Empreduca Finance Control Chatbot

More than 60% of SMBs in Brazil close their doors in less than one year due to the lack of control of working capital. Moreover, entrepreneurs of more ordinary businesses don’t have the proper knowledge of Excel and math.  In brief, they are unable to analyze the company’s finance status.

However, entrepreneurs are massive users of messaging solutions, such as Telegram. By merging the usability of Telegram with Artificial Intelligence and finance features, Empreduca Finance Control Platform and Chatbot comes to provide a fast and straight to the point solution to control SMB’s finances. All transactions are done through messaging, and the AI identifies and summarizes the information accordingly.Besides, several supporting graphics are available.

Empreduca finance chatbot provides simple illustrations to the small company’s owners, avoiding extra costs required by lack of cash flow visibility and allowing investment analysis.

Company website: https://www.empreduca.com/engl...

New entrepreneurs have a ton of responsibilities on their back. From production to marketing, it is common for one single person be in charge of every single step required to run a company. Financial control is one of these duties.

But most entrepreneurs don’t have knowledge or time to learn finance skills, including Excel and math.  Even worse: they don’t have time to take notes accordingly of their revenues and expenses and thus will lack control of the current finance situation of their companies. They don't know if the company have profits or losses.

The result? Initial working capital can evaporate quickly. Probably, it will be necessary to lend money to continue the business. Unexpected extra costs come up, increasing chances to close the business in less than one year of existence.

Entrepreneurs are also unsure if they can invest on a new machine or hire a new employee, because they are not aware of profit and loss calculations  demonstrated in a common income statement.

Furthermore, they are not aware when cash from credit cards and vouchers will be available, recurring to loans to cover gaps in their bank accounts.

At the same time entrepreneurs lack finance control, they do love messaging apps.

Taking this point into consideration, Empreduca (a mix of Portuguese words entrepreneur and learning) Finance Control Chatbot uses Telegram messaging app and artificial Intelligence to provide finance control using simple text messaging.

The entrepreneurs simply send to the Empreduca chatbot a summary of one finance statement, such as “paid 150 on products on 21/03” or “received 500 debit card”, and the solution will understand and summarize this info into the proper finance line. Receivables will have the proper date of cash availability calculated. The solution will inform if there is a negative cash flow in the following weeks, to turn on red lights to control expenses.

At any time, the entrepreneur will have access to graphics of sales, profit & loss, cash flow, and financial income statement (accrual estimation and cash basis), including an analysis of current situation of the company.

There is no necessity of Excel or expensive finance solutions. The chatbot works on iOS and Android. It is only necessary to have a smartphone or computer with access to Telegram.

Company website: https://www.empreduca.com/engl...

This solution serves well to entrepreneurs who have limited time to control their expenses using Excel or a notebook. Moreover, the chatbot will help business owners who don’t have finance knowledge to control appropriately their costs and analyze basic numbers. It is quite common in Brazil for entrepreneurs to control their costs by taking notes or simply by looking at the balance summary of the bank account.

Even worse, entrepreneurs usually mix personal and company accounts, creating a fuzzy scenario when it is difficult to know if the business is profitable or not. If it is not profitable, what part of the business must be reviewed closely? The chatbot will provide light and guidance on that. Besides, the solution will make it clear if there is  room to hire a new employee or if sales are more voucher or credit oriented, which usually costs more to the company. Furthermore, the graphics will demonstrate when the business performs best and when it is time to have savings available to pay bills.

One single person, micro or small ventures (less than USD40k/monthly revenue) are the preferable users to this solution.

The chatbot solution aligns with Digital Inclusion approach because it provides a fast and simple access to financial analysis, commonly available at expensive corporate solutions.  The beneficiaries are business owners not familiarized with Excel, entrepreneurs with lack of cash and time, or those who just take notes of numbers, using a regular messaging solution and informal - natural language communication.

Moreover, the system is available on any mobile platform (IOS and Android) or computer  via Telegram Web, with track history of conversations and graphics. 

The solution has been in use for more than four months at fewer than 10 SMB (cafeterias, restaurants, and pizzerias at most) and 10 business owners. Total number of personnel who work for those 10 companies is around 50 people. The solution development is including new features suggested by users (such as pricing tools, additional payment options, and investment calculations) and it is testing the scalability of the technical approach including few new customers monthly. All those companies are located in São Paulo, Brazil,  with no standard finance tools and  revenues lower than USD 100k/yearly.

Empreduca Finance Control Chatbot may be considered innovative as it uses a mix of messaging platform and AI, providing a friendly approach to control a company's finance statements. Empreduca uses the technology of Telegram and Natural Language Process (NLP) artificial intelligence algorithms.

Entrepreneurs regularly use paper and pencil to control their expenses or just review their bank accounts to check the balance summary. Market solutions for this purpose are expensive and demand time to setup. In the end, a lack of finance control is one of the top five reasons for small and mid-size companies to fail or resort to unexpected borrowing alternatives. However, at the same time, entrepreneurs are regular users of messaging platforms.  

