How Yonovo Is Fixing the Cash Flow Problem Draining SMBs

In this episode of What the Tech from Boast.AI, we sit down with Salman Shawaf, Co-Founder of Yonovo, to discuss why SMBs are wasting thousands of hours chasing invoices—and how AI is finally automating collections.

What You'll Learn:

→ The invisible cash flow crisis: months-long payment delays, forgotten follow-ups, bad debt that compounds
 → Why salespeople hate being collection agents (and what it costs your business)
 → How Yonovo automates accounts receivable using AI (90%+ accuracy on payment prediction and collection sequencing)
 → Salman's origin story: watching his dad chase invoices for 30 years as a wholesale business owner
 → The unexpected parallel between Yonovo (invoice automation) and Boast (government funding automation)
 → Why both companies solve the same problem: removing friction so businesses get paid what they're owed
 → Building community over slides: poker nights, soccer events, World Cup watch parties with other founders
 → The "ship fast" culture: Feature requests shipped the next day with AI development tools
 → Bootstrapping strategy: Why non-dilutive funding (SR&ED) should be your first capital move, not venture
 → The roadmap: From AR to full order-to-cash (AP, forecasting, reconciliation)
 → Why hiring lean matters (even as you scale)
 → The role of IRL events in an AI-first world (and why they're becoming more valuable, not less)
 → How SMBs can reclaim cash flow without hiring more staff

Key Insights:

"A lot of companies try to solve this, but the tech really never existed until a few years ago. Now you can get 90% there."

"I'm an impatient person, so this really works in my favor with the age of AI. We get a feature request from a client and the next day I wake up and get a Slack message from our developer saying, 'Hey, we're done.'"

"Boast gets you the money that you're already owed. Yonovo gets you the invoices that you're already owed. The thesis is similar—we both believe businesses deserve to get paid without friction."

"As AI gets better, that will actually increase the value of in-person events. People are tired of cold LinkedIn DMs. We're always gonna be human."

"The first thing you want to do as a founder is reach for the money that doesn't take any equity away. There's non-dilutive funding available to you, especially in Canada."

About Salman Shawaf:

Salman is the Co-Founder of Yonovo and a community-first founder based in Toronto. He's passionate about building in-person community for startup founders (monthly poker nights, sports events, casual dinners). His path to Yonovo came from watching his father manage a wholesale business for 30 years—constantly chasing invoices and managing cash flow. He believes the best companies are built by people who ship rather than slide deck.

About Yonovo:

Yonovo helps SMBs get paid faster by automating accounts receivable and collections. Using AI, the platform predicts payment risk, automates follow-up sequences, and removes manual work from finance and sales teams. Bootstrapped and bootstrapping-focused, Yonovo specializes in AR today with a roadmap to cover the entire order-to-cash process (AP, forecasting, reconciliation).

Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence.

Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth.

Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hello and welcome to What the Tech Room Boasts, where we talk with some of the brilliant minds behind new and exciting tech initiatives to learn what it takes to tackle technological uncertainty and eventually change the world. I'm Paul Davort, both resident tech journalists, and today I am thrilled to welcome to the show Unovo co-founder Salman Showff. At Unovo, Salman and his team are helping SMBs get paid faster, helping them to stop chasing invoices and start collecting cash immediately. It's a problem that quietly drains SMBs, forgotten follow-ups, months-long payment delays, and bad debt that compounds while teams do manual work that never moves the business forward. Outside of building Innovo, Salman is the kind of founder who hosts dinners to get out of the house, pitches on his birthday, and believes that the best companies are built by people who would rather ship than slide deck. It's an incredible mission, and I can't wait to pick Salman's brain on his journey through the tech ecosystem and what's on deck as Inovo grows. So without further ado, welcome to the show, Salman.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Hey Paul, how's it going? Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

