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Comment by joshwa | Hacker News Reader

Another billing/invoice2.0 site? You picked a crowded market.

http://mashable.com/2007/08/09/online-business/

What is your competitive advantage? And from a customer perspective, what's unique about your app?

i guess i should start by saying i didn't pick the market. i started writing this application years ago to run my own software development business because i was unhappy with quickbooks, and i've been using corduroy as my sole billing system ever since. i just recently added a few features and launched it as a hosted service because of some outside interest in it.

looking over that list of accounting packages, nearly all of them are just invoicing and/or project management applications. corduroy adds check writing, online banking integration and transaction history, as well as customer login support.

If your are targeting discontent Quickbooks users, then it will be very difficult battle. The cost of switching is very high, and most of the quickbooks users are not web savvy, they will cling to what they are used unless Intuit really screws them up. I don't think it's likely to happen because Intuit is a very strong company - Microsoft tried very hard to get them but failed.

I do think you might have a chance to target the web startups, like the users of YC news. But these companies are cheap, so you may need to give me at least 1-year free trial so that I can see your app carry me through a tax year. Then I wouldn't mind $59 a month. But then, most web startups die in a few years. Well, it's just tough.

don't cop out by saying you didn't pick the market. when you release a targetted service and charge for it, you're picking a market. embrace it though. your market may not be quickbooks users. so say, "We're building a better online accounting service for small companies that don't need to overhead and learning curve of Quickbooks and need more than just invoicing." that middle ground is your market.

The customer login support is a big deal for me. I've been trying to get away from paper billing for a while, because it's slow and expensive and I'd rather just send an email with a link. I've been doing that the hard way lately and had been thinking about building something like your system. I'm glad you did it instead.

At $59, it's on the far side of what I'd want to pay for such a system. However, I would pay it.

One thing I'd like to see is a way to build custom invoices. I have a very specific, and fairly unique, invoice design, and would like to hang on to that. Switching to a generic invoice layout might be a dealbreaker. I know that's a lot of work though -- sorry for adding on to the "please do this!" pile.

i will be supporting the custom invoice design as a one-time fee for turning your existing invoice design into code. i may also design some other basic templates that can be used instead of the default.

my company's invoices that are generated through corduroy have a neat faded background image and logo.

Don't forget Quickbooks - it is by far the most dominant player.

For most small biz owners, being online is not important, so a locally installed QuickBooks is good enough. Even if web access is required, Intuit can put Quickbooks online easily just like they put TurboTax online.

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