Finance Automation for SMEs: Moss CEO on Scaling, AI & Fintech Lessons

Startuprad.io

vorgestern

This episode explores how Moss helps SMEs automate finance workflows, eliminate manual tasks, and scale smarter. CEO Ante Spittler shares insights on user-first software design, AI adoption, and lessons from leading a fintech through hypergrowth and market downturns.

🔹 What You’ll Learn (Bulleted SEO Block)
- Learn how Moss helps SMEs ditch spreadsheets and automate financial operations
- Discover why Ante Spittler pivoted from VC to building a €5B fintech scale-up
- Avoid common mistakes in digitizing accounting & ERP integrations
- Understand how AI is reshaping CFO workflows and compliance in DACH startups
- Explore the emotional toll of scaling a regulated fintech in Europe
- Get insights into building user-first finance software for SMEs

🔹 Guest Authority Frame
Ante Spittler – CEO & Co-Founder, Moss
Ante leads Moss, a Berlin-based fintech revolutionizing SME finance. With €180M raised and over €5B in annual payment volume, Moss delivers AI-powered spend management for CFOs, accountants, and founders across Europe.

🔹 Timestamped Chapters
00:00 – Why Finance Automation Matters for SMEs
02:10 – Ante Spittler’s Journey: VC to Fintech Founder
06:30 – Fixing the ERP & Receipts Nightmare
10:45 – Scaling a Regulated Fintech: Lessons Learned
17:00 – Surviving Layoffs: Leadership During Fintech Winter
24:40 – Work-Life Balance as a Founder & Father
30:15 – Moss’s User-First Design Philosophy
40:05 – The Future of AI-Driven CFO Tools
47:16 – Advice to Founders Scaling in Finance Tech

✉️ Work with us: partnerships@startuprad.io
🎧 Subscribe: https://linktr.ee/startupradio
📰 Read the blog write-up: https://www.startuprad.io/post/finance-automation-for-smes-how-moss-is-redefining-financial-operations
💬 Give Feedback: https://forms.gle/Qp53eVuc9P1RMqWj8
💼 Follow Joe: http://www.linkedin.com/comm/mynetwork/discovery-see-all?usecase=PEOPLE_FOLLOWS&followMember=joernmenninger

#FinanceAutomation
#Startups
#Entrepreneurship
#TechNews
#MossFintech
#DACHStartups
#AIinFinance
#StartupFinance
#SMEAccounting
#StartupTools
#AutomateBookkeeping
#FintechCompliance
#Startupradio

🔹 FAQ
Q: What is finance automation for SMEs?
A: Finance automation uses software like Moss to streamline accounting, approvals, and compliance for SMEs.

Q: How does Moss improve expense management?
A: Moss offers corporate cards, automated receipt matching, and real-time spend tracking for SMEs.

Q: Can Moss integrate with SAP and NetSuite?
A: Yes, Moss supports ERP integrations with SAP, NetSuite, Xero, and more for seamless workflows.

🔹 German Summary Block 🇩🇪
Diese Episode zeigt, wie Moss KMUs hilft, Finanzprozesse zu automatisieren und effizienter zu skalieren. CEO Ante Spittler teilt seine Erfahrungen aus dem Aufbau eines €5B-Fintechs.

Kategorie

🤖

Technik

Transkript

Vollständiges Videotranskript anzeigen

00:00What if the future of finance isn't in spreadsheets or banks,

00:04but in software that actually understands your business?

00:07Today's guest helped build one of Europe's fastest-growing fintech platforms,

00:12empowering thousands of SMEs to automate spend, master real-time budgeting,

00:18and finally ditch the chaos of manual finance workflows.

00:22From corporate cards to e-money licenses, from Peter Thiel backing to buffing compliance,

00:27this founder's story is redefining what finance ops can be.

00:32Stay tuned.

00:33This wants a masterclass for modern CFOs, SaaS builders, and startup fans alike.

00:45Welcome to StartupRad.io, your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German startup scene

00:54with news, interviews, and live events.

01:00Hello and welcome, everybody.

01:02This is Joe from StartupRad.io, bringing you another exclusive deep dive into the minds,

01:07shaping the future of startup finance and technology across Europe.

01:11Today, I'm joined by Ante Splitter, the CEO and co-founder of Moss,

01:16a Berlin-based fintech scale-up that's become a category leader

01:20in spend management and finance automation for SMEs, German KMUs.

01:25If you're a founder, CFO, or operator, tired of juggling receipts, budget approvals,

01:32and end-of-month chaos, like everybody is, you'll want to listen closely.

01:38Moss is building the most intelligent finance stack for European businesses,

01:44unifying everything from corporate cards and accounts payable

01:47to real-time insights, pre-accounting automation, and embedded payments,

01:52all wrapped in a user-first experience.

01:56They've issued over 300,000 credit cards,

02:00raised $180 million in venture capital from the likes of Vala Ventures and Cherry Ventures,

02:06and now processes more than €5 billion in annualized payment volume,

02:11all while maintaining Buffen's licensing and enterprise-grade compliance.

02:16Ante brings a unique lens to this space with roots in investment banking and venture capital,

02:22plus the scars and lessons of building a high-profile growth fintech from ground up.

02:28Today, we unpack his founder's story,

02:31Moss Products evolution and the high-stakes future of AI-powered finance for SMBs.

02:36Ante, great to have you on Startup Radio. Welcome to the show.