I'm very happy that you can be here. So one thing I didn't mention at the beginning of the show is we've got some shared DNA between Boast and Inovo. So Alex Papa, good friend of ours, one of our co-founders, also is working with you on building Innovo. So just need to give him a shout-out at the top here because he's connecting great folks like yourself into the ecosystem with folks like us who are hopefully doing his legacy proud. So shout out to Alex to just kick things off.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Shout out.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Yeah, but so aside from that intro that I just gave, I'd love to hear from you. Tell us about yourself. What has been your path through the ecosystem? What got you interested in helping SMBs? And tell me a little bit more about the problem that you guys are solving at the heart of what you do at UNOVO.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Yes, my name is Sal. Thank you for having me, Paul. And I'm based out of Toronto. Toronto is honestly the best city in Canada for tech and innovation. So happy, very happy to be here. I I only recently moved here, but I quickly got plugged into the ecosystem. I'm a very community-oriented guy. I'm always hosting events. I host a monthly monthly poker night for founders every month. Just bringing the right people in the room and connecting people. It's always nice. And it was all it was more so the way that kind of happened was I I wanted to play poker in a low-stakes way. And I want to do it with founders, and it didn't exist. So I was like, might as well just do it myself. So I love building community. And then in terms of Yonogo, yeah, like you said, we we are trying to solve that counts for the global problem. And honestly, a lot of companies try to solve this, but the tech really never existed, I think, a few years until a few years ago. So this is a new thing that is solvable now. In previous times, it was half solvable, but I would say now it's like you could get 90% there. So that's why we kind of jumped on this problem to solve it. And my co-founder Alex had this issue in previous companies where getting paid on time was difficult and it was taking up a lot of his employees' time, which cost us money to get these invoices paid. And then from my side, I would say it's actually people wouldn't say that AR is the most exciting problem to solve, I would say, but for me it actually is uh because my dad is he runs a traditional like wholesale business and they invoice on net terms and they have really slow paying customers. And uh in their line of work, the salesperson is actually in charge of kind of following up getting the invoice paid on time. Growman got up from when I was like five or six years old, my dad's been running this company for 30 years. I would always see him on the phone with the salespeople, really uh passionately uh telling them, please follow up, please get paid, we need to get paid because uh this invoice is getting risky. He would always be following up with his salespeople to follow up. And I don't think 20 years later, I'll actually be building a platform. For CEO. So that's all I would say as an introduction to why we picked this problem from both sides of the field, from Alex and from my side.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Absolutely. I know I've been working in the tech ecosystem for a while now, and this has actually been one of the most prevalent problems that I've seen with companies I've worked with directly, or even just doing some freelance work. It's an uncomfortable position for a salesperson to be in when you had to already sell yourself, and then you need to be okay. I have to now get you to actually pay me for everything that I sold you on. I think the less that you can remove that friction between, all right, we made some good rapport, we actually built this relationship, they trust us to deliver what they need, and then I have to start chasing them to actually pay us at the end of the day, it's invaluable. But also, I think the big thing that you guys are tackling, which I think is so interesting, is the speed again, because it's one thing if you have somebody manually doing outreach and trying to make sure that hey, pay your bill, we did the work. Yeah, that's gonna be a game changer for businesses that have no time to waste.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Yeah. And actually, I was thinking about this. It's like Boast and Unovo are actually quite similar in a very cool way. That Boast gets you the money, the non-dilofed funding that you already owed, and Yunovo gets you the invoices that you already owed, the cash that would be yours. So we're both companies are solving a similar problem but in very different ways, but the thesis, the philosophy is similar.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Absolutely. To smooth out the questions, you're actually becoming cash positive. Yeah, I think that's the best way to maybe put it, but you took the words out of my mouth. The sympathy between our solutions is exactly what you're saying. We want businesses that deserve to get rewarded for their risk taking or for their bets on the market, and that have the good insight into all of it from the get-go, are able to claim everything that they deserve. Yeah. I love it. So I want to go back to actually you were talking a little bit, Sal, about like building this community. And I think that's something that's very important, especially for SMBs. In the world of AI, it's very easy to lose the humanity, I think, in a lot of what people do. And I think that what you bring to the table and that we witness firsthand is the ability to actually connect with people at a human level and the difference that makes in making sure that an SMB audience feels seen, feels heard, but also that whatever challenges may come up in the process of them using our solutions, we can address in real time because we're elbow to elbow with them. So maybe talk to me a little bit about some of your learnings, doing these poker nights or maybe connecting with these other folks in the ecosystem one-on-one or in person versus again global sales where it's a little different and you don't necessarily get the opportunity to rub shoulders with the people that you really want to support.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Yeah. Yeah, I would say honestly, yeah, like I think and IRL events are just even more important now. People are just super, super tired of just like getting these like cold LinkedIn DMs or these cold emails. And so I think as AI gets even better and gets even more used, that will actually increase the value of IRL events. That's why actually, whenever I hear someone like thinking about an idea of like building an IRL sort of business, I'm like, yeah, that doesn't scare me because AI is scary. Building in tech could be somewhat scary in certain ways, depending on what you're building, but we're always gonna be human. That's not that's never gonna change. We're always gonna want to meet other people and connect with other people. So that's kind of an AI-proof business, right? So I would say for me, I what I like to do for building community is make it exciting for me. I do things that I like. I like poker, I like sports. So I've hosted like soccer, like tech builders night. I've hosted like poker, I host poker nights regularly. Whenever I want to do something, I'm just like, okay, I just do it with other people who are like going through the same struggles as me. And it's just always a great time. I hosted one thing with Boast actually recently, the Boast ex Yenovo builders in Toronto to watch the World Cup quarterfinal, France versus Morocco. And for me, that was just like, I'm gonna watch this game anyway, and might as well do it with people that that are similar to me and tackling the same, tackling the same issues. So yeah, building community, I think I would say just focus on what you like and to the people in the same room.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

