Online accounting network iShade launches

Three years ago, Jeffrey Pawlow and his partners Charles Hylan and Lisa Benson were looking to develop a small online portal for their clients. "Over about two years, the concept quickly evolved from being kind of a hobby that would support The Growth Partnership (TGP) to something that is not at all related to TGP and is now funded by venture capital," says Pawlow, CEO and managing shareholder of TGP, a consulting group that helps clients achieve sustainable, profitable growth.

That Web portal, iShade, officially launches May 24 for the entire accounting vertical and features a user community that includes CPAs and chartered accountants from around the world, related associations and societies, vendors, accounting students and professors, consultants, and industry thought leaders. Jason Bramwell reports.

iShade is a free online accounting community that will enable users to network in a collaborative environment, utilize a turnkey firm intranet, access iShade faculty, and aggregate content and information in a single place. The Web portal, which can be accessed at ishade.com, will formally be introduced to the public via a Webinar June 6.

"We believe the future of social networks is going to be more and more niched. We’ll be able to do things that just don’t make sense for large sites, like Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter, and we’ll be able to cater very narrowly to a precise audience," Pawlow, CEO of St. Louis-based iShade, told AccountingWEB. "What we’re trying to create is a single login experience, where a user can come and do things that are important to him or her as an accountant. The amount of intellectual property that has been gathered into a single space for people to partake in is absolutely incredible."

iShade (a play on words of the green eyeshades that accountants wore in the late 19th century and early 20th century) will exit beta with approximately 1,500 members, 500 firms, and 200 marketplace profiles.

"We haven’t really done much to try and grow the population at this point, but we’re still seeing great activity within the site. If we can get that type of activity with 1,500 members, what happens when we have 15,000 or even 150,000 members in terms of the community and sharing that will go on within the site? So we are excited about that," says Pawlow. "I’d like to be at 25,000 members by the end of this year, which we think is a pretty aggressive, yet attainable goal.

"And like anything else, it’s going to take time. We’re tracking the metrics; people spend on average about 10 minutes on the site. There are a lot of returning visitors, and we don’t have a very high bounce rate, which means people are sticking around," he adds. "What we need to do is create an environment where people are comfortable contributing information."

A user can set up his individual profile or his firm’s profile in about 75 seconds, Pawlow says.

"Our goal is to keep iShade free," he adds. "We have a training and development add-on product called iShade Learning that helps fund our operation, and at some point, there will certainly be an advertising play to help build the community to a size that makes sense for people who want to get in front of that community to do so. But, for the core constituent – the accountant user – the core experience will always be free."

Pawlow says he hasn’t defined a particular demographic of accountant to target for the online community. Instead, the site seeks to serve the entire accounting vertical.

"We’ve developed a nice relationship with a young lady who’s an accounting student in Mainland China. She saw the site, joined, created a profile, reached out to us, and she’s vigorously advocating her fellow students to join the portal and collaborate with one another, so that’s one bookend," Pawlow adds. "Another bookend might be someone like Marc Rosenberg, president of The Rosenberg Associates, who is a well-known name in the profession and is looking at this to get closer with his clients and prospects, as well as to demonstrate his position as a thought leader within the profession."

Features of the online community include:

Custom user groups: Similar to LinkedIn or Facebook, user groups can be formed around any topic, interest, or demographic and provide a common, convenient forum to pool resources, promote communication, and open discussion among members.

"Just like Facebook connects you to friends and relatives from your past, iShade connects you to the people who are relevant to your professional growth," marketing manager Michael Slawin told AccountingWEB. "It is cost efficient, time efficient, and it’s a way of bringing things together to use your time efficiently."

Turnkey firm intranet: Users can connect directly to their staff – whether they’re in one office or several offices – through a private firm intranet that allows staff to post internal discussions, announcements, resources, and updates to the firm’s calendar.

iShade faculty and resource library: Members of the iShade faculty are practitioners and consultants who have established a pedigree within the profession and are passionate about sharing their knowledge and expertise with others. There are currently more than 50 iShade faculty members.

"We have people now approaching us and asking, 'Hey, how do we become faculty?'" says Pawlow. "Faculty is our designation for somebody who has established themselves as a thought leader in the profession, and they’re willing to share with us and with others, answer questions, moderate groups, and give Webinars."

Webinars are one of the resources users can find in the site’s resource library, which also houses practical, ready-to-use tools; white papers; podcasts; surveys; checklists; and other valuable materials offered by faculty members. Resources are categorized as practice management, practice development, people development, technical, technology, toolkit, social media, reference, leadership development, and benchmarking.

2020 Gateway: Users have access to 2020 International, an international association of more than 2,000 firms that are willing to provide practitioners with the technical expertise and resources to help clients.

"We’ve also partnered with some pretty exciting organizations, such as LarsonAllen LLP, Plain-English Accounting, and Honkamp Krueger Financial Services, where they are building out very robust areas within iShade for their constituents and clients," says Pawlow. "They’re using it as a way to promote their individual business models, but they’re also giving a lot away for free as an enticement for iShade users to come and visit their section within iShade."

Blogs: "We’re aggregating all of the blogs from across the accounting profession that will be searchable across multiple topical areas," says Pawlow. "For example, if I drill down and select 'Partner Compensation,' we will serve up all the blog posts from all of the bloggers that deal with partner compensation. We think that’s a very useful application for the consumer."

Marketplace: Users can browse the iShade marketplace for vendors that sell products and services to the accounting profession. iShade members can read reviews from their colleagues on each marketplace vendor, as well as submit their own ratings and reviews.

"iShade is all things accounting—whether you’re working in public accounting or you’re working in industry, whether you’re an accounting student or managing partner of a firm, there’s something here for you," says Pawlow.

"We’re really excited about it," adds Slawin. "In talking to the vendors and talking to some of the users, they’re always like, 'This is a really great tool. This is very useful. I can use this every day in my work life.' It’s like LinkedIn on steroids."