Welcome to the Fear and Greed daily interview. I'm Sean Aylmer. Managing expenses for a business can be notoriously messy. Receipts everywhere, approvals being sought, reimbursements being made. So it was only a matter of time before technology streamlined the whole process. This is where Expensify came in. The NASDAQ listed company started 15 years ago and now covers expense management and reporting, company credit cards, bill paying, invoicing, payroll, and travel management. It's a fascinating business. Anu Muralidharan is the Chief Operating Officer at Expensify and joins me from the US. Anu, welcome to Fear and Greed.

Welcome to the Fear and Greed daily interview. I'm Sean Aylmer. Managing expenses for a business can be notoriously messy. Receipts everywhere, approvals being sought, reimbursements being made. So it was only a matter of time before technology streamlined the whole process. This is where Expensify came in. The NASDAQ listed company started 15 years ago and now covers expense management and reporting, company credit cards, bill paying, invoicing, payroll, and travel management. It's a fascinating business. Anu Muralidharan is the Chief Operating Officer at Expensify and joins me from the US. Anu, welcome to Fear and Greed.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for having me.

Now, one of your colleagues will be speaking at the Accounting Business Expo on the 14th and 15th of March in Melbourne, which is a supporter of this podcast. The topic of the keynote is Expensify's three life goals; living rich, having fun, saving the world. Certainly aiming high, Anu.

Now, one of your colleagues will be speaking at the Accounting Business Expo on the 14th and 15th of March in Melbourne, which is a supporter of this podcast. The topic of the keynote is Expensify's three life goals; living rich, having fun, saving the world. Certainly aiming high, Anu.

Yeah, no one's ever accused us of not being ambitious.

Yeah, no one's ever accused us of not being ambitious.

Definitely. So tell me about those goals.

Definitely. So tell me about those goals.

Yeah, so a whole lot of what we do here at Expensify, although we are building this platform which is about managing expenses, tracking expenses better, making the job of accountants and admins a little bit better, all of it sounds mundane, right? No one could ever say, " You're building an expense reporting software. What a glamorous thing to do." That's not going to happen. But we don't see our role as building this product which helps people track expenses. Rather, we see this as a role that we play in helping people do less mundane tasks with their time so that we can free up that time for them to pursue bigger goals, for them to pursue the little joys of their life even, like throwing a ball around with your kid or playing with your dog or sharing a glass of wine with your spouse. Everything that you believe is joyful in your life, we give you more time to do those things. And so that's kind of how we approach it. And expense tracking is just one of the mundane things you do in your life, which we are currently eliminating. But our goal really is to make communication with your colleagues, communication with your friends and family, financial transactions that you engage in on a day- to- day basis smoother, remove all the friction that exists in the various touchpoints of such transactions. So all of that is time returned to you that you can do amazing things with.

Yeah, so a whole lot of what we do here at Expensify, although we are building this platform which is about managing expenses, tracking expenses better, making the job of accountants and admins a little bit better, all of it sounds mundane, right? No one could ever say, " You're building an expense reporting software. What a glamorous thing to do." That's not going to happen. But we don't see our role as building this product which helps people track expenses. Rather, we see this as a role that we play in helping people do less mundane tasks with their time so that we can free up that time for them to pursue bigger goals, for them to pursue the little joys of their life even, like throwing a ball around with your kid or playing with your dog or sharing a glass of wine with your spouse. Everything that you believe is joyful in your life, we give you more time to do those things. And so that's kind of how we approach it. And expense tracking is just one of the mundane things you do in your life, which we are currently eliminating. But our goal really is to make communication with your colleagues, communication with your friends and family, financial transactions that you engage in on a day- to- day basis smoother, remove all the friction that exists in the various touchpoints of such transactions. So all of that is time returned to you that you can do amazing things with.

What a great idea. Now look, Expensify has a really interesting beginning. I went onto the website and the founder of the company is a guy called David Barrett. And he lived in a neighbourhood where there was a lot of homeless people or at least homes without people in them, and he was inspired to start Expensify. Just tell us about that and how he went from that initial goal to creating Expensify.

