Archive for August, 2008
I’ve often said, “were it not for Joe and Levi, I would have run this company into the ground long ago”. The fact is, truer words were seldom spoken.
Here’s a list of ways that I’ve almost killed FreshBooks over the years:
1. Thinking we had to move faster than we did
I remember back in 2005 feeling that if we did not blow our lights out and spend every penny we had on marketing “right now!” someone would obliterate us. I had this impending sense of doom for *years* based on our speed. Turns out I was wrong, and I owe Joe and Levi a world of thanks for repeatedly pulling me back from the ledge.
2. Placing my faith in a spreadsheet
Rocking a spreadsheet is important in my books – it gets you thinking about your business. But trust me, whatever numbers come out of your Excel jockeying, they’re wrong. If you saw our business plan from 5 years ago you’d see what I mean…
It’s really easy to stare at a spreadsheet and say, “that’s it! I totally get this business…I understand how it all works and look at that year 5 revenue!”, when the reality is it will take 10 years to get there, cost you twice as much as you thought, and you’ll probably be running a totally different business by the time you get there. All of that is okay in my books, just so long as you don’t actually delude yourself into believing what the spreadsheet tells you.
3. Thinking we had to spend more than we did
There is something about the act of spending money that breeds confidence – don’t ask me why. Just because you are spending money does not mean things will work out like you modeled them, or that you are learning a lot or being efficient – and all of these things are crucial when you are building your business. We like to try things and look for “signs of life” with our marketing before we increase our spend in any medium. It’s always the right approach because there is no silver bullets, so don’t kid yourself into thinking there are.
4. Placing my faith in consultants
Nobody cares about your business as much as you do, and frankly people who are smart – consultant/MBA smart – don’t know your business as well as you do despite the fancy words and references to past success. You are in business because of the way you see your opportunity. Try as you may to change this fact, no one will ever possess your unique perspective so don’t kid yourself into thinking a consultant knows your business better than you. At the same time, stay open to their advice and take it into consideration as you make decisions, just don’t bet the farm on what they think you should do.
5. Underestimating word of mouth
This one is sort of tied to number one. It takes *years* to generate word of mouth – it’s a slow build, but slow burning fires burn the hottest. So be patient and do your best to take care of your customers/users even if you can’t find a way to measure the ROI.
6. Believing we could not get this far without doing “x”
I remember talking with people back in 2004. Many believed we could not get anywhere without signing a “deal” with a “partner” or taking “VC money” or “whatever”. Here’s my advice: sign the right deals with the right partners at the right time for the right reasons. You can build a business without being forced to work with the wrong people at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. The choice is yours – don’t forget it. Opportunities will present themselves if you keep your feet moving and you string together a series of small successes. You need to decide what the right deals are for your business and when they are right for your business. I’ve learned to spend 80% of my time thinking about what not to do, instead of all of my time thinking about what we can do.
7. Doubting ourselves too much
Over the years I’ve met a lot of smart people and I’ve invited them to tell me what they think. For years people did not “see it” and that exacted a toll on my confidence. Doubt is born out of fatigue and loneliness, and there is a lot of both when you are running a start up. Hang in there and keep your feet moving – there’s still a lot of time for you to change the world.
Now please don’t get me wrong – there’s still plenty of time for me to kill FreshBooks. This is a list of what I’ve learned so far and if you ask me, we’re still just getting started. That said, thinking about catastrophes I’ve *almost* made got me laughing and inspired this post – hopefully there is something in here for you.
So I’m off to Joel Spolsky’s Business Of Software conference in Boston the first week of September, and I’m attending a table session on “Should you outsource customer care?”
What sort of person is going to say “Yes,” to that question?
The very idea that getting other people to look after your customer is so alien to me I just hardly know what to think of it. Your relationship with your customers is just so fundamental to your business that getting someone else to handle is like crazy to me. As if you could possibly pay someone enough to care more about your customers than you do.
But when times get tough, Support’s an easy target. It’s so tempting to look over at those Support team salaries, and pretend they don’t relate to revenue.
Ignoring higher-order relationships is disastrous though. How many environmental catastrophes were caused because people couldn’t see past first-order implications? Likewise, the inability to see the second- and third-order implications of cutting down on personalized care leads to the idea of outsourcing your customer care.
This is why I nominate outsourcing customer care as the worst idea in the history of business. It represents the whole idea that you can treat your customers as components, rather than as individuals. It’s seductive, because that many individuals can be scary to deal with. But maybe a little courage isn’t such a bad thing.
I have a feeling I won’t be alone in this opinion at the conference, but I think it’ll be an interesting discussion nonetheless.
We’re doing a lot of interviews these days, and not all of them are perfect matches. Sometimes we get an idea that the fit isn’t very good pretty early on in the interview.
The question came up recently: “Why bother to carry on when we already know we don’t want this person? Why not just cut our losses and get out?”
There’s a couple of reasons to carry on with an interview even after somebody has obviously demonstrated their unsuitability.
