Montreal Tech Watch

Last week at the International Startup Festival, we met Mike McDerment, CEO and co-founder of Freshbooks

Freshbooks is a very well known Toronto-based web company, with a complete accounting system for small businesses. At its beginnings, the startup was developing various marketing channels, most noticeably its blog with a vocal support of small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Mike was at the Startup Festival to talk about metrics for web entrepreneurs, especially Cost Per Acquisition (CPA), LifeTime Value of customers (LTV), and other discussions about ARPU (Average Revenue Per User). He exposed different ways of looking at your marketing, and making sure you don’t over or under-spend. It’s a lot of numbers, and Mike encourages CEOs and entrepreneurs to have a hard look at numbers.

At the end of the session, we’ve had Mike Sabbagh, founder of sellyourelectronics.ca ask key questions to Mike. It was simple: since most entrepreneurs are bootstrapping and don’t have thousands of dollars to throw at AdWords, did he have any tips for bootrapping entrepreneurs?

“You have to love what you’re doing” Mike McDerment, Freshbooks.

Mike talked how you have to believe and love what you’re doing: be patient, be persistent, and don’t let the passion go away. About pricing issues, Mike said while it’s key for consumer products, it’s not as important for B2B services.

PS: yes the interview was cut out at the end, that’s how hectic the Startup Festival was.