Today on the Modern Direct Seller Podcast, we’re joined by Daniel Davis, cofounder and Head of Product at Mymo—the financial technology company. Especially in January, as we’re looking at the year ahead, we need to consider the goals we’ve set, the money we’re making, and how we’re tracking that daily, weekly, and monthly revenue. Luckily, Daniel brought us the details! Listen in to learn about the tools that can ease your financial path and how you can make the most of your independent income.

Connect with Daniel via email ⁠[email protected]⁠, learn more about Mymo on ⁠Mymo.com⁠, and ask questions at ⁠[email protected]⁠.

Time based notes:

• 1:03 Daniel Davis introduction
• 1:56 The future of independent work
• 6:12 The numbers to track in business
• 8:49 Mymo in practice
• 14:51 The results from Mymo
• 17:32 Mymo.com and the free app
• 18:43 Daniel’s favorite office supply

Income for Independent Workers with Daniel Davis

Especially in January, as we’re looking at the year ahead, we need to consider the goals we’ve set, the money we’re making, and how we’re tracking that daily, weekly, and monthly revenue. Luckily, we were recently joined on the Modern Direct Seller Podcast by Daniel Davis, cofounder and Head of Product at Mymo, who brought us the details about the tools that can ease our financial path and how we can make the most of our independent income!

So, as we get started, why don’t you just share a little bit about yourself, what you do, and who you serve?

So, I am the Head of Product at Mymo. Mymo is a financial technology company. Our mission in life, effectively, is to help independent workers and self-employed people, live their best life. And, we do that by providing a bunch of financial tools. I currently lead all of our products and design, so anything that you see—our website, our mobile app, any other products that you touch—goes through my team.

Okay, so let’s set the scene here. There’s a lot of talk in the industry around the gig economy and independent jobs, like direct sales, network marketing, social selling, ride share, all the things. And, I know that you’re a numbers guy, so tell us, really, what the future looks like when it comes to independent work.

Yeah, we think about this a lot. One of the reasons that we’re in this is because this is the fastest growing portion of the labor market. So, if you look at U.S. economy as a whole, by 2030, it’s estimated that independent work will be the predominant form of income. It’s growing twelve times faster than traditional W-2 income for a bunch of different reasons. There’s now a bunch of different ways to make money. There’s also a lot of reason to add additional sources of income into your family. I think the latest stat is 64% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. And so, there’s a lot of urgency around earning additional income. And, because there’s so many new ways to earn money, people have found a lot of different ways to add income to their households.

I want to say that stat just one more time: By 2030, just six years out, independent work is anticipated to be the predominant way people are working. I say that almost with a question, where I’m like, “Really? Oh, my gosh! That is huge.” And, it’s huge for people that are already doing this type of work and have the potential of inviting others to come along and do it with them.

The interesting thing is, when you break it down, there’s 75 million people in the U.S. that do independent work and earn 1099 income. And, I think there’s a disproportionate amount of media and technology focus and conversation around the ride share and food delivery community. That only makes up about 10% of total workers; the other 90% sit in these affiliate marketing, direct selling, freelance, and sort of independent consultant organizations. And so, it’s kind of shocking when you look and see that these massive groups of people are really underserved by technology, by financial institutions, and by financial services.

So, let’s talk numbers a little bit, because I know that some people tune out when we get into financials, but I think it’s really important to talk a little bit about what numbers you should be tracking in your business. In the direct sales world, we often just see our company’s back office. And, that back office typically just shows your personal volume or your sales volume. And so, a lot of the training that I share is, what’s actually more important is your bank account number. So, even if people are not “math people,” per se, what are those numbers that we should be looking at and tracking in our business?

I love this question. Because, you’re right, that back office number is revenue, right?

Yeah, it’s the company’s goal; it’s not you and your personal goal.

Exactly. So, there’s a couple of things that we built into the Mymo app that, to your point, kind of offload math to a computer so you don’t have to do it yourself. The first one, which is probably the least sexy topic of all time, is taxes. So, as an independent contractor, you’re responsible for your own taxes. No one likes to talk about it. No one’s solved this problem super well. We built our own tax engine; we use AI to find tax deductions on your spending. We let you track miles, we let you track expenses, all this stuff. And, that tends to be the biggest chunk of money that people ignore when they look at the bottom line. So, right away, you know that’s going to come out of your taxes. And, if you have a multi-income household, calculating your tax rate is not just about what your business makes; it’s also your entire household. And so, we have a way for you to put all that into the app.

