Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Balsamiq Makes 1.6 Million with 70% Profit in 2009

balsamiq.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 128 posts

Re: Balsamiq Makes 1.6 Million with 70% Profit in 2009

#81

Post by wheels »

jfarmer wrote: post #79
callingyouout wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have Who the hell is we? Do you really think you're important enough to use the royal "we"? I have no idea who you're talking about. Your post sure as hell doesn't make it clear, and I guarantee you you're not important enough to use "we" unambiguously.

His startup is called Directed Edge. They got into YC last year. And is your handle really "callingyouout?" Go back to Reddit where gimmick personalities are appreciated.

Actually I didn't mention our name since it wasn't relevant to the point. I assumed it was clear from context that I meant, "a startup I work for". I originally wrote that in a reply to said comment, but it's just a trolling account, so I deleted it:

http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=callingyouout

Re: Balsamiq Makes 1.6 Million with 70% Profit in 2009

#82

Post by wheels »

maxklein wrote: post #76
wheels wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have 5x as many Twitter followers as Facebook fans (363 vs. 74), but I'm not convinced it's as simple as semantics: Facebook, despite their recent posturing, is for me still a personal sphere. Twitter, despite its flippant image, is for me about business. At the very least it's my web persona, rather than, say, my people-I've-known-since-I-was-11 persona. I follow a bunch of businesses (and moreso, business contac…

Facebook is still a personal sphere, but some business do belong in my personal sphere. I'd probably not want your business in my facebook stream, since I don't use you, but there is this artist I know who often makes print that can be bought. I want to see what he's up to, and if there is something good, I'd like to buy it. My webhost, I'd be interested in seeing what they are up to, and knowing that all is safe. Wh…

Yep -- I can definitely see it on some of the more "personal" businesses (e.g. local arts). Balsamiq I think would fall out of that range for most users.

I wonder what percentage of web users start their sessions at Facebook these days? It's clear that that's what Facebook is going for, and what you're suggesting with something milder than "fan" (see updates from..., perhaps).

One interesting thing to throw into the fray there as well is that if a service that I regularly use is down, the first place I check is Twitter, and pretty universally, it works. Facebook still I think has a ways to go before it's seen as a primary source for news in the same way. Twitter is kind of the new RSS.

Re: Balsamiq Makes 1.6 Million with 70% Profit in 2009

#83

Post by vaksel »

jsb wrote: post #80
vaksel wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking more about announcements. I do the @reply thing, but it's a little sucky, since that @reply shows up in everyone's feed.

So long as you start the tweet with @[twitteruser], your @reply will only appear in someone's feed if they follow you and also the person you are sending the at-reply to. Or if they are the person you're sending the message to, of course.

that's the point, if my message is only to that one person, why would my followers want to read about it?

Re: Balsamiq Makes 1.6 Million with 70% Profit in 2009

#84

Post by vaksel »

maxklein wrote: post #77
vaksel wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is useless compared to Facebook. You get a lot more engagement from Facebook. With twitter your window of opportunity is the 5 seconds that you show up in their feed. With Facebook that time is a lot longer. You can have 10,000 followers on twitter, but only 20 people will see your announcement, since you'll show up in their feed for 5 seconds. Anyone who follows a business account on Twitter, is most likely…

I just don't get the utility of twitter for business. I see one great use for twitter, which is what I am using it for right now: Get major influencers to follow you. When you do that, you have a good chance to be republished by one of them, which is great PR. (That's why I bothered writing two articles recently, trying to raise my twitter 'important people' follower count. It actually works somewhat.)

I'll give you an example, I needed to buy some wine as a gift. So I tweeted out to Gary Vaynerchuk what to buy. He tweeted back with a few suggestions. And I got into my car and drove down to Wine Library and bought one of his suggestions.

Re: Balsamiq Makes 1.6 Million with 70% Profit in 2009

#85

Post by kevinherron »

cwan wrote: post #63
3dFlatLander wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the idea of openness. But, if that much money started coming in for something I made, I'd feel awkward reporting on the numbers.

