executive impact

MakeLeaps takes hassle out of sending invoices

2 Comments
By Chris Betros

If you find that preparing and sending out invoices are taking up too much time and effort, then Jay Winder has the ideal software for you, whether you are a freelancer or a company. MakeLeaps is designed to help companies and individuals reduce paperwork by making invoicing much more automatic and easier.

Well-known in the Tokyo start-up community, Winder first came to Japan from Australia at 19 to study bujinkan taijitsu (a martial art). After a year or two, he used his IT skills to establish Webnet IT, a bilingual IT services company, of which he is still director today. While running Webnet, Winder soon realized there was a need to make the process of invoicing easier… and the idea for MakeLeaps was born.

MakeLeaps began operations in 2010 with just Paul Oswald and Jay Winder. Last year was a banner year for MakeLeaps, as it secured $750,000 funding in Silicon Valley from several prominent investors, including Dave McClure (500 Startups), Naval Ravikant (AngelList) and Hiten Shah (Kissmetrics). MakeLeaps also took the top prize at last year’s Venture Day Tokyo.

Japan Today meets Winder to hear more. How did the idea for MakeLeaps come to you?

A few years after I started running Webnet, I started to have problems with invoicing. It took too long. I realized we needed some kind of software to make our invoicing automatic and easy. In 2005, I tried to find some good software we could use in Japan and there was nothing, so we made the decision to build our own software for Webnet. This software started supporting Webnet’s needs for things like creating and managing quotes, invoices and reports.

Then I started showing it to people because it was my pet project and I was proud of it. After awhile, people I showed it to would ask me if they could buy it for their own business. I’d hear comments like, “I don’t care how much it costs, I need it. We’re using Excel to do everything and it’s hard to understand what’s actually going on at my business. What would it take to get this solution into my company?”

What then?

I needed someone to help me on the technical side and I met Paul Oswald, who was good at software, through Hacker News. He was working for Sony in New York and he had taken a year off in Japan. We did a small project to see how we worked together. That was four years ago and MakeLeaps was born with Paul as my co-founder. Now it has grown out of Webnet into a separate company.

What are MakeLeaps’ strengths?

In Japan, most people and businesses use Excel to manually create and send their documents like quotes and invoices, unlike overseas, where everyone uses online cloud platforms because it is faster, automatic and there are no mistakes. For any person or company sending invoices in Japan, we can pretty much give a guarantee that they are going to see a 500% improvement in time spent on administration work, like printing and folding invoices which takes up a tremendous amount of time. In Japan, many companies only accept invoices by post, so in MakeLeaps we have a feature where you click a button and we print and send the physical invoice for you. You can be on a beach in Hawaii sending invoices from Japan to satisfy your local clients.

How do we get started?

You create a MakeLeaps account which gives you full access to all features for the first 30 days and then you simply put in the same information you would put in Excel. Once the invoice is finished, you can send it either electronically or by post or both at the same time. We also fully support consumption and withholding tax, everything you need to send invoices in Japan.

The way you benefit from it is that you don’t have to worry about printing and mailing an invoice ever again. Further, if the recipient is happy to receive invoices electronically, MakeLeaps will tell you if that company you sent it to has seen your invoice or not. It gives you insight into what’s happening with your invoices. If you send invoices regularly, you can just click duplicate on the same invoices to save yourself a bunch of time.

What is your revenue model?

We have a freemium model, where you can use the basic functions of the system for free, but if you need more advanced features such as multiple team members, or the ability to send invoices to tens or hundreds of clients, you need to upgrade your MakeLeaps plan.

We also have a “Send by Post” service, where MakeLeaps users can pay 199 yen per invoice, and have a physical version of the invoice printed and sent to anywhere in Japan. In addition, we also offer consulting services to help businesses with larger requirements get started with MakeLeaps.

What features are you planning to add this year?

Sending an invoice is great but when you can get an email saying your invoice has just been paid, that’s even better. Giving our users the ability to allow their customers to pay them by credit card would be really interesting for our users. We are looking at integrating with a number of potential payment processor partners to see which one would be the best fit. That’s definitely on the agenda.

As we build more features, more large companies will be able to take advantage of MakeLeaps. For example, as we started talking to bigger companies, we realized we were one part of a chain involving sales, admin and accounting. We have to provide good ways for them get information into and out of MakeLeaps as fast and efficiently as possible. As one part of this strategy, we are integrating with a company called Yayoi Kaikei, a major accounting software company. With one click, you can send all your MakeLeaps data over to your balance sheet in your company’s Yayoi Kaikei software, which is going to save our users a lot of time.

How do you market MakeLeaps?

We do some online advertising but the best growth engine has been word of mouth. Once you install MakeLeaps and try it out, there is a paradigm shift. I’ve heard clients say: “We can’t believe we used to do all of this manually – what were we thinking!” They spread the word on social media. Plus, when a company starts to electronically receive invoices from multiple MakeLeaps users, they start to wonder why so many companies seem to be independently using the software, and they start to pay attention.

Education is a big part of the job because we are creating a new market segment for cloud invoicing services in Japan. Sometimes it is hard for people to change the way they’ve done it, even if the new way is 10 times faster and more efficient. We offer full access to all features for free for 30 days so people can try it out. As far as I know, we were the first company doing this in 2010. Now, the market segment is very hot but we have a big community of loyal users and exciting new features. Last year was a great year for us.

Tell us about your team.

We have 15 people right now, software engineers, designer, sales, and office manager and so on. We are planning to hire more marketing and sales people.

What is a typical day for you?

I normally start working on emails fairly early in the morning, and will arrive at the office at around 10 a.m. I like to go out and meet clients and get direct feedback because listening to clients explain the challenges they face in running a business are all opportunities for improving MakeLeaps to meet those challenges.

Are you optimistic about Japan?

Yes, I am. The Japanese start-up community has exploded in the last five years. I think we are going to see some future world-famous companies emerge from the start-up community in the next 5-10 years.

How do you like to relax?

I play squash and love snowboarding. Running your own company is a marathon, not a sprint, so it is important to at least attempt to achieve a good balance.

© Japan Today

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In Japan, most people and businesses use Excel to manually create and send their documents like quotes and invoices, unlike overseas, where everyone uses online cloud platforms ........

Nonsense. "Most" businesses in Japan don't use Excel and overseas "everyone" doesn't use online cloud platforms.

Independent invoicing systems with little or no integration and no audit trail belong back there with DOS.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

I've been using the software for a while now. one of the things I like about makeleaps is the ability to convert quotes into invoices. It's also made it a lot easier to keep track of things and get the relevant information to your accountant. If you are a foreigner running a business in Japan it's well worth checking out.

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