Laura interviews Abbie Hale from Found, a free all-in-one banking solution for entrepreneurs, about streamlining your business and boosting productivity.
Laura interviews Abbie Hale from Found, a free all-in-one banking solution for entrepreneurs, about streamlining your business and boosting productivity.
Money Girl is hosted by Laura Adams. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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Today, I'm excited to be joined by a special guest, Abigail Hale, who goes by Abbie. She’s the Head of Growth at Found, an all-in-one banking solution. She graduated Cum Laude from Princeton University and has experience in sales, strategy, operations, marketing, and more.
As you'll hear in today's interview, Found’s mission is making it easier for entrepreneurs, especially solopreneurs, to run their businesses and be more successful. So, whether you’re running a small business full-time or are considering starting a one-person side hustle for extra income, this show will cover solutions for common challenges and terrific productivity tips for getting more done!
Hey friends, welcome back! I'm Laura Adams, an award-winning author, money speaker, financial spokesperson, founder of The Money Stack newsletter, and host of the Money Girl podcast with 43 million downloads. Please reach out if you're interested in collaborating for a speaking event or PR campaign. As always, you can reach me using my contact page at LauraDAdams.com.
In my interview with Abbie, we talk about:
Please enjoy my interview with Abbie Hale!
Laura Adams: Abbie, it's so great to have you on the show. Tell us a little bit about yourself and Found.
Abbie Hale: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Laura. I'm so excited to be here too. I am Abby, and I run growth and marketing at Found. So I am focused on all of the ways that we can get in touch with more small business owners and solopreneurs and tell them about Found and get them to start using our product.
And the brief overview of what our product is, we're an online business banking solution and we're built specifically for solopreneurs and small business owners and we combine bookkeeping, taxes, banking, invoicing all in one app.
Laura Adams: I love that. It is really an innovative product because I don't know of anything else that combines all the things that you do in one product. And as a solopreneur myself, someone who’s juggling my own bookkeeping and taxes. do have a CPA that I work with for taxes but I do have to do a lot of organization to get that data ready to pass on to them. I'm really curious how Found got started. What's the founder story and background there?
Abbie Hale: Yeah, yeah, it's a fun one. So our co-founder and CEO is a woman named Lauren Myrick and she was an early product manager at Square. And so I think her experience working at Square was really important in the founder story. At Square, she was able to see how tackling really tough financial problems head on could have incredible impact on an individual or on a company. And then, while she was at Square, she became the general manager of Square's payroll business. And that was something that reminded her specifically how tough those financial problems can be for small business owners. And so Lauren and her co -founder, Connor, who was our CIO, he was the engineering lead with her at Square. And so they spent five years figuring out how to make payroll taxes more simple for small businesses.
So at that point, after they spent so much of their time at Square doing that, they wanted to see if there was a way to go further and solve more than just that pain point for small businesses and solve more of their comprehensive financial management. And I think, as you know and as I know, the amazing thing about small business owners or solopreneurs is everyone knows one. There's so many of them.
And so what they did is they just started talking to people that they knew, whether they were family members or friends or friends of friends about what it was like to run their own business, what was the hardest part of it, what could be solved by some sort of financial tooling. And they realized two important things. So one, they felt that they could help solopreneurs and small business owners in a really, really meaningful way by giving them something to help them manage their finances. And they thought that they could do that and they were uniquely equipped to do that because of their time at Square.
And then the second thing that they realized, which I'm sure you know, Laura, is that the population of solopreneurs and small business owners is massive. So in the US, there's 64 million Americans today who are self -employed. And so I think those two learnings, one, that there are so many people who are in this space that are having these challenges and two, that they felt they could really help solve those challenges. That's what encouraged them to leave Square and start found.
