Monetr

Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn cofounder) once said that if you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late. At Monetr, we're definitely suffering from this severe disorder, as we type =8-P

But as Apple just confirmed we're live... we could wait no longer. Here we are: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/monetr/id1633427570

A good DV should aim to fulfil 3 things all at once:

• Data chart + storytelling
• Proof of work
• From system of record to source of truth

Data chart + storytelling — humans are wickedly good at inducting; not so at deducting. That's why charts work so well at all levels: anyone can understand a good, simple chart and correlate a few causal relations (A causes B, C is better than D).

However, a single, static chart will rarely tell the entire story. A chart may illustrate the opening, the challenge, the action, or the resolution, but it is unlikely to convey all the story parts at once. To condense an entire story arc into a single figure, it must contain a challenge and a resolution at the same time.

Proof of Work: from my PoW to a team's PoW — PoW is a form of cryptographic proof in which one party (the prover) proves to others (the verifiers) that a certain amount of a specific computational effort has been expended. A key feature of PoW schemes is their asymmetry: the work must be moderately hard (yet feasible) on the prover or requester side but easy to check for the verifier or service provider. That's basically what we do on IG: every pic we post is a PoW of something/somewhere we want to prove to others.

If we move on to more complex tools, same thing happens: any mainstream productivity tool has an embedded analytics / BI feature meant to prove to others (managers, more often than not) that X employee or Y team or Z cohort of clients have expended a specific effort (time, money, both) doing N activity (sales calls, invoices reported, customer service ticket backlog, finished sprints, etc).

In these scenarios, the data-creating agent has outsourced the ability to collect and present data visually to her company's analysts. PoW becomes plural, a team's PoW. But the XY plot remains surprisingly similar.

From system of record to single source of truth — like it or not, the more you use an app, the more it becomes a source of truth. More so when the app is collaborative, as there is when all viral loops are unleashed: more users, more data posted, more time spent, more in-app conversations... WhatsApp, Salesforce, Gmail... we know it when we see it.

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Thanks for reading all the way. Our app has 3 basic features (collect, present, comment) that, hopefully, will achieve the 3 elements discussed above. Come join us!

Hi! Sharing a demo video for you guys to check our metric-tracking app:

https://www.loom.com/share/02870fa499f34368bc1230ad4711116b

We already have over 7 small businesses trying it, shipping new versions every 2 weeks and iterating on our beta testers' feedback.

Most BI / analytics tools rely on two premises:

a) BI is a top-down, specialized role
b) data input should all be automated

Product-wise, it means adding yet another dashboard, (re)training the management team, hiring analysts, more tool integrations. Awful.

Once metrics are owned by “others” (managers, tools, processes), employees lose agency and incentive misalignment soars.

Plus, most of these tools are too pricey and powerful for SMEs, adding extra complexity to businesses that could be run on Excel + Slack.

Show me the TAM! The Principal-Agent Problem is a trillion-dollar problem, my friends, inherent to all Orgs. The more complex a system is, the less agency employees have and the harder it is to extract the right information to act upon.

When employees’ and managers’ incentives diverge, information bias, moral hazard, analysis paralysis, micro-management... all become entrenched.

How to solve it?

Not all business conversations are data-driven; but those that are, must start, evolve and end in a metric. Charts are a top, inductive tool for humans to discovering real, actionable insights. By "blending" the best out of a spreadsheet, a database and an instant messenger, we can define a new, simpler decision-support system protocol.

That's our vision at Monetr.

Our bottom-up, contrarian bet is to give the employee a tool to communicate and share something she is in a unique spot to grasp. No stick, all carrot. Less dashboards, more peer-reviewed charts.

As Eugene Wei once said, we are all status-seeking monkeys. Hence, the more useful a metric reported and shared, the higher the employee's status among her peers.

This week, we're onboarding a multi-million GBP revenue, waste management business. We expect lorry drivers to report the number of empty skips available, on a daily basis.

Once the data is collected, their sales team will have a clear understanding of how many skips there are per site to, then, offer them to clients, segmented per different municipalities. Play on!

We're looking for +testers of a new iOS/Android app.

If you:

✅ own/operate a small business
✅ want/need your team to better align with key biz metrics
✅ are tired of spreadsheets/dashboards
✅ believe your smartphone can be your head office

Please do reach out and/or RT 🙏

5 employees (2 full-time, 3 part-time); 22 installs, 13 DAUs, 27 min avg usage per day... play on!

If you have an acquaintance running a small business and you think he/she could get better insights out of their ops/sales metrics, send them our way: https://monetr.co.uk/

Even the smallest business generate many useful metrics, key to understand what works and what doesn't.

And spreadsheets are the #1 tool to track and report those metrics. Unfortunately, 80% of business owners struggle when using them.

Classic spreadsheets follow this pattern: flat table → number → pivot table → chart → insight.

It may seem obvious to some of you, but ""crossing the flat-table-to-pivot-table chasm"" is a nightmare for way too many users, reporters and managers alike.

—""What if we flip it around?""

That's the billion-dollar question we asked ourselves over a year ago. Hence, our answer: https://monetr.co.uk/"

We are launching Monetr, an app for SME owners / operators (and anyone interested in reporting/tracking metrics).

What's the JTBD we're tackling? If you struggle when tracking your core biz metrics (too much info, messy dashboards, teams disconnected from key trends, $$$ software, conversations all over the place), Monetr is the tool for you.

I'd love all Indie Hackers who report (or who are reported to) to try it out. For over 15 months, we've worked very hard on solving this job. We hope we can help data-driven teams to carry real, valuable conversations in the context of a useful, social chart.

Feel free to DM me or reply to this post so I can send you and invite. Thanks in advance!