I agree completely. If it's exciting for you, it's gonna be exciting for the people that you want to connect with because you already have instinct with everybody. I can emphasize again that our team had a blast at the World Cup that we hosted together. I'm just sad I couldn't be there. I'm still based here in Boston and I would have loved to have dropped them for it, but it was a win-win just because again, it was people who share the same ethos as you, share the same interests as you, and then the people who want to have a conversation with you and like can actually have those organic conversations, learn more about the problems they're trying to solve, and then tell them in very plain language how you are gonna solve those problems for you. So I think being as organic and as in person and as just again doing what connects to you is gonna connect with the people you want to connect with. I'm sure there's a smoother way to phrase that, but yeah, in something that I think is very valuable and I think as unspoken again, as we offload a lot of work to AI. Again, there's value there, but in understanding the folks that we want to work with, we got to keep being human. So, to my next point, which I think we actually covered a little bit around funding innovation, because I think when you were talking about the Sympathica between our two businesses, again, how we want to make sure that people are getting access to the money that they deserve for doing the good work and for actually executing on things that are gonna be challenging and making sure that they're actually delivering solutions for their customers. Tell me a little bit about how YNOVO came together and how you just funded the business and how you made sure that you were able to stand up with everybody that you want to serve.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Yeah, UNOVO is a bootstrapped, bootstrapped business. And I would say as a founder, you're always money's always like top of mind about how you're gonna be able to grow the business. And as a founder, the first thing you want to do is reach for the money that you could bring in that doesn't take any equity away from the business, which is like non-diluted funding. So luckily, my co-founder is quite experienced in Shred and and the benefits of that. So I would say that's usually the bet the first thing you should go to. But I feel like a lot of founders are not don't have the education about what's available to them. They always assume that raising money is the only way to get funding, but there's non-diluted funding available to you, especially in Canada.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Absolutely. And I think while Shred is like both bread and butter, and that's where we really to support our businesses. Canada is very generous in general, even on the green. Like I'm thinking about my tax. If you're very early stage and you want to bring in some talent and get them to stay on your team by actually supporting them at the institutional level where they're actually engaging with the new technology, there are so many non-dilutive avenues of funding available up here. It's a no-brainer to make sure that we can communicate that to everybody because when they succeed by tapping into that non-dilutive funding, it lifts off ships. It just really makes sure that there's availability for any kind of resource that the community needs at large. I want to echo that point that you just made there, too. And again, I know Alex obviously has a lot of experience in the shred space, but it's not even just shred. There is just a lot of opportunities for businesses that are doing actually innovative work to get, if not bootstrapped by just non-diluter funding, get the support they need to shore up everything else. So love that you made that point. Now, I'd love to know what's next for you now, though? What's on your roadmap? I think we've talked a lot about the problem area that you guys are addressing, the value of what you guys bring to businesses in the SMB space. What's next year look like? What's the roadmap maybe a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Yeah, the the roadmap is just to keep listening to what the problems our customers are having. And it's a really exciting time where we're at because we're very hands-on with our clients and just keep learning about their problems and keep learning how we can just improve their accounts receivable process as a whole and keep growing growing our relationship further. And I would say it's a pretty exciting time to be building right now with technology. I'll we'll get a feature request from a client, and then the next day I'll wake up and I get a Slack message from our developer saying, Hey, we're done. It's just it's really cool. I'm an impatient person. So this maybe works in my favor the with the age of AI. So with all those drawbacks, there are this is one benefit that I would say just exciting to just deliver very quickly. I would say we're doing a consult table right now, but the next would the next year looks like expanding to AP and have the cash forecasting and and be able to or on the whole entire order to cash process. So that would be including reconciliation, etc. So we want to be the full suite for order to cash. And that's on our short term we'd need to expand to that. Right now, we're specialized in in receivables and collections, but there's more on our horizon.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