First, you might be wrong. It’s important to keep an open mind throughout the interview process, and part of that is checking all my instincts and judgments DURING the interview itself.
Second, you can probably use the practice. Asking questions and listening to answers is a craft, and anyone gets better with practice.
Finally, and most importantly, people have friends. Even if we don’t want to hire someone, we DO want them to walk away with the burning desire to work at FreshBooks — with the belief that this is the greatest place to work anywhere (this is, by the way, entirely true). We want them talking to their friends about this amazing company they interviewed at. Somebody we don’t want to hire might be friends with somebody we DO want to hire, but if they go away thinking we’re arrogant jerks who just kicked them out after twenty minutes, then their friend is unlikely to have a good impression of us.
So part of the job of an interview is to SELL FreshBooks to people — even people we know we don’t want to hire — as a great place to work. That’s part of what gets the word out about how awesome we are, and that word-getting-out is critical to attracting the kind of top-shelf development talent we’re looking for.
I was just talking with Mike about our recruitment strategy and we agreed that straight-up “Here’s who we are” sort of marketing is far and away the best way to go, and our experience so far is that this is what attracts the candidates we like best. It makes sense: we want people who want to work with people like us, and so the best way to find them is by letting as many people as we can know what we’re like. That means eschewing headhunters and recruitment firms and instead getting out and about, saying hi and meeting as many people as possible.
We love our team, we love our product and we love our customers. Not everyone is going to feel the same way as us, and that’s okay. But when you’re hiring you need to make it as easy as possible for people to figure out who you are and what you’re about, so that those who do think you’re the cool train can get on board. That means making sure that everyone who comes in walks away with an accurate impression of what working with you is like.
I’ve long been a fan with Inc Magazine because they do a great job speaking straight to the heart of entrepreneurs. It was with great delight that I read their article “Love is all you need. (Plus maybe a blog, Twitter, and an 800 number.)” which is all about FreshBooks’ passion for service.
The article is an account of Howard Greenstein’s experience watching Saul make a presentation last week in Boston that Saul has dubbed, “How to make love to your customers…using Social Media”.
Here’s a choice quote from Saul:
“Making love to customers is not a campaign, but a lifestyle,” says Saul in his talk. What does he mean? “Making love to your customers is not something that you can do for a certain amount of time–it is a company commitment. You can’t run this like an ad campaign–customers will sense when it is over and leave you. Over-exceeding expectations means treating your customers better than any other company relationship your customer has ever had.” This is something the Nordstrom executive or manager at the Four Seasons would smile knowingly and nod at.
Beyond being featured by Howard in Inc, being mentioned in the same breath as Nordstrom and Four Seasons is an incredible honour for the team here at FreshBooks as they are two of the companies who have inspired FreshBooks’ approach to service from the beginning.
You can read the article here.
Howard, thank you for the lovely write up.
Saul, you’re a love machine.
One of the things that’s great about being your own boss is that you really have no one to answer to but yourself. I’m an individual who likes to be outdoors; some of my favorite clothes have rips in them. At any given time and for no good reason I might grow a beard. All of which is to say that, left to my my own devices, I dress casually. I’m more creative and generally happier when dressed in casual attire, despite having spent years in suits and being totally comfortable in them.
Here’s the ironic thing: I worked from home for about 7 years and I found myself happier and more productive the more I dressed up. If I had a big call, or I was fighting through a cold, I put on my finest duds and it helped me feel alert on those days.
In another ironic twist, I feel the opposite way now that FreshBooks has an office. I love being dressed casually, and since I bike to work eight months of the year, it’s awfully practical.
So, what do you wear at work, where is it (home, office, other) and how does it impact the way you feel?
The best thing about having an API is that your customers can surprise you with really amazing and novel uses for your product. Recently, I learnt that two really interesting web application companies are using FreshBooks for their billing engine.
That’s fantastic, because building a billing system from scratch is a pointless hard problem to solve when you’re a startup.
Here’s an overview of what they are doing.
Gliffy
Last year, I wrote a little review about a great collaborative flow chart and diagramming application we use called Gliffy, that happens to be run by super friendly people. Little did I know that they would turn around and use FreshBooks to invoice their clients.
For their Confluence plugin they generate FreshBooks invoices directly from their pricing page. Based on the options you choose, they create an appropriate invoice in FreshBooks. Then, using invoice.get to get the URL for the invoice, they redirect their customer straight to the invoice where they can pay by credit card. Nice!
StickyStreet
StickyStreet is also using FreshBooks in a very clever way. A little background. StickyStreet is a gift card and loyalty management service. Unlike other similar companies, they have decided to not charge transaction fees because they are building it for small businesses. They are also investing a lot of time making the service user-friendly.
Ok, but what’s a gift card and loyalty management service? We’ve all seen them. StickyStreet allows you to create gift cards with a stored value, like $20. You can also give points to your customers for doing things like coming to your website or paying on time, which they can redeem later for discounts or movie tickets or whatever you like.
