May 10, 2023: Finding the good in the bad

What is Maple Billing?

Maple is a consolidated billing operations platform that powers the needs for engineering, product, sales, and revenue teams for both self-serve and enterprise billing.

With Maple, you can quickly build experimentation-ready basic, usage-based or object/seat-based billing capabilities into your product with just a few lines of code. You can also streamline sales and contract workflows and track holistic revenue metrics as quickly as deals are signed without weeks of reconciliation.

What was the insight/inspiration that led you to launch it?

We have been leaders at many product-led growth companies in the valley for several years (most recently at Rippling, Dropbox, and Airbnb).

One of the biggest challenges we've seen is that billing operations typically involve a tangled mess of systems owned by silos of stakeholders. This makes experimentation with pricing and tracking of revenue metrics an arduous process with a lead time of several months or even years. We are solving this problem with Maple.

How has it been received by the market? Why do you think it has been so well received?

We've received great feedback from our customers, especially early-stage companies, that have not quite nailed down their pricing strategy. We give them the ability to experiment with both self-serve and enterprise go-to-market mechanisms with ease.

How did you know you were ready to found a company?

I've always loved trying something new. I've led small early product teams to large organizations that are responsible for billions of dollars in revenue. I've worked on deeply technical systems (such as Dropbox's filesystem at petabyte scale) and built brand new collaboration products (like Dropbox Replay).

Building a company from the ground up was the next part of the journey.

How did you meet your founders/know they were the right people to start a company with?

My co-founders are (literally) my family, my spouse, and my brother-in-law. I've known them for nearly half my life at this point. They are there for me through thick and thin and are never afraid to tell me what they truly think. That kind of trust and transparency is worth gold when starting a company.

What has been the most pleasant surprise?

Having come back to Toronto from San Francisco during the pandemic, and getting to reconnect with the Canadian tech community has been really heartwarming.

I am pleasantly surprised by their willingness to provide amazingly thoughtful insights, and feedback.

What is your super strength?

Focus.

I think I do a good job of tuning out distractions and nailing down the right priorities for maximum output.

What are you trying to achieve over the next 12 months?

Growth.

I want Maple to be a household name for billing for SaaS companies and to help them efficiently drive more revenue by streamlining their processes and not leaving money on the table.

What is your proudest accomplishment outside of your startup?

My proudest accomplishment is to be a mother of a boisterous 5-year-old who manages to surprise me in so many ways every single day. I'm also incredibly proud of having grown and coached several technology leaders (especially other women leaders).

Who are the Startups you admire?

Canny.io - build better products with customer feedback

Biorender.com - create professional science figures in minutes

Mejuri.com - thoughtful jewelry designed for you

Secoda.co - search, document, and manage all your data in one place

Rectimes.com - software to help you fully manage your ice rink

Learn more about Maple Billing here

With the latest bout of "bad news", we discussed what this all means for Canadian tech and what we can learn.

What is the news?

Over the past few weeks, we have seen several more announcements of bad news. Here are a few of the major headlines we have seen:

• Fintech Pillar and Billi shut down

• RenoRun shuts down operations

• Rumours of recaps of companies swirl

What are some of the differences between these stories?

The difference between all of these announcements includes a few things:

"Clean shutdowns" happen to early-stage companies with little revenue or product-market fit, in industries that are perceived to be competitive or low-margin.

Bankruptcies happen to companies that raised significant capital, have assets, but are not cash-flow positive, and enter bankruptcy to restructure the business to save it.

"Recaps" occur when investors believe a company can scale, but it is currently overvalued, and they raise money at a lower valuation, resulting in a loss for current investors.

Do we expect this type of news to slow down anytime soon?

Unfortunately, no.

There were a lot of capital invested in start-ups and many of them have slowed their burn rate. We expect announcements like this to be common for at least another 18 months.

What is the most important takeaway?

Bottom Line: Startups are risky and hard.

In normal times, more companies would have failed but in 2021 & 2022 there was always more money available.

Now we have a backlog of bad news to work through.

Looking for new space? What about Twitters?

The Twitter Toronto office is up for sublease.

It is 16,500sq feet of fully turn-key office space with all the furniture and equipment needed to get started.

Check out the virtual tour here and if you are interested email Liz Nucci

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Check out the interesting content, events, and happenings for the community here:

• TechTO: Retail | May 24, 2023: Learn from Lauren Steinberg, Amber Foucault, Drew Cashmore, Marie Chevrier, Kelly Brawn about all things technology, brands, and retail

• TechTO TechExit Social | Vancouver | May 29, 2023: Get ready to connect and meet new people in Vancouver! We're excited to be back! More announcements coming soon

• TechTO: Together | June 5, 2023: Learn from the top Founders and creators in Canadian Tech. Whatever your goals are, this event can connect you with like-minded individuals that will help you level up and reach your goals.

Want to showcase your company, events, and opportunities to 60,000 subscribers across the Canadian Tech Eco-system? Reach out to [email protected] to learn more!