Marcus Perez and Maxim Ermakov both went into consulting after graduating from Notre Dame and Wayne State Universities. Working with small businesses and helping them figure out how to best do their books inspired them to start their own company,
MSquared.
"At the end of the day, a lot of their basic financial services and processes were subpar at best," Perez says.
The 1-year-old startup and its staff of three people help outfit small businesses with tools to balance their books and figure out the general nuts and bolts of running a company. For instance, MSquared helps client firms appreciate the importance of real revenues, expenses, comprehensive financial analysis, and accurate accounting.
The company got its start when Ermakov was recruited to be the chief financial officer at a Florida company. He and Perez helped get that firm off the ground and developed a platform to do the same for other companies, which is now the core competency of MSquared.
"If we can launch this down in Florida, we can do this in Detroit," Perez says. "There is a great startup community in Detroit and we want to concentrate on this area."
MSquared has been working with
Wayne State University's Blackstone LaunchPad program, which helps everyday students chase their entrepreneurial dreams by teaching them the basics of launching a business. MSquared also landed a few thousand dollars in seed capital from the program's
Warrior Fund.
"It has been pretty instrumental at helping us get organized," Perez says.
Source: Marcus Perez, co-founder of MSquared
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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