the people
in your organization, right downto the like everybody, and what
are the problems that each oneis facing, and it's you almost
(14:20):
have to really understand thatand map it all out and work your
way up and then look for thefirst step in the solution.
It's amazing how many cfos thatwe talk with, especially when
there's an interim one, and theycome in and they're like yeah,
the number one problem we is,the systems and processes are so
broken that the data is so outof date, it's so messy, it's so
wrong, and that's a really biglift, but on the other hand, at
(14:44):
least there's someone coming in,going.
Okay, first step is we have totake control of this data and
these processes before we can doanything else.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, and I think that a lot of leaders sometimes
they'll look at the end state orthe solution and be like, oh
man, I can't wait until we gethere.
But there's this whole body ofwork that's the data cleanup,
all the non-sexy stuff that noone really wants to do.
It's not the stuff that'sincredibly rewarding, but I'm
sure that from your perspective,it creates such a better output
at the end of it.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Oh yeah, and when.
Sometimes we'll talk withpeople and they know down to
some real detail.
I was talking with a CFO notlong ago and they're talking
about multiple locations andthey said, part of the problem,
we don't even have the samesystems like accounting systems
and ERPs at each location, butwe also don't have the data
structure the same way.
(15:33):
They're named differently,they're categorized differently
there.
So as they try and do someconsolidation or roll up and
they they want to be able tocompare apples to apples and
this we can't even.
We can't do that.
There's a lot of thoughtfulnessthat has to go into it and when
you're working across all thesedifferent locations, that can
be a real challenge.
(15:53):
But they can see at the end,man, when we get this all set up
, we will have visibility acrossa business that we've never had
before and that's just powerfor them.
That's so essential.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Fantastic.
So when you think about some ofthese different buyers, if you
were to flip roles with them andyou were to wave some sort of
magic wand and all of a suddenyou wake up in a Freaky Friday
scenario and you're one of theseCFOs, what's the advice that
you would give yourself, or whatare the things that you wish
you knew when entering one ofthese transactions?
And I think you can maybe applythis from a dry run perspective
(16:27):
, but also from a broader SaaSperspective.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yeah, I'll take a fairly broad perspective because
over the last few years, we'vestarted to take a much closer
look at the technology thatwe're using and we found that we
had myself, or even some of theteam members we were into
different contracts that wedidn't really pay that much
attention to and I started toget really frustrated with what
(16:50):
they were delivering but alsohow the contracts were
structured, and I really likesome of the tools that we used I
really felt were takingadvantage of us, that they
weren't very transparent.
Instead of coming back everyyear before we would sign for
the next year and say, let'sjust see if this is still
fitting you and everything, itwas almost like if I don't say
anything, it'll renew.
Okay, that's not great, and weactually changed over a fair bit
(17:14):
of our technology over the lastmaybe three or four years and
we're being a lot morethoughtful about how it works
for the team, talking with theteam and figuring out how we
want to do this, and it's a very.
It's a slow.
There's no snap judge.
It's a slow move, but I feellike the technology and the
partners of SaaS companies thatwe're using today.
(17:34):
I think I feel like we justhave a better grasp on how it
all fits together, how it allworks and cost-wise, has
actually been a lot moreeffective for us, and so it's
businesses today.
I think there there are so manypieces of software that you use.
I actually think you and Imight've been talking about this
one time how many pieces ofsoftware on average companies
(17:55):
use, and I, if memory serves meright, I think you were saying
something like 30 to 40 piecesof software on average, and I
went, oh my God, that's so many.
And then I started to look atwhat we use and I'm like, oh
yeah, there is a lot of toolsthere, and boy, it's not just
even one at a time.
What's the whole picture?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
costing us.
It's crazy, and I think that Iwas remembering that
conversation as well.
I feel like the number of moneywould be higher.
It's bonkers how many differentplatforms, subscriptions I'd
like that these thatorganizations have.
And then when you think aboutthe complexity that gets added
on the cost, like it, itdefinitely can spiral out of
control pretty quickly.
(18:37):
It's a really interestingconnection to cash flow as well
when I think about almost likethe netflix, like the tv dilemma
, where everyone used to havetheir cable tv and then as soon
as netflix came out for ninedollars a month or whatever it
was, everyone was, oh my gosh,this is so much better and
cheaper.
And all of of a sudden, fastforward 15 years and people have
their Netflix, their Disney,their Amazon Plus and they're
(19:00):
spending far in excess of $150for these agreements.
