(upbeat pop music) >> Announcer: Live from San Jose, California. In the heart of Silicon Valley. It's theCUBE, covering QuickBooks Connect 2016! Sponsored by Intuit QuickBooks. (upbeat pop music) Now, here are your hosts, Jeff Frick and John Walls. >> Welcome back here on theCUBE. Along with Jeff Frick, I'm John Walls. As we continue our coverage here at QuickBooks Connect 2016. Gathering here in San Jose at the Convention Center. Third annual gathering with a record crowd of more than 5,000 attendees. (crowd noise) So the show continues to show explosive growth. Which is, I guess you can say a lot about what Intuit's doing, in terms of how it's growing its portfolio, in terms of how it serves the business ... The small business and the medium-size business communities. With us now is Sasan Goodarzi, who is the EVP of the small business group at Intuit. Sasan, good to have you with us-- >> Thank you. >> We appreciate the time. >> Thank you for having me. >> What are the keynote stars today? You were talking about some key things, big things about the company about how we're going to help save time. How we're going to have more accessibility to money. And ultimately what we could do to deliver a better proposition to small business. So talk about that, if you would, a little about that theme on the keynote stage, and how that applies to what you're doing in general with QuickBooks. >> Sure, sure. Well one of the things that our customers have taught us is, that there are three things that are important to them. One is time, so they can actually spend running their business and the product that they're passionate about; versus all the tedious, drudgery things that it takes to run your business. The second is money. It's mind boggling the effort that goes into earning money. But how hard is it for them to actually get access to their money. And then last, but not least, is ways to help them grow their business. They're experts in their industry, but where they need help is ways in which that they can drive growth. And so everything that we do is centered around those three things. And it's what inspires us when we show up to work every single day. So a lot of, obviously, what we talked about today on stage, was just very quick, we call ESPN highlight reels of here's the innovation that's coming your way to either save you time, put more money into your pocket, or help you grow your business, or your practice. >> Sure, okay. >> What's amazing is as I say, as much as they've worked to finally get that sale, a lot of times it seems all the collection side-- >> That's right. >> For small business. A huge issue, getting paid. To do all that work, sell it, have a happy customer and then, don't necessarily get their receivables in line. >> That's right. I know we threw a lot of stats out there this morning. But first of all, 80% of small businesses have some sort of a cash flow issue. And in that context about 65% of them have invoices that are 60 days overdue. And in fact, they live and die by getting paid on time. And so, obviously, the innovations that we talked about on stage today, were how do you get access to those funds right away. >> Jeff: Right, right. >> That's one element of it. The other element is we have all the data of small businesses. And so we know what they're good for. And so we can deliver loans to them on the spot. If they have payables and they want to borrow on the payable to make payroll for the week, or they want to go buy more inventory to grow their business, we can actually fund them very quickly. Literally within minutes. And so those are examples of what we showed on stage today all in service of helping them thrive and achieve their dreams. >> I love to ding into that a little bit, because growth actually exacerbates your cash flow problem if you're not managing it well. And now suddenly you're selling more and you got to buy to fulfill those obligations. But the fact that you almost have a secondary market now for people to be able to borrow money without pulling all their paper together, and trekking down to the bank and hoping they can get it, because you actually have the real data. It's updated (chuckles)-- >> That's right. >> All the time. And it's a different set of data ... Potentially more complete set of data for a lender to actually make that decision, than the stack of paper that they bring down-- >> That's right. >> to the local bank. >> That's right. Well, you know it's interesting. You just said something that triggered a thought. When you think about startups that go out and get VC money ... There's a reason why they have board of directors, 'cause the board of directors what they're looking for is one, do you have a growth plan, but then how do you manage that growth? How do you make sure you have enough money? How much money are you burning per week? And are you going to be able to maintain that growth? Small businesses don't have that. They don't have the board of directors that are actually helping them with some of those decisions. They may not be surrounded by a CFO or a finance expert in the office. And so part of what we're trying to do is just digitize and automate everything so they don't have to worry about that. And secondarily I think to the point you made, helping them with access to money at the point in which they need it. But I think even before we get to that stage, what we're trying to do is help them by being that board of directors without having to have one. Which is to helping them manage their cash flow, their inventory. Because as they're on that growth curve ... One of the main reasons why they go out of business is 'cause they're growing fast, but they're not managing their funds, and they do not have enough money sometimes to make payroll. >> Right. Well we've heard the stat from a couple of different sources but 50% of all small businesses fail in the first five years-- >> That's right. >> of operation. And the use of accounting and accountant, what that could do to increase your odds of being in business for the long term. So certainly you could see where all that is coming in play. You mentioned payments, so we're thinking about Apply Pay. That was one of the announcements-- >> Yes. >> You had. Google Calendar, talking about time. >> Sasan: Yes. >> And then AMEX with the loans. So the power of these partnerships, I'd like to hear from you on that, because, you know, big names, right (chuckles) >> Sasan: Yes, yes. >> That I ... If Jeff or I or anybody watching ran a little mom and pop operation in Morgantown, WV, I've got Apple, and I've got Google, and I've got Intuit on my side. Talk about leveraging that power for small businesses? >> Yes, actually listening to you inspires me around what Intuit is doing for these small businesses. And it starts with our vision of having an open platform. It's less about what we innovate on that platform, but our goal is to bring all of the innovation; whether it's our engineers or engineers outside of our four walls. Bring all of that innovation on our platform, so that in fact we can digitize and automate everything with Google Calendar. So we can go in and we know all of where you spent your time, and help you easily, with one click, invoice your customers. Or, as an example you used, be able to use Apple Pay Touch where you can immediately get paid. But that's because our