In this episode of Beyond SaaS, Jason Niedle interviews Ibrahim Adepoju, CEO of Tyms, an AI-powered accounting platform. They discuss the importance of building trust in tech companies, the evolution of Tyms in simplifying accounting for non-accountants, and the challenges of gaining user trust in accounting software. Ibrahim shares insights on growth strategies, understanding customer profiles, and overcoming constraints in the competitive accounting space. He emphasizes the need for tech leaders to focus on building for the people and the role of AI as an assistant in the future of technology.
Takeaways
- Building trust is essential for tech companies.
- Listening to users is key to engagement.
- Simplifying accounting can help non-accountants.
- User acquisition is easier with organic channels.
- Retention is crucial for growth in AI startups.
- Understanding customer profiles helps tailor solutions.
- Overcoming growth constraints requires strategic positioning.
- Tech leaders should prioritize user needs over features.
- AI should be viewed as an assistant, not a replacement.
- Persistence and visibility are important for success.
Sound Bites
“Tell me and I will forget.”
“Accounting is definitely hard.”
“We need to maintain retention.”
Show Notes
BeyondSaaS Transcript
Jason Niedle (00:00)
Today we’re talking with Ibrahim Adepoju, CEO of Tyms, about how to build trust to grow your company.
Welcome to Beyond SaaS. I am Jason Niedle, founder of Tethos, we’re a growth agency, and we partner with tech companies like Tyms to deliver growth solutions and sales. For over 20 years we worked with everyone from smaller companies to global brands and A-list celebrities to solve their growth challenges.
And we’ve taken what we’ve learned from all these amazing interviews and put together a hyper growth playbook. So you can grab that at tethos.com/podcast or drop the word GROWTH in here. Today, I’m really excited to talk about tech company growth with Ibrahim. He is the CEO and also the co-founder of Tyms, which is an AI powered accounting platform. Their AI is named Adam and it looks really cool. It will chat with you to resolve accounting questions. It can be trained.
It can even get its own email address for handling bills and bank statements, which I think is a really cool innovation overall. And I noticed on your LinkedIn profile there that you had a cool quote, tell me and I will forget, and this is by Confucius, tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand. So Ibrahim, I hope to understand with you today.
Ibrahim Adepoju (01:09)
All right. Thanks so much, Jason. I’m happy to be here on this podcast.
Jason Niedle (01:14)
Yeah, and from a long way away from Lagos, Nigeria.
Ibrahim Adepoju (01:17)
Exactly, It’s a big world with the internet.
Jason Niedle (01:21)
Thank you very much. Yeah, I appreciate it. Hey, before we jump in, do you have a golden nugget for the listeners today?
Ibrahim Adepoju (01:26)
Yeah, I think I’ll pick it from the quote on my LinkedIn. I always felt like if you tell me, I’m going to forget.
But if you engage me, I’m going to remember. Most of the time growing up, I felt like even in entrepreneurship, trying to just teach me things, showing me how things work, does it always work fine? But when I get to work with you, intern with you, I get to always remember and become part of me. So it’s a Chinese proverb. I don’t know the origin, but it has just been with me for up to 10 years now.
So tell me, I will forget, but show me I will always remember.
Jason Niedle (02:03)
How do you engage people? Do you have any tips or tricks on how you show and engage better?
Ibrahim Adepoju (02:08)
Yeah, the primary thing I do is to first listen. Listening is the first thing I try to do. People want the ability to take charge of the conversation. I felt like if I want to engage with people, I give them the power first. So when people feel confident to express themselves, it makes it easy for me to better communicate and also engage them in my own terms.
Jason Niedle (02:31)
Very cool. Tell me a little bit about Tyms.
Ibrahim Adepoju (02:33)
Yeah, times is like I have a very big problem with accounting as a founder. I’m not an accountant and taxes, running business in different countries, different locations, complex tax system. Running a software agency before now and also running FinTech.
I had a tough time with accounting and I felt like many founders don’t even know what accounting is. We just want to the product, we just want to sell and when the tax time comes, I was like, I need to solve this problem because I can’t just use accounting software. I’m not trained for this. It bring a lot of software to me. I don’t understand the number, you know. Except for peer assessment, I don’t know. I really don’t know balance sheet. That was before now. That was years ago and I was like, we need to view something different with the rest of LLM’s.
Can we build accounting system that we can talk to? Let me assume if I send my accountant an email that hey, you just sent me this shit I don’t know the interpretation. I don’t know what is happening. So I will reply in tomorrow I’m on good now. Okay. When can I get the detail? I see that I look at it say no guy I don’t know this thing but I just want I just know the revenue. Yeah, I know the revenue I know the expense and all that thing is gone So yeah, so we build Tyms to automate and make accounting as simple as just chatting with your friend, your toddler
So
that’s what we’re repeating ourselves.
