How he built a localized accounting software for Thai entrepreneurs

Kridsada Chutinaton, co-founder and CEO of FlowAccount

This article is part of Tech in Asia’s partnership with The Jay Kim Show where we publish the revised transcripts from the show’s podcast interviews with top entrepreneurs. This is heavily revised from the original show transcripts. For the full interview, go here.

Kridsada Chutinaton is the co-founder and CEO of FlowAccount, a cloud-based accounting platform designed for SMEs. It is built for Thailand from the ground up, from online forms, invoices, to processes. The platform is also fully bilingual.

Chutinaton shares the story.

How did you become an entrepreneur?

I studied computer science, but I always enjoyed running my own business. So, entrepreneurship was something that I chose to pursue as my passion.

Since I was running my own business (a media company), I had to deal with accounting. I used all the difficult pieces of accounting software available in Thailand. I also tried using foreign software but they were not designed for local workflows and practices. So, we decided to try making our own, and that’s where it started.

Tell us more about the pain point you personally went through.

We started FlowAccount about four years back when the de facto setup for accounting software is desktop-based. So, if you look at the States or other countries, where cloud accounting was already very popular at that time, we’re more or less 10 years behind.

Back then, there was no online solution for anything. The desktop accounting solutions were specially designed for professional accountants, not for entrepreneurs who know only basic accounting.

So, the likes of FreshBooks are not available in Thailand. Even though we could use the platform, it didn’t work with Thai workflows like invoices, billing notes, and withholding tax. We still use a lot of paper also, as every document has to have a copy. Everything still has to be rubber-stamped and properly signed. And so, with all these Asian practices, foreign accounting software many times don’t work around here.

An even bigger reason to pursue such a startup is that, if you look at the big picture, our entrepreneurs find it hard to compete just because we don’t have the basic infrastructure to send invoices, write quotations, and manage our businesses.

When did you decide to leave your media company and pursue FlowAccount?

We did our MAP (minimum acceptable product) in about six months. We launched and, fortunately, won a few competitions. We were recognized at Echelon Singapore in 2015, and that proved that something as simple as fixing an entrepreneur’s basic, fundamental need could be a viable business.

Back then, startups in Thailand weren’t that big of a thing. Also, the probability of being able to get funding was still very low. So, we set out saying, “Hey, we’re going to do this. We think this is useful. We’ll probably find a way to survive somehow. And if we can’t survive, we’ll just go find more work.”

Tell us about the team.

We currently have at least 25 people. We started out with three founders: me, my friend from university, and my brother. All of us had our own businesses, so we knew that FlowAccount was going to be useful.

We were just a small team of five or six for over a year, then we got some funding. When we won at Echelon, we met some Singaporean investors, which led us to our first investment from Golden Gate Ventures.

Aren’t you worried that maybe the likes of FreshBooks would suddenly roll out a Thai platform?

Could you walk us through the user experience?

What are your goals for the coming year?

You went through Alibaba’s eFounders Fellowship. Could you share some lessons you’ve learned?

What’s your advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?