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SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

1244 Why Freshbooks CEO was Anti-VC, then Raised $75m

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

Nathan Latka

Ceo, Entrepreneurs, Founders, Software, Business, Entrepreneurship, Saas, Startups

4.6683 Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2018

⏱️ 21 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mike is the co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, the world’s #1 cloud accounting software for self-employed professionals and their teams. Built in 2003 after he accidentally saved over an invoice, Mike spent 3.5 years growing FreshBooks from his parents’ basement. Since then, over 10 million people have used FreshBooks to save time billing, and collect billions of dollars. A lover of the outdoors, Mike has been bitten so many times it’s rumoured he’s the first human to have developed immunity to mosquitoes.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Fresh books. There you have it launched back in 2004. It was anti-VC for many years.

0:04.5

Then realized, you know what, if I can find people that understand our love of customer support

0:08.4

and customer success, I'll raise. He found people that aligned with what he's doing now.

0:11.8

$75 million raised, 300 people. You can get started on a free trial or upgrade to $15

0:16.5

bucks a month. Again, collecting your money right via invoices significantly easier.

0:21.5

Forbes reports over 50 million bucks in annual occurring revenue. He did not confirm or deny that.

0:26.9

This is the top entrepreneurs podcast where founders share how they started their companies and got

0:33.4

filthy rich or crash and burn. Each episode features revenue numbers, customer counts,

0:42.3

and other insider information that creates business news headlines. We went from a couple

0:48.6

hundred thousand dollars to two point seven million. I had no money when I started the

0:52.1

company. It was a hundred and sixty million, which is the size of any IPOs.

0:56.1

We're a bit strapped.

0:57.1

We have like 22,000 customers.

1:01.0

With over 5 million downloads in a very short amount of time,

1:05.2

major outlets like Inc are calling us the fastest growing business show on iTunes.

1:10.1

I'm your host, Nathan Latka, and here's today's episode.

1:14.7

Hello, everyone.

1:15.4

My guest today is Mike McDermint.

1:17.5

He's the co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, the world's number one cloud accounting

1:21.4

software for self-employed professionals and their teams.

1:24.5

Built in 2003 after he accidentally saved over an invoice,

1:28.9

Mike spent 3.5 years growing fresh books from his parents' basement.

...

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