Archive for Kudos
People who see things differently and do things differently interest me. I’ve said before that perspective is everything. So, I was pleased to read about Jonathan Nelson of Providence Equity Partners this weekend in my beloved Fortune Magazine.
Jonathan is running one of the world’s most successful private equity firms — #6 on the Fortune private equity power list. Now, I don’t care much for private equity firms, but I’m intrigued by Jonathan and the firm he’s built. Why? He’s done it sleepy Providence Rhode Island instead of on Wall Street. Also, he approaches business knowing that relationships matter, and knowing it’s not just the money that talks. He’s portrayed as low-key, which is uncommon amongst private equity superstars (at least those heralded by the media).
In the Fortune article, Jonathon was being credited with the biggest private equity deal ever — the $51 billion buyout of BCE — Canada’s largest, yet beleaguered telco. While it looks like the BCE deal may not go through after all (the Canadian Supreme court is deciding today), a failed deal won’t take the shine off of Jonathan’s portrayal in my books. Why? He’s still the same man — even if the deal doesn’t go through.
Co-working is the popular new way to affordably share a proper office with like-minded professionals. Rather than rent an entire office yourself, a number of independents rent an office together.
Congratulations to Patrick Tanguay and Daniel Mireault, who today open the doors at Station C! It’s a beautiful new 2500 square foot co-working office in Montréal, complete with two meeting rooms and 16 desks.
Why co-working?
Most co-working arrangements are a mix of café culture and shared office space. They provide that important “home base” and a professional place to meet clients, a huge step up from the usual loud, messy, and disorganized laptop-and-cellphone-in-Starbucks.
Co-working also gives independents all the benefits of a room full of peers — keeping up with the latest industry news, people to turn to when you’re stuck, and someone to buy you a birthday cake — without the tedium of office politics. Let’s face it, not everyone can stand being alone all day long!
An interesting model
Patrick and Daniel have a really fun vision for Station C. “We want it to be a year-long BarCamp,” Patrick says, referencing the international “unconference” phenomenon.
While they rent half the desks to full-time “anchor” members for $300 per month, the other half are flex rentals for as low as $130 per month for 14 hours per week. They are also renting desks by the day to out-of-town travellers, to keep the environment full of fresh ideas and energy.
“If we only had full-time people, it would be a normal office,” Patrick explains. They even plan to host a guest lecture series for members — very cool.
Are you into co-working?
I think co-working is the future. More and more people are going independent, but being in an office has many advantages.
I’ve been a fan of co-working since I had a desk in the Centre for Social Innovation, here in Toronto. The buzz in that building is amazing. When I began tele-working for another gig, I moved to Soup.net, a beautiful green space with amazingly friendly people.
I think I would have gone insane if I’d had to work alone all day in my tiny apartment. So I wonder who else out there is interested in co-working.
Do you rent a desk in a shared office? What’s it like?
Or, are you sick of cafés and just wish you knew of a local co-working office?
Then hit the comments — maybe you can find enough like-minded folks in your city to make it happen.
It’s been a little while since we’ve written any posts in our green office category. Last year, you might recall we offset the environmental impact of FreshBooks with the help of the folks at Zerofootprint; we’ll be doing it again shortly for 2007.
Zerofootprint calculates your “carbon footprint” on the environment, and then allows you to purchase carbon credits to offset your emissions. The funds from these credits are used to plant trees in British Columbia.
The news today is that Zerofootprint has been selected as a finalist over at the Crunches web awards, in the category of the website “most likely to make the world a better place.”
The other worthy finalists are:
- the Causes application for Facebook, which allows you to collect charitable donations via your profile page;
- DonorsChoose, a website where teachers pitch their funding needs and donors decide which projects they’d like to support;
- Kiva, helping disadvantaged entrepreneurs in developing countries raise startup funds for their businesses; and
- One Laptop per Child, who aim to blanket the third world with cheap, rugged, Internet-connected machines.
You can vote for Zerofootprint, or any of the other finalists, at the website for the Crunchies.
Congratulations to our friends at Zerofootprint, a fine Toronto-based company doing great things.
Greetings, fearless reader!
In today’s post we’re highlighting friends of FreshBooks, whose stories we’ve gathered together from the cosmic reaches of the universe. If you track expenses, design websites or charge for your services — or simply enjoy riveting blog posts — then read on, I say!
Spotlight on FreshBooks integrators
The FreshBooks API lets the outside world interact with FreshBooks in computer-speak, instead of using our dandy web interface.
What’s the big deal? Well, it means enterprising developers can build anything — from a little widget to an entire application — that works with FreshBooks. You can automate your processes, integrate with your website… forgive the cliché, but the possibilities are endless. In technical terms, it’s really neat stuff!