How do they use FreshBooks? They charge you automatically based on the number of customers you’re tracking in the system, which is what they call Pay As You Grow Pricing. So, if you’re using up to ten customers it’s free. As soon as you add the eleventh customer, they will automatically generate an invoice in FreshBooks and send it to you so you can pay by credit card.
The best part, Anthony from StickyStreet told me, “we implemented this for $150 and 2 days worth of time.” Holy moly!
What about you?
Are you using the FreshBooks API to automate your subscription billing? Please tell me about it. I’m keen to make this better.
I don’t know what we did last year at SXSW Interactive, but it seems like they want us back. We’re very fortunate to have four panels in the running this year. Three that we’re moderating and one we’re invited to participate on.
I know we don’t ask for much, except for the pleasure of your company, some spare change, and an extra pair of arms when we move, but we have a big favour to ask you. Could you please help us out by voting for our panels?
Scaling Your Culture Without Losing the ‘Secret Sauce’
moderated by Mike, our intrepid CEO
There’s something romantic about building a start-up, but it’s hard to keep the romance alive when your headcount grows – it can strain relationships and jeopardize your company’s mojo. Learn how to build a business that keeps things hot and heavy under the covers for you and your team.
Vote here, Mike for Prez! 
Personality Marketing Doesn’t Mean You Are Ugly!
moderated by Saul, our good lookin’ Head of Magic.
The days of the “Nameless/Faceless” corporation are long gone. With tools like social media companies and it’s customers have a slew of new ways to communicate and demonstrate what they are really all about. This panel will showcase some of the companies that are doing the best job of this and hear some fun stories of Personality Marketing.
Give us 5 stars, baby!
Building Personal and Company Brands with Web 2.0 Tools
also moderated by Saul. He’s going for double trouble!
Getting attention for your brand (personal or company) is easier than ever thanks to the ole’ interweb but doing it with “zing” is still key to building a following. Learn and ask question from the people who have built brands and careers by doing it with “zing”
Put Saul’s name in lights!
Customer Service is the New R&D
Sunir’s been invited by Pamela O’Hara, CEO of BatchBlue, to rock and/or roll.
With forums, Get Satisfaction, good old email support and more, let your early adopters help build your product and create the solution they’ve been searching for. See how boot strapping start-ups (and some past the start-up days) build an online R&D lab to turn 1000+ voices into real features.
Vote for Sunir, your next Canadian Idol!
Thank you for all that clicking! Now we owe you one.
I look to podcasts to inspire and educate me. I like to listen to them on plane trips and while commuting to and from work on the bus. It’s rare to uncover truly great content, but I find the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Series to be exceptional.
Two of my favorites from the series so far are:
Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn – Choosing the Entrepreneurial Path
Gregory Waldorf, eHarmony – 5 Must-Haves of an Entrepreneurial Career
Why are they my favourites? I’ve listened to twenty episodes and enjoyed almost every single one. These two have stood out in my mind, I’m not quite sure why.
Another one of my favorite podcast series is Greg Galant’s Venture Voice. Greg has gotten away from the series in the last while, but Joel Spolsky’s take on venture capital is must listen for any entrepreneur.
So go load up your iPod, and enjoy.
For those of you who build websites, A List Apart – perhaps the web’s best resource for people who build websites – is running its second annual survey. Last year 33,000 web professionals contributed to the survey, and since many FreshBooks users build sites, we thought you might want to take the opportunity to participate.
Here’s the link.
Did you know this Monday, August 4, 2008 is a holiday here in Canada? We’ll be out of the office for the day, returning Tuesday.
I honestly had no idea! It’s a good thing somebody asked me to write this post, otherwise I’d have been one lonely little support guy come Monday afternoon. Now instead I’m all excited — my Mom and I are going to ride roller coasters all day.
I figured I should at least find out who to thank for this wonderful little reprieve from my daily existence. It turns out the Civic Holiday originated right here in Toronto, and is locally known as Simcoe Day:
John Graves Simcoe was more than just a colonial governor — he abolished slavery, created Yonge Street, and even inspired the agricultural fair tradition that would give rise to the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair.
In 1869 Toronto City Council came up with the idea for a summer “day of recreation.” In 1875, it was settled: the first Monday in August would be the official Civic Holiday.
That name stuck as other cities followed Toronto’s leisure-loving example and proclaimed this a municipal (rather than provincial) holiday. But in 1968 Toronto City Council again took the lead and renamed the day to recognize one of Ontario’s earliest historical figures.
I contacted the local historical society, and luckily they were able to dig up this ultra-rare photograph of Colonel John catching some rays at world-famous Wasaga Beach, the longest freshwater beach in the world.
So there you have it. The next time I wonder what city council has ever done for me, I have my answer.
To our fellow Canadians, enjoy your long weekend responsibly; and we’ll see everybody Tuesday!
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