In today's society, technology is increasingly becoming one of the key industries changing the way we operate our daily lives. Each day, new innovative advances in technology are being created and mass-produced to the public. In turn this has created a high-tech world lead by technology as the key source of knowledge and power. One of the main benefits of technology is its ability to help individuals and businesses, and the reason why Uri Maimon decided to design his very own accounting software for micro-sized businesses. 

Uri Maimon is the founder of Nominal Accounting Software. A self-proclaimed technophile, Uri has been programming since he was 10 years old, and still retains a passion for software and computing. Nominal Accounting is a specifically designed product designed to help micro and small sized businesses (sole traders, consultants, businesses with 5 or less staff) with required accounting needs in a simple and straightforward product. Nominal Accounting enables business owners to create invoices, purchases, expenses, reports, even submit BAS and integrate into PayPal accounts. 

Born and raised in Israel, Uri has since been living and working in Australia for over ten years. Starting out in the IT industry as a customer support technician, he worked his way up to project management before starting out with his own IT consultancy business. As his business grew, Uri was shocked to learn of the limited number of accounting software packages available for small and micro business owners. 

"The existing products all seemed to be over complicated, expensive and used ancient technology", says Maimon. 

After exploring the options available, Uri decided to create his own software package. He based his design and features on the simple question "Will it be simple enough for an Australian micro business owner to operate and provide full functionality and business insights in an easy-to-use format?" and from there, Nominal Accounting was born. 

One of the biggest challenges he has faced through his journey is creating a new category.I wanted a micro business management software that broke away from existing software products dominated by the likes of QuickBooks. The key driver behind Nominal Accounting was to create something innovative, easy, simple and effective that was not already on the market. 

A key challenge Uri has faced on his journey has been learning the ins and outs marketing a product like Nominal Accounting. 
"Positioning and branding is not about what you say or do but about what space you occupy in the mind of the prospect",Maimon states. 

"As a small company, finding your place in an incredibly competitive market is often a difficult task. Nominal Accounting has distinguished itself by targeting a niche market and emphasising the micro business aspect of the audience. We have created a new category and seek to be the leader in this category through understanding our audience and going over and above their needs"

Nominal Accounting seeks to achieve an effective and simple solution for all micro business owners in Australia, using current technology and integrating with other systems used by small business, such as online payments. 

"We provide simple accounting software that allows Australian micro businesses do their bookkeeping by themselves. Often micro business owners don't know much about bookkeeping and don't have time to invest in training, they also don't need complicated features but still need to do things like submit their BAS, create payslips and keep GST records. Nominal provides a simple solution that makes it easy to get started and still includes all the features necessary for a micro business owner", Maimon says. 

Since developing Nominal Accounting, Uri has successfully expanded the business and now faces his own challenges as it continues to grow. For those aspiring business owners, or anyone currently involved in running their own business Uri believes that reading is the best tip to help up skill and learn new areas quickly. 

"I have found that reading books in all departments of business helps you see and identify patterns that can often transfer to your own business situations. My initial naive thinking was that if a product A cost X and is of a certain feature and quality, and product B cost less and has better features and quality, than it should be easy to sell at least some product of B. The error of my ways soon hit me: No one is going to care about a product which is a little bit better and/or a little bit cheaper unless we find something they really care about"

Awareness is a huge part of the marketing and growth strategy for Uri and something that he is largely focused on at this stage of the business's growth. 

"We have a very big awareness gap which we're looking for innovative and cost effective ways to close. Our website has X visitors/month, out of which 10% download the trial version, out of which 50% try the software, out of which Y% actually but the software. Our main challenge is to increase both the X value and the Y value of this vital statistics of our business. Google Analytics has been an invaluable tool in growing Nominal to where it is today"

http://www.nominal.com.au/