In 2011, Petr Marek co-founded Invoice Home, formerly known as Wikilane, with Jiri Hradil.
Invoice Home provides invoice-generating software for small businesses, freelancers, and entrepreneurs worldwide.
They’ve grown the company to more than 8 million accounts worldwide, and last January, Invoice Home relocated its headquarters to WeWork on Congress in Austin.
The company was attracted by Austin’s tech scene, quality of life, music scene, and access to talent, Marek said.
The company is bootstrapped and caters to small businesses, with most of its customers outside the U.S. Marek sold a Fintech company, which he created in 1992 in the Czech Republic, focusing on mortgage brokers and insurance.
In this episode of Ideas to Invoices, Marek discusses his entrepreneurial journey, hurdles the company has overcome, opportunities, management style, and more that have contributed to the company’s success.
Invoice Home has become a prominent player in the invoicing software market. Small businesses help stabilize a company’s economy and politics, Marek said.
“I believe it’s healthy to support small businesses because it makes a healthier society,” Marek said.
Invoice Home can handle different payment formats and helps small businesses operate internationally easily, Marek said.
“We pay invoices through wires in Europe, here checks, credit cards or something like that, so it’s quite a different environment from country to country that is relatively complicated,” Marek said.
In the competitive landscape, Invoice Home is in, the key to its success is simplicity, Marek said. Invoice Home’s strategy has fewer features because the company believes primarily the focus is on issuing an invoice and getting paid, Marek said. Invoice Home focuses on creating a system that is safe, fast, and super easy to use, he said.
Invoice Home has many small business success stories, including a guy in Kenya sending invoices for cows and a scuba diving instructor sending invoices for lessons, house contracts invoices for roof replacements, plumbing, electrical work, and more. Invoice Home’s U.S. market is $1.5 million and $6.5 million internationally annually. It has customers in more than 190 countries.
It has seen an increase in business in Trinidad and Tobago driven by the Nomad economy in which people can work from anywhere.
Marek said that Invoice Home also evaluates technologies such as AI, Blockchain, and more, but it takes a wait-and-see attitude before implementing new technology. It’s also focused on data security and privacy of its customers, he said.
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