To your point that ought torenew, that don't have a ton of
visibility.
I don't know if anyone's everread the T's and C's on their
Netflix agreement and they'rejust this kind of mountain that
keeps building and building.
Are you seeing any data or anytrends from the customers you're
(19:23):
working with from a cashflowperspective around some of these
subscription?
Speaker 1 (19:27):
models.
I don't know if we're like wecan't see behind the curtain, so
I don't know, unless they'reactually sharing with us, like
telling us directly.
We don't know that much maybeabout how they're doing it, but
I do know that, like, even whenwe started to look at our own
did a full audit.
We have spreadsheets now thathave all of our software on
(19:47):
there and the interesting thingto me is there's some of the
software that is actually quiteessential to us and we use daily
, and everything isn't even themost expensive right, like it's
sometimes the price and value.
I don't know if it totallymatches, but I know even with
dry run, we've been like we'vedone a bit of a transition as
we've pivoted and moved more upmarket with a much higher focus
(20:09):
on the success of our customers,because I think early on we had
a lot of customers come in andwe just, oh yeah, great, good to
go.
They came in and they boughtfrom us with the aspiration
maybe to use it with theirclients or whatever, and we
found that some of them are justlike not using it and that
obviously was an impact on thatis a real impact on us as well,
(20:29):
and so from our perspectivewe're trying to be, but
transition much more to it'salmost.
Let's slow the client down abit.
Let's make sure this is workingfor them, that they're actually
making great use of it, becauseI know the customers that do
that are with us for years, likethey.
Just they are with us long-term.
And so we've changed ourapproach with a real focus on
(20:52):
success of the customer.
And so I think, even when you'reout buying software, that's
where are they concerned withyour success, or are they
concerned with you signing on adotted line?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
That makes complete sense.
What advice would you give,outside of just this body sense
side of things, to a buyer of aSaaS platforms?
Are there red flags, are therealarm bells that they should be
watching out for?
Specific to the onboardingprocess that customers should be
aware out for specific to theonboarding process that
customers should be aware of.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I think, yeah, pressure to sign deals, pressure
to sign long-term deals not alot of attention maybe to your
problem.
It's that you have to dovetailinto our systems and our models,
and those things to me are alittle bit of the alarm bells
because we know we have some ofthe tools that we we use, we can
.
There's an approach of there.
It feels like they care moreabout us and the problem we're
(21:40):
solving and it makes sense andit works.
And it's like we have one toolI'm using and I almost it feels
like they're in there probablynewer business, but it's almost
like they're going over, bendingover backwards for us at times
and I feel you guys are doingsomething really awesome here.
This is super handy.
Like you guys don't get it.
And then there's other onesthat I'll say some of the ones
(22:00):
that we've had the moststruggles with are the ones that
have scaled and they're large.
And now you're dealing with thesales teams and you can just
feel when it turns from success,bottom line dollars, net profit
for them, you can just feel it.
And we have moved away frompieces of software.
There was one, it'll remainnameless, but we used it for
(22:22):
probably six or seven years andthen basically woke up one day
and went you guys are, you'vechanged everything you do to
feel like you're grinding everylast nickel out of me.
The one, and I will say this isa warning, for what we saw here
is when they changed their, theway they priced to usage and
the way they did usage didn'tseem to really make a lot of
(22:44):
sense to us.
But boy, the prices scale up soincredibly fast and it didn't
match the value.
We went to a different system.
Now that is probably more thanmatching for a fraction of the
price, because it matched ourbusiness and what we're doing.
You can wake up one day, and afriend of mine mentioned to me
one time he literally woke upone day and looked and found out
(23:06):
they were using a piece ofsoftware that had crept up, and
I think he said they were oh man, he thought they were paying
tidbits a month and it wasthousands a month.
And then he found out thereason it slid under the radar
is because none of his team werereally using it anymore, and I
think he maybe found it on hisfinancial statement or something
and went oh, this does not makesense.
So some of those things I wouldbe really cautious of when it's
(23:28):
a usage, whatever it is, thatcould ramp up really quickly and
it could be something you couldslip by you or you don't have
control over.
It could be a real big alarmbell.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
And I think that's one thing a lot of these
organizations have got reallygood at too is finding those
costing models that get startedand add this use case, add this
use case and add this use case.
And if that value doesn't scaleat an equivalent ratio to the
cost, then you can find yourselfin some pretty weird scenarios,
especially, it sounds I've seenthis before the story of your
(24:01):
friend where someone leaves anorganization, someone turns over
.
