{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"What Works","title":"EP 152: Reinventing Your Product–Twice–with Freshbooks Co-Founder Mike McDerment","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2018,"description":"\nThe Nitty Gritty\n\n* How Mike transitioned from growing his design and marketing firm to creating FreshBooks, an invoicing software tool for small business owners\n* How a strong value of honesty seeps through the company and results in an open and transparent team that makes the product better\n* Why Mike created a pretend competitor to test new product features, how they tracked that project’s milestones, and when they knew that their new version would be a success\n\nIf you’re a small business owner, no doubt that you’ve heard of FreshBooks. In fact, you might even use the software to bill your clients. But what you might not have heard is how FreshBooks came to be and how it’s improved over time.\nMike McDerment, FreshBook’s cofounder and CEO, joins the podcast today to talk about how he structured his design agency to create more time to work on FreshBooks, why they used a secret company to test new features before launching them to the FreshBooks customers, and how important strong values are to create a strong company culture.\nWe release new episodes of What Works every week. Subscribe on iTunes so you never miss an episode.\nCreating time to develop your business’ side project\n“I built my firm in such a way that I got a lot of time back. I helped curate the work of my team members and push them to do as much of the client engagement work as I can. That’s the one thing that I felt that I was still involved with and should be — but I wanted to just show up to meetings and grooming work.” — Mike McDerment\nFor the first two years, FreshBooks made only $100 a month in revenue. That meant Mike and his team needed to get creative. Mike started by pivoting about 80% of his time from the firm to FreshBooks, which at the time was an unnamed side project. The rest of it was financed by agency staff who, when they had extra time, put that into FreshBooks. “That’s how we financed it without being explicit about it,” Mike explains. “We would have that company running and we...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/AmfGeDL96-fhMaeOcqmX7TK_eWrvTLco6OJj2QpZtZI/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS80NGUx/OWY5ZDg1M2E5MmU3/ZjEwOWVmNDM3MWVh/ZjZlOS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}