Why We Built FlowFi
Read why we made FlowFi and which kinds of business owners we want to help.
FlowFi
Product Marketing Manager
Entrepreneurs simply live a more stressful existence than the average person.
The Bayes Business School at University of London did a study on identical twins and found that workers who transition to self employment have 24% higher stress levels than those who don’t. But if you’re a business owner you already knew this was true.
Furthermore, a report by the Money Advice Trust in 2025 found that:
Three in ten (29%) of business owners looking to grow their business being held back by worries about finances
A third (33%) of small business owners regularly losing sleep worrying about their business finances
In the last two years, a third (33%) have used personal finances to keep their business afloat.
Only half (51%) of small business owners said they knew where to go if they needed support with their business finances and 28% didn’t think there was good support available for them.
The sad truth is most business owners are so stressed with keeping the lights on every day that they don’t have time to get on calls with a line of finance and ops people to see if they’re a “fit” much less pay the consultation fees for each one.
Many owners already have someone looking at the books but lack experience in their particular field of business or don’t know the right questions to ask to get to the truth of how the business runs.
A bakery, for example, that does a large number of transactions in cash can be an absolute nightmare for someone. To fully understand the finances one needs to:
Manually enter and itemize a printed receipt from the old cash register every day into an excel sheet.
View card payments and factor in percent fees taken by the card providers.
Take into account how much money is lost through expired goods everyday.
Figure out how vendors are getting paid and how long it is possible to extend payments to vendors.
Count as expenses all goods used for personal and employee consumption (free pastries to employees, coffee, etc)
Factor in maintenance costs for machines like mixers.
Factor in costs for maintaining legal matters with the city.
Calculating how much you can pay employees per amount of food made.
And probably a handful of other things that I, the writer, don't even know about.
However, most business owners find a way to plug along until they hit an event that we fondly call “the breaking point”
The Breaking Point For Business Owners
Despite the daily stress of being a business owner, most businesses don’t realize they need real expert help until they are in desperate straits:
Taxes are due and the books don’t balance.
They need a loan or investment and can’t generate a clear financial report.
An employee sues the company for firing them through an unclear process.
A regulatory organization gives them a deadline for compliance and they have no idea what they need to do.
They realize they have no money in the bank account when they seem to be making a profit.
A lien has been placed on their property for not complying with taxes.
In all of these situations there really are only two solutions:
Call the experts on your block or the first few that appear on Google and hope with your limited knowledge that you can tell if they are competent.
Hop on a marketplace like UpWork where you’re forced to create a profile for an hour and then must solicit large numbers of candidates that may be lying about their credentials.
We built FlowFi so that business owners like Al aren’t limited to just the advisors in their neighborhood or whoever is paying the most for Google Ads in their zone.
We provide a managed marketplace where people first talk to us about their problems and then we match them with a vetted professional that actually understands their industry and can help them start managing their business better today.
Are you interested in working with a FlowFi expert? Sign up for a free, 15-minute assessment. We can have you matched in as little as 24 hours.