What a great idea. Now look, Expensify has a really interesting beginning. I went onto the website and the founder of the company is a guy called David Barrett. And he lived in a neighbourhood where there was a lot of homeless people or at least homes without people in them, and he was inspired to start Expensify. Just tell us about that and how he went from that initial goal to creating Expensify.

Yeah, it's a pretty crazy story. So he had just sold another company before, and so he was sort of in between jobs, if you will. And he'd always wanted to do something that was more sustainable than simply giving money to people that are in need. And so the idea, he's one of your classic real engineers that believes there's an engineering problem to every one of these kinds of issues. So entirely in an expected fashion, he built this platform that allowed him to load up dollars into cards, so like Visa, Mastercards, and then put controls on where that card can be spent, and then putting those cards in people's hands so that they can spend that money responsibly on food as opposed to on drugs or alcohol, et cetera. So this was just his value system that he wanted to bring them the resources to buy food and make sure that it wasn't abused in any way. Now the thing that you should know about just banks and card companies like card networks is if they don't think that the product you're building has a business model behind it, they will actually don't care that you're paying them money. They will pull it. They believe that these kinds of platforms should be built in order for people to launch programs that have some sort of viable business plan because just like money, enablement networks have a lot of risk built into them. So for fair reasons, they're a little concerned about that. So down the line, he needed to build a business case so he could keep those cards working and keep his platform running. And so for that, he built this expense tracking software, like the barest bones version of it back in the day, but expense tracking software. And his entire business case was, " I'm building this for companies actually. That's why I need these cards to keep working." And they kind of were happy with that explanation. Then he happened to present it at TechCrunch, and what he noticed was by and large people would walk up to him and say how shitty their existing expense product is that their company has adopted and how much time it saves them to use this product, and they wish that this product was live so they could use it. And just over and over and over again, people ended up talking to him about how much this would improve their life. And so he actually kind of pivoted and launched the company and he never really intended to do it in the first place, but all the feedback inspired him to do it. And our growth story kind of continues from there. We are the first platform that built an expense management application with the employee in mind and not the company as our first priority. And that sounds so dramatically simple and intuitive, but that's the opposite of what everybody else was doing then and continue to do today. Because you sell the software to companies and companies pay you, so you just think you need to build whatever this one decision maker needs so that they can say yes to the product. We, on the other hand, built all these features that make employees' lives easier. And we went a little bit further and said employees can adopt this for free and their company needn't say yes right off the bat. They can use it and then submit via email to their companies. So most people actually adopted the free product and slowly a revolution so to speak would happen within the company where everybody would be using the product, but the company had never heard of us. And slowly company decision makers would say, " What is this thing? Why am I getting these emails from everybody now?" And then when employees said, " Oh, well, actually, we're all using this app, it makes our life easier. We're saving a ton of time," the company would adopt us. So that's actually how we ended up growing. Very viral, very word of mouth.

