This week, Intuit announced their new initiative, QuickBooks Capital, a small business lending service powered by artificial intelligence technology. QuickBooks Capital is a response to the struggle many small businesses face of getting approved for loans due to a short financial history. With 26 billion data points to inform their algorithm, the program combs through a small business’s financial data to determine the probability that future cash flow will be sufficient to repay a loan. Small businesses can apply for loans up to $35,000 for now, backed by QuickBooks itself, and should expect low rates according to the head of QuickBooks Capital, Rania Succar.
SaaS news this week saw Facebook launch their closed beta launch of a chat plugin for business websites, currently being tested on partners like AdoreMe and AirFrance. Also notable in the SaaS world this week is a new partnership between Salesforce and Google Analytics, which seeks to bring greater transparency to all marketing channels, campaigns and conversions. The new platform will integrate online marketing cloud data and offline conversions to grant marketers a more complete picture of their marketing efforts’ touchpoints with consumers. Read below for more information on how your online business can benefit from this partnership.
New in SaaS listings this week is a $158K portfolio of iOS productivity apps, with a diversified product base of 22 different apps and templates, strong demand with over c.10,000 downloads in the last 12 months, and a lean cost structure driving $64K in net income in the last year.
New in e-commerce listings this week we have a $104K dropship business in the men’s fashion and apparel niche, with diversified revenues across hundreds of high-quality SKUs, strong traffic driving 4.3 million page views in the last 12 months, and an authoritative brand in the niche securing a strong foothold in the industry. If you are interested in learning more about either of these profitable portfolios, be sure to request a prospectus soon, as we have already been contacted by several interested investors.
In event news, FE is fired up for the upcoming MicroConf EU in Lisbon next week on the 12-14th, where we will be sponsoring the main event both nights! Founder Thomas Smale will also be speaking at the event on “Lessons From Over 100 Million Dollars in Deals.” Thomas is then quickly heading off to Ungagged in Las Vegas on the 15th to speak on “A Winning Exit Strategy: Your 4-step Strategy for Increasing Your Start-up Value.” If you will be attending either of these events, or will be in the Lisbon area following WebSummit, shoot us an email so we can set up one-on-one meetings.
Continue reading below for more on the QuickBook’s new SMB loan program, Facebook’s beta launch of a chat plugin, and SalesForce’s partnership with Google Analytics.
Deal Highlights
New:
App – Portfolio of iOS Productivity Apps – $8.2K gross/mo
- 22 different Apps and Templates developed, ensuring a diversified product base
- Strong customer demand, with c.10,000 downloads in the 12 trailing months
- Lean cost structure, driving $64,000 in net income
- Low owner involvement
Yearly net profit: $64,000
Asking price: $158,000
E-Commerce – Dropship Men’s Fashion & Apparel – $28K gross/mo
- Revenues diversified across hundreds of high-quality SKUs
- Strong and stable site traffic driving 1.5 million sessions and 4.3 million page views in the last 12 months
- Authoritative brand with a secure foothold in the lucrative menswear industry
- Sales driven via a branded website, allowing for greater control over operations
- Low owner involvement
Yearly net profit: $55,000
Asking price: $104,000
Sold:
B2B SaaS – Investment Services – $12K MRR
In the News…
QuickBooks, Quick Loans
Intuit has launched QuickBooks Capital targeting small business owners, a program which predicts a young small business’ ability to pay back loans based on their current finances, and lends capital accordingly.
With QuickBooks Capital, small business owners can access loans up to $35,000 for up to six months from inside the bookkeeping software itself. Until they develop other models, Intuit is lending its own capital. With a powerful AI learning model based on QuickBooks’ extensive database of 26 billion data points, the service can fully analyze the current financial status of small businesses, and from this analysis algorithmically predict its future cash flow and the ability to pay back loans. Lenders are mostly hesitant to lend to small and young businesses because they have to make decisions based on a very limited amount of financial data if the business is young. The head of QuickBooks Capital Rania Succar states of the initiative, “We are particularly proud to be innovating for young businesses because they are critical to the future success of the economy, but very under-served by the options available in today’s credit market,” said Succar. With QuickBooks Capital as part of the evaluation for whether small businesses should be considered for loans, there will be more lending opportunities for young businesses on today’s credit market.
QuickBooks Capital has been in beta for the last several months, so there isn’t much data on the initiative yet, but Succa expects the rates to be very low.
Facebook Messenger Launches for Websites
Facebook announced its launch into a closed beta of a new customer chat plugin for enterprise websites, which allows customers to use Messenger to talk directly with businesses on their websites.
Notable benefits of the feature include the functionality for customers to still be able to view and continue the conversation from the Messenger app even when they leave the business’ website. With this feature, firms with a significant online presence who regularly engage with customers via Facebook will not have to maintain separate channels for inquiries, which simplifies customer support operations. Customers are also less incentivized to leave the chat if the support member is taking too long. The downside for most businesses is that this plugin lacks sophisticated analytical tools that other professional systems offer, as it doesn’t connect with any backend support systems. While it faces plenty of competitors in the chat plugin market, Facebook’s obvious advantage is in its established platform, brand, and reach.
The new plugin is being trialed by many partners, including AdoreMe, Air France, Mermaid Pillow and Total Activation.
SalesForce Partners with Google Analytics 360
Salesforce and Google are partnering to integrate CRM data with digital analytics and ad campaign data in an effort to bring further transparency to the impact of particular marketing campaigns on the customer journey.
Part of a larger partnership between Google and Salesforce, this analytics portion aims to integrate both online and offline advertising channels. Google Analytics 360 will now be able to connect in the following ways: cloud sales data for sales attribution, integration of marketing campaign data from GA with the marketing cloud, audiences from the marketing cloud will be accessibly via direct channels like email and SMS, and customer interactions from the marketing cloud will be available in 360 to make marketing lists. Advertisers will be able to combine Salesforce data with behavioral data from digital properties to create richer audiences and for smarter bidding. They will also be able to have a more complete understanding of which efforts are working and which are lagging behind, as the partnership will include offline conversions in attribution modeling.
The partnership is expected to have the integrations released in the first half of 2018.