02:40Hello, Jörn. Likewise. Very glad to be here.

02:42This was quite an introduction. I really liked that one.

02:47And of course, we'll dig a little bit deeper.

02:50But let me start out with asking,

02:53you were once deep in finance like investment banking, VC, consulting.

02:58What was the specific pain or moment that made you say,

03:01ah, forget spreadsheets, let's rebuild finance ops from scratch

03:05for European smaller and medium businesses?

03:07And the typical frustration of an analyst or investor with Excel doesn't count.

03:14Everybody experiences that.

03:18Yeah, honestly, things came together while I was building my prior business,

03:25together with Anton, who is also a co-founder in this company.

03:29And it was a marketplace startup.

03:34We grew very quickly to decent size.

03:37So within the first two years, we had more than 25 million revenue.

03:41And everything was centered around expansion.

03:45As you can imagine, what was really behind was our finance setup.

03:50So after 18 months, 18, 24 months, we realized if we don't get a grip on finance now,

04:01it's going to kill us, like literally.

04:04And then so what followed was a significant cleanup with temporary resources,

04:11you know, our internal team trying to find invoices, receipts.

04:15It was a total chaos and it took, I would say, at least six months to clean up

04:20and another six months to, you know, properly close the books and run to the audit.

04:26And I think this was the moment that kind of sparked my hate and passion, if I may say,

04:34hate for the situation we had, but also the passion for there needs to be a better way.

04:39And then it took a while longer until it really became the vision for us.

04:45Yeah.

04:45So it was not that right after I got extremely excited to continue with the finance suite.

04:55Instead, I spent a year in venture capital and they realized it's a ton of other companies

05:02that have very similar pains.

05:04And this is what, you know, together has led to actually launching the company,

05:10thinking about the vision, thinking about the first product.

05:13And yeah, now six years later, we're still here.

05:18Actually, when you talked about the love-hate relationship with the finance department,

05:24in my mind, there was somebody looking very much like Sigmund Freud wearing glasses and asked,

05:30could you elaborate at your love-hate relationship there?

05:34But let's forget about that.

05:38You guys, Moss launched with bold ambitions, corporate cards, automation, and now full-spent orchestration.

05:45What was the first moment with friction making doubt whether European SMEs were ready for this shift?

05:53Look, honestly, the market is still fairly early.

06:00If you think about the customer adoption curve, the famous S-curve, we're still pretty far on the left.

06:07And the main competitor has been and still is manual workflows.

06:13It's literally Excel, it's email, signature folders, especially with SMBs.

06:20So basically everything that finance teams has found as a workaround to get the job done.

06:27And after we started, we managed to launch this first incredible product.

06:35Yeah, we were super lucky that we actually also started with that product.

06:38And it was a cards issuing platform, a cards management platform, as you said.

06:43And then on top, the expense to link.

06:46Yeah, so how can I process the receipts?

06:47How can I connect with finance and all of those things?

06:50We may add most people, 80% here from listeners, at least on the audio podcast, are from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

07:00But we do have a lot of viewers, especially on long-form YouTube, who are not familiar with the system.

07:05So basically, you first make your card expenses, and then you have to get also for the tax authorities a receipt, an invoice that matches this expense.

07:16And you have to do this depending on your size, and every month, every quarter, or every year.

07:22And it's a big headache.

07:23It's one of the reasons I have fewer hairs.

07:25Yeah, like one really interesting point, and honestly, I only got to learn this a bit later, or realize.

07:34Yeah, it's so obvious, but then somehow it's also so crazy.

07:37In business, every single transaction, no matter if you spend five bucks on a coffee, or if you buy a lunch for a client, or if you invest hundreds of thousands or millions in machinery, everything has to be administered.

07:51Like every euro, there is no black, there is no hole in the cash, you know, like everything needs to be done.

07:58So having said that, the administration is a very significant burden.

08:04And now to get back kind of to your question, the biggest point of friction, the biggest question for us was, will we be able to pass beyond that cards platform, and being a cards and spend management company, to becoming a much bigger finance suite?

08:24Because, of course, the vision was to go into this bigger finance suite, and the vision was to be able to tailor to accountants and controllers for a much bigger, much bigger domain.

08:35You moved from an investor to operator, from finance theory, to infrastructure.

09:05How did becoming a founder, and especially a regulated fintech CEO, reshape how you saw yourself and your work?

09:16Yeah, look, it's very hard.

09:20Yeah, the job is very hard, and it's very demanding.

09:23I guess it's true for many jobs, but I need to say it's particularly hard and demanding, based on my experience.

09:29And the crazy thing is, the role changes constantly, all the time, yeah?

09:36So with every new wave of hires, with every new executive that joins the team, with every new priority for the quarterly OKR cycle, for the strategy for the next year, a new market entry, every new kind of fire in a team is always changing your priorities.

09:55As a CEO, it will always impact on which decisions you take, what you focus on, et cetera, et cetera.

10:02So what it really taught me is to become multivariate.

10:07It sounds now very technical, but basically be able to switch context very quickly.

10:13So now we're recording this podcast.

10:15After that, it's going to be something entirely different.

10:18I'm not going to have a coffee with a different reporter, but also to take decisions fast, especially the small ones, but then take a lot more time for the tougher decisions, to shape culture, like things that never were on my agenda, right?