Yeah, it's a pretty crazy story. So he had just sold another company before, and so he was sort of in between jobs, if you will. And he'd always wanted to do something that was more sustainable than simply giving money to people that are in need. And so the idea, he's one of your classic real engineers that believes there's an engineering problem to every one of these kinds of issues. So entirely in an expected fashion, he built this platform that allowed him to load up dollars into cards, so like Visa, Mastercards, and then put controls on where that card can be spent, and then putting those cards in people's hands so that they can spend that money responsibly on food as opposed to on drugs or alcohol, et cetera. So this was just his value system that he wanted to bring them the resources to buy food and make sure that it wasn't abused in any way. Now the thing that you should know about just banks and card companies like card networks is if they don't think that the product you're building has a business model behind it, they will actually don't care that you're paying them money. They will pull it. They believe that these kinds of platforms should be built in order for people to launch programs that have some sort of viable business plan because just like money, enablement networks have a lot of risk built into them. So for fair reasons, they're a little concerned about that. So down the line, he needed to build a business case so he could keep those cards working and keep his platform running. And so for that, he built this expense tracking software, like the barest bones version of it back in the day, but expense tracking software. And his entire business case was, " I'm building this for companies actually. That's why I need these cards to keep working." And they kind of were happy with that explanation. Then he happened to present it at TechCrunch, and what he noticed was by and large people would walk up to him and say how shitty their existing expense product is that their company has adopted and how much time it saves them to use this product, and they wish that this product was live so they could use it. And just over and over and over again, people ended up talking to him about how much this would improve their life. And so he actually kind of pivoted and launched the company and he never really intended to do it in the first place, but all the feedback inspired him to do it. And our growth story kind of continues from there. We are the first platform that built an expense management application with the employee in mind and not the company as our first priority. And that sounds so dramatically simple and intuitive, but that's the opposite of what everybody else was doing then and continue to do today. Because you sell the software to companies and companies pay you, so you just think you need to build whatever this one decision maker needs so that they can say yes to the product. We, on the other hand, built all these features that make employees' lives easier. And we went a little bit further and said employees can adopt this for free and their company needn't say yes right off the bat. They can use it and then submit via email to their companies. So most people actually adopted the free product and slowly a revolution so to speak would happen within the company where everybody would be using the product, but the company had never heard of us. And slowly company decision makers would say, " What is this thing? Why am I getting these emails from everybody now?" And then when employees said, " Oh, well, actually, we're all using this app, it makes our life easier. We're saving a ton of time," the company would adopt us. So that's actually how we ended up growing. Very viral, very word of mouth.

Stay with me, Anu. We'll be back in a minute.

Stay with me, Anu. We'll be back in a minute.

My guest this morning is Anu Muralidharan, Chief Operating Officer of Expensify. So I mean, I think it's a good point, an example at this point. And I remember when I used to have to fill expense reimbursement forms in, the idea of being able to scan the docket, suddenly that revolutionised how I did my expenses. It just made life so much easier. And that was actually your company, Expensify was the first to introduce scanning of dockets.

My guest this morning is Anu Muralidharan, Chief Operating Officer of Expensify. So I mean, I think it's a good point, an example at this point. And I remember when I used to have to fill expense reimbursement forms in, the idea of being able to scan the docket, suddenly that revolutionised how I did my expenses. It just made life so much easier. And that was actually your company, Expensify was the first to introduce scanning of dockets.

That's right.

That's right.

So they're the sorts of things though that when you talk about making it easier for employees, it's that type of thing.

So they're the sorts of things though that when you talk about making it easier for employees, it's that type of thing.

Exactly. Like employees don't need a whole lot because the use case is pretty simple, right? You travel or you spend for whatever reason on behalf of the company, you just need to make sure that spend makes it into a platform, submit it to the right person. And if that right person thinks that anytime you submit such an expense, you should add a description or you should add a comment or you should categorise it, if they want something like that every single time so you can get reimbursed fast, then you want this product to just kind of tell you what that is. So you don't have to think about this or text someone and ask them and then come back and do it. So your use case is very simple. So we just had to kind of build it from the ground up with the employees' use case in mind and every other bell and whistle out there caters to the company, but the employees also kind of don't care, so long as their work is done fast.

Exactly. Like employees don't need a whole lot because the use case is pretty simple, right? You travel or you spend for whatever reason on behalf of the company, you just need to make sure that spend makes it into a platform, submit it to the right person. And if that right person thinks that anytime you submit such an expense, you should add a description or you should add a comment or you should categorise it, if they want something like that every single time so you can get reimbursed fast, then you want this product to just kind of tell you what that is. So you don't have to think about this or text someone and ask them and then come back and do it. So your use case is very simple. So we just had to kind of build it from the ground up with the employees' use case in mind and every other bell and whistle out there caters to the company, but the employees also kind of don't care, so long as their work is done fast.

The business is almost an offshoot from what David Barrett was initially thinking about. Does that whole social conscience still live on in Expensify?

