As a small business owner myself I was particularly interested when back at SXSW a bunch of companies that included BatchBlue, Shoeboxed, Outright, Mailchimp and Freshbooks announced the “Small Business Web“. (Full Disclosure: There is partnership between Outright and Network Solutions and they have a blog called the Unintentional Entrepreneur.

The concept is simple, get these different web applications that business use talking to each other and streamline the data exchange so small businesses are more efficient and the combined products are more powerful.

Here is what it says on their web site:

“The Small Business Web is a movement to bring together like-minded, customer-obsessed software companies to integrate our respective products and make life easier for small businesses. While there are many products available for small business owners on the Web, the approach we’re taking is to use each others APIs to provide a high-level of integration between these applications and create a more seamless experience for our customers.

We think small businesses are the lifeblood of the economy and that it’s from small business that true innovation will arise. We believe small businesses should have access to the same tools and technology that big companies have without paying a huge amount. We know simplifying access and increasing integration to our products and services will benefit all of our customers. We want small businesses to succeed and we want to help.”

The execution is challenging because companies have to open up their API’s and the connecting companies have to develop the functionality to plug-in that respective application. This can also be limited by what the respective company opens up their particular API. On top of that each company is well, its own company and there is no central control or product team to deal with integration issues.

Despite those challenges, the Small Business Web is starting to get some traction and more companies have joined in. The list is long and covers just about every area of a small business back office operation. There are actually more than one in each area freeing the small business owner to find the best solution for them and not tied to a specific group of apps like a desktop office productivity suite.

Those hours freed up from using spreadsheets to do double and sometime triple data entry allows a small business to focus on more important things to help them grow. We will be covering many more of these applications in future Smart Working articles.

For more information, check out the Small Business Web at http://www.thesmallbusinessweb.com

My real point there is to avoid what I call “Shiny Object Syndrome” which most of us entrepreneurs fall prey to and must learn to look away when the newest coolest thing is one the market (have you seen the lines for iPhones?) and must try it for their business. You could make web application trials a full time job which why we are here for you.

The product we are reviewing this week is somewhat of a stalwart in the web application space and it is focused on time and billing for freelancers and small businesses. It is called Freshbooks and the Toronto-based company has grown to be quite a powerhouse for freelancers and small businesses to be the time tracking and invoicing system of choice. In the interest of full disclosure, I use this product for my business. So let’s do the rundown:

What we like:

Extremely well designed and intuitive UI – Aside from using all the pretty Web 2.0 colors it is well designed from the menus to the help sections that make it inviting and natural for people to sign up and get started quickly which is the hardest to do with web apps. You have seven seconds to engage and convert them to customers. Freshbooks makes this look easy.

You can actually send snail mail – Yes, there are many people who don’t want to read your invoice or take the time to print the PDF. Even if they do you have the ability to buy stamps and Freshbooks sends the physical bill. That is awesome and a nice touch when everyone is trying

Serious web application integration – Smart companies these days put out their API to leverage the community. Twitter is the most current example of an ecosystem building around an API. Freshbooks has created and is participating in a small business application API “ring of apps” that includes Outright (expenses), BatchBlue (CRM) and Basecamp (task and projects you can bill to) and Freshbooks might be the one to rule them all.

Ironically, there are many customers and vendors who use Freshbooks and end up sending each other Freshbooks invoices. There is currently work to make this payment exchange even easier which will add another differentiator to their list.

All the payment gateways – Like many companies who seem to make it hard for you to give them your money (re: cable and cell phone companies), Freshbooks makes it really easy. They allow you to let customers pay via 14 different gateways from Paypal to Authorize.net making it painless to get your invoices paid.

Freemium Service – As is typical these days, there is a free starter version to get you hooked. The service is free to use indefinitely, but limits you to three client accounts. Paid versions start at $14 a month and allow you to bill more clients and have more users at your business working on the system. If you’re looking at online invoicing systems, definitely try this product.

Killer Customer Service – When I was going through a name change of my business, I figured that I would have to fight and probably lose the battle to change my subdomain (COMPANY.freshbooks.com) because many companies are quite frankly either lazy or don’t want to solve the problem (see Flickr). I sent a request and low and behold within a day, they said no problem and just let them know and the change should be fairly fast and it was – truly impressive. Back in 2008 the Network Solutions offices we were visited by Saul Colt, “Head of Magic” at Freshbooks and the Chief Evangelist for the platform. One of the cool things they do is travel the world and visit cities where there are customers and take them to dinner to not only meet them but solicit real live feedback. Don’t you wish every company did something like this for their customers?

