Balsamiq - ReadWriteWeb http://www.readwriteweb.com/feeds/tag/Balsamiq en Copyright 2009 Richard MacManus readwriteweb@gmail.com Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:36:29 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.23-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Man Writes Software, Blogs About it, Makes $100k in 5 Months We love this story. Back in July we wrote about the inspiring experience of Peldi Guilizzoni, a lone software developer who'd built a web design mock-up tool called Balsamiq and who was opening up his financial records on his blog to show everyone how things were going. We'd been following his progress since before he launched, but just 6 weeks after Balsamiq hit the market at roughly $79 per license, we wrote that Peldi had already made $10k in revenue.

That was a cute story, but now it's been just 5 months and today Peldi reports that he's just cleared $100,000 in sales of the four variations of his product. Talk about a simple tool coming along at just the right time! It's cool software, too.

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]]> In addition to selling Mockups for Desktop, Peldi also sells Mockups for Confluence, Jira and XWiki. Desktop sales have dominated, as any designer can use that software, but wildly popular enterprise wiki service Confluence has a big ecosystem of developers interested in mockups as well.

Peldi says that while October was slower than September, and sales seemed to slow a bit when news of financial crisis was breaking out, so far November looks to be his biggest month yet.

mariahandpeldi.jpgHe's got an active community of supporters cheering him on at his blog, too. He tracked the lead up to his launch, its aftermath and the product's early momentum right out in the open on his blog. He displays financial numbers throughout the blog. It's been a model of the paradigm of radical transparency and it's a whole lot of fun to watch.

What's next for Balsamiq? The tiny company has put together a remarkable board of advisors, Peldi has hired his wife Mariah to move from graphic design for the Balsamiq to a full time position, he's hired a few contractors and more projects are on the way soon.

We love stuff like this.

]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/man_writes_software_blogs_abou.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/man_writes_software_blogs_abou.php NYT Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:16:33 -0800 Marshall Kirkpatrick Balsamiq, a Mockup Creator in AIR, is on Fire balsamiqlogo.jpgBalsamiq, an application mockup creation tool built on Adobe AIR, has generated more than $10,000 in revenue less than 6 weeks after the $79 tool launched. The one-man company was profitable within 3 weeks after launch and the application itself is quite remarkable.

It's a great story of a creative entrepreneur using new technology to address a key market need and finding a healthy number of customers willing to pay for software. Balsamiq lets users drag and drop a library of common design elements around a work space, then export their final product in PNG or into a Confluence wiki. It seems like something that could cut design work headaches down substantially. Demo video below.

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]]> How many developers would love to see this kind of success for their projects? From the company blog leading up to launch to the remarkable transparency about company finances right out of the gate - Balsamiq is shaping up to be a very fun company to watch. All this success so far has come without a single write up on any of the top tech blogs, with the exception of an interesting interview with Balsamiq's founder on WebWorkerDaily.

Check out the demo video below and drop by the website for a fast free trial of the software, too. You'll probably be ready to drop $79 on it as well.

Balsamiq aims to offer a variety of "web office plug-ins" and we look forward to seeing what the company comes up with next.

]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/balsamiq_mockup_creator_is_on_fire.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/balsamiq_mockup_creator_is_on_fire.php Products Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:55:06 -0800 Marshall Kirkpatrick