The business is almost an offshoot from what David Barrett was initially thinking about. Does that whole social conscience still live on in Expensify?

It does. Actually, it's ironic that it started with that social conscience and then now we've kind of come full circle back to it. And the way that we envision making a change to society isn't, like I said, even from the beginning, this was the whole reason he built a card platform as opposed to giving people money, we want to build sustainable change. And it needn't be massive. Like although it says save the world, you don't save the world overnight. You save the world iteratively by taking little pieces of action that has a small change, small effect in one part of society, and then it kind of grows, right? That's the way to affect any kind of major change. So what we want to build, and in a sense we have already but we want to expand the use case and make it more known, is a platform that enables very easy collaboration. So for instance, what I mean by that is say a couple of people in your local community want to get together because they want to fight climate change or they want to build, say, a small green paradise for each other. They want to do something small, but something that has some sort of material change to the quality of life in their neighbourhood. What doesn't exist today is some kind of platform that allows them all to come together, plan, put in money based on whatever plan they develop, spend that money, have accountability for how that money was spent, look at the impact of what they did, share photos and sort of come full circle and maybe do a debrief at the end for what worked and what didn't work, and then have continuity. That's the sort of collaboration that we want to make easier, along with the financial transactions that go along with it via our platform. And if you stretch that out further, people all over the world could come together and do something together. And we want to create also this aspect of discovery within our platform. But if we share the same passion for doing something, we could come together on this platform to do it. And you live in Australia and I live in Oakland, and it doesn't matter. The platform enables a connection. Like that's the sort of thing we want to do.

It does. Actually, it's ironic that it started with that social conscience and then now we've kind of come full circle back to it. And the way that we envision making a change to society isn't, like I said, even from the beginning, this was the whole reason he built a card platform as opposed to giving people money, we want to build sustainable change. And it needn't be massive. Like although it says save the world, you don't save the world overnight. You save the world iteratively by taking little pieces of action that has a small change, small effect in one part of society, and then it kind of grows, right? That's the way to affect any kind of major change. So what we want to build, and in a sense we have already but we want to expand the use case and make it more known, is a platform that enables very easy collaboration. So for instance, what I mean by that is say a couple of people in your local community want to get together because they want to fight climate change or they want to build, say, a small green paradise for each other. They want to do something small, but something that has some sort of material change to the quality of life in their neighbourhood. What doesn't exist today is some kind of platform that allows them all to come together, plan, put in money based on whatever plan they develop, spend that money, have accountability for how that money was spent, look at the impact of what they did, share photos and sort of come full circle and maybe do a debrief at the end for what worked and what didn't work, and then have continuity. That's the sort of collaboration that we want to make easier, along with the financial transactions that go along with it via our platform. And if you stretch that out further, people all over the world could come together and do something together. And we want to create also this aspect of discovery within our platform. But if we share the same passion for doing something, we could come together on this platform to do it. And you live in Australia and I live in Oakland, and it doesn't matter. The platform enables a connection. Like that's the sort of thing we want to do.

Anu, it's a great story. Thank you for talking to Fear and Greed.

Anu, it's a great story. Thank you for talking to Fear and Greed.

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

That was Anu Muralidharan, Chief Operating Officer of Expensify. Expensify will be at the Accounting Business Expo in Melbourne on March 14 and 15, which is a supporter of this podcast. Just search Accounting Business Expo for more. This is the Fear and Greed daily interview. Join us every morning for the full episode of Fear and Greed, Australia's most popular business podcast. I'm Sean Aylmer. Enjoy your day.

That was Anu Muralidharan, Chief Operating Officer of Expensify. Expensify will be at the Accounting Business Expo in Melbourne on March 14 and 15, which is a supporter of this podcast. Just search Accounting Business Expo for more. This is the Fear and Greed daily interview. Join us every morning for the full episode of Fear and Greed, Australia's most popular business podcast. I'm Sean Aylmer. Enjoy your day.