Guy Israeli is the current COO of Solomoto. He makes it his business to help small businesses grow. With a very friendly demeanor and light attitude, Guy engages both employees and consumers alike. In our interview Guy covers the recent trip to Miami, back-end small business solutions, plans for the future and surfing.

Ari Newman: Hey Guy, how are you?

Guy Israeli: Great! How are you?

AN: Not too bad. Can you tell me a little bit about your trip to the US? You were gone for about a month.

GI: Yes, it was about 3 and a half weeks and it was really an amazing journey for several reasons. First of all, being with your feet on the ground in the market you enter is something very important. You get the chance to speak with customers, real customers, small business owners who are experiencing both challenges or problems and successes. To be able to communicate with them about Solomoto is one of the most important things we have done since our market entry. We also participated in the Sage Conference in Chicago.

AN: How was the Sage Conference?

GI: The Sage Conference is a way for us to engage with the eco-system of small businesses from the back-end of small business. The back-end, meaning, all the accounting solutions, all the finance companies that are working with small businesses on their day to day financial issues. Of course, there is a lot of potential to collaborate between the back-end of the business and front-end. We are working on the front-end solutions for small businesses, whereas companies like Sage itself and Fundbox are taking on the back-end solutions.

AN: Can you tell me a bit more about what Sage does and what Fundbox does?

GI: Yes, so Sage is providing cloud solutions for Small businesses to manage their entire financial and accounting back-end of the business. Fundbox provides a cash clearance solution for small businesses who have payments due in 30-60 days for instance, and now they can have their payments clear immediately. These two types of companies, until now, worked in what they call the back-end side of the business. Today, the common assumption is that there is no back-end or front-end to a small business, as it size renders it all as “one end”. This is why we are engaging with them, to create a more complete solution for a small business owner who addresses both the back-end and front-end on a daily basis, combined.

AN: Can you tell us about the latest pricing format in Solomoto?

GI: We’re actually very excited about it. We’ve released a balance method or payment method, that provides several different options of payment. We have the pay-as-you-go, for customers who prefer to work on a consumption model, the more you want to top up the platform, you can, and if you don’t want to then you don’t have to use it. We also have customers who prefer to use the platform on a regular basis, so we’ve created the monthly and yearly plans, respectively. These plans let our customers purchase a subscription with a large discount, creating stability for as regular users as well as for us as a business. It’s a win-win!

AN: Any exciting plans for the future?

GI: I want to learn how to surf [laughs]. The plan for the future actually ties into your first question about the trip to the US. Now that we are establishing a presence in the US, we are looking into having more people on the ground, have an office and an operation in the US. We are currently reviewing two places; one being New York for obvious reasons. The other place which seems to be even more promising is Miami. We wrote a recent blog about it, why Miami is a good hub for us. Miami in a few words is a combination of very good talent in different fields. In terms of location, it is US based that can additionally function as a base for Latin America. Since we work in both markets, Miami seems to bridge those two worlds together. More importantly, Florida itself, I think, is number 3 in terms of small business, self employed people and in general people who are independent. For us, given that we work with small businesses and the self-employed, we want to be close to our customers.