Archive for November, 2007
Projux, the invoicing and time-tracking solution operating out of Vancouver since 2000, is closing its doors at the end of the year. We applaud them for seven long years of solid service, and wish them well in their future endeavors.
Switching from Projux to FreshBooks
A couple weeks ago we reached out to the team at Projux to see if there was anything we could do to help out their users as they move away from Projux. In return they were good enough to mention us in their e-mail newsletter, letting their customers know FreshBooks is an alternative they may wish to consider—thank you Projux!
We wanted to follow up on that kind mention and let existing Projux users know FreshBooks is ready, willing and able to step in and help with your invoicing and time-tracking needs. To that end, we’re extending a 20% discount to those of you leaving Projux and signing up with FreshBooks—we know it’s a pain to switch providers, so we’d like to try to give you a little incentive to take the edge off.
We hope you’ll find FreshBooks makes a great alternative to Projux. You can manage your client list, get your staff members to track their time, generate invoices from timesheet entries, and much more. In the coming months, we’re also adding features to track and invoice your business expenses, and better work with your contractors and vendors. We also offer a free trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee on our paid packages, all with service that goes the extra mile.
We’re here to stay
We understand migrating from a solution you’ve come to know and love is a painful process—especially when the move is forced upon you—and we want to put to rest any fears that you would have to do that again. FreshBooks has now been in operation for over four years, and our online service is the sole focus of our growing team of eleven full-time staff; we have a clear focus with no distractions. This is who we are and what we do, and we’re a stable, successful and happy family here at the office. So rest assured: we’re in this for the long run.
We’re also one of those rare web-based companies who actually pick up the phone when you call! Give us a ring at 1-866-303-6061 and we’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Okay, where do I try this out?
The best way to get started is to check out our features, sign up for our free service and take a look around. You’re free to give the software a run-through for as long as you like!
When you’re ready to add more staff members and really get going, the upgrade page is right there in your free FreshBooks system, completely automated and available 24/7. If you need a hand, again, get in touch with us!
Switch now and get 20% off
To get your coupon code, just fire off an e-mail to support[at]freshbooks.com and we’ll hook you up! And thanks once again to the team behind Projux for the kind mention in their newsletter, and for providing such a quality service for all these years.
I am the editor and founder of FreelanceSwitch, a resource for freelancers. Our site is a blog with more, so as well as articles, interviews and how-tos, we have resources, a job board and podcasts. FreelanceSwitch gets around 500,000 visits a month and caters to primarily web and graphic designers, followed by programmers, photographers and writers.
“FreshBooks has automated everything for me so I don’t even need to think about advertising most of the time.”
I need to keep track of many different advertisers who all need to be billed at different times and for different amounts. I was getting calendar reminders almost every day to invoice one of them, and often they needed chasing up for payment. So as you can imagine, it was pretty hectic and took me away from other important tasks.
“I save at least 5 hours per week on invoicing . . . I don’t know why every blog doesn’t switch to FreshBooks to manage their advertising.”
FreshBooks has automated everything for me so I don’t even need to think about advertising most of the time. When a client signs up, I simply create a recurring invoice and leave FreshBooks to do it’s work. I check in once a week, but there really isn’t even a need for that. FreshBooks collects monthly payments for me and I don’t need to lift a finger. I’ve even set up my automated emails to give my clients all the information they need in case they need to make changes to their ads.
I’d estimate I save at least 5 hours per week on invoicing and client liaison thanks to FreshBooks. I don’t know why every blog doesn’t switch to FreshBooks to manage their advertising.
That headline catch your attention? I hope so.
We are currently hiring and there are two roles we are having real trouble getting good local prospects for: Linux Guru and a Web Designer/Creative Director/UX Designer. We are open to anyone who can start working in Toronto immediately (by which I mean, is currently eligible to work in Canada and can get themselves to our Toronto office for a couple interviews). We will be more than happy to cut you a cheque for $1000 if you refer us to the winning candidate.