What we wish they would improve:

Limited accounting package support – Yes, it does have API integration with IAC-EZ, Outright and Clarity Accounting which is great but you still need to do an export to get the data over to Quickbooks. Maybe I live in a world of API’s and expect some automation with the biggest accounting package out there. Granted, it could be Intuit blocking the path (which is probably the case since they say they have the features) so I am willing to go easier on this one, but some deal must be struck eventually. Otherwise, Freshbooks might go ahead and build a better Quickbooks – I’m just saying…

If you have something should you move to it?

I would strongly consider the move if you have a desktop application that has been limiting and you have a few clients to move over and automate more of your business. If you have a web tool that does most of this then no. Then again, signing up for the free trial is painless and you could always try a parallel test with a few clients to see if things go smoother with this solutions.

If you are starting a business, should you use this app?

Definitely. This is an application that is the top of the heap in terms of productive and quality software. Every dollar you invest should yield you two and with a platform like this that makes your time tracking and invoicing painless and accelerates client payment, it is a no-brainer.

You can check out Freshbooks at www.freshbooks.com

Screenshot Credits (DailyBlogTips)

Saul came over to Network Solutions this week to discuss the world of Web 2.0 and small business. Keeping his presentation light and humorous we found out that he is an avid collector of Nike Air Force One’s (cool Basketball shoes), he loves cupcakes and wears funny t-shirts.

He started the discussion with funny pictures of Doug Henning, people in his office and his shoe collection.

FreshBooks is a Web 2.0 success story

They have over 400,000 users worldwide and are sold completely in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model.

The major functions of their product are time tracking and billing. Time tracking is the biggest part of the application and they allow you to send invoices to customers via e-mail and through the mail.

They allow clients to go directly to the web and pay their bill and they integrate with 13 – that’s right – 13 different payment gateways to allow customers the most flexibility in who they choose as their payment service. He is quick to state that they don’t handle any client payments nor do they take a cut of the payment.

Saul likes to say, and I have to agree, “we are not a technology but rather a service…and services need to listen to the people who use it!”. The company has an active blog called “Fresh Thinking” and a very active forum.
They stress in our marketing communications that they all pick up the phone and it is a toll free number. EVERYBODY in the company works the support line.

This product has been a boon to Web Workers, consultants, freelancers and everyone who has been looking for a billing and payment solution that doesn’t require lots of software and hardware to implement and manage.

Their model is based on a monthly subscription rate. They do have a free version that includes everything in the pay for product but it is limited to 1 person/3 clients and it doesn’t have the private branding option for your company.

Web 2.0 and Customer Service are the perfect partners

So what little nuggets of wisdom does the “Doug Henning of Marketing” have to share about Web 2.0 and customer service in general?

In the 50’s people knew their customer. In today’s business environment it would seem impossible to do the same thing but Web 2.0 tools let you go back to that. Using tools like Pownce, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed and YouTube make this possible.

He says that you should read the entire Internet everyday….huh?
You can use tools like Tweet scan, google alerts and Summize.com to do this by following keywords to see what is being said about your company and its products/services.

Create Powerful Word of Mouth

Saul is a big believer in Word of Mouth marketing. In fact, 50% of new customers are referrals and it is a primary way to gain customers in this “New Web World”. One innovative thing that they do is called Freshbooks Parties. FreshBooks parties are where you can get people together to discuss the wonders of their product and in Tupperware party fashion, Freshbooks sends a Tupperware container full of T-Shirts and other schwag including free trials of the full service to get more people to sign up and try out the service.

Three elements of FreshBooks customer interaction success:

- The result of these tools is not to sell people
- Karma marketing is the way to go
- We take our customers out to dinner in groups – even the ones who don’t pay for the service – getting them into a room to all meet each other is a great way to see how they use the service and help each other

Super customer service take away:

Bring the (genuine) love in everything you do because people notice. Also take the time to know your customers.

Q&A from the audience:

From Audience: What does Freshbooks have to do with an RV?
From Saul: We spoke at the Future of Web Apps and then SXSW. To get there we rented an RV and drove and met about 1800 customers along the way to Texas.

From Audience: When you have a company like Net Sol that is not a start-up and the upper management is just starting to grasp the newer stuff what would be your approach.
From Saul: You have to get your people feeling like they can try new things. Zappos and JetBlue are very much like this. People that like what they do are going to talk about it. Empower them to do it with confidence and good news will spread.

From Audience: How do you manage a larger corporate brand without straying from message?
From Saul: You should have some broad parameters and focus them on one site that has many contributors to create many voices.

From Audience: What do you know about Network Solutions?
From Saul: Not much. Bought a lot of expensive domains a while ago. I think you owned the Internet and you offer a lot more services now. You should not be intimidated by the size of your organization to try something new. Do what every Seth Godin book says to do – “Be Remarkable”.

Check out the whole presentation and Q&A in the video below: