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Simon Ritchie, the founder and CEO of Blox, discusses his background and journey leading up to starting the company. He began his career in finance but discovered his passion for technology and finance systems. He worked at Anaplan, a successful finance planning and analysis software company, but saw the limitations of rigid systems when COVID-19 hit. He realized there was a need for a more flexible and accessible financial modeling and planning tool, especially for small businesses and charities.
Blox aims to fill this gap by providing a powerful yet easy-to-use modeling, calculation, and planning engine that sits between spreadsheets and complex enterprise software. The company is about a year old, has raised venture funding, and launched a free tier of its product. They prioritize building a compelling product, iterating quickly, and engaging with users to understand their needs.
Simon acknowledges that building the product has been enjoyable, leveraging his background in product management. However, sales, marketing, and customer traction have proven challenging. Nonetheless, he remains optimistic about Blox's progress and is committed to providing a valuable solution to help businesses make informed decisions and achieve their financial goals.
Blox (https://www.blox.so/)
Follow Blox on Twitter (https://twitter.com/blox_is_awesome), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/blox.for.planning), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/blox-plan/), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/bloxisawesome/), or TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@bravewithblox/)
Follow Simon Ritchie on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/siritchie/).
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Transcript:
VICTORIA: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Victoria Guido.
WILL: And I'm your other host, Will Larry. And with me today is Simon Ritchie, Founder and CEO of Blox, which provides pre-built planning models to help business leaders escape the tyranny of complex, clunky, and error-prone spreadsheets, giving you visibility into and confidence in the reality of your business.
Simon, thank you for joining us. How are you doing today?
SIMON: Hey, guys. Yeah, I'm very good today.
VICTORIA: So, Simon, where are you joining us from today?
SIMON: So, I'm joining from the UK. I live in a city called Brighton on the South Coast of the UK, where it's a lovely day today. It's nice and sunny.
VICTORIA: Oh, that's where our thoughtbot summit has been the last two years, in Brighton, actually.
SIMON: Fantastic. Yeah, it's a wonderful place.
VICTORIA: And a great place to be in the summer right now, right? Do you get out in the water very often?
SIMON: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Like many others, we have a paddle board. So, I go out with my family. I have four kids, so we go out and have fun at the beach. Brighton's got a stony beach. So we are, as Brightoners, we're very proud of the stones. You know, if you have sand, you get sand everywhere, stones are...it's much cleaner. [laughter] It does hurt your feet, though. There you go.
[laughter]
WILL: Yeah, that was the first time I've ever seen that, and I was like, that's very interesting.
SIMON: Yeah. [laughs]
WILL: I probably will like it because I don