#2288 She had people do AI's work - Startup Stories - Mixergy Recap

Podcast: Startup Stories - Mixergy

Published: 2025-12-17

Duration: 0 min

Guests: Helen Hastings

Summary

Helen Hastings revolutionized her AI-based accounting software, Quanta, by initially employing human labor to simulate AI tasks, raising $20 million in the process.

What Happened

Helen Hastings, founder of Quanta, shares how she innovatively used human workers to perform tasks typically done by AI in the early stages of her company. This approach helped in raising $20 million for her AI-based accounting software, which is now faster and more efficient due to a hybrid model combining human insights with AI-driven processes.

Hastings explains how traditional bookkeeping is often outsourced overseas, leading to miscommunications and errors due to a lack of contextual understanding. By shadowing different bookkeeping firms, she identified the nuances and context needed to develop her software, ensuring it accurately interpreted human-written language, such as distinguishing between Amazon purchases and AWS expenses.

She highlights the early manual processes involved, where bookkeepers would log into financial tools, download data, and upload it into accounting systems. This inefficiency led her to build a system from the ground up, focused on real-time reconciliation and redundancy to maintain data accuracy.

Through user research, Hastings realized the limitations of existing platforms like QuickBooks and aimed to build a more specialized system that could automate tasks and offer real-time insights. She emphasizes the importance of clean, structured data as a foundation for effective AI application.

Quanta's strategy involves focusing on companies that fit within their automation capabilities, avoiding the pitfall of hiring large staffs to use existing software like QuickBooks. This disciplined approach allows them to operate at a higher quality level.

Hastings also discusses the challenges of entering a market dominated by a few big players like QuickBooks, noting that many competitors have failed by not building their own software from scratch.

Recently, Quanta launched a new product called Prism, which leverages AI to answer business queries in natural language, providing detailed insights and explaining the rationale behind answers. This is part of their strategy to transform bookkeeping from a chore into a strategic asset.

Key Insights

• Quanta initially used human workers to perform tasks typically done by AI, aiding in raising $20 million for its AI-based accounting software. This hybrid model now enhances efficiency by combining human insights with AI processes.
• Traditional bookkeeping outsourcing often leads to errors due to a lack of contextual understanding. Quanta's software was developed by shadowing bookkeeping firms to accurately interpret human-written language, such as distinguishing between Amazon purchases and AWS expenses.
• Quanta's system was built from the ground up to address inefficiencies in traditional bookkeeping, focusing on real-time reconciliation and data redundancy to maintain accuracy. This approach avoids the need for large staffs using existing software like QuickBooks.
• Quanta's new product, Prism, uses AI to answer business queries in natural language, providing detailed insights and explaining the rationale behind answers. This aims to transform bookkeeping into a strategic asset rather than a chore.