It’s not everyday your company gets on the cover of a magazine, and we’re honored to be gracing the cover of Entrepreneur.
To mark the occasion we want to buy you a copy. Fill out this form and we’ll send you a copy.
*** UPDATE (June 11/09): Sorry we are no longer taking requests for a free copy of Entrepreneur Magazine. Thanks and congrats to all those that requested one. We shall send out your free copy shortly.
What does that mean? After months of continuous wear, you can finally peel your good luck socks off your feet and clean them! It also means CNET has granted us a fancy award and we’re stoked. We’re honored to be winners alongside stalwarts Intuit, Google, and Microsoft, and up and comers Mint, Logmein, Zoho, and Remember the Milk.
We just wanted to give you guys a heads up that our office will be closed this Monday, May 18 as we celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday. We’ll be back rocking the forums, returning your e-mails and answering your calls on Tuesday, May 19.
Victoria Day (sometimes referred to as “May 2-4”) is an interesting Canadian holiday. Many folks head out to their cottages for BBQs and other first signs of summer. I, on the other hand, grew up in Newfoundland believing this weekend was for nothing but going camping “up on the highway in the gravel pits.”
Do you want to work for a great company in a dynamic role? Well here is your chance.
You may have heard about our New Graduate Program here at FreshBooks.
One of the positions that we are looking to fill that qualifies for this program is the “Support Specialist” role. It’s an important role at Freshbooks, and we are looking for truly unique rockstar candidates to round out our team. As a result, we’re trying something new and asking for video submissions! Check out the video above for more.
We feel that this would be a fun way to showcase who you are and what makes you awesome. Of course, you don’t HAVE to send us a video but think of how it will make you stand out amongst all the other applicants! You’ll get to the front of the line, like a true VIP!
This morning we’ve released a brand new user interface for our invoice and estimate pages. Instead of doing our regular dog and pony show with screenshots, we’ve actually prepared a screencast that highlights the fancy new features we’ve added. Please take a look; it’s only a minute long.
If you’re allergic to Flash videos, you can always settle for this quick summary:
New clean look
Auto-expanding description boxes
Drag-and-drop re-order lines
More keyboard friendly
But don’t take my word for it; log in to your account and try for yourself. And as always, your feedback is appreciated – please leave us a note and let us know what you think. Thanks.
At FreshBooks we’re always looking for great people to join our team. Today we are happy to announce a new initiative for people looking to do great things with their career. Introducing The New Graduates Program…
The New Graduates Program
Just graduated? Looking to work with a great company? FreshBooks presents an amazing opportunity for students who have just finished school and want to start their careers on the fast track. It’s still early on in the FreshBooks journey and we want to make it easy for hugely talented students – who fit our culture and have just finished their post secondary education – to get on board the FreshBooks train. We are actively looking for Fresh New Meat(tm)..uh Grads to add to the brilliant FreshBooks roster.
From there we hope you will learn our product, our customers and our culture while growing with us professionally. Check out the jobs and get on board today!
“We are building an invoicing network. What network are you building?”
Today is a big news day at FreshBooks. We’re sharing a new way to design software which we’re dubbing Software as a Network (SaaN) to underscore the difference between the new approach to SaaS design, and the old.
What’s different? Now, all the accounts in FreshBooks can connect with each other. If you work with other contractors, you can receive and organize their invoices in your FreshBooks account. You can also share projects from your account to theirs to keep track of your contractors’ time. Watch the video below to see how it works.
Still not sure what we’re talking about? That’s okay. For now I’m going to let TechCrunch and Mashable explain it, and direct you to SoftwareAsANetwork.com where we add some more colour.
FreshBooks adds powerful features to manage your contractors.
As many of you may recall, our courageous leader, Mike McDerment, led a workshop a few weeks ago called How to Build a Web App Business at none other than our very own headquarters! This was the first time we had visitors since moving into our new home a couple months ago, and we were dying to show off the new digs. Folks interested in building their own web app business travelled all the way from Washington D.C., Chicago, Saskatoon, Ottawa and of course, Toronto and the GTA (Greater Toronto Area).
Now, before I tell you about all the great stuff entrepreneurs from across Canada and the United States learned and before I show you how much fun we all had, let me take this moment to make an announcement:
We’re holding another workshop!