The other thing is the expenses that it takes to run your business. Not only is it helpful for taxes—because you can deduct a lot of things that maybe you wouldn’t think of—but it’s important to be efficient and pay close attention to what you do spend money on to earn the dollars that you bring in. Just looking at the revenue number is great; you want to grow that number. But, you also want to be efficient in how much you spend to earn those dollars, and then, ultimately, what you’re going to pay the government at the end of the year to meet your tax liabilities.

You mentioned a couple of things here, but let’s talk a little bit more about Mymo. How does it work? How is it giving you a full picture of your financial goals and the income that you’re actually making? What does it look like in practice for those that might be listening right now, thinking, “Oh, I have some work to do in this area?”

So, we spent about six months before we released the product building a massive network of connections to income sources so that we could pull data automatically. I think one of the big misses in other services is that you have to manually input things. So, what we wanted to do is be able to bring all that information in automatically.

We also said that, if we don’t have all of your income, we’re probably not as valuable. Because, if we’re only showing you a portion, we’re not able to do things like taxes. We’re not giving you clear visibility. So, today, we cover about 2 million employers, and we cover about 150 million households in the U.S. of income. So, you can connect your direct selling income through our integrations with some of the payout providers. And, we have a lot of users that also have W-2 job that can connect their payroll service. We have a lot of users who work in the gig economy, also, so we bring all that together. Those links are live. We’re automatically bringing in earnings as you earn. And so, you can see, almost in real time, what you’re earning and where you are, at any point.

I tell this story a lot, because we were doing a bunch of interviewing and testing of independent workers early on, and one of the questions we would ask is, “How much money have you made this month?” And, we had zero people answer it off the top of their heads. And, I thought it was an interesting point, because I’m a W-2 worker for Mymo. I know exactly what I’ve made this month; any W-2 worker does. But, if you work for yourself, and you have variable income sources that pay at different times, that pay at different cadences, where you’re earning a different amount, the first question that the app solves is “What have I made this month?” That’s the first thing you see when you open the app.

And then, after that, it’s about setting up goals. We monitor taxes automatically. You can bank with us; we have a whole banking service as part of our experience that we’re building. But, it’s really about, “How much have I made? Am I tracking that income? Am I hitting my top line goals and needs?”

So, what kind of results are you seeing from your users? What are you learning from the users that are on the app?

We see great results. Broadly, across all of our users, regardless of what type of income you do, if you set a goal in Mymo, that user cohort is earning 17% more than folks who don’t set a goal—which, on our platform, comes out to about $3,500 bucks a year. And, I think there’s a couple of reasons for that. I think writing down your goals is sort of known to help reinforce what your target is, and then tracking that income is really important to achieving those. The other thing is, I think just having a reminder of what you’re working towards and being able to adjust and be flexible with those goals as you grow or as your earnings change means that you’re consistently hitting your targets. And so, we see that user group earn more consistently than those who don’t set a goal.

The other thing is, when it comes to the sellers on our platform—our independent business owners, sellers, brand affiliates—those who engage with the app every week are making 20% more than those who aren’t. And, that’s with the whole feature bundle. So, it’s not just goal setting. It’s monitoring taxes. It’s seeing your income from other sources in relation to your independent business income. And, that just showcases the hero message of our app: How tracking your income can lead to real results when you hold yourself accountable to it.

So, tell us where we can learn more about Mymo. How do we check it out? What is the plan the pricing? How does it work for an independent seller to get started?

So, Mymo.com: You can read more about the company and the mission. The app: You can download it for free. There’s no subscription fee. It’s free to use, free for everything, because we don’t think you should pay to have access to your own data. And, you can join at Mymo.com, or email [email protected] if you have specific questions.

We are also constantly adding platforms and income sources, so to those who might download and log in and then search for their income source, if you don’t see it, you can email me personally at [email protected]. We’re building relationships with every company in this space, and so we will immediately reach out and try and get those connections set up for you.

Thank you so much for sharing so much wisdom around tracking financials! This was an incredible conversation, and I love that this is coming in January, because when is a better time to start tracking your numbers than the beginning of the year? This is a great time for people to dial in and have awareness around something that maybe doesn’t always feel that fun to talk about, but that is absolutely critical to your growth as a business owner.

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