Laura Adams: Wow, I was so excited to find Found because of exactly what you're saying. I get a lot of questions from small business people that are just starting. Maybe they're thinking about doing a little side hustle and then all of a sudden they realize, I need to track this. I need to really be looking at my expenses separately from my personal expenses. I need to be a little more savvy about what I'm doing with my business numbers. And people are asking me all the time, you know, should I separate expenses? How should I handle this? So, you know, having a product that's really designed for that small business person, and I know you also go up and you serve larger companies as well. It's not just for folks that don't have employees. But I think your product is especially inviting for people who maybe have never managed money on their own as a business owner. So, you know, that's one of the reasons I just thought, wow, I really need to have you on the podcast to talk about this.
What do you think are some of the, let me say challenges or stressful parts of being a small business owner, maybe starting a business? What are the challenges that the typical solopreneur is going to come up against, especially in their first year in business?
Abbie Hale: This is something that I hear from our customers all the time, but also, both my parents were self -employed when I was growing up at different times, and I have many friends who are today. So I think the biggest challenge for someone who's going out and starting their own business is just the overwhelming number of things they have to become an expert on in like a month. And so I think I was just at a conference in Vegas that was focused on beauty, actually. So it was for beauty professionals, many of whom are small business owners or self -employed. And one of the things that came up there is if you need a loan as a small business, you actually first need to make sure you're registered and you have to register your business in the right way and register it as the right type of business. And so that's all something you're doing in the very early days. But not just that. I think that the hardest part, and the thing that we hear so much from our customers about being a small business owner is you go from not having to think about all of these things to having to be a business owner, a marketing team, a sales team, your own accountant, your CEO, and that happens very quickly and there's no playbook for how you should do that or the tools that you should use to do that and how to make sure you're not making mistakes.
So I think there are many, many challenges in being a small business owner. We hear that some of the challenges that are the most stressful are really related to the accounting and finance part of setting up a business because it feels like the costs there are so high. And if something goes wrong, that can be really stressful because it's about how much money you're making, how much money you're saving, and that's an area that you really don't want to feel like you're in the dark.
And most small business owners don't have a lot of experience in accounting. That's not why they started a business. That's not what they're passionate about. And so I think what we hear is small business owners have 10 to 100 things they have to become an expert on. Some of them they are excited to do and might be more in their wheelhouse and why they started a business. Some of them, especially like becoming your own accounting department are a lot more stressful and incredibly important to running a business and can take a lot of time and a lot of money to figure out how to do that successfully.
Laura Adams: Yeah, absolutely. Wearing so many different hats, as you said, having to kind of up level your knowledge and experience in all these areas that may be completely new to you, it can be quite stressful.
And for a lot of people, they just want to get started. They just want to start their business. They want to start proving the concept. They want to start bringing in revenue. And that's kind of their focus initially. They want to get this business moving. And then all of a sudden, they've got some money. And it's like, what do I do with this? How do I manage this properly? How do I report this income properly? How is found a little bit different from other programs that people may have heard of in terms of just the day -to -day bookkeeping functions, what's there that's going to really help a solopreneur?
Abbie Hale: So, I think that self-employed professionals have been underserved is the term that we think about at Found by traditional banks or traditional bookkeeping solutions. A lot of the options out there for small business owners are expensive, they're not built exclusively for that small business owner and they're not connected. So, Found's main differentiator is that we try to connect all of the things that are related and can help bookkeeping be very seamless. So, we are an integrated banking, bookkeeping, tax invoicing solution. And so, the main differentiator that we like to talk about for our customers is that we're a very simple solution to use.
And we want to be the only thing that you really need from a financial management tooling perspective, rather than having to have a bank account plus QuickBooks plus a different invoicing solution. We can do all of that in one app, which is really beneficial. So really what we're doing is every time you get paid as a customer on Found, we're seeing that in our app as income and we're categorizing it as such for you.
