You’ve likely already heard about the “Heartbleed” security vulnerability affecting thousands of websites and millions of servers worldwide. I just wanted to share some quick notes here to address any questions you might have about how this affects Expensify: Continue Reading…
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Imagine you ran a coffee shop with great coffee, a cool vibe, comfortable seating… and no customers. Not an uncommon problem, and the classic solution promoted by social media experts would be something like:
“Create a Twitter handle and offer discounts to customers who follow. Broadcast weekly events and promotions via Twitter and engage with your audience to encourage them to come and bring their friends. More discounts to people who get their friends to follow. Create a mailing list; Tumblr; Facebook page; etc, etc.”
Based on the sudden spike in applications we’ve seen, there are a lot of people out there with New Year’s resolutions to make the jump. Before you do, I’d recommend asking your employer-to-be the following questions: Continue Reading…
2013 is so last year. To celebrate the new year, I’m very proud to announce two major developments:
1) We’ve just rolled out a total overhaul of the UI. It’s faster, sleeker, easier to use, and so much prettier. Sign in here to check it out:
https://www.expensify.com/signin
2) If you’re lucky enough to have an executive assistant, add them as a Wingman so they can sign into your account and do everything you can do:
You might recall that we added the option to reimburse Expensify reports using Bitcoin. (It’s not widely used, but it’s no gimmick — Bitcoin is a great option for reimbursing international contractors without the expense or hassle of a wire transfer or PayPal.) Literally the next day, Bitcoin exploded in popularity. Whether or not those two events are related is unclear. But what is clear is that the timing made Expensify the mainstream media face of Bitcoin. Continue Reading…
Speaking live on nationwide TV is about the most chaotic, stressful, underwhelming, and anti-climactic thing I’ve ever done
When I started Expensify, I had no idea being a CEO involved talking so much, to so many people, on such a wide array of topics. Whether it’s a chance encounter in a hallway, keynoting a conference, or being woken up by CNBC with an offer to debate Howard Dean about whether the FEC should accept Bitcoin (answer: yes), you never know what opportunity will come up — and it’ll pass you by if you aren’t ready to jump on it without notice or preparation.
Prior to Expensify, I don’t think I’d ever been on stage or spoken to more than two people at the same time, but here are some tips I’ve come to swear by: Continue Reading…
One cool perk of working in Silicon Valley is the surprisingly frequent, totally random, super awesome outing. In this particular case, Oracle gave us one of their box suites for a Warriors game. Basketball is one of the greatest sports to watch live. But it’s even greater when you have your own private buffet, liquor cabinet, and access to a very extensive wine list. (And on that last note, we were going to be reasonable by asking for the least expensive Cabernet Sauvignon, to which our Oracle host scoffed and pulled his finger down to the bottom of the list. “We’ll have that one.”)
Most VC pitches hinge on a key number:
Return On Investment (ROI) = LifeTime Value (LTV) / Cost to Acquire a Customer (CAC)
And I can’t blame them: VCs are in the business of selling money. They want to know that if they sell you their money (paid for with equity), it’ll be put to good use. This is more true today than ever because startups are so cheap to run anymore, meaning the only realistic way you can spend millions of dollars is on customer acquisition.
But the open secret that has taken me years to learn is this: it’s all bullshit. Continue Reading…
It’s very fashionable to quantify every aspect of your business to the N-th degree. It sounds great in cocktail conversations to rattle off CAC, LTV, retention rates, magic numbers, and a host of other variables — and to extol the virtues of A/B testing every single thing from day one (or even before). But beware getting too reliant on data, because when it comes to your most important and difficult decisions, it won’t be there to save you. This is because startups are trapped between a rock and a hard place: Continue Reading…
I gave a talk this week at DreamForce called “The Entrepreneurial Instinct” (they picked the title) largely about the importance of trusting yourself and doing your own thing, and expanding on the ideas in this TechCrunch guest post. One of the attendees wrote me with this question:
One thing I wanted to ask you was if I work in a company where I am not a senior level exec, capable of making the decision to experiment on ways to get our product to rapid adoption, how do I go about convincing them to just try something out?
Here’s how I responded: Continue Reading…
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