Today we’d like to introduce you to Uche Okoroha.
Hi Uche, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I started my career by going to George Washington Law School in Washington, DC. I’ve always been an analytical person, and I was intrigued by how law forces you to think outside of your own perspective to craft compelling arguments.
After law school, I worked in corporate law for a few years before getting into tax. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, I worked for the largest national tax credit consulting firm.
From there, I left to start my own tax credit consulting firm in 2017. This was the biggest challenge I have faced in my career, and it took two years before I started to gain traction and start seeing success.
Over the last few years, I became interested in artificial intelligence and machine learning. I consumed as much educational content on AI and software development as possible. I saw an opportunity to take an incredibly inefficient process we completed as consultants and automate it with technology. From there, I made the transition of taking my consulting firm and turning it into a software company.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The biggest struggle was that I had the knowledge of how to do the work, but I did not have the knowledge of how to run a business.
The biggest struggle was sales. When you are dealing with sensitive financial information as you are in the realm of tax, credibility is everything. As a new business, you have no customers you can use as a reference, so it’s a struggle to establish the credibility you need.
I spent over a year reaching out to people on the phone, by mail, and in person at conferences and networking events before finally finding a few businesses to trust us to do their tax credit work. Due to the incredible job we did for those early clients, they gave us referrals that created a snowball of business that led to our success.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next, you can tell us a bit more about your business.
TaxRobot takes the guesswork out of tax credit calculations by automating the process with technology.
Everybody should pay taxes – but nobody should pay more tax than they need to. There are tax credits out there that are able to dramatically reduce the amount of tax a business is required to pay, but typically, these tax credits are only claimed by large companies that hire expensive accountants and tax consultants.
TaxRobot leverages AI to remove the barrier placed around these tax credits that makes them complicated and time-consuming to claim. This allows more small to medium-sized businesses to save on their taxes to reinvest more money into growth.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
In the next 5-10 years, we will continue to expand our service offerings. We have already mastered the research and development tax credit; we are about to launch our work opportunity tax credit software, and we have many other tax credits and dedications planned for the future, both locally and internationally.
Now that we have built the base with our AI being able to read and understand the tax code – the possibilities are endless.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.taxrobot.com
- Linkedin: www.LinkedIn.com/in/UcheOkoroha
