By Grace Austin
Tired of QuickBooks?That’s what inDinero is hoping to capitalize on. Launched in July 2010 by Jessica Mah and Andy Su, inDinero is a “new way” for businesses to keep track of their finances.
Mah and Su’s combined entrepreneurial knowledge laid the groundwork for inDinero. (Mah previously founded internshipIN, designed to help students find internships, when she was 13.) The San Francisco-based company has since raised more than $1 million from investors like Y Combinator, an investment capital organization with a focus on digital entrepreneurs. In its short lifetime, inDinero counts 2.5 million transactions and more than $2 billion dollars in transaction volume.
“InDinero started because we hated accounting. We promised that for the next business we’d start, the accounting would be the one thing we would do right. The best way to ensure that was to build the accounting software ourselves,” said Mah.
InDinero works so: first enter your account information into the website, and inDinero will fetch bank statements and organize transactions accordingly. The site then provides updated budgets and an easy-to-use financial dashboard to keep track of expenses. Other services, like inDinero’s “financial advisor,” interpret accounting linguistics into layman’s terms.
Eliminating hassles associated with multiple data entries and working through an accountant is one of the startup’s biggest selling points. InDinero is currently used by several thousand companies.
In terms of diversity, inDinero is both a young and multicultural small business. The eight-person team consists largely of Asian Americans. CEO Mah and CTO Su are both of Chinese background. Diversity is an essential aspect of Mah’s vision for the organization.
“We’re conscious of promoting diversity, and giving chances to people who don’t fit the stereotype for who would do well in a business environment. If you genuinely care about having a wide array of expertise and ideas, it’s important to work with people from all walks of life. Diversity isn’t just about race—it’s about age, education, passions in life, and a whole lot more.”
