Bench, a Canada-based accounting startup that offered software-as-a-service for small and medium-sized businesses, has abruptly shut down, according to a
That sentence also shut down apruptly. How fitting.
? Here’s the rest, not sure why you’re not seeing it:
notice posted on its website.
Maybe it is a client thing, but I saw this especially fitting.
The notice recommends customers migrate to Kick, a new accounting startup that announced its $9 million seed raise in October 2024 in a round led by OpenAI and General Catalyst. Kick’s CEO and founder, Conrad Wadowski, posted a message on LinkedIn to former Bench users about how Kick is “working to get your financials back in your hands.”
This is weird. How did “Kick” have access to Bench’s customer list? Is there some relationship between these companies?
Yes, very likely the VCs for both are the same and Bench was sunk because kick has “AI” and you can make serious money on it as it just landed, meaning when the vcs drop off, the cash in will be orders of magnitude greater than with bench, that had already established itself and stopped growing.
Kick’s CEO and founder, Conrad Wadowski, posted a message on LinkedIn to former Bench users about how Kick is “working to get your financials back in your hands.”
That is, of course, until they inevitably fuck it all up and pull a similar stunt.
Host your own open source software
Do you have good recommendation for accounting software, specifically for a construction contractor? Because I’m sick of QuickBooks raising their prices constantly and repeatedly trying to upsell me on stupid shit.
I’m using GNUCash. I have no idea if it’s good or not, because that’s all I’ve ever used, but it works well enough.
Second for GNUCash - there’s a bit of a learning curve, but once you get used to it, it works great!
AsSaaSination.
Scumbags
No backups as usual: https://www.worldbackupday.com/
Very odd for that to happen so abruptly. I’m sure the juicy details will come out sooner or later…
Especially days before the year is over, which is probably the worst time for it to happen.
Announcing an impending bankruptcy has the potential to hasten it or, in some cases, cause it. Employees and customers are usually kept in the dark while management and investors know.
This is another example of why you should self host if you have the means to do so.
How beyond ridiculous. Anyone who loses data to such a fly by night outfit deserves no better.
It was around for 12 years, had 600 employees, and was backed by Sage, which is one of the largest business accounting packages in existence. I don’t think it was fly by night.
The founder pretty much said FAFO regarding them ousting him. So it was doing fine until then.
Here’s a link for those who find the previous comment as intriguing as I did. If someone has the fortitude to go on Twitter and get the full text of that post, I’d be interested in seeing it.
From Twitter:
1/8 I’m very sad today to see that @Bench has shut down.
I’ve avoided speaking publicly about Bench since just over 3 years ago when I was fired from the company I co-founded. I still don’t have a lot of appetite to talk about it tbh, but think at least a short statement is appropriate. 2/8 In November 2021 I went out for what I thought would be a regular lunch with one of my board members. We had just raised a Series C and turned down a highly lucrative acquisition offer. We had budding partnerships with companies like Shopify that were interested in the technology we were developing. We were winning. @Bench 3/8 The board member thanked me for bringing the company to this point, but that they would be hiring a new professional CEO to “take the company to the next level.” @Bench 4/8 I had been battling with some of the board members over strategy. They wanted me to take the company in a new direction that I thought was a very bad idea. I wanted to continue with what was working and with what our partners had signed on to distribute. I was intransigent. 5/8 Rather than continuing to fight with me, they opted just to just replace me, thinking that they could run the company better themselves. I was totally convinced that their approach would destroy the company. I opted to resign rather than fight. Because on the off-chance that I was wrong, I wanted to give them the best chances of succeeding. 6/8 I reasoned that if they were right and I’m just a wrong-headed founder who won’t listen, then I should just fully get out of the way so they can see their vision through. And on a personal level, I just didn’t think I could stand to watch them dismantle the company I had spent a decade building. @Bench 7/8 So I moved on. I started off fresh and built a new company (Teal). Earlier this year we successfully exited to Mercury. Things are going well and I’m excited for what we’re up to. @Bench 8/8 I hope the story of Bench goes on to become a warning for VCs that think they can “upgrade” a company by replacing the founder. It never works.
I’m sure there is more than one mom and pop outfit using them who thought they were just “new quick books”. I would certainly feel sorry for people who are swindled by con men, and this feels the same to me.
Drives me crazy that accounting software is SAAS. The last thing I want is my business accounting on someone else’s systems, regardless of how encrypted, backed up, etc.
Just look at the recent large company whose entire business data set was deleted by Google. If it were a small mom n pop, they’d be out of business before Google even responded.
I swear I see a business opportunity as an IT consulting service that implements nothing but local solutions.
Local solutions are best but these shops or businesses probably want something as easy as possible, so Software as a service
