Featured Startup Pitch: Mentio’s accounting app monitors finances and provides proactive guidance for small businesses

By Sean Wilson, Mentio co-founder and CFO

ELEVATOR PITCH

Mentio monitors your business finances, lets you know when something is wrong and what to do to fix it. It’s mobile. 90-second setup. Plugs directly into Xero. Grow your business.

PRODUCT/SERVICE DESCRIPTION

Run or manage a small business? Then you know first hand how busy you are! We created Mentio to take the stress out of managing your finances, so you can focus on the areas of your business that you are truly passionate about.

We know what it takes to run a successful business from the numbers side, so we built Mentio to monitor your books and let you know if anything is wrong. Best of all, Mentio also will tell you what you need to do to improve your business, and provides single-click solutions!

So don’t stress about your finances, cashflow, receivables, payables, sales or expenses. Mentio monitors all of these and will let you know how you’re doing and how to improve them. Plus, it’s all mobile so you can check out your business’s status wherever you are!

Mentio—your business mentor.

FOUNDERS’ STORY

I am a Chartered Accountant who thought that there had to be a better way to help small businesses with the ongoing monitoring of their business. Gary had previously sold his accounting BI tool to Sage and thought that getting the analysis of an accountant into the hands of small business owners could do wonders for helping these companies survive. Over a beer, Mentio was formed.

Monique has over 15 years working at Vision Critical, a SaaS market research company, and loved the idea when she first heard it. Milan has a master’s degree in Computer Learning, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science, and was the perfect fourth founder.

Together our goal is to help small businesses succeed by monitoring the area of their business that they enjoy least—finances—and ensuring that any issues are discovered and fixed in the easiest way possible.

MARKETING/PROMOTION STRATEGY

We are partnering with bookkeepers to provide their clients with the ongoing monitoring power that Mentio provides. In addition, we have an ‘ask my advisor’ function that allows business owners to quickly ping their advisor for more detailed or strategic help in a specific problem area.

MARKET OPPORTUNITY

Small business owners using cloud accounting: 1.5 million.

Current market growth rate: 110 percent.

Total small business market (U.S.): 30 million.

HOW WE’RE UNIQUE

The competition requires users to run reports (BI), analyze the reports themselves and understand what actions should happen based on the analysis. This is great for accountants and business analysts, but not for small business owners who don’t have the time or expertise to be running a multitude of reports.

Mentio makes business monitoring easy by running in the background and prioritizing issues and to-dos to fix any issues that are identified.

BUSINESS MODEL

SaaS with a monthly subscription (but no contract!).

CURRENT NEEDS

We are currently looking to raise a round of capital.

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HEADQUARTERS: Vancouver