If you want to learn a little more about who’s already working at FreshBooks, have a look at this video.
And now, without further adieu, please go blast your network. Thanks.
Update: These roles are now filled. Thanks folks!
Here’s the best definition of an entrepreneur I’ve ever heard:
“Entrepreneurs are people who are too naive to see the obstacles that are obvious to others”.
I have found myself quoting this phrase a couple times over the past week or so, and while I can’t remember who said it, or if that’s the quote exactly, that pretty much sums it up for me.
The facts
FreshBooks experienced almost exactly two hours of downtime this evening due to a truck driving into a transformer near Rackspace’s Dallas, Texas–based data centres.
More information
The collision occurred around 7:00 PM ET and for approximately an hour Rackspace’s Dallas data centre ran without experiencing any downtime. However, when the switch was made to auxiliary power, two of the air conditioning units would not restart. Air conditioning is like sunlight for data centres—they need it to survive. In the absence of air conditioning, and with thousands of servers running in a contained space, temperatures rise so high they cause malfunctions and damage machines. After running safely for a little over an hour on auxiliary power the staff at Rackspace decided to proactively take down several rows of servers to ensure that the heat within the data centre did not become too high. In the meantime, contractors worked feverishly to correct the problems with the chillers. Unfortunately, FreshBooks’ Dallas servers were among the rows of servers affected by the downtime.
Why did this downtime happen?
A truck drove into a transformer near our Dallas data centre and two air conditioning units would not restart—two rather odd and unfortunate events. To add a third unfortunate event, while FreshBooks also maintains a Virginia-based instance of the FreshBooks service to mitigate issues like this, we are presently doing some work on our setup there. Taking heed of the direction from the Rackspace team that it would be “about an hour of downtime”, we decided to wait things out.
We’re sorry to anyone who was inconvenienced
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you this evening. As I drove into the office at 9 PM tonight to meet Aaron and Levi and help field calls and emails, I pulled over several times to answer text messages and reply to emails and keep people appraised of the developments as I knew them. I want to thank the team at Rackspace for doing what I think was 100% the right thing to do—making the difficult decision to take down rows of servers to prevent any real damage from occurring.
On behalf of the entire FreshBooks team—especially Levi, Aaron and myself, and Joe, who was working on things from home—I want to thank you for your patience as we handled the situation. If you experience any issues within the next couple of hours, please bear with us as we work into the night to ensure everything is running perfectly.
When I travel, I’ve taken to randomly calling customers in the cities I visit and inviting them out to dinner.
Last week I was in Chicago and D.C. for conferences (here is a webcast of the panel I was on about SAAS… sorry about the form, just get past it and you’re good to go), and I managed to get a hold of some wonderful people in both cities. I usually make the arrangements at the last minute, often the same day. I’ll call 8–10 people, and can usually assemble a table of people in about half an hour.
Really sorry about the photo quality here, the Blackberry Pearl doesn’t do so well indoors. But here are some photos of the good folks I met:
Chicago dinner from left to right: Chris, Andy, me and Jason.
DC dinner from left to right: Tom, me and Corey
At FreshBooks we feel extraordinarily lucky to have such wonderful customers as these — and we hope to have dinner with you sometime soon.
A while back I got an email requesting the rights to reprint a blog post I wrote in November 2005 entitled, “From the Web 2.0 Trenches: How to Build Real Businesses“. It’s been a while since I heard from them, but we just got a copy of the book:
(NOTE: I think I’ve posted this photo for my mom more than anyone…)
The book is a broad introduction to Web 2.0. My post is one of 16 chapters and others are available from Ravi Kumar Jain B , Kurt Voelker, Malcolm B. Brown, Coach Wei, José Luis de Vicente, Rod Boothby, Bryan Alexander, Michael Jensen, Catherine Styles and Robert Auger among others.
Thanks to the folks at Icfai University Press who were good enough to send me a copy.
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