Charles Kroll is a software developer at Andera.
PBN: What do you do at Andera?
KROLL: We make the industry’s leading sales platform for banks and for credit unions [to enable customers to open accounts online]. Account opening is important because it represents the front door for a bank. All banks today have the ability to service customers through their online channels in the form of online banking or bill paying or cash management. But nearly no banks offer the ability to open an account [online], and that’s the service we provide to them. We complement the service component by adding a sales component to any bank’s [Web site].
PBN: How has online banking evolved in recent years, and where do you think it is headed?
KROLL: It’s evolved a lot. The core components of online banking have not changed very much. The basic functions of checking account balances and transferring funds between accounts have stayed the same. But you have seen a lot of new technologies being integrated into the banks’ [Web sites] to round out the services they can offer. And there tend to be a lot of different vendors. Bill Pay is a great example of a service that is offered by a handful of providers, but they get integrated into banks’ [online services]. A trend that is not necessarily new but is relevant is that you will find online banking providers partnering with other [online service] providers like Bill Pay, account aggregation, or account-to-account transfer systems. Another important trend is security around authentication in online banking.
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PBN: How does Andera fit into the future of online banking?
KROLL: We give access to it. We get consumers access to online banking and access to their checking accounts. We fill that sales function that is missing today. So we will be the gateway that allows banks to attract new customers that will then get access to other online banking services.
KROLL: The state does a great job in supporting young companies who know where to look. We have had tremendous support from all different areas of the government, and that has been a big factor in our decision to stay here. Just to give you some examples, we have financing from Slater [Technology Fund], the [state Economic Development Corporation], Providence Economic Development Partnership and Business Development Company of Rhode Island (a private corporation). Those are four different financers that, if we were up in Massachusetts, we probably wouldn’t have access to. It’s a very supportive community here if you know where to look. So in terms of what the state could do better? I would like to congratulate them on what they are doing already.
PBN: Is there one thing that you think could improve in the state?
KROLL: I think the one problem that we have, and I think it’s the same for a lot of technology companies in the state, is it’s difficult for us to recruit talented people here. Of our 20 people, roughly half of them commute from the Boston area. The other half are from Rhode Island. But we generally find that when we put a job description out, it’s pretty slim pickings, and we have to proactively go out and convince people to just look at us. Once they take a look at us, they find out that we’re doing really interesting things, and we’re a cool company to work for. But normally when they are doing their job searches on Monster.com, they are not including Providence and vicinity in their searches. They are normally only looking in Boston. So that’s a problem for us that we’re not really sure how to solve yet.
PBN: Why do you continue to base your company in Rhode Island?
KROLL: There are the [business] reasons and the [lifestyle] reasons. The [lifestyle] reasons are that we like to live and work here. Only half the company lives in Rhode Island, but for that half of us that do it’s a great place to live. I went to Brown and live near there now. It’s a great neighborhood. Our people are living in East Greenwich, Warwick and East Bay, and seem to like living here.
The [business] reasons are we get a lot more support here than we would in other markets, and to some extent we get to be a big fish in a small pond. It’s good for us to be able to have access to government and business leaders. Banks from this market like to meet with us because they typically deal with technology companies from other places.
PBN: What do you know now that you wish you knew before you started Andera?
KROLL: I think the importance of focus is an important one. When we started this business, it didn’t look a lot like it does now. We grew pretty quickly in our first year, from pretty small to small. But we hit a wall because at the time we were trying to be too many things for too many people. And the prospect of narrowing our focus even further seemed scary because we had hit a wall and [decided] we were going to start turning down business. That didn’t really ring true to us, so we actually stayed where we were for a couple of years.
PBN: What changed?
KROLL: We continued to bump up against that wall until two years ago, when we decided to focus on account opening. Once we did that, employees here started being really dedicated to the mission. Fortunately, it paid off. This year (2005) over last year our revenue growth is 220 percent we’ve gone from 15 [institutional] customers to 44 and our work force has grown from 10 to 20.