Jason Niedle (03:49)
Man, if I only had that 20 years ago. It’s hard. Accounting is definitely hard. So solving the problem of many people have a tough time with accounting using AI sounds brilliant. And you’re doing that. You guys are based in Oregon, is that right? But you have a team in Africa.
Ibrahim Adepoju (04:03)
Yeah.
Yeah, we have a team in Africa. We have a also in the US in Oregon. So we started out in Africa. So demand brought us to the US.
Jason Niedle (04:12)
How do you serve both audiences? Do you serve African businesses as well as US businesses or because of accounting restrictions are you mostly focused on one country?
Ibrahim Adepoju (04:21)
The thing about accounting is that it is quite
simplified it’s quite easy to globalize accounting every region is either you’re following either the gap standard or the IFRS standard so all over the world either you’re following these two standards so the first thing we did was to build the software that would be in alignment with the two standards so when we launched the product from day one I was traveling and I was like oh let me build this thing let me move to this region and by signing
I’m
out the first set of people that the place where I’m seeing the problem more is from the US. We’re seeing the lower level of CPAs. We’re seeing a lot of people not taking the courses in accounting again. So people are missing a lot of data. A lot of people are searching my blog on tools to generate profit and loss statements, balance sheet, and all the available tools out there are more like a
exact template. So imagine giving an exact template to someone who even knows nothing about accounting, know, to just start off. And then I just build a free tool online. I just call it the free balance sheet generator. And I was seeing a lot of traffic, was like, wow. So, and even it’s not really that powerful. So it shows me the demand that people want the generator and not the templates. They want something they can just take generators for me. And then I was like, said, okay, this is the market. We have a lot of users in the United States. We have a lot in India. We have a lot in the United Kingdom.
Jason Niedle (05:23)
Mm.
Ibrahim Adepoju (05:46)
We also have Nigeria as our number 4. I was like, okay, let’s focus on these four regions where we are seeing the organic users and decide to build stronger for those markets.
Jason Niedle (05:57)
How do you gain trust? Accounting software seems like one of the hardest softwares to get people to believe that it’s going to do what they need it to do and that their information is safe. And I just imagine that that is a constant battle for you as a company. How do you engender trust or show that the users are safe?
Ibrahim Adepoju (06:17)
Yeah.
The first thing is to first start with the knowledge, with the know-how. My co-founder, she’s an accountant. She worked with the Pricewater Corporation, PWC, for years. She worked in the US with BDO. And she has very solid knowledge of accounting. Even though our first startup was not in accounting, but accounting started coming up when we were going into the first startup. This startup is messed up. Our books is rough. you know, let’s build something. So the know-how is very there.
We have a very team that is very strong in accounting and very strong in engineering. And the first thing we did was we get to get our SOC 2.2 and ISO 2700 at one. The first thing we have to do when we build the MPP is to get audited and ensure that we’re compliant. Because one thing about accounting is like the data is very private. we build a lot of internal control, a lot of security measure and everything. Because the reality about this is that
this was issued globally and we decided to start with small businesses where we can effectively manage small business startups where you can efficiently manage data volume compared to large enterprise with large volume financial data. So what we did was ensure that we set up a very solid team that have a good know-how because if a small number differentiation like what is meant to be 1.1 and you put it as 1.0 might mean a loss to the book because 1.1 USD is different from
1.1 rupees is different from 1.1 Naira so you don’t even take 0.1 for granted so we have to build this in place and also ensure we have a solid team get audited every year every month with S4Mestana auditors to ensure that we are compliant with how we manage our data and internal control, so we share the reports with most people most of the time that just just get our recent audited reports and you can use that to decide
Jason Niedle (08:08)
So can we talk growth? What growth state are you guys at now? And what are you hoping to accomplish in the next year?
Ibrahim Adepoju (08:14)
Yes, so currently we are still in the very, I’ll call it the early growth stage. The user acquisition has been very, very quite easy because we use organic channel, we use content. We leverage on what people are already searching. But the fact about startup is you still need to keep, the market is very dynamic.
Another problem is the AI solution is quite new to a lot of people. Many people are just adapting to it. A lot of people don’t even believe it will work. people just come doubting the product. it is a very
Inflation state that we have to just see that we are early because we need to ensure we maintain retention, It’s my be attractive to a lot of signing up easily making the first subscription. But how you going to stay longer how long are you going to stay out longer even to keep paying? You know, so this this is making the LSD a little bit longer for us in the AI Startup, let me just put it that way because we need to wait for like six months again before we know what is the reality of this of the system. How do you effectively manage on and you know and everything?
So we’re quite an early stage for funding and we’re proceeding with amazing funding, investors globally. yeah, that’s where we are at the moment.
Jason Niedle (09:24)
And what kind of things are you doing to reach out to new people? How are you getting the word out about Tyms?
