B:Side Assist

Unveiling B:Side Assist: a quantum leap in small business assistance, powered by cutting-edge artificial intelligence. This transformative platform, a brainchild of B:Side Fund, is not just an ally, but an AI-driven powerhouse for small businesses nationwide. It is designed to perform automated bookkeeping, decode business data, and offer real-time, game-changing insights, all thanks to its advanced AI and natural language processing capabilities.

With its ability to seamlessly integrate with financial accounts, B:Side Assist generates precise financial statements and real-time cash metrics with unparalleled accuracy. The power of AI doesn't stop there; it proactively identifies business trends, potential pitfalls, and lucrative opportunities, acting as a digital oracle for your business..

The AI's intuitive natural language interface demystifies complex financial jargon, explaining business fundamentals as simply as a human advisor would. It's like having an in-house financial guru, using your actual business information to provide advice tailored to your unique needs.

The platform also streamlines the loan application process, using AI to predict the potential impact of funding on your operations. In collaboration with Empleo, it enhances workforce welfare, contributing to job quality and stability.

Where conventional mentoring falls short, B:Side Assist excels. This AI-fueled assistant offers limitless, on-demand support, revolutionizing small business management. Harness the power of AI with B:Side Assist. It's more than a platform; it's a digital compass guiding your business towards uncharted territories of growth and success, providing centuries of wisdom at your fingertips. 

At its core, B:Side Assist is a robust technology stack combining financial data integration, machine learning, and natural language processing to serve small businesses effectively.

Our integration with Plaid's API and Quickbooks Online provides a secure channel to import financial transactions directly from your bank and credit card providers, or from your existing accounting software. This comprehensive financial data serves as the foundation for our system's intelligent processing.

Our proprietary algorithm takes this raw transactional data and classifies it, organizing it into traditional financial statements such as income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. This algorithm uses machine learning to become increasingly precise over time, learning from each transaction to continually refine its categorization accuracy.

Once we have these comprehensive, organized financial statements, we feed this information into a model based on ChatGPT, an advanced natural language processing AI developed by OpenAI. This system is trained specifically on your business's financial information, industry, background, and owners' details to provide personalized, meaningful business insights.

The beauty of B:Side Assist is its self-improving nature. The more data it processes, the more intelligent it becomes. It continuously learns from each transaction, each question, and each user interaction, making its insights more accurate, relevant, and personalized as time goes on.

In essence, B:Side Assist leverages the power of API-based data integration, machine learning, and natural language processing to convert complex financial data into actionable business insights, helping small business owners navigate the labyrinth of financial management with ease and precision.

There's an unshakeable confidence in the technology underpinning B:Side Assist. This isn't just optimism; it's confidence grounded in proven success and underwritten by reliable, industry-tested technology.

Our founder's prior experience as the founder and CEO of BodeTree, a company which successfully developed, launched, and sold a system employing a similar proprietary algorithm in 2018, serves as a testament to the potential of our technology. The system was not only accepted by the industry, but it was also commended for its transformative approach to converting raw transactional data into clear, understandable financial statements.

Moreover, our proprietary algorithm has been further refined since the days of BodeTree, with cutting-edge AI technology like ChatGPT from OpenAI now forming a vital part of the framework. The success of BodeTree validated the concept and functionality of our technology, and this new integration takes that functionality to new heights.

The technology supporting B:Side Assist also includes established solutions from some of the industry's most trusted names. Plaid's API, an essential part of our tech stack, is trusted by a multitude of companies worldwide for its ability to securely and seamlessly connect with a diverse range of financial institutions. This proven reliability ensures that we can access and consolidate users' financial data effectively.

Simultaneously, OpenAI's ChatGPT forms the cornerstone of our AI approach. It is an industry-leading language model capable of understanding and generating human-like text, turning raw financial data into intelligible and actionable insights. Its proven track record and widespread adoption in multiple applications underscore our confidence in its ability to be a critical component of B:Side Assist.

Thus, the robustness of B:Side Assist comes from the fusion of our proprietary algorithm, backed by the founder's successful track record with BodeTree, and the integration of proven, reliable technologies like Plaid's API and OpenAI's ChatGPT. This powerful combination assures us of our technology's ability to revolutionize financial management for small businesses nationwide.

B:Side serves small businesses, with a focus on historically under-resourced populations including low-to-moderate income communities, women-owned, BIPOC-owned, veteran-owned, rural-based and business located in historically disinvested areas. B:Side Assist will: (1) Leverage technology to provide meaningful, value-added small business education and resources that will allow small business owners to become more resilient to economic disruptions and achieve greater operational efficiency and; (2) Divert small businesses from irresponsible lending by offering mission-focused, responsible capital through loans. Together, this will allow small businesses to create wealth for themselves, their families and their communities.

The Challenge calls for innovative solutions addressing the pressing issues faced by small businesses, particularly those from traditionally disadvantaged groups, who often struggle with financial management and access to capital. Our solution, B:Side Assist, and our target population align perfectly with this Challenge's objectives.

