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Jessica Mah is the founder and CEO at inDinero.com – the fastest growing way for businesses to track their money online. Jessica attended an early college called Bard College at Simon’s Rock and then graduated from the UC Berkeley at 19. During her senior year, Jessica and a friend began working on inDinero, a website that makes it easy for small businesses to keep track the financial health of their business. Having already started a few small businesses, including a web design company (at 13) and an internship listing service (at 18), she decided that part of the problem was overly complex accounting software. In June, inDinero entered YCombinator mentoring program, and inDinero went live one month later. By September, Jessica had closed a $1.2 million angel investment round. Today, inDinero is headquartered in downtown San Francisco with six employees.

What are you working on right now?

inDinero is currently in a very product-focused phase, so my team has been iterating on and improving all aspects of our core offering. I’m no exception – most days I work with design contractors to make progress on the site.

What does your typical day look like?

10AM – Wake up, check calendar for scheduled appointments, grab a smoothie 11AM – photographer from CNN Money comes to visit us at the office. Takes a bunch of photos over the next hour. Noon – Eat Lunch prepared by awesome company chefs, chat with support team about problems or awesome testimonials 1PM – Work with design contractors to design the best, most sexy UI for new features 5PM – Review designer portfolios, work on improving candidate-flow for potential lead product designers 630PM – break for dinner with the team. 715PM – talk to engineering recruit who we’re about to extend a fulltime offer to. Answer his questions on why inDinero is the best startup in Silicon Valley/SF, convince him to join us. 9PM – focus on only product, design new functionality based on the customer feedback I got earlier in the morning from people I chatted with through the inDinero website or from the Support Team’s weekly support report. 1AM – shower, read a book (this week, it’s “Philosophy of Money“) 2AM – off to sleep, rinse and repeat process the next morning.

3 trends that excite you?

Data driven design, lean startup movement, and fun company culture.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I brainstorm ideas in the shower, then I email them to myself after.

What inspires you?

Walt Disney theme parks and movies, delicious food, great architecture

What is one mistake you’ve made, and what did you learn from it?

There have been many! One mistake I’ve made is not budgeting my finances very well, but now I use inDinero to help keep my spending under control. Another mistake I would mention is rushing into hiring decisions. At inDinero, we put a lot of time and effort into our hiring decisions to ensure a mutual fit.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

Ebay for local communities and a full fledged marketing firm for startups.

What do you read every day? Why?

Hacker News – because I love the YC community!

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read, and why?

Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh – because it inspires you to value working in a fun environment over making money.

What is your favorite gadget, app or piece of software that helps you every day?

WakeMate.

Who would you love to see interviewed on IdeaMensch?

Tony Hsieh.

What are your goals with your business?

I like this question, because it doesn’t just assume that your goal is to get rich and famous. My goals are to create workplace that makes me excited to go to work everyday and also to help other entrepreneurs.

What would you do if you were the dictator of China?

I’d make it the entrepreneur capital of the world.

Connect:

Check out my blog at www.jessicamah.com