November is ‘National Entrepreneurship’ month in the US. 🙌 At Canopy Group, many of our clients are entrepreneurs. We asked ourselves, “What does it take to be an entrepreneur?”. Entrepreneurship takes more than just talent. It’s also about having the courage to seize an opportunity when it comes your way; to be resilient, especially in the face of setbacks; and to have incredible determination and willpower to bring a vision to life.
Throughout this month, we will shine the spotlight on some of our clients and ask them for their entrepreneurial wisdom. Be inspired! This week, it’s Steven Case, CEO of Finance Box.
Canopy Group: What inspired you to set up your own business?
Steven: I was employed as an International Financial Controller at the time and had had a lot of success in setting up systems to create consistent management accounts using data from various sources, formats and currencies as well as achievements in a number of M&A transactions. Having done that in the industry I was in, I wanted to expand my experience and share what I did with other businesses. So, I made a huge step of leaving employment and started as a contractor. Whilst I spent a few years being a contractor, I create a cookie-cutter approach to clients and built templates that I could use from business to business to grow what I was doing. Along the way I employed someone – but Finance Box did not begin until I was with a client, now my business partner, whilst sitting in a London WeWork. Their internal network had people asking for accountants every day. It took some encouragement, but that was where we started Finance Box – essentially from nothing. Inspiration isn’t really something I had back then (6 years ago). Work always found me and I had been blessed with what I had. Ultimately I just wanted to prove I was great at what I did and I wanted others to benefit from what I could do – and if I could grow a team that did that, even better. Inspiration today comes from seeing the successes of others and seeing other people’s dreams become realities – the more people we can help, the bigger the job satisfaction.
Canopy Group: What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced as an entrepreneur?
Steven: When Finance Box started, I always boasted to myself that I considered ourselves at least 2/3 years ahead of the competition. Speaking with our software partners, they reinforced this thinking and encouraged me as a leader in our process and direction. However, at year 4, following a bit of a stagnant period and some staffing challenges, I went to an industry conference where I met hundreds of businesses that sounded like Finance Box. I quickly realised we’d fallen behind and needed to revitalise our approach, processes and offering. At this stage it was harder to drag the staff along with me as I found new innovations, new processes and created new ideas. I found that I was leaving them behind. So, quickly, I had to grow my leadership style and work out how to drive the change internally. I still don’t know that I got it right, but I do feel that we’re back at the front of what we do. Complacency was my challenge – so now I constantly review each area of the business to ask myself how it can be improved.
Canopy Group: No one succeeds alone – who has supported or inspired you in your journey?
Steven: My wife has to be my strongest supporter, followed by my kids. They release me to be able to put in the hours that I do, so that we can all have the lifestyle we like. Finance Box is my hobby as much as it is my job – so they know I enjoy working and that helps pay for nice things for them. Second to this but in just as big a way is the team. Finance Box is an outsourced finance TEAM, not an individual. The team really manage their clients’ expectations well and build a personal rapport with every client suited to their personalities. They are the support behind our success. In terms of inspiration, recently this has come from James Ashford – a guy that runs an impressive team, with a great company setup, and superb customer service in our industry. His challenges, advice, and responses are something I’d like to reflect as a leader.
Canopy Group: Why do you believe every entrepreneur should have a personal assistant?
Steven: We all have great ideas. Some of us go to make them into a business. We start as ourselves, proving that this ’thing’ is something that will pay the bills and become exciting. We grow. We bring in support, tech, social media – but with them comes a number of distractions such as HR, IT issues, the next marketing post etc – things that take us away from the very reason we started our business. A personal assistant can give you the extra pair of hands and separate head space to take these distractions off of you – especially in a growing business. Finance Box are not big enough to need a HR solution of it’s own (yet), nor an IT solution or marketing person – but a PA can help do some of those things to at least get them going. A PA can help keep you organised so that your time is made the best use of. I have massively benefitted from this with Canopy Group and each day I can do what I started my business for, instead of managing admin tasks.
Learn more about Finance Box here.