10:35As a consultant or in any other profession, you're basically kind of getting shaped by the culture and not you're responsible for shaping that culture.

10:44So what I want to say is, it's a ton of setbacks.

10:49You have to live with those.

10:50You have to develop a positive mindset.

10:52Otherwise, you go crazy and you need a fighter attitude.

10:57It needs to be this willingness to win, the willingness to fight, because there is a market, there are players, and you are the new kid on the block.

11:08You want to achieve something great, but you're nothing.

11:10You have maybe some cash from a fundraise, you have a couple of people on your team, and now you want to become something big.

11:18And this kind of is, I think, one of the main ways how it shaped me personally and also professionally.

11:27I'm just trying to think this through, when you talk about a new executive coming into the team, it's like when you have a new team member, some of your jobs get absorbed by this person.

11:42You get to do more, but also you have to think more because it's not that you need to write email A, B, C, but you need to tell this person what to achieve in a month, in a year, and so on and so forth.

11:54So you need much more time to think ahead.

11:59Yeah, 100%.

12:00And it changes dynamics because maybe first you were also execution responsible.

12:06Yeah.

12:06So maybe first you were the person that worked together with the team on getting the job done.

12:11And now suddenly it's exactly what you said.

12:14Suddenly you're the context giver.

12:16Yeah.

12:16You're the direction giver.

12:17You're kind of, you're the control tower to make sure we stay on course.

12:21You work together.

12:22You help.

12:23Yeah.

12:23And this is, and this is constantly changing as the company evolves.

12:29Yeah.

12:29From, from good to bad.

12:31I actually like the picture of the control tower because you're avoiding the crash.

12:35Yeah, of course.

12:36Yeah.

12:36I mean, it's especially with tech companies where one of the key strengths is to be agile.

12:44Yeah.

12:44So one of the key strengths is to learn fast, to break things, to iterate from there, which also means realize where things maybe are not going, not on the right path.

12:54Yeah.

12:54And I can give you, if I like, I can give you like a very clear example.

12:58We, we once decided to focus on a customer segment that was a bit outside of our ideal customer profile.

13:06Yeah.

13:07And that customer segment faced a little bit lower complexity in finance.

13:12But actually, you know, had some of the pains.

13:16And, and, and we, we went after that segment and, and tested, um, how is it reacting now?

13:23Once we had enough learnings to know what works, what doesn't work, it's so mission critical to make sure that this information tickles across all of the teams because the marketing team is going to continue driving, driving traffic.

13:36Yeah.

13:36They're going to train your driving, investing and same on, on an outbound sales motion.

13:40They need to know whether they should continue focusing or not.

13:43So it gets, it, it, it, it's really hard to keep this communication, um, best in class.

13:50Yeah.

13:50To make sure that everybody has the context and knows what they have to do in this very quickly changing dynamics.

13:59And I was wondering, because I've seen quite frequently when I was still a consultant in large companies that you did this with regular calls, uh, weekly or monthly where people participated.

14:11And, uh, they, uh, they worked through, um, items, but actually they tended to get bloated and bloated and you could hear the people not paying attention and tapping in the background and all that stuff.

14:22Um, have you found a better way to do that?

14:25Um, you mean with my team or for myself?

14:29Both.

14:29Yeah.

14:31Yeah.

14:31So, look, I'm, I'm really, really, really bad in multitasking.

14:37Anybody, anybody will confirm.

14:39Uh, so the only way is don't, I don't even try.

14:42Yeah.

14:44And, and this is going to avoid the typing.

14:46It's going to avoid the confusion.

14:47Um, and if it happens, people will realize immediately and it's, uh, it's not going to, it's not going to be supportive.

14:52So, so for me personally, it's a hundred percent presence.

14:56If you're, if you're doing it, just be present, you know, take your notes, uh, be, you know, pay a ton of attention, et cetera, et cetera.

15:04Um, on the other side, I guess there is, ah, I don't know.

15:08It's difficult, right?

15:09Ideally, you don't want to have so big calls, right?

15:12You don't want to have calls where there are eight to 10 people on it.

15:15Uh, and, and especially not if people have the time to do other stuff on the side.

15:20Yeah.

15:20Then it sounds almost like the audience is too big.

15:23Yeah.

15:24So maybe, maybe what we try to do is we try to steer kind of ex-ante on what is the audience?

15:30How can we keep it to the ones that are actually working on it, designing it?

15:33Because then there is almost like no chance to escape.

15:38I'm personally always torn between doing such calls with, as you already said, the smallest possible audience or working with stuff like to-do lists where you just send around to-do lists.

15:50But the problem is then always people lack the context there or misinterpret what is there.

15:57Yeah.

15:58The context setting is really important.

16:00Um, but I guess like the, the magic lies somewhere in the middle.

16:04Yeah.

16:05So, um, uh, async, async, whatever can be done, especially in written form.

16:11Um, I think sometimes written form can reinforce things and bring things also back on the same page later, really, really effectively.

16:19Um, but then when, when there is a, the benefit of a discussion benefit of questions, then probably it's better to, to just jump on the meeting.

16:26Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, exactly from our awesome audience.

16:31I would like to know what moment made you believe in your startup, share in the comments or tag us on social media under your darkest day must made headlines with layoffs, like many other scale ups, navigating the fintech winter take us to that day.

16:50What was happening behind the scenes and what helped you push forward?

16:54Yeah.

16:55Um, it was horrible.

