Deskera Redefines “End-to-End” Business Software for SMBs (True Story)

By Sarabeth Lewis

Meet Deskera, the all-in-one suite of cloud-based business software built for SMBs. But this isn’t just accounting software. Nope.

We’re talking:

Accounting
Payroll
Human Resources
CRM
Email marketing campaigns
Product & Inventory Management
Quotes & Invoices
With more on the way…

Oh, and since 2019 this team has launched an award-winning mobile app, raised a $100M Series A, and gotten 300K new users within 6 months, all during a pandemic — with almost zero marketing.

It appears this team is onto something.

It’s one of the most comprehensive SaaS products we’ve ever launched on AppSumo, rivaling tools like Zoho, Quickbooks, Xero, and Zendesk.

“SMBs don’t buy software. They buy solutions to their problems.” – Shashank Dixit

Check out Deskera’s LTD promotion that dropped today.

But unfortunately in the world of SaaS, terms like “end-to-end business software” can lose their meaning. So we synced up with Deskera’s CEO, Shashank Dixit, to learn what Deskera is truly all about.

Can You Introduce Us to Deskera?

Deskera was founded in 2008 as an ERP and accounting software for SMBs in Southeast Asia. But a lot has changed since then.

Today, we focus on three core competencies: Books, CRM, and People. I would say most of our customers come for the accounting but stay for everything else.

Because under the hood of each of these products is all the accounting, payroll, inventory, invoicing, CRM, helpdesk, and HR tools that a modern SMB needs to grow. Deskera is an all-in-one suite of cloud-based business software that’s fully integrated and ready for SMBs right out of the box. The pricing is also intentionally SMB-friendly.

SMBs don’t buy software. They buy solutions to their problems. We help SMBs grow by connecting their entire business in the cloud — and giving them full control, right in their pocket.

How Has Your Product Evolved Over Time?

If you look at the interfaces of the biggest accounting, HR, and CRM software, everything is outdated. Go look at SAP. These products aren’t very user-friendly. So we wanted to do a total refresh of everything to invest in the long-term success of our users.

In the late 2010s, as we were interacting with thousands of customers, listening to their needs, we started to realize that the vast majority of our users are primarily on mobile. We also took a hard look at our product interface, doing a major UX and tech stack overhaul in 2019. We moved everything to the cloud and prioritized the mobile experience. We moved our website from WordPress to React, migrated to Ghost for the blog, and chose React Native for the app. And we raised a $100M Series A in the process.

This process was super labor-intensive, but it worked. Since we launched the app in late 2019, our app has won a 2020 Webby Award for “Best Visual Design – Function” and brought in 300K+ new Deskera users, validating all the work we put into our mobile-first approach.

One of the best things about mobile is that it saves our customers the money from having to buy so much other hardware. Desktop? You can if you want, but mobile has every functionality you need. Barcode reader? No need because you can scan barcodes with your phone and instantly see the product on your phone. These are expenses that we’re saving Deskera customers every day.

But after making progress across the Asian SME market, our team is gearing up to expand worldwide — which is a big reason we’re talking today.

Where Would You Position Deskera in the Business Software Market?

For some reason, North American SMB companies don’t have a single true end-to-end business software solution. The current market for SMBs is highly fractured: Everyone gets separate tools for their CRM, accounting, inventory, payroll, invoicing, HR, etc. Businesses must invest a lot of money in SaaS products that may or may not integrate with each other.

“Deskera’s premise is simple: If enterprise companies can solve this problem, why can’t SMBs? Now they can.” – Shashank Dixit

And the result is that it’s terribly cumbersome to manage your business.

Large U.S. enterprise companies have solved this problem with solutions like SAP or Oracle. Deskera’s premise is simple: If enterprise companies can solve this problem, why can’t SMBs? Now they can.

Let’s give a concrete example: If you want to set up a commission-based sales team, you currently need at least three different software tools to do it:

CRM to track leads and funnels
ERP software to document invoices
Payroll system to pay out commissions

If you’re big enough to even be able to afford Salesforce, you still need payroll software. If you get HubSpot, you still need accounting and ERP tools. Each of these apps is only designed to do a small part of the work.

With Deskera, you can set up commissions out of the box — because it’s truly end-to-end.

So What’s In the Future for Deskera?

We’ve got more product lines in the pipeline, including Deskera Stores coming out in Q4 of 2020. Due to COVID, our customers needed to get products online fast — sometimes only 5-6 products — but didn’t want to pay for Shopify or custom-build an ecommerce solution. So we’re excited about that launch.

Ah yes, there’s also another launch: AppSumo.

As a newcomer to the North American market, we’re launching with AppSumo because we share a common ethos: That “the tools you need to run your business shouldn’t put you out of business.” That is just spot-on.

What I want SMBs to know is that when you need to grow past the startup phase, Deskera is an fully integrated suite of business software that will help you get there without all the headache. We’re deeply committed to listening to our customers and helping them grow.

You’re as good as the tools you use. If your tools are limited, no matter how good you are you can never rise to your potential. Our goal is to remove that barrier to SMB growth.

Why AppSumo? What’s In It for Sumo-lings?

I can’t stop talking about the fact that generally what we’ve found is that the whole market is condescending to SMBs. Netsuite is the product that serves this market, but it will cost you at least five figures for a license. The big names in software in this space are just prohibitively expensive.

Everyone gets pigeon-holed into using 2-3 different tools. Most people end up running everything through Quickbooks. But if you need effective multi-location inventory? Nope. If you need customer support? Don’t have high expectations. All of this is a big tax that SMBs have to pay.

This means that small businesses often get blamed for being small.

But did you know that 90% of businesses in America employ fewer than 20 people? And if you include sole proprietors, that bumps the number to 98%. We constantly praise big tech, but the truth is: SMBs are modern-day commerce in North America.

And SMBs need all the support they can get during this worldwide crisis.

So that’s why we’re running this AppSumo deal: We really want Sumo-lings to take this product to market and change the way the market has been operating.

The cool thing about stacking Deskera codes is that Sumo-lings can launch their agencies, careers, and programs around an all-in-one business software solution that gives them what they need to help clients with everything from accounting to HR.

SMBs all over the country are looking for their next bookkeeper, accounting, payroll specialist.

Let’s say you want to launch a small payroll provider: Deskera will empower you to scale your services around that. With Deskera, you get everything: payroll features, but also the other HRIS, CRM, and accounting software you can use to potentially land and expand your service offerings.

If you’re a fractional head of sales, you can stack codes to use this CRM across many different client engagements. Then you can add services like building out the helpdesk feature or email marketing campaign functionality for your clients. Or even share the Books feature to set up a sales-based commission structure for your clients out of the box.

Deskera will help you go horizontal or vertical. Or just buy it to cut the ongoing cost of the various accounting, CRM, inventory, email marketing, payroll, and HR tools you use to run your business.

Two more cool things for Sumo-lings who stack 3+ codes:

Get your own affiliate landing page — If you stack codes, we’ll give you your own page to share to earn commissions for everyone who signs up for Deskera using your link. Plus, if we get 5K affiliates who take Deskera to market, we will have broken Quickbooks’ monopoly. Pretty cool.
REST APIs — We have APIs that allow you to whitelabel this software and use the code to build your own applications.

Where to find the Deskera LTD

To celebrate making moves into the North American market, Deskera is available on AppSumo starting at $149 LTD for a limited time.