Why Rounded

Why Rounded?‍

I completely echo the sentiments from his first journal post about openness and transparency and I’m excited to have this opportunity to talk so directly to the Rounded community.

Being responsible for partnerships and growth, most of my time is spent answering a simple question. “Why Rounded?” Whether I am talking to family and friends, potential business partners, investors or new users, this is the question I answer most frequently.

What I have come to realise is, in the answer to this question, lies some real insight into what drives us as a company. So I wanted to share that with you all in the hope that it sheds some light onto why we do what we do.

Belief

The first time I met Grant his complete belief in Rounded was very apparent (and quite infectious!). After all he had built a solution to his own problem which is always a great start for any product and he knew for certain there were many others like him who were the same.

Everything we have learned in the last few months has confirmed the belief that Rounded is a great product and there is a real need for it.

Timing

Technology is changing everything. You now no longer need to be in any particular physical location to do work.The approach to building a career is also changing with many professionals now taking the independent route and enjoying the flexibility to pick and choose what they work on via freelancing.

In fact if you look in any coffee shop with free Wi-Fi these days you will undoubtedly see a plethora of people staring into laptop screens working (on a side note I have a comprehensive list of coffee shops in Melbourne that offer free Wi-Fi!).

This has led to an explosion of products and services to support this kind of work i.e. online marketplaces, co-working spaces, online forums and communities. Even the big banks in Australia are all jockeying to position themselves as the go-to bank for Micro-Business solutions which traditionally is a market which has been been ignored and under-serviced.

The time is right to become a market leader in this space and we are working as hard as we can to take advantage of that.

Purpose

There are lots of accounting apps and solutions out there. It’s a really crowded market and there’s some very well established players who seemingly have a banner ad on every billboard on the internet. If you don’t believe me google “Accounting Software” and see how long and how often you are re-targeted with ads!

This makes standing out really hard especially when you don’t have an unlimited marketing budget. However we have been able to stand out, in large part because of the fact we are the only app in the Australian marketplace which has been designed specifically for Freelancers.

And it’s this simple premise which really motivates Grant, Igor and myself to make Rounded into something special. We are hugely proud of the fact we can say we are “For Freelancers, By Freelancers”.

We believe it makes us unique.

So that’s “Why Rounded”

I look forward to writing again – Just as soon as I can find a coffee shop with free Wi-Fi!