Problem: Small businesses, especially those from disadvantaged groups, grapple with financial management complexities, understanding financial jargon, acquiring funding, and ensuring workforce wellbeing. These challenges can stifle growth, leading to a high failure rate. The Challenge seeks to resolve these issues, which forms the crux of the problem B:Side Assist addresses.

Solution: B:Side Assist uses AI to revolutionize small business financial management. By securely integrating with users' financial accounts, our proprietary algorithm organizes transactions into understandable financial statements. AI-powered insights demystify financial terminology, while the automated loan application feature streamlines access to capital. Collaboration with Empleo enhances workforce welfare. Importantly, our solution is self-learning, improving its accuracy and personalization over time.

Population: We aim to serve small businesses nationwide, with a focus on traditionally disadvantaged groups. Our solution is designed to be accessible and user-friendly, providing equal benefits to all businesses regardless of their financial literacy or background.

B:Side Assist addresses the Challenge's core objectives. It targets the pressing issues faced by the very population the Challenge aims to help, offering an innovative solution that transforms financial management barriers into growth opportunities.

Our Theory of Change for B:Side Assist unfolds as follows:

Activities: Our primary activities involve developing and continuously refining B:Side Assist, which is a comprehensive AI-driven tool that automates complex financial tasks, provides actionable business insights, demystifies financial terminology, simplifies the loan application process, and fosters workforce wellbeing. Our AI learns and improves over time, offering increasingly personalized and accurate insights.

Outputs: These activities result in immediate outputs including simplified financial management, increased financial literacy for users, streamlined access to capital, enhanced employee welfare, and more time for business owners to focus on their core operations.

Outcomes: Over the long term, we expect these outputs to contribute to more financially secure and sustainable small businesses, particularly among traditionally disadvantaged groups. Improved financial management and access to capital can lead to business growth, increased profitability, job creation, and a healthier small business ecosystem.

Evidence: Our confidence in this Theory of Change is underpinned by several factors. Firstly, our founder's previous company, BodeTree, saw success with a similar system, illustrating the viability of our approach. Secondly, Plaid's API and OpenAI's ChatGPT, integral parts of our tech stack, have proven successful in various applications. Additionally, numerous studies underscore the link between financial management, access to capital, and small business success. Finally, we have received positive preliminary feedback from small businesses about the potential impact of B:Side Assist on their operations.

In sum, our theory of change for B:Side Assist posits that by simplifying financial management and improving access to capital, we can contribute to the growth and sustainability of small businesses, leading to a more vibrant and inclusive small business ecosystem.

• The current number of people you’re serving: 0

• The number you’ll be serving in one year: 500

• The number you’ll be serving in five years: 250,000+

The communities we serve are historically under-resourced small business owners including low-to-moderate income communities, women-owned, BIPOC-owned, veteran-owned, rural-based and businesses located in historically disinvested areas. Stakeholders include business owner families; business employees; neighborhoods; local economic development organizations; local, state and federal government agencies; small business resource providers such as the small business development centers, women’s business centers, and SCORE; credit unions and banking partners. Our programming and platform has the potential to help businesses grow, thrive and obtain traditional loans in the future.

Our approach has always been human-centered, designed to understand a business owner’s situation and circumstances. In this way, we’ve streamlined the lending process to make it less intimidating, especially to those who haven’t sought debt capital for their business before. In addition, we leverage existing resources whenever possible by partnering with trusted, local resource providers that reflect the communities that they serve.

• Current year: (1) $3,500,000 deployed; (2) Launch B:Side Assist nationally; (3) At least 60% lending to target markets regionally

• In five years: (1) $50,000,000 deployed; (2) 250,000 # of businesses on B:Side Assist; (3) At least 60% to target markets; (4) Become CDFI certified; (5) Expand lending nationally.

As a forward thinking 501(c)3 non-profit organization, we believe that the problem we identified, lack of access to resources and capital, is a challenge that all U.S. based small businesses face at some point in their journey. Our solution leverages AI technology to better support small businesses at scale, which will have widespread impact, particularly in helping low-income, disadvantaged communities build wealth over time. Our programs and system design will make it easy-to-use, which is essential for busy entrepreneurs who are pulled in so many directions. Our platform also has the potential to partner with non-profit, government and private sectors to further support and elevate small businesses. We also think by being a part of the MIT Solve Cohort with access to capacity building resources, will help our team bring our prototype to the masses.

Based on our current needs and challenges, we most need partners or support in the following areas:

Human Capital: To develop and refine B:Side Assist, we require a team of experienced developers, data scientists, and AI specialists. Support in sourcing and retaining this talent would greatly aid in our product development process.

Product / Service Distribution: We aim to reach small businesses nationwide, especially those from traditionally disadvantaged groups. Assistance in crafting and executing a robust distribution strategy, and expanding our client base is greatly needed.

Technology: B:Side Assist is a tech-based solution. As such, expertise in software development, AI, data analysis, and other relevant areas is critical to our success. Guidance or partnerships in this domain could help improve our product's functionality and user experience.

In these areas, we seek advice, mentorship, or partnerships that can provide valuable insights, resources, and support. By securing such assistance, we are confident that we can navigate our current challenges and move closer to realizing our vision for B:Side Assist.