16:57Honestly, it was horrible, especially because in total it took 12 to 18 months.

17:02Yeah.

17:02So we're not speaking about one specific day.

17:05We're speaking about the whole journey that the company has to go through.

17:08And then we also had to go through.

17:10Um, the context was, you know, fairly straightforward.

17:14Um, markets turned.

17:15We were over-optimized on growth, um, and that setup was not fit for purpose anymore.

17:22The burn relative to growth ambitions and especially to, you know, cash and the, and the years of runway was not in line.

17:30So we had to take action.

17:33Um, on the other side, um, we also made this promise, right?

17:37So we hired people.

17:38We kind of gave them an implicit or even explicit promise.

17:43We're going to do our best to try to make this company and you're successful.

17:47Yeah.

17:48We're going to try to, uh, to coach you, to train you, to develop you, but we're also going to want to create equity value.

17:55Yeah.

17:55In this company.

17:56And then we had investors that gave us a ton of money.

18:00Um, that we also promised we're going to do something great with that money.

18:04Yeah.

18:04It's a gene is the right ROI.

18:06You know, you should invest here.

18:08So honestly, there was also not really a way out.

18:12Yeah.

18:12I think if you're serious about those things and if you're more accomplished, it's kind of on the, on the fighter side.

18:17Um, when it's uncomfortable, you will still have to grind through it.

18:21Um, and, um, and yeah, and then we just had to get our shit together.

18:26Yeah.

18:26Honestly, and literally, uh, we had to understand where to think about what is the future that is a must have.

18:33What are the strategic priors?

18:36What is the team set up?

18:38Um, what are the regrets and no regrets?

18:41Um, calculate this through, you know, through business case sessions and everything that's needed.

18:47Discuss with the boards, discuss with people, team, think about all of the consequences it means for, for the employees.

18:54You know, it's like, it's pretty significant because the market was in a downturn in general.

18:59So, um, I would say very heavy lifting and deliberate thinking with many backs and forwards, uh, to then kind of pull through.

19:10Um, and now kind of the, the second wave, second phase starts.

19:15Yeah.

19:16So now you kind of completed your first milestone.

19:19The culture needs to get, needs to be brought back on track.

19:23And that's very, very, very hard.

19:25So here we learned our most painful lessons, um, how, how to get the motivation back when effectively there was a severe issue.

19:35Yeah.

19:36When effectively things failed, um, and, and this took a year, um, now it's very, now it's great.

19:42Again, we're, we're so happy.

19:44Energy level is super high team is, is motivated, pumped company grows.

19:49All of those things are now in a good spot, but to get there was a very slow, gradual and painful process.

19:58You already talked at the beginning that you have a co-founder.

20:01Let's talk a little bit about the team dynamic dynamics here, most scale to 250 plus people, processed over 5 billion euro in payments and added key leaders like, uh, Jan Stechler from N26.

20:15What was a painful lesson you learned about hiring trust or involving your leadership team?

20:22Um, yeah.

20:23So, um, as I said before, the switch from individual contributor, yeah.

20:29Even like a co-founder, mostly in the beginning, you just execute to a manager is pretty painful.

20:35And, and I think that the biggest kind of thing we had to accept is it's hard skills and it's not talent or soft skills or whatsoever.

20:44Yeah.

20:44They come into play a little bit, but there is a, it's a hard skill to manage other people.

20:49Um, and to do it right.

20:52Yeah.

20:52Um, and at the starting point, what was, what was, uh, what is, I think is the most important elements is the hiring process itself.

21:00It's about the talent bar that is set.

21:02It's about the expectations being very, very clear.

21:05What do we actually need?

21:07What is the type of profile?

21:08What should they have seen in the past?

21:11What is the minimum experience level?

21:13What are also markers that make me believe that this candidate is worth speaking and is more kind of interesting versus someone else, right?

21:22Because we have a, there is a huge market out there, out there.

21:26Um, how does best in class look like, you know, like I'm sure you had the situation where you interviewed someone and you realized I must hire that person.

21:36Um, yeah, it's like, it's this, this, this, this very rare case in the 1% or whatsoever where you're so excited.

21:42You think this is the perfect fit.

21:44So how can I make sure that that best in class kind of is visible at scale?

21:49Um, this is, this, I think is really number one, but then what, what comes next is, is the onboarding journey.

21:56And, and I think here we made mistakes pretty significant.

22:00And I think almost everyone has made those mistakes unless they are already much further in their career.

22:04Um, it's so much context that is centered in your head that only you have, yeah, or your co-founder or a couple of people in the company that needs to make a transition, right?

22:17So for the new leader to do a good job, they, they almost, they almost need the same context that you have.

22:24Yeah.

22:25And it's how to do this while everything is moving fast, while you're super busy, uh, while you need to kind of give them the right information at the right time, keep them focused.

22:34And, uh, you know, plug in other people, um, I think is, I think is very, very, uh, very, very hard.

22:40So I would say the, the most painful lesson, um, has indeed been mainly around being really good in onboarding.

22:49It's too expensive if it fails.

22:51The first few days, the first month, they're decisive in what kind of habits people get in.

22:58And, uh, that's actually where you want to set it up properly so that people can really understand who is there.

23:06Uh, it doesn't help if you get hired and your boss is not there for the first two weeks and you just by habit report to somebody else.

23:14And when the new boss comes back, you'd still talk more to the other person.

