Expensify

Expensify is one of the world’s most innovative companies (according to Fast Company, 2015) that was established in 2008. David Barrett is the founder and current CEO of the company. The headquarters of the company is based in California, United States. Expensify has approximately 144 members, according to December 2021. The major and widely used product launched by the company is an expense reporting application that is available both for Android and Apple devices. Expensify’s expense management software not only helps to track everyday expenses but also helps in creating receipts for online purchases which can be further used for reimbursement.

Founding History

The story of David Barrett and his successful entrepreneurial life starts back in 2008. It all started with a bleak hope and a doubtful mind to open the startup and after a decade it has become a successful US-based public company. Getting deeper into the backstory of Expensify, Barrett used to live in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco in 2008. Living in this neighborhood, Barrett came across his unhoused neighbors almost every day on the street. This got him thinking about several ways to help these people without giving direct cash. While thinking about an alternate solution, he came up with an idea of a debit card linked to the personal account of these people which would ensure that they could buy food and all be able to access various kinds of public services.

Pitching this idea was accompanied by several hiccups as most of the banks thought the idea was very strange and risky. David got turned down for funding wherever he pitched the idea initially. But Barrett was determined to found this company and hence the next time he pitched a low-risk idea to the bank for getting funding. This led to the development of Expensify, an expense report platform for both business and personal use.

Journey to Becoming Expensify

After having a clear idea about how he wanted to pitch a solution, Barrett finally came up with his card technology concept in 2008. He presented his idea at TechCrunch50 and named his solution as Expensify with a tagline, “The Corporate Card for the Masses!”. Initially, Barrett didn’t have any planning to open a startup but he realized that people actually loved the concept of expense reporting.

Eventually, David started working to establish Expensify properly and expand the team. In the next couple of years, David and his company launched the first receipt-scanning technology in the industry. This product was called SmartScan which allowed the user to take a photo of the receipt for automatic transcription. The name of Expensify’s platform spread like a wildfire in the initial years. Expense management is a very crucial task, especially for working individuals, so the new users of the platform increased at an exponential rate. As word-of-mouth spread, Expensify was able to raise much more funding (from $1 million in 2009 to $17 million in 2015). It also received several awards and recognitions like Tabby Award (2015), Forbes Cloud 100 (2016), Top 10 Free Mobiles Sales App by Inc Magazine (2014), and many more.

About the Founder

David Barrett is a famous American entrepreneur who is known for being the CEO and founder of Expensify. Barrett is an alumni of the University of Michigan and he studied software engineering. David was into programming from the early age of six. After he joined Michigan, he started working there in a virtual reality laboratory. After he graduated, he worked in the video game industry where he helped in developing 3D graphics. Before starting his company, Barrett worked at Red Swoosh, a peer-to-peer file-sharing company.