I think with every company the first question to ask is why? Why are you building this? Why is there a need for this software? What drives you every day? And thus, I could not think of a better topic to write the first of many blog posts on.
I have been working with small businesses since I had my own company in college. I’m about to age myself, but that makes it almost 15 years (wow!) since I got the small business bug.
Every job I have had I see how hard these businesses work, and in turn, how difficult building a small business is. This drives me to want to help them in any way I can. Since the start, whether it be toilet paper advertising, social media monitoring, or inventory software, I have always been in love with startups and growing small businesses.
The #1 struggle I have observed in all those years? Small businesses have a great understanding of their revenue, a good understanding of their profit, and less understanding of costs. Every business is so focused on revenue when they first get started, and don’t get me wrong, this is absolutely the right move. But at some point revenue does not become the major driver - profit does.
When I first started at MarketMan, our CEO sat me down and explained the struggle of being a restaurant. He said for every $1 of revenue a restaurant makes, only $0.10 goes to the bottom line. For every $1 in costs that a restaurant saves, that full $1 goes to bottom line profit. This has been ringing in my ears for the last 8 years.
Our goal at Starfish is to start small, but grow. Our vision is to give small businesses the tools to increase their profits and make MORE ACTUAL MONEY. We won’t increase your revenue, but we will increase your profits.
When talking to small business owners there is a common theme I hear time and time again. You start a business to help your customers solve a problem. You don’t start one to sit in front of a computer. And you really don’t start one to analyze a P&L statement. Because of this we are designing Starfish to be extremely easy to use. You should not have to work for software, your software should work for you.
We are just at the beginning of our journey and thrilled you are here to learn more. We will have lots of blogs, product releases, and more coming, so stay tuned and always feel free to reach out. Want to give Starfish a try? Would love to show you what we are building! Just shoot us a note via the Get a Demo button on our website.
PS - some insider info!
Why call the company Starfish? Starfish lose their legs when they get stressed. Then over time they grow them back when conditions correct themselves. We are here to help businesses grow back their profits dollar by dollar.
Amazing!