23:17That's for example, something I have experienced, uh, w w which is not great.

23:23Let's talk a little bit about the emotional toll.

23:26You're building a highly in a highly regulated space with aggressive growth and investor expectations.

23:34How has this journey impacted your professional identity, mental health, or family life, especially as a father?

23:42Yeah, it's the, it's kind of the, the magic question, right?

23:46Uh, um, and how I, how I like to boil it down and then I'm going to give you some specifics.

23:52Yeah.

23:53But how I like to, to boil it down and challenge myself is, am I happy in the current setup?

23:58Um, yeah, so how it's going right now, is this giving me happiness and joy or, or, or, uh, or is it not?

24:06Um, and fortunately I can still answer the question with yes.

24:09Like I do not want to be, I really want to run this company.

24:13I really want to work with my founders with all of the colleagues here.

24:17Um, I love the mission.

24:18I really enjoy working on finance, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

24:21Um, there is a big, however, though.

24:24Yeah.

24:25And the, however, is it has a lot of costs.

24:28Yeah.

24:28So first, first in the first two years of my, of my first son, and then also second son

24:34got born, uh, roughly 15 months later, um, I did not sufficiently see them.

24:40Yeah.

24:41So I had to pay the price of not being sufficiently there.

24:45And only after those two years, I caught up with some paternity leave.

24:49Yeah.

24:49A month, a month to spend with the kids.

24:52Um, um, and this was not a good thing.

24:55Yeah.

24:55I want to clearly say this was, this was a big cost to, uh, to, uh, to carry.

25:00Um, but I also miss my tennis routine, you know, in many cases, or I deprioritized.

25:06Um, so, um, so one part of the learning journey was also, it's not going to be sustainable.

25:14It's not going to work longterm.

25:15And in particular, it will not, you will not be able to answer the question of, are you

25:20happy with the setup with the yes?

25:22If there is no balance.

25:24Yeah.

25:25So right now I'm, I, I, in the last two years, basically revise some of those decisions.

25:31Yeah.

25:32And, and, and, and, and how to approach it, um, and have found some more balance.

25:36Uh, it doesn't mean it's a good work life balance is horrible with two small kids and,

25:40uh, and the company to run.

25:43Uh, but, but the sacrifices are very, you know, are different.

25:48Yeah.

25:48So maybe it's seeing some friends less often.

25:52Maybe it's skipping a conference or, or, uh, or a dinner, yeah.

25:57Attacked in the evening.

25:58Maybe it's something, you know, it's like other things you can still control, um, to make

26:03sure you don't go mad.

26:06Yes, I know exactly what you mean.

26:09That's also something I had to learn.

26:11For example, what I've been adjusting my whole lifestyle, my whole life, for example,

26:17uh, before nine, I usually don't do any course because I drop off my, my two sons at kindergarten.

26:23Um, Mondays I get to sleep in, um, because my wife gets also a day on the weekend.

26:29And so I get up late, I do lunch and then I start working because I do have a lot of,

26:35um, customers and clients in the U S and they like to do really led course.

26:41And so on Mondays, they can book me until like, uh, 23 o'clock in the evening on Mondays.

26:46Um, but you cannot do this by starting at 9.00 AM.

26:50Plus I also, uh, learned the really hard way that you have to take off the weekends.

26:56At least for me, uh, no work, no, uh, work emails and stuff like that.

27:00There was a tough, uh, tough thing to learn, but in the beginning, you just work, work, work.

27:07And then at one point your body screams, no, uh, uh, stop.

27:10Ah, that's something exactly I learned as well.

27:14Guys, we'll be back after a short app break, talking, for example, about a make or break,

27:19moment, founder misconceptions and market surprises.

27:29Hey guys, welcome back with Antet, the CEO and co-founder of Moss, a Berlin-based Fintech startup

27:36that raised 180 million years so far from investors, including Cherry Ventures.

27:42We linked it here in the show notes, our interview with Cherry and, uh, Peter Thiel's Valaventures.

27:48Um, Ante, let's talk about a make or break moment.

27:52Um, was there a point, perhaps during the rebrand or during regulatory approval where you had

28:02to decide, do we pivot, pause or push through no matter what?

28:12We had many of those moments, um, and the, and the earlier take them kind of the smaller

28:21and the moment is, yeah, this is kind of the, the little bit of the philosophy that we have.

28:25It's a continuum.

28:27Yeah.

28:27So, um, by being on top of data, by being on top of kind of the strategy and what actually

28:34needs to be done, what the vision is, um, and then following through with early signals,

28:39we had multiple of those points.

28:41Yeah.

28:42So we, we, we, we asked ourselves, for example, um, um, shall we expand more internationally?

28:51Yeah.

28:51Like very fundamental question.

28:54It's a massive distraction for all of the teams.

28:57The product needs to be brought up to speed, ton of other, other reasons why it's a distraction,

29:03but also how it can drive revenue.

29:06The second big one was, do we really go for our own license?

29:11Yeah.

29:12Do we, do we, do we really want to get regulated and build, build the team that is needed, uh,

29:19to run, um, to be compliant or do we rely on, on third parties?

29:25Yeah.

29:25There's a banking as a service providers.

29:27Um, currently the question is when do we expand beyond spend management?

29:33This is a pivotal moment for the company as the product suite suddenly becomes much more

29:37comprehensive.

