For many business owners, there is a long list of daily accounting tasks. Some of them may include updating financial data, reconciling cash and receipts, reconciling and reviewing transactions, recording payments, depositing cash and checks, etc.
While working for one of the country’s largest banks in the commercial division, Mitesh Ajmera of Appleton identified this problem as a problem to be addressed. He believed he could create efficiencies to streamline communications and operations.
“I had the first idea for a startup when I was leading sales for a commercial bank,†Ajmera said. “In 2011, I started a digital payment business – a technology company to help schools collect fees online.”
Hailing from Nagpur, India, Ajmera said the company, Feecounter, was started as a passionate project to bridge the big gap in payment convenience in educational transactions. It has quickly become the preferred payment partner of the biggest names in education in India when it comes to admission and fee payment.
It has been so successful that it was acquired in 2013 and is now part of an Inc. 5000 organization.
Ajmera has not rested on its laurels. He had already obtained an MBA, but added to his entrepreneurial training studies at Harvard Business School and the INSEAD Entrepreneurship Bootcamp. Then, in 2014, he and his wife moved from India to the United States when his wife agreed to a transfer with Kimberly-Clark.
“When we got here, I started working in the startup business and met a lot of entrepreneurs who wanted help with technology applications,†Ajmera said. “I created Torus Tech Company in 2016 and ran it for about five years. “
In August, he decided to focus full time on his new startup, Punch App, Inc.
“Growing up in a family that owned a retail car business and working with companies during my banking career, I noticed there was a lot of technology and resources, but in business operations, many processes are still archaic and revolve around voicemail and fax, â€Ajmera said.
He saw this as an opportunity and developed Punch, a messaging platform that enables wholesale e-commerce. He says it covers everything across the entire transaction, from digital catalogs and broadcasts, to billing and payments.
“Punch combines email, phone and voicemail under a single interface,†he said.
For sellers, this makes it easy to sell, deliver promotions and discounts with one click, invoice fulfillment orders right from the app, collect payments the next day, and all communication in one place.
For buyers, it offers chat-based orders and payments, the ability to place orders through seller catalogs any time of the day or night, interaction with suppliers, easy ordering, and notification of sales promotions.
“It is designed to replace the fragmented communications that occur over phone, email, fax (‘gasp’), e-commerce applications, sales representative visits and postal services, and bring them all together in one chat box.” , Ajmera said.
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If the reaction of those on board is any indication, he is looking at his next big thing. As the business model evolves, it relies heavily on customer feedback to create the best product available. He hired two developers and a customer success manager to facilitate the growth.
Changes have already been made. Initially, Ajmera thought most customers would be in the food and beverage industry, but as other industries have embraced it, he believes it will be beneficial for almost any business-to-business transaction. He believes his app can become the best in its class.
“Sometimes when you have a problem that you want to solve you may find that someone else does it better, and by doing a landscape scan I have seen a way to approach the problem differently,†he said. he declared. “I think of most areas as airspace. There may be 16 flights between Appleton and New York, but there is still so much more room to fly.
In this space, he thinks he has found a way to improve the processes. Marketing has included a “switch wheel” where Punch becomes a network standard and companies contact other companies as adopters so that they are on the same system.
With this success likely and his others, Ajmera says he looks more like his loved ones.
“When I started my career, I was probably the only child in the family to hold a position in the company; everyone else in my family was a business owner, â€he said. “I enjoyed corporate life, but it’s exciting to be able to add value and create excitement in this space.
And he says the entrepreneurial journey has been a lifelong learning experience.
“There are things I learned as a founder and entrepreneur,†he added. “Looking back I see mistakes and mini-failures, but as an entrepreneur you have to make the most of all mistakes, bring them together and make them work.â€
Tina Dettman-Bielefeldt is part owner of DB Commercial Real Estate in Green Bay and former District Manager of SCORE, Wisconsin.