Grasshopper Labs is a group of developers, marketers, and entrepreneurs whose goal is to develop breakthrough web applications designed for start ups.  We spend our time developing applications to make it easier for entrepreneurs and small business owners to run their business efficiently.

For the last three months, the Labs team has been working to launch Chargify, a better way for Web 2.0 and SaaS companies to bill their customers.  Chargify makes it easy to manage subscription-based business models and gives business owners some great insight into how their ventures are growing.

We’re really excited about the launch, which occurred at the TechCrunch 50 on Monday. We think there’s a huge opportunity in this space, specifically for growing SaaS companies. Billing is a tricky market and it’s a pretty crowded space.  To date, there are a bunch of really expensive enterprise solutions priced out of reach for most start ups. Then there are a bunch of little guys, who are at about the same stage of life as the companies they’re trying to serve. Chargify fills a need that’s somewhere in between – it’s a more mature and proven billing solution, but is priced at a point that young companies can easily afford.

As an offshoot of Grasshopper, we’ve got great experience managing subscriptions and billing on a recurring basis for thousands of customers.  It hasn’t always been easy and we’ve learned a lot over the years.  We’ve incorporated those learnings into Chargify and our hope is that it makes it easy for our merchants to start and run successful subscription-based businesses.

As part of a larger series, I’m going to be writing about bringing Grasshopper Labs ideas to market. The challenges we face, the successes we’ve had, and the failures too. My posts will deal with brand positioning, messaging, and my experiences trying to launch successful web-based apps for entrepreneurs with the team at Grasshopper Labs.