[HN Gopher] Launch HN: Abacum (YC W21) - Easy collaboration and ...
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Launch HN: Abacum (YC W21) - Easy collaboration and reporting for
finance teams
Hi HN! We're Jorge and Julio, cofounders of Abacum
(https://www.abacum.io/). We're not sure how many fintech geeks
like us are on HN but we're very excited to launch to you guys
anyway! Abacum makes it easier for Finance teams to access real-
time data, collaborate and generate reports. Think of having all
the operational and financial data modeled in one place, and of the
Finance team easily sharing and collecting information for other
teams to make faster, better decisions. Scale ups have unique
finance needs. First, they have spent the last years growing
unnaturally fast, held together by a mixture of google sheets, csv
files, a disconnected tech stack and a lot of copy paste. Second,
growing 4x a year means that historical data is out of date within
3 months. Finally, with so many channels to stay connected, it's
impossible to find where the Tech Lead shared that key assumption
for the board forecast. Both Jorge and I have lived these
experiences - we've spent too many long nights and days in number-
crunching, without the proper time to analyze the data and to
provide insights, becoming the key business partner we wanted. So
yes, in the middle of the lockdown with 3 children each decided to
leave everything to build the product we wish we had! Abacum can
now connect to any data source, update a business plan
automatically and give you finance specific tools to help you do
what you need to. Think performance and pivot tables, cohort and
waterfall graphs, and ways to easily collaborate. Our engine
provides the flexibility of excel while minimizing human errors,
reducing fears of breaking "the model" and scaling up to and past
IPO size. We're big believers that collaboration, and not the
business model, needs to be placed at the center of the product.
Everything we built in Abacum is easily shareable and built to be
easily understood by non-finance professionals. Ask (or remind)
others in your company to collaborate, be it for updating forecasts
or commenting on reporting decks, right where the needed context
is. We've also set up different workflows for customers to easily
gather the data bottom-up from different teams. We are constantly
looking to improve Abacum, so we'd love to hear any feedback,
questions or wisdom you have to share with us! We'd love to show
you (or anybody that you think may be interested) a 10' demo of our
product - please let us know and we'll reach out. Thanks so much,
HN!
Author : Juliomartinez
Score : 46 points
Date : 2021-02-23 13:20 UTC (9 hours ago)
| wmab wrote:
| Congrats on the launch, this looks nice! How does your pricing
| model work?
| Juliomartinez wrote:
| Thanks! Copying the response from a similar question below
|
| We serve a broad range of customers, Series-A to public, so the
| price paid can vary quite a lot. We calculate it based on a
| function of complexity, modules, seats, support needed, etc.
|
| Happy to have a deeper conversation and/or demo if you're
| interested! Drop us a note and mention HN-> Sales@Abacum.io
| forgotmysn wrote:
| how do you guys compare with Jirav?
| Juliomartinez wrote:
| From what we understand, Jirav is a great player with an
| emphasis on driver-based models owned and operated by a single
| person. Abacum was built with collaboration at the core and we
| make it easy to include more voices in the planning process,
| leading to a better view of your business in our view.
| gegtik wrote:
| I think you may be hamstringing yourself launching a serious
| business product with cum in the name
| Juliomartinez wrote:
| The name comes from a play on Abacus, the calculating tool from
| ancient times.
|
| In latin languages Abacum is pronounced differently, but I can
| also see how that doesn't matter in some markets. Who knows,
| maybe this will make us more memorable...
| captainredbeard wrote:
| In the Anglosphere, it's a kiss of death.
| ahstilde wrote:
| Perhaps it's la petite mort
| felipellrocha wrote:
| This looks great! very polished look, and certainly useful. What
| does your pricing look like?
| Juliomartinez wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| We serve a broad range of customers, Series-A to public, so the
| price paid can vary quite a lot. We calculate it based on a
| function of complexity, modules, seats, support needed, etc.
|
| Happy to have a deeper conversation and/or demo if you're
| interested! Drop us a note and mention HN-> Sales@Abacum.io
| imazio wrote:
| It looks amazing, congratulations guys!
| Juliomartinez wrote:
| Thank you!
| villasv wrote:
| > Trusted by companies backed by these [...]
|
| This feels a bit... underhanded. Good looking solution, though.
| Juliomartinez wrote:
| Good point. We don't mean to come across as underhanded.
|
| Our customers use Abacum to report their financials to their
| investors, which include the logos in this list. We should be
| more precise with the copy in this section!
| villasv wrote:
| I figured something like that would be the reasoning. I don't
| doubt there's a real web of trust, but IMHO that should be a
| bit more explicit.
| insidiuos wrote:
| This is awesome! Would love to see our finance department use
| this ;)
| Juliomartinez wrote:
| We'd love to talk with them :) Drop us a note and mention HN->
| Sales@Abacum.io
| KFC_Manager wrote:
| Congrats on the launch! This looks super helpful. I've found in
| previous roles that formalizing processes in something more rigid
| vs. excel actually makes things much more efficient. How do you
| see yourself differ from something like https://www.workiva.com/
| or https://golayer.io/?
| Juliomartinez wrote:
| Thanks! We agree with you. It's about finding the right level
| of flexibility for the stage of your business.
|
| From what I understand, workiva is an awesome product focused
| on the data preparation phase of analysis and reporting. We
| focus on the next part in the process - modeling, analysing and
| forecasting, using tools made specifically for FP&A teams
|
| From what I understand, Golayer is a great product built on top
| of your existing google sheet or excel with collaboration
| happening around a spreadsheet. We approach things differently
| at Abacum, offering a native experience that scales with your
| business, where collaboration happens within a platform full of
| Abacum tables, embedded excels, supporting screenshots, new
| forecasts, etc.
| telaandrews2 wrote:
| Congrats on the launch, Jorge and Julio! The fintech space is
| crying out for better, easier experiences that lead to better
| decisions, faster. Your UI demonstrates that you've thought
| through the domain to its primitives and is well-organized, so
| well done!
|
| One of the big challenges is onboarding customers and their data.
| The integration toggles and menu item for data mappings are
| thoughtfully organized, but how much of it is self service?
| Juliomartinez wrote:
| Thanks! We really appreciate the positive words. We've both
| faced this problem before and set out to build what we always
| wanted.
|
| Yes self-service is a challenge. It really depends on how
| complicated the model and different data sources a customer
| uses are. We have a 7 star FP&A Ops team to help customers get
| started and show them what they can manage on their own. That
| area is growing day by day!
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(page generated 2021-02-23 23:02 UTC)