Following on from my previous post about the demise and resurrection of 1place I did some digging.

Seems there was a parting of the ways between the shareholders. Lead developer Bevan Falloon was ousted and someone else was bought in to do development. It appears that Bevan helped out some of the paying customers and got their information back up on a private IP. Other than that it was down for a month or so.

Without going into the sordid details of the business dealings, it is a reminder that credibility is king – especially for SaaS businesses.

Once again it’s a reminder of why Xero IPO’d and a lesson on how NOT to do SaaS.

Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

3 Comments
  • I was one of those that checked out 1place a few months back and then again more recently. Their blog hasn’t been updated since August and there really is no clue anywhere on the site as to the ownership etc. If someone wants to trust their accounting data to an unknown company this just seems like a very bad idea.

    They need to build trust by
    1. Saying who thay are – and what their respources are including reasons for customers to trust them
    2. Updating their blog- so it doesn’t look like a dead company
    3. Include more information about security of data etc.

    It is possible to phone an 0800 number but given the initial check up factor of their website not being that reassuring then I doubt that many would even bother with a call.

    I talk with lots of businesses on behalf of clients and the FIRST place I check is the company website so I know a bit about the company – usually looking for some reason to call or not.

    Now if your business requires a high degree fo trust (managing financial information!) then the least you can do make it easy by establishing safe and secure credentials.

  • Good detective work Ben, I guess I could have got my invoices out but when I already have the PDFs there isn’t much need. They should have an export process though, I’ve been thinking about SaaS escrow possibilities so I should blog on that shortly.

    They’ve updated their blog now Jason, but not bothered to respond to Ben or I directly which is disappointing.

    http://blog.1place.co.nz/?p=15

  • Regarding their blog – the latest post does nothing to build confidence and trust in the company. Consequently they are still missing the point.

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