You can go in and label it if you want to keep track of different income streams. And then every time you're making a business expense on your found debit card, we're automatically categorizing that for you as well as a business expense that's also a write -off tax deduction. And you can go in and, again, recategorize an expense or income, but it streamlines your bookkeeping for you in the same place that you're paying from and getting paid into. So it makes it very simple.
The other differentiator is our solution is free. So we do have a premium subscription product for those customers who want a little bit more powerful tooling, but the vast majority of our customers use our free product. And so we are not charging customers money to open an account with us. We're not charging or saying you need to keep a minimum balance with us. And we're not charging you to use our basic bookkeeping functionality or tax functionality. So I think those are the main differentiators for Found.
One of the newer features of Found is we have added accountant access. So even if you have an accountant and you still want them to look at your finances, you don't want to export everything from Found come tax time, you can give your accountant read -only access to your expenses and bookkeeping for the year. And that's a newer feature, but something that we're finding our customers who have accountants really like. So that enables accountants to just go in and
leave comments back and forth with their customers within Found, and again simplifies the need and eliminates the need to actually like give over a shoe box of receipts to your accountant. So that's quite nice.
Laura Adams: So, Abbie, let's say that I've got people I pay, maybe I don't have employees, but I'm paying contractors. How does Found help me organize all of that paperwork that I need to report to the government?
Abbie Hale: Yeah, absolutely. And this is something that we have seen a lot of our customers need and use, I think about 20 % of our customers pay contractors as part of their business. And it's also something we've been investing in more recently and we have a pretty great set of tools focused on this. So if you are a found customer, you have the option and capability to pay your contractors directly from the found app. So you can enter their information in, send them a payment via text or email and you can let them choose how they want to be paid, how they receive that money. The other thing, and this is what gets really stressful for a lot of business owners, is if you pay a contractor over $600 in a given calendar year, you then need to make sure you're issuing a 1099 to them and that can be hard to keep track of and can cause a lot of different paperwork.
If you're a found customer, you have a contractor that you pay for a service, you can request their W9 information so they can send that to you through the app. And then come tax time, we will generate the 1099 for you to pay and send to those contractors, which helps just keep all of your contractor management in one place, also helps make sure you have the information you need come tax time so you remember all of those payments as something that is a possible write -off that you're going to want to include in your tax forms. So that's an area that is of a lot of interest to found customers and something that we've been investing in a lot over the last six months to a year.
Laura Adams: Abbie, if somebody has expenses in their business that are tax deductible, what does Found do that's a little different from other systems that allows you to make sure that you are capturing all of those expenses come tax time:
Abbie Hale: This is one of the things that makes Found beloved by our customers. And it's related to how we're integrating banking and bookkeeping in one place, and how we're also keeping in mind tax laws, tax bills and tax implications for any small business owners. So when you use your found debit card for a business expense. Found automatically categorizes that expense. So we can say that looks like you paid a taxi, that's transportation, and it's on your business card. So we know it's a business expense. We are automatically showing you how much that saved in tax write -offs. And then at the end of the year, we're making sure that those expenses are all combined into one, and that goes on the tax forms that we provide you.
So we're trying to take out a lot of the guesswork and automate it and finding those write -offs when they're happening, so in real time. And I think what we have heard a lot from our customers is that feeling of spending can be really stressful. You're spending to help your business and that's money out. We automatically pop up a notification that says, here's how much you spent and you're saving this much in tax write -offs. And that feels great and also feels like we're taking care of you and we're watching out for write -offs that otherwise you might miss.
Laura Adams: I love that. So maybe somebody's thinking this summer I want to start a business or I'm going to start doing something freelance on the side, some kind of contract work, they could actually sign up for free. And even if they don't have revenue coming in right away, they would be starting sort of that foundation of their business and getting that revenue, finding a place for that revenue that they plan on having. So you're saying you don't need to have existing revenue yet to sign up. It's something that you could go ahead and open and then you're ready, you're prepared for when you start to grow.
