If you’ve been following our Intuit Developer Spotlight series, then you’ve been reading about the many unique, quality apps developed for QuickBooks Online users. These apps, using Intuit Developer’s platform, offer SMBs solutions that make their daily business processes more efficient and profitable.
Today, we’re excited to share another inspiring story of app success. chata.ai, one of the 2018 $100K Small Business App Showdown finalists, was born out of frustration but produced happiness for its many users.
A review on chata.ai’s QuickBooks App Store page (one of 11, all giving the app 5 stars) is an example. In “This is a game changer,” the reviewer writes, “I’ve been trying out the Natural Language algorithms and setting up templates for topsheets that I use with my clients. The flexibility and data extraction are great, and the presentation gets better and better. This is definitely an important program for any appstack out there! And their support and development are phenomenal!”
From Frustration to Fruition
Kelly Cherniwchan is the founder and CEO of chata.ai. He’s a fourth-generation entrepreneur and his experience provided the inspiration for chata.ai.
“chata.ai was created based on my own frustrations with getting easy access to operational data with the previous company I founded,” he says. “I was always having to spend so much time exporting data and working in spreadsheets that I wanted to create an experience that was much easier. I wanted to create something that was so easy to use that even my father and grandfather could just ask a question about their business, using their own words, and get the information back.”
This “conversational business intelligence tool” allows users to ask questions about their business data and gain insight based on the answers. As the name suggests, the app uses Artificial Intelligence (AI)—a key emerging tech, according to Kelly—to understand the question, find the data, and provide immediate answers. The use of AI by developers is growing, but Kelly does say that “it is really important that people know what they are doing with it and have enough quality data in order to train an AI. If not, the only thing that will happen is a greater distrust on the value of AI in the business world.”
Users of chata.ai, however, are seeing the value. Their benefits include:
- The elimination of exporting data, comparing spreadsheets, manual calculations, and complex business tools
- Receiving answers to operational business questions quickly and easily
- Customizable dashboards and one-click reports
- Having drill down capabilities
- Multi-app reporting (connect to other data sources like Stripe and interact in the same interface as QBO)
- Use of charts and graphs
- Better business decision making
- Mobile capabilities (iOS and Android)
Becoming trusted advisors without adding more time commitments (as accountants and bookkeepers)
And for QuickBooks Online users, chata.ai integrates within seconds. From there, you can begin easily by asking questions. Some examples include, “Which service brings in the most revenue?” and “Show me invoices from the last two weeks.”
It’s that simple.
Why chata.ai Chose to Integrate with QuickBooks Online
After chatting with other app developers, integrating the app with QuickBooks Online made perfect sense to Kelly.
He says, “The QuickBooks Online API and app ecosystem are well developed with strong and loyal user bases. Based on discussions with other apps who were so complimentary about the experience with Intuit, it was a no-brainer.”
The company recently announced their integration with payment processing giant, Stripe. And, they’re working on several more integrations that complement the QBO user experience, including Square, and Hubspot.
“Our goal is to become the ‘hub’ of all business data interaction. We will provide maximum value for growth focused companies and advisory firms through multi-app reporting and analysis, all in one easy-to-access interface,” he says.
Partnering with Intuit Developer
Deciding to partner with Intuit and being a part of the App Showdown has provided chata.ai with some great dividends.
“The process for getting the app approved was very well documented and quite structured,” Kelly says. “The team at Intuit Developer has been a pleasure to work with and are incredibly helpful. It really feels like they want you to succeed, which is incredible for a new company in the ecosystem.”
As to their App Showdown experience, he says, “This awards program is top notch and we highly recommend all new apps in the QBO App Store apply.”
He continues. “All of the finalists received and will continue to receive significant value from being selected. It’s tough to get the recognition you need as a start-up in a space saturated with apps. Intuit is now a true partner, helping us become successful by including us in events and opportunities for exposure, such as this article. We also learned the true value of community. We have intentionally tapped in to the ProAdvisor community since the beginning. These people have become our customers, friends and biggest supporters. It was amazing to see the outpouring of support and the community pride during the competition process.”
In fact, when asked if he had any recommendations for other developers either starting or continuing their app journey, his response was to connect with multiple ProAdvisors throughout the development process. “Their questions, thoughts, insights are extremely valuable.”
He also advises developers to connect with the Intuit Developer team. “They are such an amazing resource to help you be successful and are always looking for feedback, as well.”
He’s right. We want to hear about your experience. We use that information to make your experience—and our other users’ experiences—better. Our team is readily available to answer your questions.
And we don’t want to leave without letting you know what chata.ai has in store for the future.
“To continue to integrate popular applications that small businesses use to run their operations and create a superior unified experience when it comes to multi-app reporting and analysis,” Kelly says.” Imagine having your QBO, Stripe, Hubspot data all in one location accessible through natural language. And, answers to millions of questions at your fingertips. This is the future.”
Our team at Intuit Developer is looking forward to partnering more closely with chata.ai in the coming months. As my colleague, Ketaki Gupta, Senior Program Manager at Intuit Developer, shares, “What struck me about chata.ai was 1) their unique value prop and 2) the phenomenal connection and growth they’ve had on the Intuit Developer platform. When I look at their user reviews on Apps.com, ‘easy to use’ and ‘cool new app’ were recurring themes. All of this makes for very promising indicators of chata.ai’s success. I am always interested in working closely with partners who stand for amazing quality and happy customers, and I’m looking forward to helping chata.ai fuel their success even further.”
We’re working on our next developer story for the Intuit Developer Spotlight series—stay tuned!
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