29:37So, um, yeah, there are a hundred percent, there are those moments, um, and, um, and yeah,

29:45and you will have to take a decision on, do we do it or do we not do it?

29:49And hopefully most of those moments are happy moments.

29:54Yeah.

29:54Hopefully it's not a moment where you say we have to pause.

29:58We have to shut down the market.

30:00We have to shut down the product.

30:01We have to stop the company.

30:02This will be horrible.

30:03Of course, I see, yeah, it's, it's a steady fight.

30:10I would say, uh, that's also how it feels here.

30:12Um, talk to a little bit about founder misconceptions.

30:18What did you absolutely misjudge in the early days of Mars, either about the market, your

30:25customer, or what it takes to truly digitize a finance department.

30:31I can, I can, I can tell you a little secret, but maybe it's not really a secret.

30:36Don't worry.

30:37It will be just between you and me and like 50,000 listeners on the podcast.

30:42Yeah, then that's fair.

30:44That's okay.

30:45With this secret is fair.

30:47Um, for if someone has not, not misjudged a ton of things, then they probably didn't start

30:56the business.

30:57Um, the, my main point is it's, there is such a huge ocean of unknowns and there are so crazy

31:09big complexities that if you take them, if you look at them from a starting point, it's

31:16a wall that you cannot climb.

31:17There is no way you will ever launch a company.

31:22If you knew all of the obstacles, you would just not do it and no one would give you money

31:28for it.

31:28Yeah.

31:29Uh, so, um, one example, yeah, we, we got super passionate about the broader finance

31:35suite.

31:36Um, we had to find a minimum viable product though.

31:40Yeah.

31:40And it's this kind of, it's the old one shot you have.

31:43Yeah.

31:43You collect the seed funding, you build the first product.

31:46You want to show some traction.

31:48If you pick the wrong piece, you're dead.

31:50Yeah.

31:50And you can try to raise new money, but very likely it's not going to work.

31:54Um, so, so, um, so we were super nervous about it, of course.

31:59And then we picked something that retrospectively was actually way too complex.

32:05Yeah.

32:05So, so we thought we can launch a next generation credit card, like the first of its

32:11kinds, but not in a way like banks do it.

32:14Yeah.

32:14American express or, uh, um, uh, any other bank.

32:19Um, it's, it was a platform where customers could issue.

32:24So physical virtual cards with one mouse click set limits, do like a ton of stuff that you

32:30cannot even do.

32:31Yeah.

32:32Like this whole card issuing platform was just a beast.

32:36And then on top it had the finance suite, right?

32:39So how do I connect?

32:40How do I, how do I now attach receipts to single transactions?

32:44How do I assign a accounting categories?

32:46How do I do the coding?

32:47How do I connect with data or with net suite or with exactly zero, like all of those ERP systems?

32:54Um, um, um, we entirely misjudged the complexity of doing this.

33:00Um, fortunately the consequence was, it was just very painful and took a bit longer.

33:06Uh, but, but it's still kind of worked out and we saw many of those things again.

33:13Yeah.

33:13I remember the day when we're sitting in the cherry office, it was an offsite.

33:17We always asked them if we can, uh, work in their big boardroom.

33:22Yeah.

33:22They have a nice room.

33:23It's a bit detached from the office.

33:25So we go there and then we discuss the serious stuff.

33:27And I remember when we discussed the serious decision, when are we, are we like, are we going

33:32to leave the territory of Amex and now expand into accounts payables or not?

33:37Yeah.

33:38Do we want to build a suite where customers can also process all of their incoming receipts?

33:43Yeah.

33:43That's very different from car transactions.

33:45And I also remember that when we took the decision, yes, we brutally underestimated the requirements.

33:54So this is three years ago.

33:56We're still working on the product and expanding the product.

33:59Yeah.

33:59So, um, I think the short and sweet answer is if you don't misjudge to like a certain degree,

34:05you're probably never start.

34:07Yeah.

34:08You should not entirely kind of fail, uh, but you will definitely misjudge.

34:12Mm-hmm, yeah, that's also what I felt when he said that if you really know how big the

34:20problem is, you likely won't start here.

34:24Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, um, you've described Moss as finance software that actually works like

34:32your team does.

34:34What trade in yourself once felt like a liability and ended up shaping Moss's user-first design?

34:42Um, yeah, uh, so there is an interesting insight about this, about this industry.

34:51Um, um, and also here, it actually took a while to get there, even though it's super

34:56simple finance and finance software were almost the first proper.

35:02It was like first technology.

35:04Yeah.

35:04So amongst the first, yeah, let's call it like this.

35:07So what I want to say with this, uh, the ERP systems like SAP or accounting software, they,

35:15they, it was the early days of digitization of putting codes into a piece of software to

35:20run something in a digital way.

35:22So, um, having said that they are, their biggest, biggest, biggest pain, if you boil it down,

35:29yeah, to kind of all of the, all of the pains that exist is the user experience.

35:36Yeah.

35:37It's not that they don't offer functionality.

35:40They have the broadest suite of functionality.

35:43They had 20, 30 years of time to build all single functionality, uh, um, where it breaks is the

35:51user experience.

35:52It's not state of art.

35:54It's doesn't adhere to the standards, neither in design nor in the flows.

35:59Um, it's maybe less user centric.

36:02It's maybe more infrastructure centric, not all data is available kind of that.

36:07That's the, that's actually their biggest pain.