Ibrahim Adepoju (09:30)
Yeah,
When we I I post a lot on LinkedIn, I use LinkedIn a lot because we even sell up with us. Nobody’s going to sell it for us. And they put us on sell it safe. So I live with a LinkedIn a lot and a lot of people are coming in from LinkedIn. But the other thing we do every time again is to show that we put out amazing content out there, a lot of content. And we keep building a lot of free tools,
you can just easily jump on. This is one of our biggest source of getting users. The third thing we are currently working on is also leveraging on partnership, trying to work with venture, investors, VCs, just get startups around. But at moment that’s in Google search for quite a long period of time, but GTM is something that you don’t stop doing. The system is very dynamic, things are changing every time. The algorithm is changing.
I really don’t know what the approach will be next month. But I know that for the early period, for the launch period, has been Google search. People were coming in because outbound has been quite difficult because you need to find a way to map down people who really need the solution, unlike people who are already looking for the solution. So we’re leveraging on import at the moment.
Jason Niedle (10:41)
How different are your ICPs, your ideal customer profiles, how different are your ICPs in different countries and how do you communicate with each of these very different communities?
Ibrahim Adepoju (10:52)
We are leveraging a pattern where we want the customers to speak their language themselves. I think one of the biggest challenges is always going to be in
customer support, and also there will be lot of issues around time zone. So what we are doing to deal with this is to first ensure that it should take a long time before anyone would need to contact our support because that’s the only way we can manage that. Especially at early stage, why we need people to give us feedback, we also need to ensure that any feedback should be positive. So the thing we try to do with the dynamic of this region
to ensure that when you sign up, it’s an AI system. It’s been trained with some instructions, some prompt and everything. So we try to ensure that everything aligns with what is happening in your region. So the moment you are conversing or you using the platform, we know your country, we know your currency, we know the industry you’re operating. We’ve already set up a pre-trained instruction for you on the platform that Mr. Eve from
Delaware from the United States with the business in the grocery industry with two employees. These are the tax liabilities, these are everything. So the moment you bring the data into the system, it’s cost check those your basic information to know this is the right way to treat it. So it’s just the interesting fact about AI today, you know. So user A will feel like, I’m using this system and it’s fed so much like what is happening around me. And user B in India or in Ghana or in South Africa or
We feel like, this knows my tax law. It’s telling me this is my tax rate and everything. So it’s just the benefit of AI. It’s just the evolution. So that is how we’re able to manage the dynamic of people from different regions compared to traditional SaaS or traditional solution where we have to pre-configure and code everything. So it’s a personalized system.
Jason Niedle (12:42)
holding you back from growth? Obviously everyone could use more money, but like, what’s your internal constraint? Is it strategy? Is it finding the right people? Is it not getting emails to work the way they used to? Is it trust? What would you say is your major constraint from growth?
Ibrahim Adepoju (12:57)
The major constraint from growth is the accounting space is not a new space. It’s a very, very old space and there are a lot of players in the accounting space. There are a lot of players and a lot of people are also engaged with many of these players. So whether their ways is old or is new, you need to find a way to convince people to leverage to migrate.
Let’s say people just don’t switch immediately because one interesting thing about accounting space is the moment you are in the system, All your financials are in the system. It’s going to be very difficult for you to leave the system. That’s number one thing so that what we did is when you’re signing up on the platform. We ensure that we don’t isolate our system from the old traditional platform. Meaning that if you want to use our software we make it possible for you to continue with what you’re currently using meaning that if I am using software A
And
I felt like I need Adam. Adam can solve my problem. Then no problem. Keep using times and software A together. Less times be the add-on. So this is the only way we have been able to navigate the complexity of people. So we try to sell our solution more like you are hiring an assistant than you are buying the software.
Marketing has been a little bit challenging due to the competitive landscape. So what we kept on doing is how can we differentiate ourselves and how can we strategically position ourselves to avoid the conversation of how are you better than this? While I just say this can complement this.
Jason Niedle (14:30)
Right, so really distinguish how you’re different and in fact frame it in an entirely different light. But the good news and the bad news is switching is hard, right? So people who kind of don’t love their accounting software don’t want to make that effort to switch. So that’s another challenge in what you’re doing.
Ibrahim Adepoju (14:35)
Yeah.
Yeah.
So.
Jason Niedle (14:46)
What do you wish other tech leaders knew about growing a company?
Ibrahim Adepoju (14:50)
I think one thing every tech leader should know about going to a company is that you need to build for the people.
And sometimes it’s not about the features that you have. Most of the time we founders always believe I need to have a lot of features. I need to have this, I need to have that. And then the next user is going to be, and it doesn’t work that way. Anybody building should know that right now, even in South Spence, from my own experience over the past years, people are buying more of tools than the software. It’s tool mean I need something right now to get something done for me right now. So meaning that if you’re
building anything today, need to first start asking yourself, the first user what can you do right now with your tool and say that yeah, I achieved something. So otherwise whatsoever feature you’re building, no matter how plenty the menus are, I really don’t know, but I would just say that it might not work until you get to a stage where you have a large audience. So anyone building should always go for simplicity and also build a tool and not a software first. This is a tool, use it to value, then we expand.
