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The Challenges of a Start-Up entering a Mature Market

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With

Nicolas Kopp

Founder's Spotlight



Nicolas Kopp is the Founder and CEO of Rillet - with the vision to help recurring revenue companies leverage a Financial Management Platform purpose-built for their business model.


During our conversation with Nic we covered the following topics:


  • Unique Accounting Challenges in a Recurring Revenue Model

  • The Importance of Revenue Recognition in a Recurring Revenue Business

  • Financial Performance Reporting beyond the Income Statement and Balance Sheet

  • Entering a Mature Market Category with a New Product


One of the first challenges a recurring revenue business will face is translating an annual subscription and the associated "bookings" into GAAP revenue. During Nic's previous roles including working at a recurring revenue that scaled to over $100M AR, he saw the challenges firsthand that Finance had with converting subscription revenue into GAAP revenue.


What are some of the most common challenges Nic sees in the market?


  • #1 is what is my MRR/ARR and do I trust it

  • What is my deferred revenue

  • Do I trust my accounts receivables report


Traditional accounting platforms, such as QuickBooks - though solid, functional software is that they do not typically have the concept of "recurring revenue" and the unique revenue management, reporting, and SaaS metrics that are specific to a recurring revenue business.


One of the primary challenges that Nic and Rillet faced when first launching their product is that the Accounting Platform space is quite mature, and most companies are not proactively looking to swap out their technology until scaling revenue which introduces new challenges and financial management challenges that cannot be addressed with their current platform. This is also often associated with when a first-time VP Finance or senior finance executive enters the picture and quickly realizes they do not have the information or infrastructure required to manage "by the numbers".


If you are a founder/CEO entering a mature category or a Finance leader who is struggling with Financial Reporting in a Recurring Revenue business - this conversation is full of unique insights and ideas.

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