Delivering proactive, highly personalized service is a hallmark of Equa’s value proposition to clients. In this brief Q&A, we asked customer success team members, Kyle Croyle, and Andrea Stevens, to discuss their approach to delivering exceptional service during the client onboarding stage and beyond.
What does a typical day look like for the two of you?
Kyle: While Cap Tables are a key element of what we do for clients, there are so many other areas where we can deliver value. This isn’t the type of stuff that’s taught in any school. So for our clients, a lot of it is just learning on the fly.
Andrea: We offer companies a foundation that allows them to effectively engage with their startup employees. Unfortunately, a lot of these businesses miss out on this opportunity to reinforce what they’re building.
Kyle: Agreed. The system we offer provides a great way for our client companies to build loyalty within their organization through transparency. It’s all about exposing everyone to those numbers.
What sort of problems are business owners facing these days?
Andrea: Business owners are inundated with emails and people sending them different documents. And then to make matters worse, these documents are often printed and placed in a paper file.
Maybe in a year, they’ll need to pull together an investor recap. Or maybe there’s an investor that comes on board who wants to see the Cap Table. All of a sudden the business owner has to pour through their email or other document files to try to locate all of this information.
So how exactly does Equa begin simplifying things for founders and business owners?
Andrea: They often want support in streamlining their process. We never again want them to wonder if the Cap Table they pulled off their drive is updated. Then there’s the information necessary for compliance. Some of it could be at their attorney’s office, some could be in a file drawer. Or they could have no clue as to where it is. So there are all of these nuances that onboarding at Equa is going to make so much easier for the business owner.
Kyle: Most startups do not have CFO’s. And if they do it’s a part-time CFO, maybe even an advisor. But as the founder of a company, you wouldn’t want to spend hours dealing with compliance and investor documentation, cap tables, things like that. So there is simplistic value in what we offer because that workload is being migrated over to Equa. This allows owners to focus on the important business at hand.
And how can Equa help the business owner save on costs?
Kyle: If you are a startup you may have a law or CPA firm representing you and drafting things like corporate formation documents and other stuff. But because they’re so expensive, you’ll try your best not have to turn to them for anything but the most important matters.
So what do you say to those startups who are confronted with this yet are inclined to cut a corner or two to save on expenses?
Kyle: Yes, there are companies where the mentality is essentially if we mess up or don’t complete something, we’ll ask for forgiveness later. There’s this blind hope that the SEC, FINRA or other regulatory body is not going to care. But let’s be real — the ultimate goal of any startup business is to grow and be profitable as soon as possible. But it’s equally important for these businesses, however, to recognize that everything they’re doing, running up to that hyper-growth scenario, will be uncovered, scrutinized and audited eventually. That’s where the big risk lies.
Kyle, you’ve had your own personal experiences in running a business and dealing with compliance. What was that like?
Kyle: Yes. As a founder of a company, I was scared shitless about managing everything to do with document compliance, particularly those involving investors because I’m not a lawyer. So off-loading all of this on someone like Equa would have offered some peace of mind in addition to taking a ton of actual workload off my plate.
Andrea, anything to add to this?
Andrea: A lot of entrepreneurs are of the thinking, “I’ll build this business and then I’ll sell it”. Great! But if they’ve never done an M&A, they have no clue as to the kind of due diligence they have to go through. In fact, they often do things that make them less desirable when the day comes for an acquisition. So, it begs the question of why even start a company if you’re going to fall into that trap.
Kyle: To piggyback on that, while taking a frugal approach at the early stages of a business is understandable, a company may be opening themselves up to problems down the line. They could end up paying for it financially later on by spending 10X in fees to remedy all of the things that were left incomplete.
What’s the message you’re trying to convey here for businesses?
Andrea: That while it’s hard to have the foresight to address these things early on, I believe it’s imperative for their survival and ultimate success. That’s why the pricing model we offer here at Equa is so attractive, well within a startup’s budget even if they’ve raised a little bit of money. It’s helpful in terms of saving dollars while preventing what could be costly compliance issues. We’re here to help them get that foundation right.
Kyle: You are so right, Andrea. This should be viewed as a long-term versus short term proposition for businesses. Unfortunately, many companies are trying to manage finances in a way that has a short-term effect. Eventually, they could end up paying thousands more than they would than if they’re working with us here at Equa.
So what’s the first step for a business that wants to get started with Equa?
Andrea: Currently we’re asking new clients that we are on-boarding for some core documents like bylaws, operating documents, shareholder documents, member documents, and a cap table if they have these. At that point, we’ll take those uploaded documents, review them and make sure that they’re all in place and signed. Once all of this has occurred, we’ll have a discovery (check-in) call with the client to ensure that they understand what they’re seeing before moving onto the next step.
Next steps?
Andrea: Well, thismight involve developing a Cap Table for them. Or assisting them with any due diligence needed around the documents they should have in place at any stage of their business.
Kyle: The goal for the customer success team is to ensure that we’re delivering as seamless of a process as possible in terms of the on-boarding. We’ll require a number of upfront documents, as Andrea mentioned, but then we work hand in hand with the client in getting that information into our tech-enabled environment here at Equa. Once all of the data is in there, there are a lot of possibilities on what can be done with it.
Any final thoughts?
Kyle: Andrea and I believe that customer success should be inherently proactive. Thus it is important for us to develop a solid understanding of your uniqueness as a client. Our emphasis is getting to know all of our clients on a deep level through our discovery and gap analysis process. Through our team skillset, we’ll be able to help a business not just set up a Cap Table but also assist in directing them to additional resources that can help the business become more profitable and feel greater peace of mind.
