#42 A fireside chat with Uwe Dreissigacker Founder of InvoiceBerry and BlogHandy

 Hello and welcome to a new episode of the C T O Show with MeMed. My name is MeMed. I share daily insights about the latest strengths and use in technology while discussing their business benefits. I also share stories about startups, founders and entrepreneurs, and the services and products they offer to their customers.

Today I'm very pleased to have a.  That we have met on a, uh, on a community, uh, online community. And he's joining me here today to share a little bit about himself, about his journey, and about the technologies that, uh, he developed. My guest today is Uve Uve. I will, uh, let you introduce yourself. Um, what you have been doing, you told me some cool stuff, uh, in the preparation about how you started at the age of 14.

So if you can just give us a little bit about yourself, what you have been doing, and, um, a short 

introduction.   Yeah. Hi. Thanks a lot Ma, for having me on the podcast. I'm really excited to, you know, have a chat with you today. Um, so I'm the founder of Invoice Barry, an online invoicing software. I've been running set for 13 years now, and I've also recently launched a new product Block Handy, which is a no code. 

To add a block to an existing website that you might have built with WS or Shopify or any other website builder.  Um,  So about me, I'm now since probably 20, uh, 2 24 years in the game. Uh, it started with online games, that ad server technology, uh, have done a lot of the CTO o stuff, but also, uh, sort of a check off all trades, uh, been, you know, busy, uh, with so many different projects over the last two decades.

Uh, it's hard to keep count.  

That's cool. So, uh, invoice Barry is your first startup, right?  

Yeah. So in, in invoice Barry, uh, I, I launched it now over a decade ago. Um, it's an online invoicing software. For small business owners. Uh,  we've got businesses from around the world using us to send out more beautiful looking invoices and to also integrate with a variety of payment options.

You know, like Stripes Square, uh, we have some cryptocurrency options. Uh, we got a lot of that. In the last, uh, few months, uh, or last few, few years actually, people ask us about it. So we integrated with Coinbase and Coin Payments. Um,  , you know, I know, I know a lot of your listeners are from the Dubai area.

So we, we've got, um, actually from Dubai, some customers, I just checked it yesterday, uh, who use our crypto integrations, um, which is quite cool. And, um,  yeah, so there we, we helped over a million, uh, small businesses around the world so far with sendings invoices. Wow.  

Always, I like to ask this question whenever I meet a founder, so because I'll ask you also later on about your second startup, but I'll start with this one. 

What was the driver for you? Like what was really the motivation for you to, to start this business?  

So with Invoice Barry, it goes actually with both businesses. It goes back a long time, uh, with invoice Barry. Uh, when I started at CH of 14 with my first business, uh, legally I wasn't allowed to own a business back in Germany.

So I had a business partner who was, uh, 10, 15 years my senior. And he was actually legally owning the business. And then once a month I was sending him invoices. Well, actually once a month he gave me money. And then after a year, my parents' accountant told me, Hey, you have to send him invoices if you receive money.

So I started sending invoices. Uh, a year later, my parents' accountant asked me for the invoices and I said, oh, oopsie daisy, uh, I changed my laptop. You know, business is going well. I'm upgrading my laptop. Uh, and those files sounds the old laptop. Now remember, you know, that's like over 20 years ago. So back then we didn't really have drop. 

And select, and we didn't have any sort of SaaS, you know, invoicing, cloud solutions out there. So even back then, I was thinking, hey, there must be something simpler than using, you know, this u SB drive, plugging it in, and so on. So I had it in the back of my mind for probably 20 odd years. And then when I moved to the uk, uh, to studies there, after my studies, I was like, okay, what should I do next?

I want to do something with small businesses. This is just, you know, the people I love, the people I understand, especially micro small businesses, solopreneurs, freelancers. It's sort of my crowd. And I understood that the number one problem for them.  Just like simple invoicing. It's not accounting. They don't understand accounting.

They're scared of accounting. You know, when you start about something technical with your parents and they're just like shutting their eyes and nose, uh, and, and, and eaters, and it's exactly the same. All my friends around me, creatives, web designers, consultants, uh, someone who owned a dance studio. They were just scared to even discuss anything related to H M R C, uh, you know, the tax man, uh, accounting, uh, or anything like that.