Abbie Hale: Absolutely. And then you have a business bank account versus combining everything into a personal bank account when you start, which can make things get really messy and complicated, especially when it comes time to pay taxes. But yeah, yeah, you don't need to have started your business to sign up for Found. You don't have to pay to sign up and you can start playing around with it. But having it set up and ready to go so that you automatically get paid into one spot, you can invoice from that same spot is really nice and it means you have one source of truth for all of your business transactions.
Laura Adams: Can you talk a little bit about a few of the extras that you get when you sign up for a premium subscription? Yeah, absolutely. There are a few different perks that you get with our premium product. I also will say we're always looking at, should we be adding to that product? How do we make sure we're making it as compelling as possible? One of the things, and I'm just going to pull up all of the main ones so that I don't skip anything that's important.
So with our premium product, one thing that our premium users get, they actually will get APY on money that they are holding in their found account. So they will get interest on balances earned, which is pretty atypical for checking accounts. So found is this sort of all -in -one business banking solution, but it is a checking account versus a business savings account.
Usually checking accounts don't give you any interest on the money you hold in them. We wanted to offer our premium members a little bit of extra incentive and say, you know, if you want to keep your money in your business checking account, which we recommend, you can earn 1 .5 % APY on the balances that you're holding and found up to a certain amount. So that's one thing that our premium members get. The other thing, and this is really helpful for customers who have maybe more advanced bookkeeping needs.
So our Found Plus, Found Plus is our premium subscription product. Customers who are Found Plus members can create custom tags, rules, and categories within our bookkeeping features. So anyone who's signing up for Found and using our free product has access to those bookkeeping features and can categorize and set up rules as they want to. But this is the ability to really customize those rules and tags. So that's one thing that's exciting.
And then the other thing that our premium members get is they can import expenses from receipts. And so that is helpful, especially if you are maybe paying for some expenses that are on a credit card and you want to make sure that that gets ported into our system and our bookkeeping system and you don't want to go manually enter it in, which you can do as a free Found member, you can actually import that expense from the receipt that you're looking at. So those are some of the perks that our FoundPlus members get. They also have expedited access to our customer support team, which is very nice, and a few other things, but those are the main ones.
Laura Adams: Fantastic. Yeah, I want to also ask you a little bit about productivity. I think that's something that every small business, particularly people who are becoming self -employed really can almost become obsessed with because maybe they're juggling a day job and doing something on the side or trying to wear all these hats starting a business full -time. You really have to maximize your time spent in the business and what you're doing for the business. And so I would love to know if you've got any productivity tips. I mean, obviously using an all -in -one solution like Found is a great way to save time, but I would love to know if your team has any tips you'd love to share, because this is one of the things I get asked about the most. In my most recent book called Money Smart Solopreneur, I've got some productivity tips in that book, and I got just a lot of positive feedback about them. So I realized, hey, this is something that's really important to small business owners. So let's talk about those for a minute.
Abbie Hale: Yeah, absolutely. I love thinking about this too. Any way to make your day feel more productive and also more fun is nice. So one of the things that I feel pretty strongly about related to productivity is it is very easy to become sort of a slave to your Slack or your email inbox and spend your day responding to things that are inbound. And I think that that is a way that people and myself included can start to feel like they're on top of something, but it also prevents us from actually going and tackling the thing that we wanted to do. And it puts us sort of in a reactive mindset. So one of the things my team and I talk about a lot is having chunks of time where you're just, you're not looking at your email or you're not responding to Slack messages or however it is that you get communicated with as a small business owner. And you have a set
dedicated block of time to focus on what you actually want to drive forward regardless of what other people are asking from you. So that's a big productivity tip that I find can be very helpful. Because I will get to the end of the day sometimes and feel like all I did was read emails and respond to them and it was a lot, but I didn't actually do what I was hoping to at the beginning of the day.
