Hello confidence, goodbye guesswork

How does a business owner work out whether they can actually afford to hire a new employee? Invest in capital? Give themselves a pay rise? For Jonny and Kate Wilson, who first ran a music school and later a business coaching company for music school owners, the answer was never obvious. They would analyse their accounts, read their financial statements, and talk to their accountant, but none of it gave them the insight they needed into how their business was really performing or the confidence to make those kinds of decisions.

Jonny, a trained jazz drummer, in the classic problem-solving mode of all great entrepreneurs, created a spreadsheet. One tab turned into twenty tabs, and he started to feel he had a better understanding of the business he and Kate were running. Then he realised he could extract the data straight from their accounting software into the spreadsheet. They started sharing it with the music school owners they coached, before upgrading it to pull data from other accounting software packages. And Hello Cashflow was born.

Once Kate and Jonny realised that accounting software wasn't giving them the insights they needed, they created their own solution. When other business owners began using it and seeing its value, they knew they were onto something. Today, Hello Cashflow helps other business owners set financial goals, track progress, plan budgets well in advance, and test major spending decisions before committing to them.

Starting Hello Cashflow in Wellington meant Kate and Jonny benefited from an incredibly supportive start-up ecosystem. They directly approached James Fuller of Hnry, who gave them one-on-one mentoring over a period of months, and they took part in a Creative HQ accelerator programme. They benefited enormously from the networks they were part of, and the doors those networks opened. Jonny and Kate are constantly amazed by how generous the Wellington business community is, with time and connections. Even the mayor, Andrew Little, gave Kate his contact number, keen to understand how he could help business owners like her.

“People always talk about New Zealanders having that whole tall poppy syndrome”, Kate says, “but I've not experienced that at all. People really want you to succeed. People that you wouldn't expect back you, which is amazing.”

They’ve learned a lot along the way. While they initially bootstrapped the business, they’ve now closed their first capital raise, and think they probably could have done it earlier – they just didn’t realise how willing people would be to invest in their business. Like many of the founders I’ve spoken to as part of this series, Kate and Jonny emphasise just how important it is to have the right mix of talent, skills, and experience. With four founders behind Hello Cashflow – Kate and Jonny, Nigel Pinkerton and Shehan Joseph – there’s a rich well of knowledge, creativity, organisational thinking, and tech expertise to draw on.

They’ve also learned that investing in the right people can be a game changer that creates benefits far greater than the cost of getting that talent on board. With their own software, they also have the tools to work out whether that talent is affordable right now. Being able to use a business owner-focused product, their customers are benefiting from the ability to understand better how their businesses are tracking.

As Jonny explains, this kind of understanding and insight benefits everyone. “If people don't understand their cashflow, they will work as hard as they can, spend as little as they can and hope that there's enough at the end for them and the tax man. It burns them out.”

Fixing this can benefit more than just the individual business and its owners, he says. “They're scared to invest and grow the business, and that impacts the wider economy. It all comes down to confusion and confidence. And if we can fix that, that will hopefully change for not only those families and business owners, but the economy as a whole.”

Kate and Jonny are proud of having created a tool that enables small business owners like themselves to unlock a deeper understanding of their businesses and make confident decisions about hiring, investment, and growth before cashflow becomes a problem.

Rapid-fire Wellington round with Kate and Jonny Wilson

Favourite Wellington café or restaurant: Dragonfly and Old Quarter. 

Favourite Wellington walk: Camborne Walkway, gorgeous. 

Last book, podcast or show you enjoyed: My First Million (Jonny) The Curve (Kate).

Beach or bush: Beach (Jonny), both (Kate).

Coffee order: Water (Jonny), latte (Kate).