So I wanted to make a very simple, intuitive solution. There was just like, you, you locked in and you can just do a few clicks and that's it. There's nothing scary about it. We don't use any jargon. We, we, we don't try to overcomplicate anything. Right. And, um, So that's basically how Westbury was born for my, firstly, for my own problem of losing my own invoices as a teenager.

And secondly, just, you know, for my understanding that I ha I, I'm quite lucky to have this technical understanding, uh, the business understanding. And so sort of accounting, understanding and combining those three things because most people are normally Isaac creative or they're, you know, sort. With accounting brains, but it's not very often that you have both things happening. 

Um, that's 

really cool. So you tried to solve your own problem, and then it turned out that you are solving a bigger problem for a large amount of, uh, I would say solopreneurs and, you know, maybe freelancers and so on. Now,  how long it took with you to,  I mean, let's call it version zero. That, you know, you started to evaluate it and how long also it took with you to tell yourself, okay, I think now it's ready for, you know, I can market it, I can ask people to start using it.

So h how long it took until you, you reach 

this phase?  So that's a great question and I've basically done everything wrong. What you could do wrong, um, according to the blog posts and books you can read nowadays.  Um, so the first thing is I'm a perfectionist, so I kept on delaying the launch until I was 200% happy about it.

Um, so that's always an issue of mine. Um, obviously also think back 13 years ago, we didn't have any no-code tools. So everything, what you see was custom coded hundreds of thousands of lines of code, uh, with a minimal amount of libraries or frameworks, uh, back then.  Basically, no, no code tools or anything used.

So we, we invented the wheel on a lot of places and  additionally to set. I gave myself a challenge of trying to do it on a shoestring budget. So remember, I've already had businesses before in Berry, so I had some money ready, but I told myself I can prove, I don't know to who I was proving it, but I can prove that you can start. 

A new business on a shoestring budget of like a hundred or 200 bucks. I can't remember what the total was in the end. So I was actually developing stuff for other people in exchange, uh, for web design, for example, in exchange for SEO health and so on. So in the end, I think the version two took around, I'd say eight to nine months, um, to launch. 

and once we launched after the first hundred customers, we had to completely relaunch because I realized so many,  um, maybe mistakes or just the wrong assumptions I had,  which were based on my experience, which worked for me, but maybe didn't work so well for others. So we, after, you know, the first hundred customers we had to relaunch, um, this time it was way much faster because we had actual, uh, customer feedback constant.

You know, flowing in. But I'd say in total, it sort of took us two years to get to the second version of it.  

That's cool. So you use pretty much something, maybe if people are familiar, there is a huge, I mean, um, community around this way. There is a book called, uh, lean Startup as well. So where the idea is you have the idea, you go validate it, and then you try to launch it in a very simple, Simplistic way, and then you, you, as you said, like you take feedback and you keep it enhancing and this. 

You know, I, I like to study startups and, uh, you know, entrepreneurs and I feel sometimes the biggest mistake is that people are so stubborn. Um, they, they, they say, no, the idea is great. I want to do it. I'm sure that it's gonna be a hit, but then they. Figure out it's not the case now. Sometimes it is. But, um, for people just, I like to give this information, and I think we chat about this, um, yesterday about, you know, you, you gave the example of, of, of Slack, for example, right?

So how Slack was not intended to be what it is. So I just wanted you to share this story with, with, uh, what we'll watch or listen to this podcast.  Well, yeah, you, 

you know, if you, if you look at it, um, slack, you know, now, uh, Obviously after they iPod and they were worth billions, you know, they got acquired by, um, Salesforce, I think last year or the year before.

And if you look, um, at their desktop app on Windows and on Mac, it's built by electron.  Like using Electron, which is basically just a wrapper for a web app. Right. And then you know, when we looked at invoice Barry to, to create a mobile app for invoice, Barry and I talked to a lot of development studios.

Cause mobile apps is not one of. See areas of my expertise. Everyone talked about having a native app developed for invoice Barry, because you shouldn't use something like Ionic or, uh, Angela Js or any of those, um, you know, frameworks, which basically just wrap, uh, your app. Into like your web app, into, uh, a wrapper in order to, you know, be served on the mobile phone.