The person that originally madethis investment might've left
and all of a sudden the tickerkeeps going and creeping up and
all of a sudden you've spentthousands of dollars on
something that no one has usedin two and a half years.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, and honestly, we've done that.
We got caught on a contractthat flipped over that we didn't
.
I never got any notification.
It had been a staff memberpreviously that had got the,
signed the contract, everything.
The big learning lesson for me.
And then, when I stumbledacross it and reached out to the
company, it's you have 10 moremonths spending a horrific
(24:38):
amount of money every month forsomething we weren't even using.
And, of course, like I get it.
It can certainly happen.
It's just, I guess, what, I,what, and it's not like they
were being malicious either,right, but yeah, this is not
working for business.
And I guess the biggest thingis it's really important for
businesses to have a full auditregularly of what they're using
(25:01):
and understand when thecontracts start, when they end,
and that's a big task.
If nothing else, it's useful tohave a spreadsheet here's all
of our software, here's therenewal date, here's what we're
paying for, and so that you canactually try and stay on top of
it Comes back to the spreadsheetblend.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
But I would imagine as well, if people are
monitoring their cashflow andthey'll see some of those spikes
differently, and if somethinggoes from a dollar to a hundred
dollars or a hundred dollars toa thousand, they'll notice some
of those things differently andsome of those anomalies will be
less easily swept under the rugif they're keeping it closer on.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah, truthfully, the one that costs us way too much
money.
That's where I I'm not tootingyour own horn, but I picked that
up in dry run and that's notreally necessarily what dry run.
But you're forecasting andeverything.
But I can glance down and lookat all my chart of accounts and
my expenses and go, why is thatone, why is that account so high
(25:54):
?
And then I go look and go, oh,my God, it's like pulling on a
string, right, it's like you'realso, you're, you're looking,
and so, yeah, that's where thesethings come out.
It's just visualizing thesethings helps, because if you're
looking at a massive spreadsheetof data, stuff gets hidden,
like I've heard people, it'slike ants walking across the
(26:14):
screen.
One person, like you said, oneperson built it and one person
understands it.
Or it's a data dump and you'relike, okay, it dumped this data
out in a CSV and it's thecolumns are all.
And I have to expand all thecolumns.
I can't even find what I'mlooking for.
It's amazing when you havesomething that can visualize it
and you can just look at it andgo, oh, looking for.
It's amazing when you havesomething that can visualize it
and you can just look at it andgo.
(26:34):
Oh that's, I can see that planethis day as a problem.
So, yeah, there, there aremassive advantages in in in like
from our perspective for dryrun.
But I know there's other toolsthat kind of do something
similar in some way that canbring massive efficiency, saving
hours and hours every week,sometimes every day, but then
helping people visualize things,and that's I know we're.
(26:56):
I don't necessarily want to gototally down this path, but I
know we're in a world of AI andthere's a lot of tools that can
help.
But to me that still comes downto you're helping.
You're equipping people to makedecisions.
Yeah, you're not letting thebot make critical decisions.
You're trying to communicatewith the stakeholders, with the
management team, whoever it is,to help them make decisions
(27:19):
based on where they're headed,not what happened last year.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Yeah, and I think that also brings it back to a
point you mentioned earlieraround that foundation in place.
Ai is powerful, as some ofthose AI platforms and tools are
in place.
Ai is powerful, as some ofthose AI platforms and tools are
.
You still need to have afoundation of data that you can
trust, that's reliable, that'scorrect, because otherwise you
were just going to exasperateproblems that you already had,
or you're going to just use amap that brings you to the exact
(27:44):
wrong place.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, I had a CFO literally last week asked me
about showing him something dryrunning.
He said are you using ai to dothis?
And I, literally I just saidI'm like no, because you guys
are so much smarter than ai.
Basically I said, look, if weused ai, what it'll do is it's
going to analyze past records,but we all know over the last
(28:05):
five years how much every yearhas changed when historics are
useful.
But you can't.
It can't say, based on lastyear, you're going to grow 10%.
You're like inflation just wentup by X, like that's not going
to happen.
And or you look at thesemassive, giant data sets in the
industry and go, yeah, but itdoesn't know some of the
specific problems or challengesthat you have in your business,
(28:28):
whether it's local, whether it'swith a supplier, whether it's
with clients that you're.
You are either going topotentially land or lose one of
your largest clients.
We're.
We're here to to give you astarting point, but the CFO
knows infinitely more than AI onwhat's where they're headed
right or what they have to do totry and move in that direction.
