Keeping Things Simple

Bill.com automates the payables and receivables process for small and medium sized businesses. And so what is your big vision around what you do? How should we think about Bill.com’s purpose?

The vision that really came to me was the complexity of running a business that had not changed in over 60 years, that I knew. So, when I started the first company, it was an online payroll company, I was managing the bills and receivables the same way my grandfather was 60 years earlier. And so all of it is around connecting. If you think about running a business, you have to connect and understand what the documents and your relationships with your suppliers, with your buyers, what your employees think. It’s all about connecting, it’s all trying to understand information, so you can make decisions about which customers you want to invoice in the future, which customers you need to nag, which suppliers need to pay, and which ones you want to do more business with.

And so for us, making it simple to connect and do business, that is the mission. Because when you don’t have it as a simple thing to do, it becomes a hassle. It’s tedious. It’s mundane work that takes you from your passion. If we go back to the last discussion, passion is what fuels every SMB. That’s why somebody says, “Hey, I’m passionate about this, I think this can make a difference and have an impact in the world and my community.” And that’s something that carries you forward every day. But if you get stuck in the back office managing the details, then it’s like, well, I’m doing more of the crap work than more of the fun work. And nobody wants to do the crap work.

And so the passion for me was around making it really simple to connect and do business and that simplicity means businesses can get back to doing what they love, which is pursuing their passion and making a difference in their communities.