And then you look at Slack being worth, I think, 20 or 30 billion US dollars. And they used Electron for it. Right? And, and, and it's just, you know, that's how it is. And, you know, the, they're focusing on what's important. And, um,  you know, just to add to your other point, it, it's very interesting, like even as an entrepreneur,  In my journey when I was 14, 15 years old, creating my first online game, uh, we ended up with half a million players, which back then, you know, 20 years ago was a ton of people.

Not that, you know, you still had to pay per minute to get into the internet and, um,  Back then, the first version of my game took me one weekend to create, right? Because it was bare bones. There was no design in the game. It was a white page. The links were still blue. Once you click them, you know, they turned purple.

There's, you know, like very, there was no bootstraps CSS or Tailwind or any of the CSS stylings said was it. But this first version, uh, got me as the first few hundred, uh, gamers.  , it helped me to find an investor and it then helped me to, you know, crew to half a million people, uh, within the next few years.

And, you know, it all started from like a Friday to Sunday, like hackathon, you know, in my bedroom as a kid, right? And, um, then already, like  a few years later working on invoice Barry, I already inflated it. I was like, no, this isn't good enough. I have to, you know, do some more.  And for example, with Block Handy, it even took us over two and a half years of, uh, secret like, you know, development time, uh, which.

I'm a bit ashamed about now, and we just said last year. Okay, let's just start launching it and get it out there and build in public. Right? And this is what everyone is talking about nowadays, like to build in public rather than in private, you know, just to build something. And as you said, you know, you build, build, build and then you realize, oh, actually there's no market for it.

Or actually it's a stupid idea, right? Um, I, I think I have a good hunch in business and, and with what the consumers want, but still,  There's so many side projects that didn't work out, and it would be a shame to work on something for, you know, hundreds or thousands of hours and then realize nobody wants this. 

A hundred 

percent. I, I agree with this because you know, from the books I read and the articles I read, this is very crucial that, you know, and the ability to accept that sometimes. Yeah. Maybe the problem I have it, I'm trying to solve my own problem, which is a good start for any entrepreneur when, when he or she they want to start.

But the market research, and if you don't have enough market research, your only.  Is to just launch it. And I think this trend now, um, of the build in public, I believe it's great because it gives the opportunity to test and pivot your idea very fast. Now,  I'm, I'm a little bit here commenting because back in the days, I think the reason why people were a little bit scared to do it is because.

Oh, maybe someone will steal my idea. Maybe someone will, will be faster than me in going to market.  But it was proven, I think. And you know, I need also your opinion here, but it's proven. I believe that ideas, yeah, they can be unique for a very short period of time. Like, um, just when you announce it, the moment you say you are saying, I'm going to build this, believe it or not, people will, will start to copy you.

So what, what's your take on on this?  

Uh, hundred percent. I, I feel, I mean, look, you can go to chat g p t or your favorite AI tool, whatever it is, and just type in something like, you know, give me 50, um, ideas for new startup. And then, you know, you can start, obviously that's a terrible prompt to give chat G t P, but, uh, you know, um, you know, to. 

Keep refining set prong to say, give me 50 ideas for startup in Dubai, uh, regarding I want to do something with coffee and with import export. And you know, like you keep feeding it, uh, some, uh, parameters and it will pop out all these ideas  and I mean, what is it in the end? It's just like some knowledge it acquired from all over the internet and yeah, so I, I do feel. 

that, you know, unique ideas, then not say anymore, in my opinion. Uh,  you look at the iPhone, you know, it's just like a bunch, you know, when I first launch a bunch of like improvements here and there and just all mixed together, right? Um, but at the end of the day,  like you look at, uh, in invoicing software, right?

So invoice very, um, Again, you know, like they were obviously invoicing softwares in the market before, but they were mainly desktop based, or they had like a lot of jargon or you know, like a lot of other reasons. And even nowadays with like  numerous, uh, invoicing softwares in the market.  There's still ones popping up, some very specific ones.

Let's say, uh, an invoicing software for  industry X in location, Y for age group set only for females. You know, like it goes very, very niche. And you know, this can be. Sort of a pivot. This can be a new idea, you know, to do something for a very specific market. Like you don't just have Facebook, but you have, you know, social networks for very specific, uh, niche.

