Young Entrepreneurs Abroad – Startup Story of CrunchBoards

CrunchBoards is a forecasting and planning tool helping small businesses across the globe use their financial data to plan better for the future.

Founders – Amy Harris (28) and Hannah McIntyre (39).

Launch Date – Set up in 2014.

Country – Sydney, Australia.

Funding – Privately funded.

Customers – 11,500+ customers in nearly 100 countries (Has offices in London and Brighton).

About CrunchBoards (Response by Amy)

Our core aim is to make life easier for SMEs and accountants worldwide by bringing the accounting world into the future. The idea for CrunchBoards came from our own frustrations with how stuck in the past the future and financial reporting options were for businesses like ours at the time. 

Noticing a gap in the market, we created a forecasting and planning tool that gives small businesses the ability to utilise the financial data they already have access to and use it to plan intelligently for the future.

This could be anything from hiring an employee to opening a new office or any number of potential future scenarios. 

CrunchBoards made the collaboration between accountants and small business owners easier and more efficient than ever before – Accountants can add to their advisory service by rooting themselves deeper in their clients’ business and advising them on future business goals as opposed to just crunching historical data. 

The inspiration behind your startup

CrunchBoards was borne out of the frustrations we had when we were running our previous business together. It was a similar concept to CrunchBoards, but for the hospitality industry. 

It was during that time when we realised just how difficult it was, as a small business, to forecast and scenario plan. We seemed to spend more time looking back into the past, rather than planning for the future. 

We figured we couldn’t be the only small business with these problems, so rather than resting on our laurels and waiting for someone else to fix the problem, we decided to do something about it and launched CrunchBoards. The rest, as they say, is history.

What were you both doing before starting your current venture

We ran our own business together before launching CrunchBoards, however, our journey as friends stretches way back. We met in a pub in Devon 12 years ago and have been best friends ever since. 

Before our experience of running our previous business, we both had experience in management, but not just in the tech space. Hannah was a teacher and a pub owner and I have pretty much worked with entrepreneurs and startups since graduating from university.

The reasons for running your own business

There’s something exciting – and scary – about the challenge of running your own business. It’s also incredibly rewarding. There are huge highs and lows involved, but when you see your business come to life and succeed, that joy is a hard feeling to describe.

Hannah and I are also hugely ambitious and when we want something we’ll do everything in our power to make it happen. We aren’t averse to taking risks in order to achieve what we want and love to challenge ourselves, and each other, on a daily basis.

That ingrained entrepreneurialism means that being our own boss and working together to make something special has always been an attractive proposition. 

What does the future hold for CrunchBoards

We plan to continue improving and expanding the service through listening to exactly what our customers want and doing everything we can to give it to them.

Customers are the most important factor in any business and building your product based on their needs is, in our opinion, how you grow and prosper.