Not sure if he'd thought it through that far, but it seems like a pretty good and calculated risk that's paying off. The fact that he is as open as he is (though hopefully he knows better than to report numbers that appear worse to the IRS), I think makes his customers want him to succeed that much more. Broadly, it's a tool that enables others to build their own sites but also their own businesses (and I think entre…

I think they moved HQ to Italy. Would they still have to report to the IRS?

Re: Balsamiq Makes 1.6 Million with 70% Profit in 2009

#86

Post by staunch »

niczar wrote: post #11

Why couldn't you be fucked to spare a couple words to tell us what "Balsamiq" was? I have no idea what it is and, I suspect, neither do 99.99% of those who read this headline.

As lame as the tone of this comment is, he's probably right that one should have a little intro about the product on blog posts like this. At the top and bottom probably, a small screen shot and a blurb/link would probably drive some sales and be informative for new readers.

Re: Balsamiq Makes 1.6 Million with 70% Profit in 2009

#87

Post by jsb »

vaksel wrote: post #83
jsb wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as you start the tweet with @[twitteruser], your @reply will only appear in someone's feed if they follow you and also the person you are sending the at-reply to. Or if they are the person you're sending the message to, of course.

that's the point, if my message is only to that one person, why would my followers want to read about it?

To clarify, your @reply won't necessarily appear in everyone's feed. It will only appear if:

1) They are the user you are sending the @reply to, OR 2) They follow you AND the person you send the @reply to.

So for example, if I follow @balsamiq and @fogbugz and @balsamiq sends an @reply to @fogbugz, that message will appear in my feed. But if @balsamiq sends an @reply to a user I do not follow, I will not see it in my feed.

Re: Balsamiq Makes 1.6 Million with 70% Profit in 2009

#88

Post by maxklein »

wheels wrote: post #82
maxklein wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is still a personal sphere, but some business do belong in my personal sphere. I'd probably not want your business in my facebook stream, since I don't use you, but there is this artist I know who often makes print that can be bought. I want to see what he's up to, and if there is something good, I'd like to buy it. My webhost, I'd be interested in seeing what they are up to, and knowing that all is safe. Wh…

Yep -- I can definitely see it on some of the more "personal" businesses (e.g. local arts). Balsamiq I think would fall out of that range for most users. I wonder what percentage of web users start their sessions at Facebook these days? It's clear that that's what Facebook is going for, and what you're suggesting with something milder than "fan" ( see updates from... , perhaps). One interesting thing to throw into th…

I don't think facebook has an interest in that - twitter is filtered rss. Friend filtered RSS. If more people would post links and less "Good morning!" then it would be more interesting.

Re: Balsamiq Makes 1.6 Million with 70% Profit in 2009

#89

Post by boucher »

dpcan wrote: post #59
snitko wrote: post #29

Don't know how about you, but I find http://gomockingbird.com way better and attractive. It doesn't use flash, it has pretty controls and generally a better UI with tiny little details like, say, aligning the elements relatively to each other. But still, since they are profitable (good for them) and make that much money, there's probably a need for such services on the market.

Mockups is more than just an app that does mockups. It's integrated with other very important systems. Smart partnerships and good networking are far more important than a pretty product. (When it comes to revenue)

Although I would expect that to be true, It doesn't appear to be. This post doesn't break out profit by specific product, but that last post that did so indicated that the desktop version of the app accounted for 80% of the revenue. That version doesn't really have any of the integration feature of the other versions of Balsamiq.

Re: Balsamiq Makes 1.6 Million with 70% Profit in 2009

#90

Post by drusenko »

mml wrote: post #34
samuel wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO, the point is not that the site isn't flashy, but that it doesn't explain why would you want off-site and crypted backups in the first time. The site I would expect for a backup tool is one which scares the visitors to the hell, full of well known horror stories, and showing how tarsnap would have avoided them. For example, Jeff Attwood, a well known and "smart" guy isn't he? Well, he also thought his hosting pr…

crypted off-site backups? wait, people pay for that? wtf, crashplan is free (forever). all you need is a buddy with some disk. a tb is about a hundred bucks these days. good luck with that tarsnap thingy.

if your "backup" is on a single disk, it's not a backup
Post reply on HN