A travel-policy + expense-reconciliation tool built for the 10-200 employee SMB segment Concur ignores — auto-flag out-of-policy bookings at the card swipe, OCR-extract receipts from any email, and produce monthly compliance reports for the CFO at $349/mo instead of $50K+/yr.

What we ship

**Core features (MVP)**

• Policy DSL: define rules in plain English ("max $250/night hotel, no business class < 6 hours, max $50 per Uber") that compile to enforcement triggers.
• Stripe Issuing virtual + physical corporate cards with real-time policy enforcement at swipe time.
• Plaid-mode (alternative): read-only account linking for SMBs that don't want to switch cards yet.
• Receipt OCR via Claude Vision: forward any receipt email to receipts@company.travelguard.app → auto-categorized + matched to transaction in 8 seconds.
• Out-of-policy Slack/email alerts to employee + manager at booking time AND at swipe time.
• Monthly compliance reports for CFO (PDF + Excel): top spenders, policy violations, % compliance, vendor breakdown.
• QuickBooks Online + Xero auto-export at month-end.

**Primary user flow**

1. Mike, CFO at 80-person consulting firm, finds us via LinkedIn cold-DM "your team's spending $40K/yr on Booking — track it".

2. Books 30-min demo, signs up for $349/mo Pro tier.

3. Connects Plaid to firm's Amex Corporate (mode 1) OR orders 80 Stripe Issuing cards (mode 2, ~3 weeks delivery).

4. Defines policy in plain English: "Hotels max $250/night except NYC/SF max $400; Ubers max $50; flights economy except >6h international = premium economy."

5. Employees book via their preferred tool (we don't lock in booking flow); Plaid syncs transactions; Claude OCR pulls receipt data.

6. Sarah books $320 NYC hotel — out-of-policy alert hits Slack within 60s, manager approves with one click.

7. Month-end: Mike runs compliance report → sees 87% compliance, $2,400 saved vs prior month manual reconciliation, exports to QuickBooks in 1 click.

**What it looks like**

• **Landing**: hero "Concur is for 5,000-person companies. We're for the other 95%." Below: side-by-side ROI calculator ($349/mo us vs $50K/yr Concur).
• **Admin dashboard**: month-to-date spend chart by category, out-of-policy violations queue, top spenders, employee map.
• **Employee portal**: simple "where did I spend this?" search, receipt upload, reimbursement requests.
• **Notification format**: Slack DM "Your $320 NYC booking is over $250 policy. Approve from manager? [Yes / Edit / Cancel]" with 1-click resolution.

**MVP build plan (20 days)**

• Day 1-3: FastAPI + Postgres + Celery on Railway, employees/policies/transactions schema, JWT + SSO (Google Workspace + Okta).
• Day 4-5: Stripe Issuing application submission (parallel async — takes ~3 months) + Plaid integration (immediate).
• Day 6-8: Policy DSL parser + enforcement engine (Plaid-mode flagging at sync time).
• Day 9-11: Claude Vision OCR for receipts (PDF + image + email-forward inbox).
• Day 12-13: Admin dashboard (React + Tailwind + Recharts).
• Day 14: Employee portal (mobile-first PWA).
• Day 15: QuickBooks Online + Xero export.
• Day 16: Slack + email notification engine + manager-approval workflow.
• Day 17: Cloudflare Pages landing + ROI calculator + pricing.
• Day 18: SOC2 prep — audit logging + secret management hardening.
• Day 19: LinkedIn cold-outreach scripts + bookkeeper-partner outreach.
• Day 20: E2E test on real $5K spend simulation, ship.

Source signals

• `SIG-20260504-global-vertical-micro-tool-smb-travel-policy` — corporate travel rebound to $1.4T 2025 GBTA, SMB stuck between $50K Concur and spreadsheets, $200-800/mo void with no dominant player, Stripe Issuing + Plaid + receipt OCR maturity unlock affordable build

Reasoning

Three macro factors converge: (1) corporate travel rebounded to $1.4T in 2025 (GBTA) — pre-pandemic spreadsheet workflows can no longer absorb this volume so SMB CFOs are actively under pressure; (2) Stripe Issuing (matured 2023) + Plaid + Claude Vision (matured 2025) — three infrastructure components converged so that card-level enforcement + auto-OCR became buildable in <30 days; previously this required a dedicated team; (3) pricing void $200-800/mo is an explicit white-space between Spendesk ($599 expense-only) and enterprise Concur ($50K+).

Defensive moat: card issuance + accounting integration creates high switching cost after 90 days (transaction history + paid invoices in the system). Customer acquisition: cold-outreach to bookkeeping firms (Pilot, Bench, Acuity) — they refer SMB clients, we pay 20% rev-share for 12 months.

Primary risk: Stripe Issuing onboarding requires ~3 months underwriting — application must start day 1 in parallel with build. Fallback is Plaid-only mode (read-only, no card-level enforcement, faster onboarding but weaker product). EU launch is phase 2 because Stripe Issuing EU is still rolling out 2025-2026.

Margin profile: $349/mo × $30/mo infra cost = 91% gross margin. Stripe Issuing interchange revenue (1.5-2.5% per transaction on corporate cards) is a secondary revenue stream after 50+ active customers — potentially adds $400-800/mo per active company.

Quick competitive read

Direct competitor density is **high** but each is structurally gated. Concur ($50K+) is enterprise-only. Navan ($30K+) gates SMBs via minimum-spend tiers. Spendesk ($599) is expense-only with weak travel policy. Ramp Travel ($349) is gated on pre-existing Ramp card adoption — SMBs on Amex/Brex/BoA cards are locked out. White-space is travel-policy-first under $400/mo without card-platform lock-in.

Initial pricing hypothesis

$199/mo Starter (up to 25 employees, Plaid-only read mode), $349/mo Pro (up to 100 employees, Stripe Issuing card-level enforcement + OCR), $599/mo Business (unlimited employees + multi-entity + custom policy DSL). Annual -20%. Free 14-day trial with sample data; activation requires Stripe/Plaid connection.

Distribution hypothesis

Cold-outreach to SMB CFO/Heads of Finance via LinkedIn (target sub-segment: Series A/B tech startups with field-sales). Partnership with bookkeeping firms (Pilot, Bench, Acuity) — 20% rev-share for 12 months. SEO on "Concur alternative for small business" / "SMB T&E policy software" / "Spendesk vs Ramp". After 30 customers — switch to content marketing on SMB CFO podcasts (CFO.com, Bench Accounting podcast, etc.).