On this episode, I speak with Mike McDerment, the co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks. FreshBooks is the world’s #1 cloud accounting software for self-employed professionals. Built in 2003 after he accidentally saved over an invoice, Mike spent 3.5 years growing FreshBooks from his parents’ basement. Since then, over 24 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 an immunity to mosquitoes.

Mike McDerment is also the author of Breaking the Time Barrier – How to Unlock Your True Earning Potential, a book that lets most freelancers and small businesses discover their billing blind spots and determine if they are charging what they are really worth. Small business owners sometimes struggle to assert their worth in a competitive market place. Sometimes, they suffer from imposter syndrome. Other times, they just feel grateful to have clients who pay on time, so they undercharge. And, over time, some simply don’t increase their rates, afraid of having awkward money conversations. But, rest assured, they are not alone. If you run a small business, knowing and charging your worth can be a difficult thing so Mike McDerment and Donald Cowper wrote this book as a guide to value-based pricing and unlocking your true earning potential.

 

Talking Points

The history and background of FreshBooks

What has FreshBooks become and where is it at right now? 

The equation between time and money and what a “time barrier” is 

Quantitative productivity versus qualitative productivity 

Billing by the hour versus billing by value 

Why did Mike start a secret company to compete with his existing one? 

The value of the secret company experiment and the time spent doing the experiment 

Spending time with exploration and experimentation 

Approaching life on a complementary lens

How does Mike McDerment approach his work?

Quote

“With the time barrier in the book, the premise is around called value based billing. So instead of charging how much time you spent on something instead charge the value you bring. The two don’t always go together. I think that’s the thing that people don’t understand.”

Relevant Links:

Website

Twitter

LinkedIn

Book: Breaking the Time Barrier – How to Unlock Your True Earning Potential

The key takeaway from this episode is that the ability to work so little and produce so much income had a lot to do with how one priced and positioned his or her services, something most small business owners struggle with.

Want to discover some of the books mentioned on the podcast? Check out Scribd, my reading app of choice.

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