And, um, it, it, it's the same if you look at Block Handy, right? Like blogging is there for a long time and we've got WordPress and we, we've got, uh, you know, all the, um,  other blocking solutions I would say. The whole point why we started blocking is because we sort as niche in the market for this specific way to implement the block for the simplicity and like all of the other features, right?

So we are not trying to compete on let's say price or like a massive plugin list, but we are trying to actually go back to the roots, uh, with all my companies. That's actually what I'm trying to do, and this is sort of.  Is it a new idea or not? I, I can't tell you, in my opinion, this is something going back to Chase and fried for, for me personally.

That's where I first heard about it. Chase and Fried and, uh, d h H Form 37 Signals base camp. Um, I read probably when, whenever it came out like. 13, 15 years ago, getting real, the first book, um, it came out and they actually talked about it. To go back to simplicity, right? To, to look at what Axl offers and only offer the top 3% of the functionality.

And this is when you look at any of my products. Since then, since I read this book, any of my products are based on that assumption. Take something complicated. Make it simple for the user, it's only gonna work for 90% or 80% of users because they're always edge cases. Someone wants something very specific and we tell them, Hey, there's a different solution, and we tell you, go to this competitor, or go to that competitor if it makes more sense.

Right, because at the end of the day,  Yes, I want to make money, but also I want to serve the community. I want to serve. You know, the small business owner said, trusts me, said I give him the best advice.  

Yeah, me, myself also in, in the consulting, um, business as well, from technology perspective, this is, um, very important because  at the end of the day, the goal. 

Any product is to solve a business problem. So, um, right. So it needs to be in that. And the other thing I want to say regarding, you know, about the innovations  and the ideas,  there's  Okay. Like there are two kinds of, I would say, ideas that you copy. I mean, there is a copycat and there is a version, which I don't like to call it copy.

It's, I would say,  Yeah, this idea is great. It was, you know, pioneering in whatever  problem it's solving, but actually it still have some friction to the user, and actually someone else will come and take the concept and build something more simple, maybe cheaper, maybe it's faster.   You know, 

so, so I, I, I just read yesterday regarding such an interesting story.

So, um, actually at Berry we've got a lot of auto repair shops as customers. Um, mainly Australian, us, UK for the auto repair shops. And then I read an interesting story. There was a guy in Austria, he launched an invoicing software or, or management software. We're focused on invoicing as far as I understand, um, for Austrian auto repair shops.

But he literally drove from village to village to an I, I think they're 2000 repair shops in Austria. So he drove to each and every of them and talked to them. So in a way, he might have exactly the same solution what we are offering, but his.  No, it's not the software, but it's his approach to find a customer.

Right? Because it's a traditional country. Uh, I, I just came back from a skiing trip in Austria. Things are very traditional there. And, um, you know, the auto repair shops in general, it's a quite traditional industry. So by him literal.  Thriving by car, stepping out, shaking someone's hand. This is how he does business.

And it took him years, but he built up a very successful business and he has the maturity of shops in Austria, um, using his software. Right. So now is it a copycat? I don't think so. I think it's more what you said. So letter Sing, which is. He just looked at the issue and he knew that he's never gonna reach these guys with Google ads or with face Facebook ads.

Right. He needed to get into his car and drive through the 

country.   Yeah. Now, jumping on another topic, because you mentioned a couple of times, so,  and I shared also on previous episodes about this topic, which is.   and I just read something today. Um, no code  with AI is eating the world. So let's start with no code first.

So  being someone who developed your first, um, SaaS based on a traditional, I would say it's not, I, maybe the word traditional is not the right one, but I mean, you will a, a stack of, uh, the very famous one. You have h uh, html, css, and JavaScript using.  Framework. Um, and that was available at that time, I believe.

But today, uh, and myself, I'm now in a bootcamp for no code and I'm there. I have the knowhow just, but I want to understand more about it. So  tell me, what do you think about no code and what do you think the opportunities are with, with no code?  

 Uh, great question. So in my opinion,  So a few things, um, to consider.

I, I mean, it's opportunities are just enormous, right? Like, because now we have.  People who have a bit of a technical understanding but say, might not be able to code, and now they can actually code, uh, with these tools rather than, you know, saving up money to hire someone of Upwork. And, um, I, I, I think just the speed of execution or even, you know, developers who know how to code, they just can use a no-code tool to whip.

