As the Intuit Prosperity Accelerator goes into its second year, many passionate leaders and founders of startups have come out of the program feeling confident in their future growth. Alumni Blaine Bertsch, the CEO of the cash management and financial modelling software company Dryrun, discusses what his experience was like in the Intuit Prosperity Accelerator’s first year.
Program participants learn how to better understand their end users, validate customer needs through rapid experimentation and position their business for growth. For Blaine Bertsch, the Inuit Prosperity Accelerator provided a valuable learning experience that helped achieve goals through expert mentoring and access to the corporate and investor network. With valuable interactions, participants come out of the program with advanced growth, unique insights and renewed mindset for the future of innovative business.
Dryrun is on a mission to make cash management and financial decisions easier for small businesses, and with Intuit’s own goals of making finance easier to manage through technology, the Intuit Prosperity Accelerator was truly a beneficial process. Within only four months, Blaine created a prototype and tested it with customers, putting the businesses’ growth on the fast track. We talked to him about how he did it and what his experience was like.
What attracted you to apply to the Intuit Prosperity Accelerator?
Bertsch: There are two things that caught my eye about the Intuit Prosperity Accelerator and convinced us to apply. First, was the opportunity to help Canadian businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic and second was the opportunity to work with an accomplished business like Intuit. Learning from them was an opportunity too good to pass up!
What was the biggest challenge as a program participant?
Bertsch: The biggest challenge was managing ongoing work with our accelerator projects. The work was meaningful and worth our time to help refine existing processes and bring discipline back into our business. It was a challenging step but was an integral and invaluable part of the process.
Despite the challenges along the way, the experience also produced beneficial success that drove results.
What was your biggest win?
Bertsch: The biggest win for us was having success with the project we worked on within the accelerator program. Not only did we learn about Intuit’s Design 4 Delight principles, we built out a prototype, conducted rapid testing and because we received such great feedback, it’s actually in our software today and our clients love it.
“We were able to achieve in a few months what otherwise would have taken years.”
Were there any surprises along the way?
Bertsch: Building lasting relationships with founders from the cohort was such a massive benefit. Not only are you building relationships with Intuit, but connecting with other cohort participants from different start-ups brings so much value to the experience.
How has your experience impacted your business in the long run?
Bertsch: Bringing the discipline and processes into our business and disseminating them across the rest of the team at Dryrun has been a massive benefit. We’re now taking a much more strategic approach to new developments, partnerships and initiatives based on our experience with the accelerator.
Time spent in the program allowed Dryrun to launch a full insights tool for CPAs, which in turn helped them to better understand the key target market while providing value into their core product. Dryrun also joined Connection Silicon Valley during their time in the Intuit Prosperity Accelerator, where they now have access to the Global Capital Program.
Where are you now?
Bertsch: A year later, we’ve grown our accounting firm channel by over 300% since January 2021 and our growth is still accelerating. Our experience in the Intuit Prosperity Accelerator has equipped us to translate feedback from clients into rapid prototyping, testing and development of high-impact innovation that wouldn’t have happened without Intuit and Highline Beta’s support.
If you enjoyed Blaine’s story, be sure to check out how our Intuit Prosperity Accelerator helped Homewise CEO & Co-founder Jesse Abrams.