Australian FinTech company profile #162 – Hnry
1. Company Name: Hnry
2. Website: hnry.com.au
3. Key Staff & Titles:
- James Fuller, Co-Founder & CEO
- Claire Fuller, Co-Founder & COO
- Karan Anand, Managing Director, Australia
4. Location(s): Australia and New Zealand
5. In one sentence, what does your fintech do?: Hnry is an all-in-one digital accountancy service designed for independent earners such as contractors, freelancers, tradies and sole traders. Hnry takes care of all the financial admin, including invoicing, expenses, payments, taxes and filings, enabling sole traders to get on with the job rather than having to worry about tax and compliance.
6. How / why did you start your fintech company?: Hnry was started to solve a personal pain. When Claire (COO and Co-founder) and James (CEO and Co-founder) came out of salaried work and started earning as self-employed individuals, they were blown away by the huge amount of admin involved: Having to sit down with an old-school accountant; being trained on how to use over-complicated accounting software; having to constantly make tax payments and never being sure of how much money was actually theirs. They started off just making a couple of spreadsheets to make their lives easier, and when some friends found out that they’d potentially solved their problem too, Hnry was born.
7. What is the best thing your company has achieved or learnt along the way (this can include awards, capital raising etc)?: We have been lucky enough to have our organisation and the unique service we provide recognised on multiple occasions for a variety of reasons. Most recently in 2022, we won the Finder Awards ‘Best B2B Innovation’, People’s Choice for The Finnies ‘Fintech of the Year’ and were the runners up for The Finnies ‘Digital Disruptor of the Year’. One of the biggest learnings from our growth journey has been the focused effort towards ensuring efficient spending. Whilst we have grown at a very rapid pace, we have done so noting the significant value to our business of the capital funding we have secured along the way. As a result, we have made sure to sweat every dollar, tracking every investment we make and minimise unnecessary and ineffective spend.
8. What’s some advice you’d give to an aspiring start-up?: Three key points of advice.
- Don’t lose sight of the pain-point you are helping resolve. It is very easy to start designing things that customers say they want, or trendy features that may sound impactful. Unless these are tied to customer pain-points, there is a high chance you’ll fall into the classic product death cycle.
- Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. The growth in any successful start-up will be heavily hindered if you’re not willing to adapt. Things that work today may not be fit for purpose in a few months time. Thinking ahead and accommodating for that growth in your ways of working and your business operations will help to future proof your start-up.
- Celebrate wins with the team! Nothing is more motivating than seeing how far you’ve come as a growing company, and seeing your efforts recognised. Make sure to have rituals where you share and celebrate these wins with the whole team!
9. What’s next for your company? And are you looking to expand overseas or stay focussed on Australia?: Our primary focus is on the Australia and New Zealand markets for the forseeable future. Overseas expansion is definitely of interest to us – our service solves an existing pain point that is shared across independent earners all over the world. We would love nothing more than to bring these hard workers a solution fit for their needs!
10. What other fintechs or companies do you admire?: A quality that we admire in fintechs is the ability to successfully scale at speed. We’ve seen this in the likes of Deel and Airwallex; both of whom have a growth path that we can learn from.
11. What’s the most interesting or funniest moment that’s happened in your company’s lifetime?: Too many to answer and the best ones are probably kept within the company 🙂