The other thing that we do on my team, and I think that this is relevant for any small business owner too, we try to clearly separate out how we're thinking about how we are tracking against our goals versus what we're doing for the week. And so I think that we want to make sure we are being sort of outcome focused rather than input focused, if that makes sense. And so when we're talking about how are we doing as a business? How is the team tracking against what we said we wanted to accomplish this quarter? It's really easy to slip into, here's what I'm doing today, but that's actually not the same thing. And so from a productivity standpoint, separating out separate time for each of those can actually help inform those input activities to make sure they are ultimately driving the outcome that you want. And I think that's really important and can be easy not to do.
And so I think for a small business owner, you might have a monthly goal for new customers reached or business booked or something like that. And making sure that there is a, for me it's weekly, it's on Mondays, but a weekly time to look and say, I'm halfway through the month. How am I tracking against that goal? And then figure out if you need to change something to make that look a little bit more realistic. That helps a lot from a productivity standpoint.
I guess two more things. I heard this phrase maybe 10 years ago, the concept of eating the frog. I don't know if that's something that has come up before for you, Laura. I know about the frog, I do. Yeah, the idea that eating a frog is perhaps disgusting and not that fun. But again, that making sure you have time to tackle something that is hard and that maybe you don't want to do.
It's actually really important because otherwise that becomes the thing that you'll naturally just push as long as you can and then it won't get done. But those are sometimes the things that are most helpful in making us productive and moving towards our goals. So that's the other, the second to last thing that I'll mention. And then the last one is just knowing what energizes you as a individual and as a professional. I think this is so different for every person. And so my team, we have introverts on the team, we have extroverts on the team. We have some people who really like working like late at night, others who really like working early in the morning. But just knowing what can make you feel energized and excited if you're feeling like you're in a bit of a slump is helpful. And then making sure you pull out of whatever you're doing day to day and set yourself up to be energetic about your work.
So I think for me, coffee is one. Exercise is one. Working first thing before anyone is up, if I can manage it. I love that. I feel so productive when that happens. Brainstorming with other people is really energizing for me. I like feeding off of others' ideas and making sure I'm thinking about all perspectives when I'm trying to tackle different activities. So those are sort of my productivity tips. Like my husband, for example, though, would much rather work until midnight
rather than get up at six and work in the morning. So I think it just is so individual, but knowing what the things are that make you excited and make you feel energetic about working is really important.
Laura Adams: Those are all so, so good. I, like you, am a morning person. And so I actually put on my calendar a couple hours each morning for my focus work. It's kind of my sort of my offense versus my defense time. And so I think about it like that. I'm going to work on projects that are really important to me, things I want to move ahead. And then the rest of the day is usually responding to needs from clients or, you know, meeting writing deadlines, sort of those things that I may not have much control over. And so blocking out a little bit of time first thing in the morning for me as offensive.
That’s really the only way that I can make sure that I'm moving ahead. So maybe some new things that I want to work on, some goals that I have that are just aspirational perhaps that are not gonna get done if I don't carve out that time. And as you mentioned, the exercise too, a lot of people think, I don't have any time to exercise. But the net effect of taking that time is that you come back with more energy than you started. That's the crazy thing about exercise, right?
Abbie Hale: It is. I have this woman who was on my team who said she was reading something or listening to a podcast and the host was saying, what if I told you there's a miracle drug that makes you happier and sleep better and feel healthier? And it was like, there is, it's called exercise. But I do, I feel the same way. If I force myself to take you know, 40 minutes and go do something, I actually feel like that 40 minutes makes my, the rest of my day so much more productive than if I don't do that.
Laura Adams: I do find that if I, even if I just go for a walk that's 20 or 30 minutes, I tend to be very creative when I'm by myself walking, moving. It's like my body is moving, but my brain starts moving as well. And that's the time where I always make sure and I do carry my phone with me. Sometimes I'm listening to podcasts or audiobooks, but in a lot of cases, I'm taking notes to myself. I'm recording ideas and things that I have that are just kind of going on that I want to capture. And I can guarantee that those ideas would never have come to me if I weren't out exercising and moving. So I do think that can be a really sacred time. That's another part of the day that we have to protect. Otherwise, it's just going to get trampled by everybody else's priorities.
