Jessica Mah at Female Founders Conference 2014

TL;DR

Jessica Mah recounts building Indanero from a dorm room, raising $12M, and hitting a low point where the company was nearly out of money and she felt like a fraud. After firing all employees, closing the office, and taking a break, she pivoted from a low-margin SaaS model to a full-service accounting firm, learned tax preparation herself, and eventually reached profitability.

Key insights

• Raising $12M and getting PR led to arrogance (hot tub office, hiring a Google employee for minimum wage and 1% equity), which masked fundamental business problems.
• The initial idea – “Mint.com for businesses” – had an inherently flawed unit economics: only 10% of free users converted to paying $20-30/month, requiring 40M businesses that don’t exist in the U.S.
• Mah felt relief, not shame, after admitting failure, laying off employees, and returning investor money – analogous to an alcoholic admitting the problem.