Jessica Mah at Female Founders Conference 2014

At UC Berkeley, Mah and her close friend and co-founder Andy decided to build a Mint.com for businesses and joined Y Combinator’s Summer 2010 batch. Early press and $1.2 million in funding made them feel they could become the next Intuit. They hired quickly, rented a fancy office with a hot tub, and focused on publicity and user growth.

An investor’s question about whether she had ever fired anyone made Mah confront her reluctance to manage a weak team. Later, a friend pointed out that $80,000 in annual revenue was not the million dollars a year Mah had first assumed. She realized the company had prioritized fundraising and press over building something customers would pay for.

After mentor Steve Blank urged her not to fear a pivot, Mah wrote to her parents about the pressure and the company’s limited runway. She closed the office, gave employees time to find new jobs, and took a break rather than trying to work harder at the same approach. The reset helped her face the company’s situation and rethink what businesses would pay for.

The original product charged $20 or $30 a month, and only 10% of users converted, making Mah’s goal of reaching Intuit’s scale unrealistic. She shifted toward higher-priced accounting services, starting with a customer who paid after a pizza meeting. Mah learned tax preparation herself, earned an IRS enrolled agent license, and rebuilt the company from a living room while tracking revenue instead of vanity metrics.

As inDinero grew to 50 full-time employees and reached its first profitable month in January, Mah said she had become more grounded and stopped worrying as much about others’ opinions. After a venture capitalist warned her that some men might react to her strong personality, Mah chose to own her confidence. She closed by asking founders to decide how they want to act during both setbacks and success.