Bosco Tan and Alvin Singh, both 31, are from Sydney, Australia. They started their finance business, Pocketbook, in 2012. Pocketbook is an Australian service that makes managing your spending ridiculously simple. It does this by aggregating your bank accounts, credit cards and loans, and providing a single view of your spending. Pocketbook is available on the web, iPhone and Android, with CNET calling it “the best app of its kind (they) have ever seen”.
Starting the Business
Q: Where did the idea for your business come from? Where were you in your life and career?
A: Pocketbook came out of us trying to simplify the process of doing our taxes. As our financial lives got more complex over the years, the time and effort taken to gather the information for a tax return increased exponentially. We were solving this for ourselves – how to easily aggregate and organise our information and then keep on track.
We went to high school and university together – we’ve also had separate successful corporate careers when we started. We dropped six figure salaries to start Pocketbook on no salary.
Q: What was the biggest challenge you faced when starting out?
A: The biggest thing that kept us up at night is whether or not users will want the product as we intuitively think. So we’re doing everything we can to build iteratively and solicit user feedback at every turn.
We’ve researched and have spoken to housewives, young professionals, accountants and financial planners, bankers and individuals of different financial situations to understand the biggest pains, and are actively trying to solve this with the simplest user experience possible.
Q: What is the one thing you know now that you wish you knew when you started the business?
A: We wish we knew the benefits of having a bigger team sooner. We would have raised money earlier and got to it. By tripling our team size in a relatively short time, we noticed that it’s the energy and creativity that has really made us really take off – not just the man hours. We’re doing better than we’ve ever thought we would.
Q: What would you consider your first big success in the business?
A: The first big success was when we did our first pitch at a competition held by global telco giant Singtel Optus in Sydney. We claimed that we would be able to get a new user signed up in 30 seconds, and a senior Optus executive validated this during our pitch. He stuck his hand up and told the audience during question time – he also loved our product. A huge win!
Q: What is the toughest thing about getting to the top / staying on top in your industry specifically?
A: The toughest thing is that we’re competing against giants – the Australian banking sector is dominated by big banks, big insurers and big financial planning firms. We started off as two guys in working from our lounge room. To build a trusted brand and to excel at the product experience weren’t an easy feat. Luckily we had so much help from the likes of Apple, CNET and David Koch to really propel us into this conversation. Today, we speak to multiple large Australian banks about what we do, and they really perceives us as industry leaders already.
The Future
Q: Where do you see your industry heading in the next 5 years?
A: The future of financial services and consumer web will increasingly converge. We already see wearable technology becoming mainstream. Fitbits were the biggest Christmas phenomenon in 2013. So the idea of personalised tracking to improve things via a mobile app experience is what the future is about. We have aspirations to be the Fitbit for finance. We want to be as critical as Facebook, as useful as Google Maps, and as engaging as Instagram on your phone.
Additionally, financial planners and banks want to be more about servicing the customer – with regulation change and increasing competition, they’re increasingly looking to technology to do it.
Q: What do you plan on doing / changing in order to keep growing in this time period?
A: We are already leading the thinking in this area. We are the first banking experience that’s taking cues from consumer web products. For example, to refresh transactions, you should be pulling down the transaction list much like you refresh your Twitter feed. This design thinking keeps us technologically leading.
Q: What does ultimate success look like to you? How will you know when you’ve achieved it?
A: To democratise financial management for everyone. Making it super simple to understand, and engaging to get on top of. Much like what Google Maps do for remembering street directions.
Q: What do you think will be the biggest challenge facing entrepreneurs in the near future?
A: The opportunities are as abundant as ever. People thought around 1900 that innovation would come to an end – everything that could be done was done. But in the last 110 years, we’ve seen some of the biggest breakthroughs in human history, dramatically changing the human quality of life. So needless to say the opportunity in the future is as good as it was 10, 20, 30 years ago.
The challenges are the same – have a good idea that solves a real problem. But increasingly, with the rising cost of living in Australia, particularly housing costs, it may become hard for potential entrepreneurs to try starting something. The cost of failing might just be, financially, too great.
We’re trying to do our bit here – at least for student entrepreneurs. We’ve launched a first-ever scholarship for entrepreneurs from a startup – in partnership with Zookal – a leading textbook solutions business. It’s really easy to apply, and we’ll give the right student some cash, take care of their textbooks and teach them all they need to know about entrepreneurship. They can apply here.
Q: What one piece of advice would you give to someone just starting out in your industry and wanting to make it to the top?
A: Don’t be concerned by the giants in the market. Good innovation – great ideas, well executed – will always be noticed, even by these seemingly hard-to-tackle giants.