Abbie Hale: Yeah, exactly. That's the whole, can't get away from the inbox. What is it that people need from me versus what am I trying to do to move things forward? I think too, to that point, so many small business owners are inherently creative in some way, not necessarily always visually creative or design oriented, but I think for so many people who've decided to go out on their own, there is this like innate creativity and curiosity. And I do think, especially for small business owners, if there isn't that time to think about what is it that is inspiring to me? What's the next thing that I could do for my business? If that's, whether that's because you've blocked out time or you're not talking to anyone else or you're exercising, I think it's even more important for small business owners in some ways than those who are not in that space.
Laura Adams: Yeah, absolutely. Abbie, tell me again, the types of businesses you think that are best suited for found if somebody's listening and you know, maybe they're not happy with their bookkeeping or their banking solution right now and they have some income or are thinking about starting a business. Who is the best type of person to sign up for a free account just to get started?
Abbie Hale: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the great things about Found is that we are a great fit for a variety of business owners, like sort of on the spectrum of haven't started yet to have a thriving business. I think we really think about anyone who is an owner operator as a great fit for Found. So someone might just be getting started, they might have a side hustle. They might own their own private practice. They might be trying to scale an e -commerce business. So really across that spectrum, Found is a great fit for all of those types of people and types of businesses. The general theme is if you are a 1099, so if you are not a W2 employee, you're not receiving a paycheck from a company, you're not a full -time employee of a company and receiving a paycheck, then you likely need to deal with taxes, bookkeeping, paying clients or contractors, getting paid, and all of that is what found can help with. And so as long as that is true, if you are a 1099 or thinking about becoming a 1099, we're a great fit for you. You can sign up for free on found .com. It takes a few minutes. It's very quick. And you can start small if you're interested in checking it out, seeing if it could be a good fit, if it looks like it could meet your needs. You don't have to put money into the account to start it. You can sign up and see what the functionality looks like. And it doesn't take very long to get set up. So I would say very low barrier. And it is really valuable when you're using Found as your main sort of tool for all of the financial back end, because it makes everything flow together. So that's the real value add. It’s very easy to just check it out at Found.com.
Laura Adams: Abbie, thank you so much. This is so interesting. I love talking about everything related to small business and making it easy for people to get started, you know, get going, kind of get your idea out there in the world, prove it, and just begin earning extra revenue, whether that's just to have a little extra to pay down debt or to grow a big business, you know, whatever your goal is, you're going to need some structure for that income. So it's really smart to plan that ahead as you're planning your business and getting started. Getting the right accounts and getting the right system in place is going to save you so much money and time, I think, as I mentioned.
I want to thank you for coming on and sharing your story and your great productivity tips with us today. Thank you.
Abbie Hale: Always love to talk about eating the frog! But thank you. Thank you so much, Laura. It was so great to be here.
Laura Adams: Again, a big thanks to Abby!
That's all for now. I'll talk to you soon. Until then, here's to living a richer life!
Money Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast, and I want to thank our fantastic team!
The show is audio-engineered by Steve Riekeberg. Our Director of Podcasts is Brannan Goetschius, our digital operations specialist is Holly Hutchings, our advertising operations specialist is Morgan Christianson, and our marketing and publicity associate is Davina Tomlin.
Found is a financial technology company, not a bank. Business banking services are provided by Piermont Bank, Member FDIC. The funds in your account are FDIC-insured up to $250,000 per depositor for each account ownership category. The Found Mastercard Business debit card is issued by Piermont Bank pursuant to a license from Mastercard Inc. and may be used everywhere Mastercard debit cards are accepted. Found's core features are free. They also offer a paid product, Found Plus.