06: Scale-up hits and misses

Every year, both new and seasoned business owners find themselves scrambling to prepare their year-end finances. In most fields, expertise grows with consistent practice, but small business accounting is different. Success depends less on expertise and more on being ready to learn or unlearn skills as needed, much like entrepreneurship itself. In 2019, Wave discovered how to become the single source of truth for small business financial records.

Wave started with free accounting software, but its success largely depended on their strategy of acquiring the right fintech startups so they could help small service-based entrepreneurs to make, spend, and track their money—creating the ultimate all-in-one money management platform. However, achieving this vision was technically challenging.

Then, Wave acquired Every—a business bank account for small businesses. Suddenly, everything was about to change.