That’s right, folks. How to Build a Web App Business the sequel, the rerun, Electric Boogaloo or whatever suffix suffices will be held on Tuesday, June 16 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Seating is limited to 40 people and the cost is $100 per person. We’ll even make sure you don’t leave hungry or beer-less. Register now!
Mike will address many of the questions you have as entrepreneurs through topics such as:
Building – your web app, your company, your team Marketing – with and without dollars Product management – so you know what’s right to build Metrics – to track your progress Financing – the who, what, when, where, why and how 5Ws of fund raising
There’s a guaranteed a spot for any out of towners (well, outside Ontario-ers) who want to attend.
You know you want to be here! Just check out what Katherine Regnier of 24hrAssistant had to say about her day at our last workshop:
Thank you for a brilliant workshop. Mike shared some amazing and critical information about How to Build a Web App. Also, the staff was awesome and so friendly. I wouldn’t think twice about attending any FreshBooks event.
After the event, Matt Rintoul from Say Yeah! tweeted:
#freshbooksworkshop was great! @mikemcderment gave an engaging talk on starting a web app co. Met some great peeps, and saw @rlangdon too!
To see more photos of our newest BFFs having a blast with us (and humouring me) last month, visit our Flickr page.
Once again, the details (in short form) are:
What: How to Build a Web App Business workshop lead by FreshBooks’ CEO Mike McDerment Where: FreshBooks HQ (2770 Dufferin St., Suite 201, Toronto, Canada) When: Tuesday, June 16, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. How much: $100 per person Register here: http://buildingawebapp2.eventbrite.com
Leave a comment or drop me a note at rayanne [at] freshbooks.com if you have any questions you want Mike to address.
It’s better when software plays together. A couple weeks ago, I introduced a veritable movement started by companies who get that idea deep in their bones. We call it the Small Business Web, and we believe it’s the future of small business software on the Internet.
Customers overwhelmingly prefer tools that work well together. Given the choice, they will more often pick software that integrates over software that stands alone.
Our goal when starting the Small Business Web movement was to make it easier to work together. The first step is to stand up and be counted. Make it easy for others to know you’re open to integrating.
Say it loud and clear, “Don’t make me wait! I want to integrate!” Sign the Small Business Web manifesto today! Put your hand up, let folks know who you are and where to find your API documentation. Let’s make it easy to find each other to get the deal done.
And if next week you’re heading to GlueCon, the conference for web application integrators, let me know. I’ll be there too, ready to make things happen!
Perhaps you’ve heard this one before: “The customer is always right”.
Frankly, that’s not true. Frequently customers are incorrect, confused, or have been misled by a third party. It happens all the time and it can be a real challenge to handle when they are convinced they are right.
Over the years we’ve had people tell us we’ve taken away features, but the truth is those features never existed. Other times people have come to us because someone told them we did something that we do not. All of these instances can be hard for our team to handle, and when communication becomes a challenge, like any relationship, the biggest factor is the person on the other side of the table.
That said, we’ve got the best customers in the world hands down. They are professional and smart – and often just too darn busy to give us a hard time because they are entrepreneurs (see professional and smart). But we’ve got enough people using FreshBooks that we get a good number of outliers too – people who can be a challenge for one reason or another.
Last week we were working with a demanding customer. After a lot of back and forth, let’s just say some feathers were ruffled on the FreshBooks end of the relationship. In an effort to break what had become a cycle of frustration, Andrew did the right thing and cc’d me on an email to the customer suggesting that he was tapped out and that the customer now had access to the CEO. Only one problem, Andrew started the email like this:
“Hi [Customer XXX], I don’t believe this to be a fair statement.”
And that’s where we made a mistake. While Andrew did not say this customer was wrong, I’m certain that’s all he heard.
Andrew is a super sharp guy and had invested a great deal in this relationship – I know him well enough to know this was just a moment of weakness. But I’ll tell you what, it did not leave me with many options.
Fortunately, the customer in question proved to be a fair and reasonable individual, and wrote a fairly comical reply to Andrew and I:
“…customers are always right – especially when they are wrong.
Get used to it. ”
This dialog continued and we got things sorted, but the moral of the story is, when you’re providing service it’s not about being right. It’s about supporting people on the other end of the line. Andrew did the correct thing by sending this person my way because he did not see another path to making the customer happy. That’s the right call.
FreshBooks is an online invoicing, time tracking and expense management service that helps people save time, get paid faster, look professional and focus on what they love to do - their work.
”
sends more invoices than there are 