goal is to have an open platform where we bring all the innovation of the best companies out there to you. So that you can run your business on any device, and you don't have to worry about which application it is, but that we do it all for you. >> I just love the Google Calendar example, because so many great innovations today are basically reassembling stuff that's already out there; leveraging APIs and presenting it in a different way. And so the fact that you're taking advantage of Google Calendar, which so so many people ... You probably know the numbers use ... And then have that drive your billing, have that drive your time management, and then just take advantage of the data that's there, or as Scott said, "Take advantage of the data that's in your phone." >> Sasan: That's right. >> It knows exactly how far you went on that drive to the client. It knows when you left and when you arrived-- >> That's right. >> and when you got home. So the leverage of Cloud platform with APIs, to pull that data in and drive in a seamless integration, it makes (chuckles) it makes too much sense, right? (Sasan laughs) It does, and when you think about someone like Google, where there's a billion people that use Gmail ... >> A billion. >> And most of them are using ... There's a billion people that have Gmail accounts. >> Jeff: Wow. >> And over 60% of our customers use Google Calendar to run their business. And so, it's only intuitive to figure out a way well, how do we automate all of that-- >> Jeff: Right. >> so that the customer doesn't have to use cookbooks for taxes and accounting, then go to Google Calendar to see where they spent their time so they can figure out how to invoice? >> And they type it in, right. >> Just integrate it all together so it's all in one place, yeah. >> How do you all keep focused when your market, your potential market's so big? You've got, I don't know ... I've read, was it 800 million possible businesses, right? Small businesses. >> Sasan: That's right. >> So how do you ... If you look at what would be reasonable growth trajectory and expansion, your plans ... How do you keep your eyes on the target, and how do you determine that target? >> Yeah, that's a great question. Let me start with where you just ended, which is there are 800 million self-employed and small businesses worldwide. And 97 to 8% of 'em actually are not using the Cloud to run their business, or their time. And the way we prioritize is think about the countries that are the biggest opportunity to create virility by those that are using the platform. And so we've prioritized which countries that we're going after, and really doubling down in those countries. And that's where we really are able to focus our efforts in time. 'Cause once we create this, what we call the network effect, the more small businesses and self-employed we get to use the platform, the more we get accountants to be able to see the power of the platform. The more they tell their friends. The more accountants are recommending it, you in essence create this flywheel effect of more and more going to the Cloud. And once we get that flywheel effect going, we'll think about what's that next country that we want to go into. We're not that serial about it, but our biggest focus comes from being clear which countries we're going to play in today, and which countries, for now, we're going to wait 'til we get this network effect going. >> And now you've got this whole new way to work. People that are giving up part of their house or apartment for Airbnb rentals. Or people that are driving in Uber for four hours a couple of days a week. Again, those are all based on systems that are driving that engagement. Do you see that it's just a whole new opportunity, do you see a lot of growth in ... I always forget the technical term for-- >> Sasan: The digamy ... The giga-- >> The gig. >> Sasan: The gig economy. >> The gig economy. >> That's right-- >> Which is a whole new and swelling thing. >> It is. >> And for a lot of those people, they are even less sophisticated on keeping track of their tax withdrawals than the small mom and pop store (chuckles)-- >> Sasan: That's right. >> that's at least been paying their social security for a number of years. >> Sasan: That's right. >> So another huge opportunity for you. >> It absolute is. One of the myths is most self-employed are actually not part of the gig economy. There's the photographer that you may call on to come take pictures of your family, or the landscaper that's a one-person shop. That's 90% of self-employment. About less than 10% is the Airbnbs, the Lyft, and the Ubers of the world. But that number's only going to grow over time. In fact, our view is in this day and age people will work at a company for three to four years at a time. We believe in ten years, people will work for three to four companies in a day. 'Cause they're workers, and they're outsourcing their time to different companies. >> Jeff: Three or four companies-- >> A day. >> Jeff: A day? >> A day. Because in essence, they're self-employed. Now I may work for you and do a job. I may work for you and do a job. That's actually starting to happen today. Except it's a small part of the economy. We believe ten years from now it'll be a huge part of the economy. And that creates a huge opportunity for us, 'cause they're all self-employed. >> Right. >> Before you head out, again, one of the big trend topics, artificial intelligence, machine learning. How do those come into play in your vision for the company's vision, and the products and services that you think you could develop that can be put to use? >> Yeah, in fact we think there are two core competencies that we must have. One is an open platform where we integrate all applications into the platform, whether it's ours or somebody else's. The second is being amazing at leveraging the data, whether it's data from a PayPal app, a Square app our own app. And leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning, so we can do the work for our customers. So we believe when it comes to data and artificial intelligence, that is actually one of two or three primary core competencies that we are building as a company. And it's something we're not new at. We've been doing this for years. In fact, last year in TurboTax we've reduced the amount of time it took to do your taxes by 40%, by using machine learning. And we're now applying that within QuickBooks. >> I'd like you to reduce my tax liability by about 40%. (Jeff laughs) If we can (chuckles) take care of that and I'm yours. >> Or at least-- >> Well, listen-- >> Or at least get you to the July deadline. (John laughs) >> If you just make less income-- (Jeff laughing) >> That's right. >> I'm sure that's doable. (Sasan laughs) >> If you don't make it, you don't pay it. >> Sasan: That's right (chuckles). >> You mentioned ESPN earlier about the stage and all that. You made top plays today, no doubt about it with the keynotes address. >> Sasan: Oh, thank you-- >> Job very well done. >> Thank you very much. >> Jeff: Cute Kim's (mumbles) coming. >> Sasan: Thank you. >> And thank you (Jeff laughs) for joining us here on theCUBE. We appreciate the time-- >> Thank you, thank you for having me. >> John: You bet. Back with more-- >> Alright, thanks. QuickBooks Connect 2016 here in San Jose. You're watching theCUBE. (upbeat pop music)