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Custom packages aim to cater to every SMB’s various bookkeeping needs
Tue, 10th Oct 2017
FYI, this story is more than a year old

For small businesses that aren't tech-savvy, administration, bookkeeping, and digital marketing can often be a chore that takes valuable time away from growing a company.

Djany Tanabe and Cole Atkinson saw this as a gap in the market and founded Admin Mouse in June this year.

The startup aims to help SMBs free up time for the more important areas of running a business without breaking the bank.

TechDay spoke to Tanabe about what drove her to start the business and her plans for it.

What gave you the idea to start an admin business?

I've always been the overly organised planner and manager of tasks and paperwork, and I'm always wanting to help people.

It made sense to build a business focusing on those areas.

I'm really lucky to have my business partner who has such a wealth of knowledge with IT and has allowed me to offer websites to my clients.

We originally intended on properly launching the company and its services at the end of 2018, but after a number of people started to show interest, we've been forced to speed things up.

Describe the services Admin Mouse is offering.

We started to realise after talking to many small businesses that we can't really offer set packages with set services because every small business is different, and every single business needs something completely customised.

We're just going to take each client as they come, and we currently offer general admin, web design and web development services to small businesses.

We've also got some very low introduction prices currently advertised on our site.

We're hoping to bring in some clients to help us figure out the right direction for our business and help develop it in that way.

What is the problem you are solving for small businesses?

I've encountered many people over the last couple of years who own or run small-to-medium-sized businesses and find admin work arduous, a waste of their time, or simply don't know how to do it.

In some cases, the extra cost of getting an accountant to sort through expenses, accounts payable and receivables could easily have been saved by some simple bookkeeping.

Who is your target market?

SMBs; anyone who needs ongoing admin support, or even one-off help to stay on top of things.

We see ourselves as the little guy helping the little guy.

How is your product differentiated from other similar offerings currently in the market?

For small businesses, there isn't always enough work needed to warrant hiring a full-time employee for admin work.

We're able to customise our offerings to help businesses with only the services they need, no more, no less.

Being remote based also allows us to help businesses across the whole of New Zealand – we have clients in Hawkes Bay, Auckland, Christchurch, and Wellington.

Admin aside, we also use templates to offer professional looking websites at a fraction of the cost and time traditionally required for web development.

It seemed crazy for small businesses to pay thousands of dollars in order to have a web presence in this day and age.