FreshBooks isn't changing their name, just their focus from mainly invoicing to more accounting stuff.
Their website is now "FreshBooks Cloud Account" from "FreshBooks Painless Billing"
FreshBooks moves from Online Invoicing to Cloud Accounting
11–20 of 34 posts
Re: FreshBooks moves from Online Invoicing to Cloud Accounting
#12When I got the e-mail from them this morning, all I could think of is "what a shame". Freshbooks is such a great name/brand, and in my mind, the "books" part of the name was still enough to at least allude to "bookkeeping".
Maybe a defense from QB's lawyers?
Or maybe Facebook's lawyers are trolling again.
Re: FreshBooks moves from Online Invoicing to Cloud Accounting
#13If you need to change your great company name to a worse company name because of an external legal threat, it's really really important that you communicate that rationale to your users. Otherwise they'll just think that you have terrible judgement and don't have your priorities in order.
FreshBooks is not changing it's name - we are changing the way we describe our services. Why? When we started almost 10 years ago we only offered online invoicing. Since then we have added things like the ability to track expenses and a profit & loss statement. As a result our customers have started calling us cloud accounting, so we are changing the way we describe ourselves to reflect that, and to better signal what they can expect from us going forward.
I wrote a very long letter to our customers about this. I encourage anyone interested in getting more clarity to please read it in its entirety. Here's the link:
http://www.freshbooks.com/cloud-accounting-letter/
Mike McDerment Co-Founder FreshBooks
Re: FreshBooks moves from Online Invoicing to Cloud Accounting
#14[deleted]
Re: FreshBooks moves from Online Invoicing to Cloud Accounting
#15I am still confused (customer of freshbooks). Are they officially changing their name from freshbooks to cloudaccounting OR they are just adding more features that supports accounting ?
Nope, just changing their slogan from "Painless Billing" to "Cloud Accounting".
Re: FreshBooks moves from Online Invoicing to Cloud Accounting
#16If you need to change your great company name to a worse company name because of an external legal threat, it's really really important that you communicate that rationale to your users. Otherwise they'll just think that you have terrible judgement and don't have your priorities in order.
FreshBooks is not changing it's name - we are changing the way we describe our services. Why? When we started almost 10 years ago we only offered online invoicing. Since then we have added things like the ability to track expenses and a profit & loss statement. As a result our customers have started calling us cloud accounting, so we are changing the way we describe ourselves to reflect that, and to better signal wha…
Ah, I think the confusing line in your long letter is:
"So here's the news: from this day forward, FreshBooks is Cloud Accounting".
That turn of phrase is normally used when you are rebranding a company, not changing its tagline; the confusion is reinforced by using capital letters for Cloud Accounting.
I think you meant:
"from this day forward, FreshBooks means cloud accounting"
I'm not a customer but you have some confused customers in this HN thread.
Re: FreshBooks moves from Online Invoicing to Cloud Accounting
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
FreshBooks is not changing it's name - we are changing the way we describe our services. Why? When we started almost 10 years ago we only offered online invoicing. Since then we have added things like the ability to track expenses and a profit & loss statement. As a result our customers have started calling us cloud accounting, so we are changing the way we describe ourselves to reflect that, and to better signal wha…
Ah, I think the confusing line in your long letter is: "So here's the news: from this day forward, FreshBooks is Cloud Accounting". That turn of phrase is normally used when you are rebranding a company, not changing its tagline; the confusion is reinforced by using capital letters for Cloud Accounting. I think you meant: "from this day forward, FreshBooks means cloud accounting" I'm not a customer but you have some…
Well said. That's a better way for sure. Will take it with me.
- mike
Re: FreshBooks moves from Online Invoicing to Cloud Accounting
#18I think it would make so much more sense if they just said "From now on, FreshBooks does cloud accounting."
Yeesh.
Good on them though - it is quite a feat to break the stranglehold on that industry. They struggled a lot, and it paid off.
Re: FreshBooks moves from Online Invoicing to Cloud Accounting
#19"So here's the news: from this day forward, FreshBooks is Cloud Accounting. We're not changing our name, we're just changing the way we describe our services."
The news is a new marketing strategy? Um, ok.
Re: FreshBooks moves from Online Invoicing to Cloud Accounting
#20I think every bootstrapping founder should print this out and stick it on their wall:
When we launched no one cared and 24 months after
starting we had only 10 paying customers and revenues
of $99 per month.