36:09So what we understood, and I'm so happy that, that our, our lead, uh, product designer Moritz,

36:17yeah, who was the only person in that team and we started, uh, got this very early is we

36:23will only be able to create this very distinct and long-term differentiating, differentiating

36:30factor.

36:32If we exceed customer expectations on user experience, we have to take an entirely different

36:38lens, how we look at those workflows, how we design the platform, how we incrementally

36:45optimize it.

36:46Yeah.

36:47Over and over again, small stuff, big stuff to create this compounding effect of a superpower.

36:54Um, and I think in this regard, we are very proud and we know it's true.

37:00When the market confirms it, most does have the best user experience.

37:04If an, if an accountant, a controller, a business owner, a tax advisor, if they, if they want

37:10to have this iPhone like experience, yeah, you find everything by yourself pretty much.

37:15Um, the connections make sense.

37:18You can find, you can, you have the right settings that you need.

37:21Um, that's an objective that we widely have achieved.

37:24Yeah.

37:25Entirely will be too optimistic.

37:27Ton of stuff to still do.

37:29Uh, but, but much better than anyone else in the market.

37:32I was wondering if I could ask our audience the same question, who was one founder trade you've

37:45turned from a liability to super power.

37:47Maybe even with your co-founder, let us know on Axe, Blue Sky, Threads or LinkedIn.

37:53Um, with over 5,000 SMEs onboarded, what unexpected insight changed the way you understood CFO workflows,

38:06span patterns, or ERP integration pain points?

38:10Yeah, there is.

38:11So, so first I think it's important to segment the market a little bit.

38:15Yeah.

38:16And I was getting, I don't want to get too technical, but just for the, for the audience

38:20also to get a better understanding, there are small businesses, right?

38:24Micro enterprises could be a solo trader.

38:27One person could be two, could be five, but basically a very simple and kind of easy to communicate set up.

38:34Then there is the mid segment.

38:35It's the companies to start with, let's say 10 employees and then go up to 500 or thousands.

38:41It's kind of the, the traditional kind of as you said, the traditional SMBs to choose like English words.

38:47And then there is mid market enterprise.

38:50Companies that operate globally have huge organizations, many entities, et cetera, et cetera.

38:56Um, in that mid segment, and this is our core, and this is where kind of the, the biggest share of the GDP lies.

39:05Yeah.

39:06This is kind of the biggest segment in terms of kind of the GDP in business.

39:10Yeah.

39:11Um, the very surprising insight was that they are not zero digitized.

39:18It's not like, it's not like that they, there is, there is no software they use.

39:24Yeah.

39:24I mean, they use anyways, accounting software and ERP, but even beyond that, the point was,

39:30it was very unsophisticated single point software.

39:34So for example, there is a tool that allows you to, to, to build approvals.

39:41Yeah.

39:42So you, as a company, you want to stay on top and control what people buy.

39:46So what you do, you build an approval flow.

39:48Yeah.

39:48And now you want to buy something for 10 K someone needs to sign off and not doing this

39:54kind of an excellent or via email or via signatures.

39:57The only way is to bring it into a tool.

39:59The challenge though, is if you have one or two or three of those tools, you have to manage

40:06your workforce on the tool.

40:08You have to onboard them.

40:09They have to log in.

40:10They have to run the process.

40:11And like, who wants to have three, four different tools to get the job done?

40:16It's like, it's, it's a nightmare.

40:19No.

40:19So the kind of the most interesting insight was there are tools out there, but they have

40:25one big deficit.

40:27They don't connect the dots.

40:29They are, they are isolated pain points.

40:32It's isolated solutions.

40:34They are not connected to the broader software landscape.

40:38They are covering only fractions of the pains.

40:42And this is, this is an option for us to tackle.

40:46We decided this is, this is the way to tackle.

40:48You've said Moss aims to be the most intelligent finance stack for Europe's SMBs.

40:59Paint the picture.

41:00What does that look like in five years?

41:03Does it include treasury AI embedded FP&A cross-border FX?

41:08Yeah.

41:09So now, now I love speaking about the future, but it's also very hard to predict.

41:17Maybe starting first with the fundamental belief.

41:20Yeah.

41:20And I think this is what shapes like a lot of, a lot of thinking for us at Moss and also for

41:24me personally and my co-founders.

41:26And the first layer that we tackle is the workflow.

41:31It's creating a digital experience.

41:35Now, for some, this might already be groundbreaking.

41:39But if you're honest, it's only the baseline.

41:41It's only process efficiency, right?

41:43You basically can do the job in a more orchestrated way and maybe a bit faster and a bit more automated.

41:49The true power comes from intelligence.

41:53Yeah.

41:53So how can I digest that data and how can I use that data in a way that makes people work smarter?

42:02Yeah.

42:03Not, not just harder.

42:05And, and by comparison here will be for anyone who is working with CRM software and in sales.

42:12Think about Salesforce.

42:13Yeah.

42:13The, the company, Salesforce, the product.

42:16Um, it's, it's good if you can create a customer journey and a buyer list and basically move

42:23away from a Google doc from Excel to having it at Salesforce.

42:26But the magic is when you get all of your KPIs, when you understand what the sales cycle is,

42:32what the big deals are, when the follow updates are, when it automates your ways of working,

42:37when it gives you the intelligence to say, I'm on track or I'm not on track.