Talented 18-year-old Nebraska college student Cory Becker is putting himself through school building custom integrations for fellow FreshBooks users through his company, Becker Web Solutions. Fun fact: his high school graduation gift was his own LLC! We’ve seen his work first-hand, and it’s excellent; Cory’s a real pro, and we’re proud to have him working on our platform.
And be sure to check out Xpenser, a brand new expense-tracking utility that works from anywhere and integrates with FreshBooks. A recent made-up study showed 100% of people have trouble keeping track of their expenses; Xpenser makes it easy by allowing you to record your expenses on the road via SMS, instant messaging, e-mail — even with a quick phone call! And when it’s time to collect, Xpenser can instantly export the details to a FreshBooks invoice. It’s a fantastic app.
For more information, read the full press release highlighting these two stories. You can also nab it in handy PDF form.
Value-based billing: another user’s perspective
FreshBooks user Eric Marden shares an excellent piece on value-based billing. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll remember we discussed this topic a couple months ago while highlighting how FreshBooks users get paid faster.
Eric offers some excellent advice on how to handle the financial side of your client relationships.
No one likes to wake up with a bill under their door, so quit hitting your clients with invoices like the hotel ninjas. Talk about any upcoming invoices, before they are sent, so that your clients know what to expect. Once they are expecting the bill — they will start to get themselves ready to pay it.
Great stuff, Eric! Be sure to read the full article at Xentek.net.
Thank you, thank you
Finally, we don’t like to spend time puffing out our chest on our blog. But when the community recognizes us, it’s only right to recognize them right back.
In that spirit, we send a hearty thanks to small biz blog feed growth! for recently featuring us as their “growth idea” of the day; and offer our gratitude to brand new design gallery CSSFirst for honouring our website as one of their very first featured designs. Keep up the solid work!
That’s all, folks
Hope you’re enjoying your holiday season thus far. Remember, if you need anything at all, we’re just a ring or two away at 1-866-303-6061.
Drive safe!
I grew up across the street from a natural ice hockey surface and I learned a lot about Canadian culture and my own character playing shinny on that rink. I still play shinny during the winter here in Toronto. Unfortunately our great city is going through some financing issues, which I think is a real shame because it’s a growth engine for all of Canada, but I digress. As a result of the financial issues, Toronto Mayor David Miller has been cutting public services (including outdoor hockey rinks) which is also a shame, but something he pretty much has to do. Now enter MasterCard…
It’s not very often a big company does something that directly effects me or something that I care about, but MasterCard just did. They are offering $160,000 in no strings attached funding to ensure the Toronto rinks open in December for the holidays, instead of being forced to open in January due to budgetary issues. As a Canadian who believes that outdoor hockey has long shaped and influenced our cultural identity and the character of our youth, I have to say, MasterCard this was one sweet move, you hosers.
It’s time for this month’s edition of ReFresh. Last month, I posted the top 5 FreshBooks blog posts with the greatest number of comments. This month I am posting our 5 most popular podcasts. In these podcasts from our “Build Your Business” teleseminar series will find a lot of great content on succeeding with Google Adwords, generating referrals, and even Pay-Per-Click campaigns. Enjoy.
5th Place: Introduction to Web Site Analytics with John Marshall
“Michael spoke with John Marshall, founder and CEO of ClickTracks, last week. Award-winning web analytics software, ClickTracks was created out of frustration with existing web site analysis tools in the belief that there had to be a better way.”
4th Place: Building Traffic to Your Website with Jennifer Laycock
“Jennifer Laycock, editor of Search Engine Guide, talked to Michael about how search engines can help attract visitors to your web site … What is a keyword phrase, and how do you rank for your keywords? …Use your competitors’ web sites to look for variations on your keyword phrases”
3rd Place: Introduction to Pay-Per-Click Advertising with Andrew Goodman
“In the second of our Fall teleseminar series, Andrew Goodman, author of “Winning Results with Google AdWords”, shares his knowledge and answers your questions about how to get started with creating and managing a pay-per-click advertising campaign.”
2nd Place: Generate Referrals for Your Business with John Jantsch
“… John Jantsch, author of “Referral Flood” and twice voted best small business blogger by Forbes Magazine. John has practical and proven advice about how to build your business by getting people to refer you to others. John has joined Michael once before and we were delighted to have him back.”
1st Place: Google AdWords Teleseminar Podcast with Andrew Goodman
“Last Thursday I had the privilege to conduct a teleseminar about Google AdWords with Andrew Goodman of Page Zero Media …People sent in some excellent questions, and the second half of the call was very engaging as Andrew got rolling.”
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