I thought that an excerpt from that letter might be of interest to this group. (in brief: it's not time to give up yet if after 2 years you have 10 customers and $99 of monthly revenue).
Today I have a FreshBooks announcement to share with you. But first, a story almost 10 years in the making…
In January 2003 I was running a four person design agency. I was using Microsoft Word to create our firm's invoices and I was pulling out my hair because Word simply wasn't built to create good looking invoices efficiently or report on my business. One day I accidentally saved over an old invoice, and something in me snapped – I knew there had to be a better way. Over the next two weeks I coded up a solution for my clients, and eventually we turned that side project into what is now FreshBooks.
The road hasn't been easy. It took over 16 months to bring a product to market. When we launched no one cared and 24 months after starting we had only 10 paying customers and revenues of $99 per month. We moved into my parents' basement for 3.5 years. But despite all the evidence pointing to our failure, we carried on. Why? We loved our customers, our company and working together, and we'd discovered a passion to serve others.
Since those humble beginnings, over 5 million people have used FreshBooks to send and receive, print or pay invoices. Today FreshBooks has paying customers in over 120 countries. We are a rapidly growing 90 person company.
http://www.freshbooks.com/tour.php
Cross browser testing, download all browsers in one:
http://www.browseemall.com/Support/
UI prototyping tool:
Discussion:
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.847724.14
http://pencil.evolus.vn/en-US/Home.aspx
.NET obfuscators discussion:
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.848061.28
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