The positive impact of this solution is to support an entrepreneur who has no previous knowledge of financial analysis to describe a financial statement in a natural way of writing, such as "I paid 1000 to energy on 15/05". The system will understand this is a payment related to facilities cost and will provide the income statement and cash flow accordingly. 

Empreduca expects to create a new and simple way of controlling the business, providing a flexible and straight to the point method, which will require only five minutes a day to include all the payments and receivables for such date. 

Any person with little knowledge of messaging solutions can use Empreduca chatbot and have a better control of his costs and expenses; in other words, the control of his own business. 

Empreduca is under pilot stage. It currently serves 10 companies, reaching around 50-70 people who work on these businesses. 

In one year, it is expected to have 100 business users, reaching 2000 people. 

In the horizon of five years, the plan is to provide faster and easy finance control to a minimum of 5,000 companies, affecting 25,000 personnel who work for those ventures. 

But the solution certainly has the potential to reach far more than this. With investments on technology and marketing, the solution can be reliable tool to support the financial control to larger audiences (certainly 10,000). The technology can improve the AI algorithms, provide better access to the tool (avoid concurrency to submit data, for instance), and make possible other ways to include data on the solution, such as reading documents/photos and understanding voice messages. 

The most effective impact goal that Empreduca can support is to promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all. Companies that are finance responsible can boost employment and economic growth.

In a technical point of view, being Empreduca a software solution, the most effective KPIs to measure the progress are: 

·       Controlling the number of subscriptions and client base for the chatbot, and 

·       Keeping track of their profits and losses and the income statement, which are some outputs that Empreduca is providing.

Empreduca database will have access to financial numbers of several companies. This data will be welcome to analyze business segments and prepare actions to support the improvement of economic health and financial status of specific sectors.

It is important to mention that Empreduca aims to reach ordinary businesses, such as restaurants, bars, cafeterias, mechanical repairs, beauty salons, and few other small companies, that generate thousands of jobs.  

I am currently carrying out the Empreduca project on my own.

There are contributions on the testing side of the businessmen from companies that are using the trial version. 

Besides, there is occasional paid support from third parties to support specific technical and content/marketing aspects of the business. 

I am carrying out the Empreduca project on my own. The skills that allowed me to go into this journey were my experience with consultancy, my time as entrepreneur and owner of a small business, and my engineering and programing knowledge acquired during the college and in the last four years. I also have a post degree on small business administration.

I've been working as a consultant for SMB's in the last five years on topics related to finance, sales, and technology. This experience built my comprehension that entrepreneurs are not controlling properly their finances. Besides, I noticed that entrepreneurs are under pressure of time. In this sense, business owners generally do not have time to fill spreadsheets, to setup online software, and to prepare graphics to help them analyze their company.

Moreover, I am a cafeteria owner, and among other activities,  I am responsible for the financial control of this small business. I was able to put myself in the entrepreneur’s shoes and had an empathy exercise of the barriers that business owners have on their daily routine.

Furthermore, I am a programmer since I was 10 years old. I  am an electrical engineer, and in the last five years I complemented my programming skills with machine learning and Python.

I also worked more than 15 years in software industry, selling rating and billing solutions to telecom operators.

At Empreduca, as a lone entrepreneur, I cannot bring relevant examples of diverse and inclusion. However, my other professional experiences can support my alignment with that purpose. 

At my cafeteria, I have a female partner. My staff presents a diversity of genre, race, and sexual orientation. We implemented a training methodology to empower the team and provide management skills. I also had the chance to work across Latin America with a great diversity of nationalities. 

In my personal life, my role model was my mother, who taught by her example the value of diversity and equity. She was a lone mother, who was the owner of more than five businesses and raised two boys on her own. 

When the time comes for Empreduca to expand, one of the objectives, for example, is to open positions for female programmers, who face prejudice in Brazil.

In brief, the team will be treated in a respectful way, regardless of their origin or orientation. 

I'm applying for Solve for networking and expertise, supporting to leverage Empreduca project to a next level. Through Solve Community, I expect to broaden my network and reach organizations that can help me to include more entrepreneurs to the project/client. 

Due to the high level and quality of those connections, being part of Solve Community can provide guidance to incorporate new technologies and technical mentoring of how to scale the solution to a larger audience. Transform Empreduca into an exponential business is one challenges that I hope to obtain support.

Moreover, I believe MIT Solve will bring an important support when it is time to consider an extension of Empreduca solution to other countries and cultures. The list of connections from the community will be a valuable asset at this stage.

It is also important to mention that taking part of Solve Community will expose Empreduca in the media, which will be a priceless value to the marketing part of the company.  

The Business Model mentoring is essential to prepare the right strategy to broaden activities to other countries and understand their financial realities, providing the proper product-fit to each new expansion. Also, the business model help can suggest the incorporation of new features to the solution, aiming to increase the number of customers.

Public relations support is a valuable asset from Solve and will have a tremendous impact on cost reduction at the marketing side of the business. The MIT Solve's notoriety can open doors at Governments and organizations to improve the range of Empreduca.

