Jessica Mah

Jessica Mah
Jessica Mah
Born 1990
New York, NY, USA
Nationality American
Education Simon’s Rock
UC Berkeley
Occupation Founder & CEO
Employer inDinero
Website JessicaMah.com

Jessica Mah (born May 18, 1990) is an American entrepreneur and the Founder/CEO of inDinero. She is best known for identifying flaws in inDinero's initial business model and pivoting the business to financial success.

Mah has received coverage in a number of magazines and publications, most notably on the cover of Inc. magazine's 5000 issue in 2015 and as Forbes' 30 Under 30.

Education and early life

Mah was born in New York and grew up in Westchester County. Her parents both immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong, and her mother runs her own apparel business.[1] Mah started her first business in 2001 at the age of 11, after teaching herself to code in the fifth grade.[2]

Mah dropped out of high school at the age of 15 to pursue an education with Simon’s Rock College.[3] In 2007, she enrolled at UC Berkeley, where she studied computer science and met inDinero co-founder, Andy Su. She graduated at the age of 19.[4]

Career

While still at Berkeley in 2008, Mah founded InternshipIN with Arielle Patrice Scott and operated as the technical lead. The site helped match students with internships.[5]

In 2009, Mah developed a financial management site which allowed small businesses real-time expense tracking. This site would go on to be the prototype that eventually became inDinero.[6] At the accelerator Y Combinator, Mah raised a seed fund of $1.2 million for her idea.[7] The 20 angel investors included such high-profile names as Jawed Karim, Dave McClure, Keith Rabois and Jeremy Stoppelman.[6]

In 2011, she was profiled by Inc. magazine as part of their 30 Under 30 feature.[8] Around the same time, she was also profiled by Tech Crunch.[9] However, inDinero was struggling. Although the company had many small business users, the majority were not subscribing to the premium parts of the software. The company reached its last $150,000 when Mah and Su began to make drastic changes, including visiting couples therapy.[1]

Mah improved the company by changing its offering from a dashboard to a concierge service of accounting departments. More importantly, the new site helped companies file their corporate taxes.[10][11]

This pivot increased revenue per client and enabled Mah and Su to raise more capital with a more expansive business plan.[10]

After a change in business strategy and scaling the business, inDinero received another $8 million in funding and has since expanded to over 200 employees.[12] By 2014, inDinero had an annual revenue of $2.9 million and a 3-year growth of 2,686%.[13]

By 2016, Mah had expanded inDinero by opening offices in Portland, New York, and Manila.[14][15]

Additional Information

While at Berkeley, Mah was President of the Computer Science Undergraduate Association (CSUA).[16]

Mah plays an active role at Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) where she mentors first-time entrepreneurs.[17] Mah founded venture capital firm Mahway.[18]

She has spoken at many events including Web2Expo,[19] STVP,[20] LAUNCH,[21] Founder Institute,[22] SXSW,[23] and TEDx.[24]

Personal life

Mah lives in San Francisco, California. She enjoys flying and is an instrument rated pilot with 300 logged hours.[25][26]

References

  1. 1 2 Rockwood, Kate (September 2015). "How Couples Therapy Helped Bring This Company Back From the Brink". Inc. (magazine).
  2. ↑ Kim, Eugene (November 27, 2014). "This 24-Year-Old High School Dropout Is Tackling A Problem Every Startup Hates To Deal With". Business Insider.
  3. ↑ "Alum Jessica Mah Lands Cover of Inc. Magazine". Bard College at Simon's Rock. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
  4. ↑ "InDinero CEO Jessica Mah delivers Newton lecture". 2015-11-17. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
  5. ↑ Schonfeld, Erick. "Teen Bloggerpreneur Jessica Mah's $500 Startup: InternshipIN". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
  6. 1 2 Contributor. "inDinero's Jessica Mah: This Is A 20-30 Year Company That We Want To Build (TCTV)". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
  7. ↑ Goodkind, Nicole (August 13, 2015). "This tech entrepreneur lost $1 million and made it back before 25". Yahoo!.
  8. ↑ Lagorio-Chafkin, Christine (June 27, 2011). "Jessica Mah and Andy Su, Founders of inDinero". Inc. (magazine).
  9. ↑ "inDinero's Jessica Mah: This Is A 20-30 Year Company That We Want To Build (TCTV)". Tech Crunch. September 20, 2010.
  10. 1 2 McMillan Portillo, Caroline (June 30, 2015). "When her VC-backed startup got down to its last $150K, she made a drastic change". Biz Journals.
  11. ↑ Granzella Larssen, Adrian. "Start-up Success Stories: Jessica Mah of InDinero". The Muse.
  12. ↑ Sharma, Charu (November 23, 2015). "Going Against the Flow: Jessica Mah, Founder and CEO of inDinero". Huffington Post.
  13. ↑ Gardella, Adriana (December 31, 2014). "A Reversal for InDinero, a Once-Struggling Accounting Software Start-Up". NY Times.
  14. ↑ ABS-CBNnews.com, by Vincent Paul A. Garcia,. "How a class project turned into a real business". ABS-CBN News. Retrieved 2016-10-06.
  15. ↑ "Fast-growing tech firm moves into larger Portland digs - Portland Business Journal". Portland Business Journal. Retrieved 2016-10-06.
  16. ↑ "Jessica Mah". chicmeetsgeek.com. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
  17. ↑ "YPO | CEO Insight: Interview With inDinero CEO Jessica Mah". www.ypo.org. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
  18. ↑ "Jessica Mah". angel.co. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
  19. ↑ "Speaker: Jessica Mah: Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2011 - Co-produced by O'Reilly Media & UBM TechWeb, March 28 - 31, 2011, San Francisco". www.web2expo.com. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
  20. ↑ "feld Archives - Stanford Technology Ventures Program". Stanford Technology Ventures Program. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
  21. ↑ "Speakers 1". LAUNCH Festival 2016. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
  22. ↑ "FI.co: Startup Pitch Bootcamp, with Jessica Mah (CEO of inDinero)". The Founder Institute. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
  23. ↑ "Jessica Mah's schedule for SCHED* SXSW 2011". austin2011.sched.org. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
  24. ↑ "Watch "TEDxBerkeley - Jessica Mah - Welcome Speech" Video at TEDxTalks". TEDxTalks. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
  25. ↑ "How a 26-Year-Old Silicon Valley CEO Spends Her Money". 2016-09-27. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
  26. ↑ "CEO of inDinero Jessica Ma takes financial services in an edgy direction (Video) - San Francisco Business Times". San Francisco Business Times. Retrieved 2016-10-05.
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