A new product page very quickly. Um, having said, said, I, I, I've dabbled around with no-code tools a lot, but I haven't created any, um, business or, uh, larger project yet with no-code tools because I have some sort of, uh, skills to code it myself. And I have a development team as well. But, um,  What I really see there is one potential issue.

Um, you have to really know who you're betting on in a way. So what happened to us, not with no code tools, but with frameworks at Invoice Berry, is that early on we were betting on a JavaScript framework. Instead of Shake,  we used another one. And then like a year later, it turned out that the other one died off.

And obviously nowadays everyone uses Shake Query, so then we had to change frameworks, which, um, wasn't a nice thing to do at the time, but you know, it had to be done. Um, so sometimes I feel with the sheer amount of no-code tools popping up, you don't want.  Um, maybe jump onto the bandwagon of a new tool too early for like a production sort of website, because then what happens if that tool, you know, can't deliver, uh, it's not hosted on a good infrastructure or any, anything else.

You know, you don't want to put like, Have this learning curve of, you know, like, like going hundreds of hours, uh, going through the documentation, learning about it, and then just shutting down the tool. So I'm always a bit worried about that. It sort of the platform risk, so to speak.  But I mean, once you've sort of made up your mind what tools to use for your new projects, what makes sense?

Uh, I, I think you can cut down on development times. By 80, 90% in some cases.  Uh, you know, as mentioned with Slack, they didn't create a native app. They used Electron for the desktop app. Um, and so even some big guys say using it, when you look at Ionic, see, well,  , it's more frameworks than a no-code tool, but it's used by a lot of big corporations and even by no-code tools, like a lot of them obviously are now, they used like where you have like a no-code tool plus notion, plus something else all mixed up.

And um, you have people, you know, making 10 k, 20 k a monthly recurring revenue, uh, with such a setup, right? And they hadn't coded a single line of code. So I do feel it's getting easier for marketers who understand a bit of the technical side for sure.  

 Good. Um, I'll put my, uh, comments here and I would say what I feel, uh, o of course, cause I've been exploring this space for quite some time, like more than two, three years.

I even tried, um, just for fun. I would say build something.  What is really exciting about these tools, if you,  I, I have the technical background, but if someone completely strange from technology world, really they can put up something, at least back in the days they used to call it the mockup. Right? So actually it gives you more than a up.

It gives you pretty much,  you can call it an M V mvp, minimum viable product. So something that people can really.  It's a very good, uh, point to start. The other thing is,  which is very critical, what you mentioned is relying on the technology or the platform that you'll host. This is cause I had a chat also with someone, um, the other day.

And the same topic came and it's not only with M v mvp, sorry, with uh, with no code tools because just to remind people, like sometimes when, for example, I read an article  two years.  . Um, so there are people who relies on  Facebook ads, for example, and all of a sudden Facebook decide that they want to change something in their. 

Policies, and then they say, we, we lost business. We lost business. Same thing happened recently with Twitter as well. So Twitter decided to change, to put a, uh, gate, uh, garden gatekeeper, I would say, for their, uh, APIs and things. So the risks are always there, but I agree with you, especially when you are developing something.

I prefer not just to have the control, but I would say,  Backup plan. Right. Uh, I, I, I'm a guy who talks a lot right, of risk medications as well on cybersecurity levels. So part of this, and I believe risk should be  considered in everything now. Cause you know, like we still have around like five minutes time.

So just lastly, what is your take on, on AI and are you planning to integrate AI with whether the invoice Barry or with the block handy?  

 Yeah, I mean, of course AI  very interesting. Uh, I, I've played a lot around with it. I, I think at the moment we're at a time where we should all be playing around with it. 

I do feel anyone who has, um, bad, um, opinions about it because, you know, they typed something in.  , you know, coming back to the example earlier, give me 50 business ideas. Uh, they obviously haven't understood. If you go to a bar to your body or to a stranger, let's say you go to a stranger who doesn't know you and you say, give me 50 business ideas.

Um, this stranger already has more ideas. Because he knows in what bar you are, he can look at your face and you know, maybe at your clothes he can, you know, he knows if you're male or female, he, he knows in what location you are. So if you go to chat g p t, you first have to build or, or, or any other ai.

