I just saw a tweet announcing that ClearBooks has reached 50 paying customers in its first year of operating. Actually that’s a bit misleading. ClearBooks started to offer paid accounts at the beginning of July with the following offer: for one month only, customers signing up for the £15/month premium service can have it for 6 months at £5/month. That got people signing up and as announced on Twitter, ClearBooks has hit the 50 customer mark. Which means that Tim gets to win his bet.
It’s a rounding error when you think that the potential market for SMB’s alone could be as high as 4.4 million people. But…in a crowded market where getting attention is tough at the best of times, it’s good to see this wee company trying hard and winning. As I replied – now they’ve got to accelerate quickly.
There’s a land grab going on in the UK on-demand accounting market with Xero out in the lead on growth while Duane Jackson continues to use online channels as his primary means of pimping Kashflow. In the meantime, it’s nice to see ClearBooks explaining its value proposition in 10-point terms while FreeAgent Central gets kudos from a new user who seems to have fallen in love with the service after entering only ONE invoice.
And all this in one morning?
I do wish I had placed a similar bet with John Stokdyk of AccountingWEB back in early 2006 when he dismissed on-demand as a fad that wouldn’t take on for many years. Yes, we’re still relatively early but then all things on-demand is where today’s action is happening.
UPDATE: I just received this message from ClearBooks: “Tim’s keeping the offer open. Double or quits – 100 by end of next month, if we reach it’ll stay for Sept (target: 200)”