(28:49):
So you can get bits ofinformation that can be really
helpful and really insightful,but we still believe we're
equipping the CFO to makedecisions, not trying to replace
the CFO.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
And I think that's a really important distinction as
well, because there's such anappetite, I feel, right now to
implement some of thesetechnologies, to be the first in
line to make sure you have AI,x, y and Z, and I think that it
is a powerful tool, just likethe.
Some of these SaaS applicationsare very powerful tools, and
the ability for leaders andbusiness owners to be able to
(29:19):
say, here's where I use thistool, here's where a hammer
makes sense, here's where ascrewdriver makes sense, here's
where a jackhammer makes sense,is very important to selecting
the right tool for the job yeahexactly to selecting the right
tool for the job.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, exactly, and sometimes the spreadsheets are
the right tool Sometimes a pieceof paper, but there's this
point where it's like I alwayssay spreadsheets like riding a
bike, you can go anywhere, um,you're not limited to a road or
tracks or you have moreflexibility, but there's points
where you just can't competewith a car.
(29:54):
So it's the point where it justbecomes an absolute, essential
addition to your business tohave a SaaS product that's going
to help you.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Amazing.
So if you're looking at thatvalue side of things and the
right tool for the right job,are there recommendations that
you have to ensure thatbusinesses are getting maximum
value from those investments inplatforms like Dry Run?
Speaker 1 (30:16):
I think that from our point of view and we're still,
I guess, smaller and nimble thenumber one thing is we want to
talk with customers, we want toimplement it, get them using the
software, make sure it actuallyis doing the job, taking a lot
of that feedback and workingwith them for a solution.
It's simple solutions like areout of the box because there are
(30:39):
SaaS tools like that that arevery plug and play.
But when you start getting intothese more complex business
situations that you need a lotof back and forth with the team
and you need to make sure thatit's actually set up right and
solving the problem and there isgoing to be more of a lift, but
likely the payoff is going tobe infinitely more than
(30:59):
sometimes what you'll get from alittle plug and play system to
businesses still done people topeople Right, and you want to be
able to talk with and trust andwork with the people that
you're buying the tool or asolution from, because if it's
just simply coming down to achecklist and price, that likely
(31:20):
won't work for anything.
That's more sophisticated thana little plug and play tool.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
No, I could not agree more with you.
So, if we zoom out a little bit, I'd like to talk about the
SaaS industry in general.
You have a unique perspectiveas someone that leads a business
that also has built out a SaaSplatform.
When you look across thecommunity, when you talk to
other founders, are there trendsthat you're seeing that
businesses and business leadersshould be aware of when it comes
(31:48):
to the SaaS marketplace overall?
Speaker 1 (31:51):
I think that it's flip side, where it's getting
more and more crowded, there'smore solutions for everything,
and that's not necessarily a badthing.
Because the market is growing soincredibly fast, businesses are
seeing the value and jumping onboard as well.
But I think what's happening isthe more niche and focused you
are, the more you can help asegment of these businesses
(32:15):
really well, and so, even thoughthere's a lot of competition
out there in a really crowdedspace, a lot of times, when it
really comes down to it, ifyou've looked through all the
different SaaS tools, thereprobably isn't that much
competition.
You probably just have ahandful of potential tools that
could actually solve yourspecific problem really well,
(32:36):
because you just don't seegenerally in a lot of business
to business sort of applications, a single tool that just does
everything.
Great, it's no, I need this andit's going to do something
really well.
So it's challenging becausethere's more businesses and
people that are looking forsolutions, and then there's so
many solutions to pick from.
I guess the one bit of adviceis don't leap too fast.
(32:57):
Do your homework, because ifyou haven't found what you think
is a perfect solution, thereprobably is one out there.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yeah, I think that's sage advice to not just click
the button.
I know it's very easy to buysome of these things sometimes.
I feel like sometimes you hearthese stories of organizations
that enroll in platforms ortools without even knowing that
they're signing up for it.
But I think one of the othertrends that we talked about
briefly but I want to dive intoa little bit more, is the role
of AI in the future of some ofthese SaaS platforms, and so,
(33:24):
from your perspective, whatimpact do you think AI is going
to have on that SaaS market andwhat do you think it's going to
be able to do to empower some ofthese platforms to do more or
less?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I think we were early on, but we're already seeing
there's, I think, some massiveefficiencies in some areas where
it's just really good and itlikely isn't going to replace
people, but it's going to do alot of the heavy lifting.
