Freshbooks' Story of Perseverance

Building a company is hard work and if you’re doing it after hours, it’s especially difficult to maintain a high level of quality work on your full-time gig and keep enough in the reserves to grind away after hours and on the weekends. In most cases, you simply will not see the exponential growth curve that VCs drool over and you will face the “should I shut it down” decision at several points in the life of your startup.

If you believe in your product and business and have the resources to continue to build and sustain it, then you need perseverance. I would like to highlight the awesome story of Freshbooks. While evaluating invoicing options, I read their story and that sealed the deal for me. It’s a great story of sacrifice and perseverance.

The road hasn’t been easy. It took over a year to bring the product to market. After 24 months, there were only 10 paying customers and revenues of $99 per month. The company moved into Mike’s parents’ basement and for the next 3.5 years, despite all the evidence pointing to failure, they carried on. Why? They discovered a passion for serving our customers, our company and working together. – Our Story, Freshbooks

Freshbooks started off as a solution to their own problems of invoicing their design agency clients, but it turned into an awesome company and a great example of perseverance.