Right? I'm just saying chat g p T because that's a big thing right now, you know? Um, I, I feel people have to give more.  Of, of the environment, right? They have to tell more what's happening actually. So what we are trying to do to do, um, this year at Block Handy is actually adding a bunch of AI functionality within Block Handy because, um,  You know, we, we are trying to get like a holistic view on the plugging experience.

So the first step is obviously how, uh, can someone who doesn't have a plug yet, how can they get started? So they have to be able to install it very. Uh, in a very simple way, rather than WordPress, which can be very overwhelming. The second step was that we automatically take over your existing website's design, uh, with our solution so you don't have to hire a designer.

So now we are at this step. You know, all of this works already. So now we are at the next step where we're saying, Hey, um, how can we make the actual writing experience better? Um, I don't believe in. Asking ai, you know, to write an entire blog post. But obviously there are loads of things in between where AI can be helpful to, you know, improve your experience if it's in, you know, creating custom images, helping you to pick images, helping you with some headline ideas, um, you know, some keyword optimization ideas and so on.

So there's loads of new features, uh, currently being discussed in the team.  And in general, from a personal level, I'm really, really excited because, I mean, this is where we are right now with ai and I think by the end of the year we will, you know, make a massive step and it just will, you know, exponentially grow.

I mean, it's not gonna get worse. Right. And anyone who complains now no. About issues, it's like, of course the iPhone one also wasn't amazing compared to the current version, whatever it is, right. And.  You know, every time, especially it's the first few jumps, uh, will, will be massive leaps, right? So, so I'm really excited about that  

actually.

Me too. And actually, you brought an important topic. So before we close, just I want to add a few things here. Um,  I believe, you know, the, the prompt design and I saw something, I'm not sure if it's it's true or not, but they're paying a huge amount of money for, for the ones who, who comes up with, uh, with the right 

prompt.

Oh, I've, I've seen that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So there's some good 

salaries, a prompt, a prompt engineer. Uh, after, now I, I'm, I have a user of, um, of charge G P T, and.  I believe again that the, the opportunities is huge there, whether it's, you think about from technology or business perspective. And what I want to say is, um,  I believe also there's an area which is people, it's not taking too much.

Um, I mean, put a lot of, uh, observation or, um, comments about it, which is the other part of Open ai, which is the Dali two. And you know, this, uh, you create these arts and, you know, create videos and so on. So I think this is another area. Now we just get one minute. Anything you, you, you want to advise fellow young people, anyone? 

You know, looking to start, um, their journey in technology because my show is the Ct O show. So what, what's your advice to, to, uh, 

sure. To follow entrepreneurs? Sure. Um,  so I, I feel, um,  Trying to, to play more right? To, to specialize later on, rather to be a check of all trades, you know, to try to understand, um,  business and marketing and tech and accounting and numbers and, uh, you know, creativity.

Take some random, if, if we had university or whatever, you know, take some random classes that just, you know,  um,  Don't make sense maybe right now. So it might make sense later on. Right. So this is sort of what, uh, I, I only last year read, uh, Steve CHOP's biography and he talked about this, uh, um, class where, where, where he learned to, to write actually, you know, the, uh, calligraphy class.

And, and you know, it, it's a random class, right? But it  helped with the fonts on the Mac, you know, Later on, and it just has a ripple down effect. And it, it's the same what I can see here with ai. Um, nowadays just, you know, play around, you know, play like a day with chat, g p t, play a day with stable diffusion play, uh, with some other AI tool and just, you know, with all the no-code tools, right?

Like go on like a challenge, a hundred days, a hundred different AI tools or, or no-code tools, right? And she'll try to.  To play around and, you know, obviously learning by doing right and, and just,  um, you know, makes the most out of that first and then, you know, maybe, uh, niche down into some direction. But first, you know, just explore what's out there. 

Right. Well, thank you very much Uve for, for this, uh, I would say  nice discussion today. Um, and it's my first also maybe, uh, the people who will watch and listen. So Uve was generous enough to be my first guest as an entrepreneur.  , um, being, uh, you know, one who founded two startups. So expect more like this in the future.

I hope that you like this episode. If you have any comments or you have any questions, also I will share the, the profile of over if you want to connect with him over link again. Uh, so feel free also to, to add him and follow his companies. And thank you very much, and until we meet next time, thank you for tuning in.

Bye-bye.