Instead of hours, you're intoseconds or minutes, but still
there's this end point wherethere's still a person that's
doing something, that they'renot the bottleneck but the
(33:56):
ultimate client.
The other side we've we'reusing AI in some of our areas
and in dry run, we'reexperimenting a lot in the
background.
We're very careful and we'll bevery conscious of how and when
we roll things out, becausepeople are relying on the
information to be accurate, andthat's an area where it's.
I think AI has a massivepotential to offer insights that
(34:21):
can give a broader view andanother alternate perspective,
and ones that you may havemissed.
But you also have to be verycareful because it could also be
, even if it's technicallyaccurate, it could actually be
somewhat misleading and cloudmaybe cloud some judgment calls,
because the success of abusiness isn't just on dollars
(34:42):
and cents, it isn't just onincreasing sales.
Like we've all seen, businessesthat have risen and fallen
because they lost sight of themarket.
They've lost sight of the truevalue they're bringing customers
.
They lost sight of their brandand it came down to dollars and
cents.
That's something that I don'tthink AI is going to be really
good at is what did we do tomake the business suddenly not
(35:04):
cool?
And businesses have failedbecause of that.
And there's businesses out thereright now that you probably
know some of the biggestconsumer brands are struggling
and they've lost the love of theconsumer.
So I think there's the twoareas where I see a lot of
advantages, obviously in amassive efficiency at times and
also offering insights andalternate views, but I think
(35:25):
it's still there's so manyfactors that I don't think it's
going to be very good, at leastfor a long time, that people are
going to have to balance outthese other factors.
It reminds me of sports, whenthey were talking about sports
analytics right, and they alwaystalk about the eye test.
You know it's like you can lookat all the data in the world,
but it's what's the feeling youget?
(35:46):
Yeah, people watch it and go inlike, and they always talk about
intangibles.
The analytics nuts willprobably make fun of that.
But there are these things thatcan't just be numbers on paper
to make things really work.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah, and I agree, as long as it's people dealing
with people, then we're alwaysgoing to have that.
I think that if we have our AIoverlords transition to them
making decisions for us, I thinkmaybe it changes, but until
that point in time, I agree withyou completely.
I want to ask a fairly pointedquestion around dry run
(36:18):
specifically and you'd alludedto the fact that there are a
couple other players in thismarket but what makes dry run
really stand out in this fieldof financial management tools?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah, I think that the biggest thing for us is we
are quite different from a lotof the tools out there and
virtually every single personthat comes to us is doing
cashflow in a spreadsheet.
We are very much going to giveyou a weekly, sometimes daily,
view of your cashflow, allow youto model scenarios and get you
out of a spreadsheet, and thetimes where we really pick up
(36:46):
and run is when there's realcomplications and complexity in
the cashflow, whether it'smultiple location, multiple
currency, multiple people, orsometimes it's one location, one
person, but it's really lumpycashflow happen.
That just is an area that we'rereally good at and, rightly or
wrongly, smartly or not, we'retaking on the spreadsheet
(37:08):
because we see it.
As as much as we lovespreadsheets for some things, we
see where it starts to becomethat house of cards, where it
starts to cost hours and hoursevery week and it's a impediment
to a management team to makesmart decisions.
So that's, if you're in aspreadsheet and you're
complaining at all aboutcashflow, you need to come and
talk with us.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
I love it If you had to leave our audience with one
key piece of advice about eithermanaging cashflow or managing
some of their SaaS investments.
What would that be?
Speaker 1 (37:38):
I think that the talk , talk to your team Like again,
we've come down to people talkwith your team, truly understand
that the problems that you'redealing with, the problems that
your team is dealing with andnot just a checklist but the
sort of the true issues thatthey're facing and then talk
with people at the businessesthat you're either working with
or plan to work with.
(37:59):
Conversations and relationshipsare going to help you truly get
an effective solution.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Blayne, thank you so much for sharing your insights
today.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
You can come visit us .
It's just dry runcom.
You can contact us there.
We've got a chat chat bubbleright there.
You can also sign up.
There's links all over ourwebsite.
Sign up to talk with one of ourteam and you can also find me
on LinkedIn.
I'd love to have you come andconnect with me on LinkedIn.
I'm always happy to chat withanybody, so you can book a time
with me and I'd love to talk.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Thank you so much for your time today.
This was a fantasticconversation and really
appreciated you having me on theshow.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Thank you so much, Keith.
This was a lot of fun.
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