Colin Hewit, CEO, Float
Today we're meeting Colin Hewit, CEO at Float. They specialise in providing 13 week cashflow forecasts for Xero and QuickBooks, and using to data to provide businesses with Cashflow Intelligence.
Over to you Colin - my questions are in bold:
Who are you and what's your background?
Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Now living in Edinburgh Scotland. Studied Computer Science, ran a web development agency for 10 years before starting Float.
What is your job title and what are your general responsibilities?
CEO and founder. Lead our product and marketing strategy.
Can you give us an overview of your business?
We're the market leader in direct method short-term cashflow forecasting. Using Float you can generate a daily, weekly or monthly cashflow based on real time information from Xero or QBO. We help manage multiple scenarios, beautiful reports and we've recently added VAT support and consolidated multi-entity cash reporting.
Tell us how you are funded?
We've taken a hybrid approach of bootstrapping with some angel funding to start and raised a seed round of £1.5M in 2020. We're now profitable.
What's the origin story? Why did you start the company? To solve what problems?
I ran an agency business and realised that as we grew, cashflow was the main metric that I cared about. I had to manage it in a forecast to get any real sense of detail. When we started using Cloud accounting software we realised that it would be possible to integrate and build our forecast model in real-time. Float allows us to answer questions like: "What if that client pays late?", or "What if we take on a new employee?" The daily accuracy is what sets us apart.
Who are your target customers? What's your revenue model?
Key customers are small business owners, bookkeepers, fractional CFOs and accountants that provide a virtual FD service. Right now we're focusing on the fractional CFO space as it's rapidly growing and it's a key responsibility for CFOs to provide the 13 week forecast for their clients on a regular basis. We make that easy and very clear. Business owners call it their "sleep at night" solution.
If you had a magic wand, what one thing would you change in the banking and/or FinTech sector?
I'd love for it to become a requirement for businesses to have an up to date cashflow forecast! I'd also love to see companies commit to paying on time.
What is your message for the larger players in the Financial Services marketplace?
Banks are going to have to level up their software service - businesses will soon start to switch to challengers that offer better service at the mid market and better interest rates. Banks like Allica are proving that.
Where do you get your Financial Services/FinTech industry news from?
I read Neils weekly updates at the Marketing Eye.
What FinTech services (and/or apps) do you personally use?
Xero, Fathom, Float, Dext and Cledara.
What's the best new FinTech product or service you've seen recently?
Allica Bank's new smart overdraft looks very promising.
Finally, let's talk predictions. What trends do you think are going to define the next few years in the FinTech sector?
Obviously AI will change so many things. I think e-invoicing makes a huge amount of sense and will become increasingly mandatory.
I hope we'll see some new innovation again in the blockchain space - moving away from being dominated by Visa and Mastercard.
In terms of cashflow - I'm hopeful we'll be able to offer easy access to higher rate bank accounts and loans to give businesses the maximum chance of making the most of their cash responsibly.
Thank you very much, Colin!
Read more about Colin on LinkedIn and find out more about Float at www.floatapp.com.