Jason Niedle (15:57)
Yeah, solve a problem and provide value. Otherwise, who needs it, right?
Ibrahim Adepoju (15:59)
Yeah. ⁓
Jason Niedle (16:01)
What should we know about AI? seems like it’s changing the world, but you and I are in the field. What do average people need to know about AI ahead?
Ibrahim Adepoju (16:10)
I think we are still in the early stage of AI and everyone right now from my perspective and using a lot of AI too, I felt like…
AI is going to be like an assistant to you. A lot of people are concerned about AI replacing them and I felt like that should not be the discussion right now. We should take advantage of this amazing assistant that I’m able to hire. So anytime I see any AI solution, I see myself as an additional assistant. And this assistant, pay a lesser dollar per month to get this assistant to work for me. And I’m not expecting this assistant to be 100% perfect
for people and redefined everything without giving you the control so that’s why when you are coding or when you are using some solution you start adjusting a lot of things because they don’t give you the flexibility to contribute to the development and adjust so let AI be an assistant I know over time I take over I can’t say but till now I am still seeing this like this my assistant so let me deliver very fast
Let me achieve 100% result and accuracy. That’s it. So, assistance, not replacement.
Jason Niedle (17:14)
What trends do you see in the future here? What’s coming up and how are you planning for that?
Ibrahim Adepoju (17:20)
Yeah, I think it’s really going to be destructive to be very honest. There’s no joke here. If you’re building with any LLM right now, they are shipping very fast. And if you lag a little bit as a developer, as an engineer, just a little bit
of lag… You see that you’ve missed a lot. A lot has happened with Open AI over the past few days. it means the rate at which, the momentum at which these people are building, they are innovating.
What is going to be happening in the nearest future is going to be like the sci-fi that we watch every time in movies and this coming is going to become real because I look at the momentum and look at the trajectory and I feel like everyone should be prepared for a new world, a new evolution. At home, when you look at the old parents, they find it difficult to use the remote or even the mobile phone and they call the kids like, how are you guys able to use this thing? This generation is very smart.
And I feel like that is how the next generation will tell us, you know, like, you guys are outdated. Things have changed now. I just have to clap my hand and the door is going to open. So we just have to prepare like a new world. You might think you know everything now, but what is coming next?
Jason Niedle (18:31)
it’s funny. I was trying to explain to my son that phones when I was a kid used to be like a rotary thing and you would dial it. And I was like, there was never a way that I could have looked at that thing and predicted that it would have a screen. And then all the information in the whole entire world would be on that little screen. And that I could talk to people on the TV, which was a phone. I couldn’t have foreseen that at all. And I think, on one hand I could say, AI is going to do this or AI is going to do that. But I have no idea. I don’t, it’s the same as me looking at that brick and saying,
Now it’s going to become this, you know, the thing that we call a phone today. Like, we don’t know how this is going to transform and where that path is going to lead us. It’s crazy.
Ibrahim Adepoju (18:58)
Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. that’s just it. We just need to follow the train and take advantage of it because it’s moving very fast.
Jason Niedle (19:14)
Absolutely. Any last thoughts before I let you go here?
Ibrahim Adepoju (19:17)
Yeah, my last thoughts here is just like, primarily for the audience is that building is interesting from the outside. But when you get inside things might get messy, but don’t give up because just ensure that you show up every time. I feel like that as always been working within my capacity. Just show up. When show up, you see people come around and like, I love what you’re doing. I love this and yeah. So only show up every day.
Jason Niedle (19:42)
I love it, that’s perfect. Where can our audience find you?
Ibrahim Adepoju (19:45)
Yeah, I’m more active on my LinkedIn, Ibrahim Adepoju on LinkedIn, I’m founder of Tyms. I’m more active, connection requests, message. I post a lot of things. That’s just where I put my content, you know, on LinkedIn.
Jason Niedle (19:58)
Perfect. And Tyms’ website is tyms.io for those listeners out there. Tyms.io. Abraham, thank you so much for being on Beyond SaaS. For tech leaders out there, we’re committed to exploring tech growth. We drop episodes twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And you can find me, Jason Niedle, at tethos.com. That’s t-e-t-h-o-s.com.
Ibrahim Adepoju (20:03)
Yeah. ⁓
Jason Niedle (20:20)
And don’t forget to grab your hyperscale playbook at tethos.com/playbook. If you got some value today, please share this episode. And I love questions for me or for future guests, comments, and any feedback. Until next time, this is Beyond SaaS.