I love it. And I think again, because you're actually listening close to what your customers actually needs at all these phases, it's a no-brainer. And I actually think that this is something that you guys could very easily achieve and own order to cash process a full suite vision. A lot of the answers that you guys are solving on the receivable side is going to be applicable, I think, on the other side, but also by listening and also leveraging AI. Like you said, I patient too. I I love the fact that I can use a resource without overextending what I have internally to not take work off my shoulders, but give me work more work to do so that I can actually really deliver for who I am serving. So it's an exciting time for me, it's an exciting time for you guys, just because again, it gives you that superpower, it makes it so that you can actually just do more. It's not taking work off your shoulders. You are passionate about making sure you can deliver for your customers and get the that order the to cash full suite. So that's music to my ears. I'm so excited. All right, so if there's anything in the next maybe year that you guys are really focused on beyond even just delivering, like more events, more actual partnerships, more just calendar markers that we could put out for the audience here. Anything you want to highlight?

SPEAKER_00 15:12

For the next year, I would say hire hiring is gonna start being a thing, bringing the the right people to the team. We're uh we're a lean team and we plan to stay that way, especially with what we're able to do nowadays with all the capabilities at our disposal. That will be something that's gonna be top of mind, and it is already currently top of mind. So hiring is gonna be important. And IRL events, hopefully, more events with both. We actually share quite a similar customer profile, so that'll be quite exciting. And yeah, just having fun while doing it, that's pretty much it.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Having fun while doing it is again music to my ears. Yeah, I'm very excited that I actually have on my calendar. I'm gonna be going up to Montreal, but I need a trip through Toronto because we have so much team there, and also if we can put together some events where it's mutually beneficial, which I think that we will be posting on our channels eventually on the short term, it'd be great. And also, I know that you and I would like to meet with some of these people in person too, who could maybe benefit from everything that you novo does and that both does, because like you said, it's very simple. It's it still we make sense.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Uh well, maybe it'll be a good excuse for you to come. Just so just host an event, and that'll be your excuse. No, thank you so much for having me. This has been a very nice conversation.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Sal, this was fantastic. Again, your team is so in lockstep with what we want to make sure that we're able to deliver for the S B community and for anybody who's scaling a business and growing a business in Canada and in the US. And I think that we can really make sure that whatever services we're idealizing right now, we can scale. And we can make sure that we're giving them to the people who really need them. So this has been a fantastic chat.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Yeah. Cheers.