42:43And it's the same thing with Moss.

42:45We are building the foundational layer and we are, we are, we are moving very fast on that front.

42:52But once we have done this, we'll move and invest much more into the intelligence layer

42:57because we want our customers, we want the finance teams, the business owners to just spend as little

43:03time as possible with admin and focus most of their time on the activities that change and drive

43:09their company.

43:10Yeah.

43:11And we call it business partnering.

43:12Yeah.

43:13So you work with the team to grow sales, to reduce costs, to improve margins, uh, or whatsoever.

43:21So having said that, yeah, it's the foundational layer, this really great workflows end to end

43:26across accounting, across controlling, very likely not just focus on spend what we do now

43:32in five years from now, very likely also focus on the revenue side.

43:36But then it's the layout on top.

43:38It's kind of the cashflow forecasting.

43:40It's the budgeting.

43:42Um, it's, it's a lot of additional use cases, effective cost controlling, et cetera, et

43:47cetera, that connect all of the dots in the dashboard and then help businesses improve.

43:53Yeah.

43:53Help businesses grow.

43:56Hmm.

43:56This sounds pretty good.

43:57Sounds like you'll have some kind of AI agent best, uh, uh, controlled via audio and you tell

44:06him, make a casual call forecast this and this, and this changed.

44:10And let me know tomorrow.

44:11What are the implications?

44:14Yeah.

44:15Yeah.

44:15So I love the, if I may, if I may say, I'll, I was so excited about the AI, AI kind of AI segment,

44:23category trend, whatever you want to call it.

44:26Um, one fun fact up front, um, AI has been leveraged in finance since many, many years already.

44:34Um, so OCR extracting information from documents and categorizing it is basically, is basically

44:41an, in a certain form of AI and it's already in the, in, in most software since many, many

44:47years, what fundamentally changed with the introduction of the LLMs and with the power of

44:52the LLMs was to supercharge other parts and connect more dots and more context and more

44:59information.

45:00Um, and, um, yeah, so we, for example, right now are, have a very, very powerful AI automation

45:08platform.

45:09So let's say a customer submits an invoice 19 out of 20 actions that have to be taken, such

45:17as, you know, the service date, the account category, the cost center, like everything finance

45:24needs to do for the transaction 19 out of 20, the machine can do for you in an automated

45:30way and an accurate way.

45:32Yeah.

45:32And this is just think about this change.

45:34So just think about, you have to do one step out of 20.

45:38Yeah.

45:38It's a very, very brutal improvement.

45:41Um, and it's just starting.

45:43Yeah.

45:43So, um, on compliance checks, um, on, there's so many other areas where, where, where AI will

45:52supercharge the offering, you know, and it's not necessarily going to be kind of just an AI

45:57agent.

45:58I think it's almost like it's, it's a misused terminology.

46:02It will be part of the software suite.

46:04The AI will enable a better workflow and better insights for customers through a specific user

46:10experience.

46:11It might be a prompt.

46:13It might be kind of just in the background.

46:14You don't even see it.

46:15It's just, it's just, it just executes the job or it might be a different ways.

46:20Um, but it's kind of, it is going to be part of the software.

46:25Let's face it.

46:26Um, this is well, but what I had in mind, if it's from a psychological perspective, easier

46:35for person to interact with an AI agent that at least has some personality.

46:41I'm thinking about Jarvis here from Iron Man or, uh, Skippy, uh, uh, sci-fi readers would know

46:49them, but that's a completely different topic.

46:51If anybody out there is researching on that or knowledgeable about it, hit me up, Joe

46:56at startuprate.io and we can talk about, and maybe even find an interview for you.

47:02Let's reflect a little bit for the closing.

47:04In the future version of Ante, five years older, post CRSD, looked back at this moment.

47:11What would he say, uh, to you right now?

47:16Yeah.

47:16So I'm thinking about what the future me will say.

47:21This is a very, very good question.

47:23Yeah.

47:24Uh, so I hope it will say, stay hungry, push, but don't stress out too much.

47:32Everything will be fine.

47:34I hope this is what they will say.

47:36Everything will be fine.

47:41Great.

47:42Awesome.

47:44Ante, thank you very much.

47:45Awesome interview.

47:46Hope to have you back soon.

47:48And we'll now hop into the founder's world and talk a little bit behind the scenes for our

47:57subscribers.

47:57If you'd like to join us, go on Substack or YouTube, become a paying member, and you'll

48:03have access to the founder's world.

48:06Thanks, Jörn, and all the listeners.

48:08Really, really enjoyed.

48:10My pleasure.

48:16That's all, folks.

48:17Find more news, streams, events, and interviews at www.startuprad.io.

48:25Remember, sharing is caring.

48:33You can find more news, friends.

48:34You can find more news, friends.

48:35You can find more news, friends.

48:36You can find more news, friends.

48:37You can find more news, friends.

48:38You can find more news, friends.

48:39You can find more news, friends.

48:40You can find more news, friends.

48:41You can find more news, friends.

48:42You can find more news, friends.

48:43You can find more news, friends.

48:44You can find more news, friends.

48:45You can find more news, friends.

48:46You can find more news, friends.

48:47You can find more news, friends.

48:48You can find more news, friends.

48:49You can find more news, friends.

48:50You can find more news, friends.

48:51You can find more news, friends.

48:52You can find more news, friends.

48:53You can find more news, friends.

Empfohlen