Thinking about the competition often keeps business owners up at night. Will someone else find a way to copy your product? Will they lure customers away? Will they make your clientele happier? It’s the stuff of nightmares. Mike McDerment, the co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks, decided that he didn’t want to waste time being afraid of his competition. Why wait for someone to figure out how to do your business better? So he decided to do something about it now—and created a strong competitor. It was an unconventional move, but effective. Using everything they learned in their mini-startup, FreshBooks was able to make a smooth transition to their new platform and learned valuable information about their customers in the process.  Join me as we discuss customer proximity, being a partner with your clients, and how Mark went from being a marketing consultant to creating a valuable cloud-based accounting software (despite not being a programmer). Show notes and episode links available at https://whitneyjohnson.com/mike-mcderment