As an extension of the Public Relations area, the Product/Service Distribution can suggest features to achieve new customers. The impactful network from the community is an important aspect to reach partners that will help to increase the customer base and understand how to better attend other communities and countries.

Lastly, the Technology guidance will provide access to best practices on how to scale solutions such as Empreduca. Besides, it would be incredible to have a support from the community about new trends in the artificial intelligence environment and how to include those in the project.

As a start, being part of MIT Solve community will provide to Empreduca an effective support at technology, expansion, strategy, and marketing side of the business. In this sense, it would be wonderful to connect with Solve's peers that can mentoring and support those areas, such as the MIT Media Lab and the MIT CSAIL.

About organizations, a relevant support will be connecting and engaging with Government entities responsible to boost entrepreneurship in countries, such as: SBA in USA, Sebrae and Aliança Empreendedora in Brazil, IADB (Inter-American Development Bank), Sepyme (Argentina), Sercotec (Chile), Wadhwani Foundation in Latin America, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Portugal and Africa). Their support can open doors to expand Empreduca to understand other countries' entrepreneur environment and their financial realities, besides helping the expansion of the solution to such regions. 

Besides, partnership with local NGOs and entrepreneurship accelerators will boost the expansion of Empreducabot to entrepreneurs of ordinary businesses, who are the main target customer for the chatbot. One option to partner with those entities is a revenue share of monthly payments related to the usage of the tool.

Empreduca emphasizes the digital inclusion, providing an easy, fast, and straight to the point finance solution to empower entrepreneurs, making easier receivables and payments daily control through a common messaging platform, artificial intelligence, and informal language. 

New entrepreneurs and owners of micro and small companies usually control their expenses using pencil and paper or just observing their bank account balance statement. In this sense, this is a very poor and unreliable way to control company's finances. It is quite common to have such entrepreneurs recurring to an unexpected loan when they are out of budget or not paying taxes. Even worse, they are not aware if the business has profits or losses. 

On the other hand, those entrepreneurs love to use messaging platforms, such as Telegram and Whatsapp. Empreduca was built based on the merge of usability of such solutions with artificial intelligence, chatbots, and financial concepts.

I will use HP Prize for Advancing Digital Equity to provide more AI features to Empreduca solution. Besides, the prize will be helpful to improve the infrastructure of the technology, such as a more robust database. Moreover, this budget will sustain marketing costs to reach more potential clients. Mainly, the award will be a valuable input to keep Empreduca accessible to entrepreneurs with digital barriers to use a finance control system, but who love messaging platforms. 

Empreduca emphasizes the digital inclusion, providing a finance solution to empower entrepreneurs, making easier receivables and payments daily control through a common messaging platform, artificial intelligence, and informal language. 

New entrepreneurs and owners of micro and small companies usually control their expenses using pencil and paper or just observing their bank account balance. In this sense, this is a very poor and unreliable way to control company's finances. They barely are aware if the business has profits or losses. 

I wish to highlight an important figure: more than 60% of new business owners in Brazil are women. It is important to have an easy and reliable financial control to avoid having such entrepreneurs recurring to an unexpected loan when they are out of budget.

On the other hand, those entrepreneurs love to use messaging platforms, such as Telegram and Whatsapp. Empreduca was built based on the merge of usability of such solutions to artificial intelligence, chatbots, and financial concepts.

I will use Vodafone Americas Foundation Innovation for Women Prize to provide more AI features to Empreduca solution. Besides, the prize will be helpful to improve the infrastructure of the technology, such as a more robust database. Moreover, this budget will sustain marketing costs to reach more potential clients. Mainly, the award will be a valuable input to keep Empreduca accessible to entrepreneurs with digital barriers to use a finance control system, but who love messaging platforms. 

Empreduca emphasizes the digital inclusion, providing a finance solution to empower entrepreneurs, making easier daily control of receivables and payments through a common messaging platform, artificial intelligence, and informal language. 

New entrepreneurs and owners of small companies usually control their expenses using pencil and paper or just observing their bank account balance statement. In this sense, this is a very poor and unreliable way to control a company's finances. They barely are aware if the business has profits or losses. 

One justification that supports the importance of control finances is that the lack of cash flow is one of the top reasons for a business to fail in three years.  A digital and AI powered system to control finances can boost the entrepreneurship and avoid having such entrepreneurs recurring to an unexpected loan when they are out of budget.

It is important to notice that those entrepreneurs love to use messaging platforms, such as Telegram and Whatsapp. Empreduca was built based on the merge of the usability of such solutions with artificial intelligence and financial concepts.

I will use AI for Humanity Prize to provide more AI features to Empreduca solution. Besides, the prize will be helpful to improve the infrastructure of the technology, such as a more robust database. Moreover, this budget will sustain marketing costs to reach more potential clients. Mainly, the award will be a valuable input to keep Empreduca accessible to entrepreneurs with digital barriers to use a finance control system, but who love messaging platforms.