Invoice Home, a leading invoice generating software, was founded by Petr Marek, the President/CEO, and Jiri Hradil, the CTO/CEO of Invoice Home, with a vision to contribute to the success of small businesses, entrepreneurs, and freelancers by catering to their invoicing needs.
When one thinks of an invoicing solution service, it is natural to assume it as a mundane and seemingly bland operation, and the sector is quite saturated too. All these crucial factors were taken into consideration when Petr and Jiri set out to find Invoice Home. This resulted in the company addressing all these major issues of the field and creating software that is not just user-friendly and unique but also visually appealing.
Invoice Home makes the tedious task of creating invoices easy and interesting. With over 300 distinctive templates specially designed by branding professionals in multiple languages, Invoice Home is catering to the essential need for invoicing services of its clients in an innovative way. So instead of scouring the internet for a free landscaping invoice template that looks appropriate. you can have all the invoices your company needs available at your fingertips so you can focus on work.
In the following interview click here, Petr and Jiri talk in detail about their software service and give us some important insights from the sector.
Please brief our audience about Invoice Home, its USPs, and how it is currently positioned as a leading provider of billing and invoicing solutions.
Wikilane Inc d/b/a Invoice Home was founded in Las Vegas, NV, in 2011. From the outset, the company founders Petr Marek and Jiri Hradil knew the product would be a billing and invoicing service, but they also knew this was a saturated field in a maturing market. The question then became what would separate Invoice Home from all the other billing and invoicing apps and software available at the time?
While thinking about this differentiator, they noticed that invoices were generally plain, and not much consideration was given to design elements like colors or style of templates. They reasoned that invoices and other billing documents could also be used to help businesses build their brands and provide a professional look. Another differentiator was ensuring the service remained simple and not overly complicated with endless features that Invoice Home’s target customers didn’t necessarily need at their stage of growth.
Ultimately, Invoice Home is aware our target users are hungry to build a better business and look for helpful tools to help them make this process easier. The brand positions itself as a straightforward billing and invoicing service that small business owners can use to help grow their business, speed up time to payment, and create a consistent brand from first interaction to final handshake. Additionally, even though these businesses are smaller, their owners are just as serious about creating something that runs well, is sustainable, and can grow.
Tell us more about the products and services through which you have ascertained your stronghold within the billing and invoicing space.
Wikilane Inc started Invoice Home first as an online desktop service and later introduced the mobile app for Android and iOS users. As mentioned earlier, the product was always meant to be a simplified invoicing service that provides users with unique graphically designed templates and an easy way to collect payments. The primary strength Invoice Home has is that it is an ideal solution for individuals and small businesses who do not need an overly complex accounting system but do need help managing their everyday billing and invoicing documents.
Over the years, Invoice Home cemented itself as one of the top billing and invoicing apps in the Google Play Store by garnering numerous positive reviews from happy customers. Additionally, the premium subscription for unlimited invoicing is one of the lowest in the field, and many users appreciate no contracts and the option to cancel at any time.
Being an experienced leader, share your opinion on why the adoption of technologies such as AI and machine learning is necessary for the billing and invoicing solutions niche and how you have leveraged these technologies to deliver your products and services?
While necessary in the billing and invoicing industry, AI and machine learning are useful for nearly all companies in the context of maximizing business capabilities. According to Harvard Business Review, “AI can support three important business needs: automating business processes, gaining insight through data analysis, and engaging with customers and employees.”
So, in this sense, countless companies have already automated specific digital and physical tasks – for example, back-office administrative and financial activities – by using robotic process automation (RPA) technologies. Increased automation will allow businesses to be more efficient, creative, and, ultimately, effective.
From my general understanding, AI applies human-like intelligence to machines that allow these machines to mimic human actions. Machine learning goes further by enabling computer systems to improve themselves through experience. This type of machine learning often manifests itself through automation, where systems can perform tasks without being prompted by a human user.
So, I can envision a future in which manual data entry like typing out an invoice is no longer relevant or required. In this example, users would use their voices to write out invoices. Or, in another example, the written text would be lifted from the paper and be seamlessly converted into a billing and invoicing system without the need to re-enter the data manually.
Considering the COVID-19 pandemic, what challenges did you face, and how are you currently driving Invoice Home to sustain operations while ensuring the safety of your employees?
When the pandemic started, the potential challenges left us worried not only for our business and employees but the businesses of Invoice Home users. While many customers reported they had been severely affected by the pandemic, we also noticed the resiliency of people during such uncertain and challenging times. Surprisingly, the company even acquired new users who found other avenues of income to keep them afloat during various pandemic waves.
In terms of maintaining operations while ensuring the safety of employees, we chose to start home office after a few of our employees contracted COVID-19. Eventually, after the second wave, we slowly asked the team to return to the office.
To mitigate the worry of coming into the office, we provide PPE, twice-weekly antigen tests, and reimbursements for PCR tests. If employees feel sick, we ask them to stay at home and get a PCR test to ensure they don’t have COVID-19.
What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the billing and invoicing solutions niche?
For those interested in venturing into the billing and invoicing field, I would first accept the reality that it’s a pretty saturated field, and there are so many billing and invoicing solutions consumers can choose from.
For Invoice Home, we initially focused on professionally designed invoice templates that users could use to increase brand recognition of their growing company/service. So, we came up with a basic and advanced invoice template, hired graphic designers to make some creative designs, and added nine other document types. You will want to find one niche that separates your service from others and maximize this while also devising a brand that offers a unique value proposition for your prospective users.
How do you envision scaling your company’s operations and offerings in 2022?
The future’s looking bright. Jiri and I are currently considering opening a new office in Austin, TX, which would be quite the transition. In terms of the services’ offerings, we will continue to add a few more of the top user-requested features to the Invoice Home app to ensure we remain competitive in the field.
The Dynamic Duo
Petr Marek and Jiri Hradil are the Co-founders of Wikilane Inc, whose lead product is the popular billing and invoicing app known commercially as Invoice Home. Since Invoice Home’s initial release in 2014, the service has steadily accumulated 6 million users from around the globe who seek a simplified approach to invoicing and are hungry to grow their business.
Before establishing Wikilane in 2012, Petr and Jiri shared history as business partners and friends. They built a software company called INSIA that eventually sold to the world’s largest broker Marsh & McLennan, in 2011. Today as the owners of Wikilane Inc, they employ 14 full-time individuals who comprise the marketing and development teams and hire contractors for outside work.
As the head of development with his extensive background in tech as a programmer and a Ph.D. in Applied Informatics, Jiri is responsible for all technology-based decisions and implements critical functions needed for Invoice Home and the company’s internal productivity systems.
On the other hand, Petr supervises the marketing team and handles the company’s day-to-day operations. Together Petr and Jiri’s work relationship resembles the complementary sides of the yin and yang – one side without the other may not be as effective, but their combined skill set creates a dynamic and winning combination that is proven to flourish.
Exhibiting True Excellence
- “It is the best invoice application in the world, and the web version is also easy and intuitive. I love the amount and variety of templates it has and how easy they are to fill in. I recommend it 100%!” – Beyitriz
- “It is so hard to find exceptional customer service…but…Invoice Home is remarkable! Their options are easy to manage and so helpful for both personal and professional use! I highly recommend them!!” – Karen
- “Invoice Home is a great place to create your personalized invoices for customers. You can’t beat the price for what you receive. Their support team (if needed) is fantastic.” – Cynthia
- Nominated by SaaS-Worthy’s Top Billing and Invoicing App in 2019.
