We help business owners who suffer from lumpy cash flow see and fix it.
“Peaks and valleys”, “feast and famine”, “chunky”, and “bumpy”… Unpredictable cash flow keeps owners up at night. It bleeds revenue from the bottom of a business, and, in the worst cases, it kills them.
But the worst of it is completely preventable. The only way to fix lumpy cash flow is to see it ahead of time so that you can deal with it. See a valley coming? Ramp up your sales. See a peak coming? Talk to your customers and negotiate start, end, and deliverable dates to smooth it out. And you can turn away that not-a-great-fit client when you know you’re flush.
That’s what we do at Dryrun. Connect your accounting file and CRM, and we will build a forecast that will show you a single source of truth. Who owes you money, and when is it likely to come in? What bills do you need to pay, and when? How much do you need to earn every month to stay in business? How does your sales pipeline look several months out?
Equipped with that info, you can make the best moves to smooth out your cash, increase your sales, earn more profit, and make the most of your team.
Tell us about yourself?
My name is Blaine Bertsch, and I am Co-founder and CEO at Dryrun. Before Dryrun, I had a creative agency for over a decade. I learned about cash flow the hard way during the 2008 recession. My only option at the time was to pull out the spreadsheets, which was painful. I built some pretty epic ‘Frankenstein’ Excel docs that not only got us out of trouble but they painted the way forward.
I began to see the peaks and valleys ahead of time and had the sudden realization that I had left hundreds of thousands of dollars, or more, on the table. I used those spreadsheets as my guideposts. When a valley was coming, I’d ramp up sales – even if we were swamped at the time. If a peak were headed our way, I would move things around and negotiate with clients to smooth it out. Soon, our staff was busy but not overwhelmed, and we were able to make the most of every hour.
I started Dryrun to deal with this problem of lumpy cash flow and to give business owners a much better way forward than a spreadsheet.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Talk to your best customers more and take a much deeper dive into what makes them so successful. I found it easy to get distracted with what wasn’t working rather than focusing on what was. As a result, I was spending time learning about poor-fit customers rather than learning about our ideal customers and how to best pursue them.
What problem does your business solve?
We give business owners a fast, efficient, and incredibly easy way to forecast their cash flow, predict when they will be affected by the highs and lows in their sales and cash, and model scenarios to find the best way forward. The bigger and more complicated the business, the more we can help.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
My own experience and struggle to deal with cash flow issues during the 2008 recession led me to tackle the problem with spreadsheets. It was a painful endeavour but effective. I had the information I needed to make critical decisions and find the best path forward. After I sold that business, I turned my attention to Dryrun. I couldn’t believe my only option was a spreadsheet. There were a handful of other ‘cash flow’ tools on the market, but none were built with the control and flexibility a business owner needs to model their future.
What is your magic sauce?
Dryrun differs greatly from the vast array of cash flow tools on the market. Our competition often builds forecasts based on a generalized look at the past. That’s not how business works – change is the only thing that is assured.
Dryrun automates forecasts, much like the competition. However, with Dryrun, that’s just the initial setup, the starting point for effective forecasts. From there, we offer unmatched control so that business owners can model reality. Because the reality is that some invoices will be paid late, you will need to expand or cut back. You’ll need to make difficult decisions.
A fundamental difference with Dryrun is the ability to include sales forecasts as part of the mix. Those potential deals help you predict the highs and lows. Some deals turn into signed contracts with payment terms attached. Those payments in Dryrun give you a much better idea of what your cash flow will look like rather than simply tracking invoices by their due date.
Dryrun is built with the business owner in mind. It’s easy to use, understand, discuss, and model.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
Nearly two-thirds of businesses suffer from lumpy cash flow. It’s keeping owners up at night, costing them a ton of money, and putting stress on every corner of their business. We intend to be a household name among business owners so that they know there’s a tool that they can turn to in order to fix their cash flow once and for all.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
Getting on the radar of business owners of established companies is a challenge. Although we help businesses of all types and sizes, our usual customer is the owner of a multi-million dollar business that’s been around for over five years. The owners have been running the same way for years and simply don’t know that there is an alternative that would have a massive impact on their business.
How can people get involved?
Visit us at Dryrun.com to book a chat with one of our team or start a free trial of Dryrun.