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Balsamiq Makes 1.6 Million with 70% Profit in 2009

balsamiq.com

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

#91

Post by cwan »

kevinherron wrote: post #85
cwan wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Hmmm that I didn't know. That could be complicated if they moved in the last year (e.g. deemed disposition of shares and all that). I guess as long as they're reporting to whoever the appropriate reporting authority is though I doubt Italy's tax department is as sophisticated as the IRS (they're known to have checked out facebook profiles).

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

#92

Post by grasshopper »

cperciva wrote: post #9
davidw wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Cynic: ask for picodollars and you shall receive picodollars. Joking aside though, I think that I see something of myself in your marketing. Your web page, for instance, is very plain, which to someone like me is great. But people seem to not like that, for whatever reason. Maybe you should do some A/B testing with a "flashier" (but no flash, please!) version? I would be curious to hear about the results. This is…

I think you're right on both counts. I have a friend who is trying to find a way to make the Tarsnap website look nicer without losing its essential geeky/minimalist character; if/when he comes up with something I'll definitely be doing some testing to see how it compares. That said, I don't think Tarsnap's conversion rate is particularly bad -- I'd say that most important issue is simply getting people to the Tarsna…

You can look here for ideas on minimalist design:

http://www.minimalsites.com/

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

#93

Post by rbancroft »

cperciva wrote: post #3

This is making me feel really inadequate -- Tarsnap launched publicly only 5 months after Balsamiq, but it's nowhere near Balsamiq in revenues. (Possibly Tarsnap pricing starts at 300 picodollars/month rather than at $79.) Oh well, humility is good for the soul, right? :-)

I can't see anybody who would be more inclined to use tarsnap than myself, and yet I wasn't able to register because I live in Canada. Why not hire an accountant or tax lawyer to figure that out for you? I was on the registration page and ready to give you money, but because you didn't figure out the tax implications, you lost some business.

Really, tarsnap looks like great technology and you are obviously very technically minded. But tarsnap doesn't look like a real business but rather a technology-based side project of yours. Which really is fine if that's all you expect it to be, but to somebody like me who sees a lot of potential in your ideas, the lack of business development is puzzling and frustrating.

in the end, thank you for your contributions to open source. It is very admirable. I would love to see you make a tonne of money off tarsnap and I really do wish you a lot of success.

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

#94

Post by cperciva »

balsamiq wrote: post #44
vaksel wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can you post # of uniques and # of page views? also a little bit more specific, so only post these if you want to...but can you post the top 3 traffic sources to your site for the last year.(if you have the user defined hack on Analytics, I'd love to know the specific urls which sent the traffic. But if not, just top level domain would do.) and maybe the top 3 keywords Google search queries that brought you the most…

Ok here's the graph of visitors and page views: http://skitch.com/balsamiq/np3ws/balsamiq.com-2009-stats Traffic sources are here: http://skitch.com/balsamiq/np3w5/balsamiq.com-2009-traffic-s... FYI, I practically NEVER look at any of this stuff. But maybe I should? :)

Looks to me like approximately 1% of visits to your site result in a transaction (1146608 visits, somewhere around 12000 transactions in 2009) -- does this sound correct to you?

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

#95

Post by cperciva »

jfarmer wrote: post #62
cperciva wrote: post #3

This is making me feel really inadequate -- Tarsnap launched publicly only 5 months after Balsamiq, but it's nowhere near Balsamiq in revenues. (Possibly Tarsnap pricing starts at 300 picodollars/month rather than at $79.) Oh well, humility is good for the soul, right? :-)

You posted the Tarsnap redesign 111 days ago, here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=820705 As far as I can tell you didn't incorporate a single piece of advice you received in that thread. I'd print out patio11's comment and staple it above my desk. The homepage still looks like the website for any random, academic OSS project. It doesn't say "hardcore," it says amateur, and there's no way I'm trusting you with m…

you didn't incorporate a single piece of advice you received in that thread

I filed a lot of it away for future reference, since I figured that having a website at all took priority over making it look as nice as possible.

Is [the current aesthetic] for your sake, or for your customers?

Both. Whenever I mention the possibility of changing the "feel" of the Tarsnap website, I hear an outcry from my current users. Of course, that is a rather biassed sample...

imagine I'm a potential enterprise client who, for compliance reasons, needs exactly what you're offering

If you need backups for regulatory compliance reasons, Tarsnap can't help you -- regulators need paperwork, and Tarsnap doesn't have it.

An illustration of your distribution strategy vs. Balsamiq's. http://www.google.com/search?q=secure+online+backups http://www.google.com/search?q=mockups

I absolutely agree, and I think this is my biggest problem -- getting people to the Tarsnap website in the first place, when the crowded market makes it almost impossible for someone to find Tarsnap via search engines (unless they're already searching for "Tarsnap").

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Google really cares about how flashy a website looks...

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

#96

Post by cperciva »

rbancroft wrote: post #93
cperciva wrote: post #3

This is making me feel really inadequate -- Tarsnap launched publicly only 5 months after Balsamiq, but it's nowhere near Balsamiq in revenues. (Possibly Tarsnap pricing starts at 300 picodollars/month rather than at $79.) Oh well, humility is good for the soul, right? :-)

I can't see anybody who would be more inclined to use tarsnap than myself, and yet I wasn't able to register because I live in Canada. Why not hire an accountant or tax lawyer to figure that out for you? I was on the registration page and ready to give you money, but because you didn't figure out the tax implications, you lost some business. Really, tarsnap looks like great technology and you are obviously very techn…

I intend to deal with GST soon.

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

#97

Post by rms »

cperciva wrote: post #95
jfarmer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You posted the Tarsnap redesign 111 days ago, here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=820705 As far as I can tell you didn't incorporate a single piece of advice you received in that thread. I'd print out patio11's comment and staple it above my desk. The homepage still looks like the website for any random, academic OSS project. It doesn't say "hardcore," it says amateur, and there's no way I'm trusting you with m…

you didn't incorporate a single piece of advice you received in that thread I filed a lot of it away for future reference, since I figured that having a website at all took priority over making it look as nice as possible. Is [the current aesthetic] for your sake, or for your customers? Both. Whenever I mention the possibility of changing the "feel" of the Tarsnap website, I hear an outcry from my current users. Of c…

You can do the SEO though. There's not much to it. Basically you just email people and ask them to link to you, or if they really want to do you a favor, link with the keywords "secure online backups" or whatever phrase you want to target.

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

#98

Post by cperciva »

neilk wrote: post #66
cperciva wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right on both counts. I have a friend who is trying to find a way to make the Tarsnap website look nicer without losing its essential geeky/minimalist character; if/when he comes up with something I'll definitely be doing some testing to see how it compares. That said, I don't think Tarsnap's conversion rate is particularly bad -- I'd say that most important issue is simply getting people to the Tarsna…

I have a friend who is trying to find a way to make the Tarsnap website look nicer without losing its essential geeky/minimalist character; Maybe you misspoke here, but based on this quote I think your approach could be improved. 1) You went to a friend. Unless this person is an experienced designer of commercial websites, that doesn't sound like the right approach. 2) Your primary concern is preserving the site's "g…

You went to a friend. Unless this person is an experienced designer of commercial websites, that doesn't sound like the right approach.

I went to a talented web designer who understands my vision. I think understanding my vision is important -- otherwise I'm likely to pay $$$ only to be presented with a website which I hate and don't want to use.

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

#99

Post by cperciva »

tentonova wrote: post #48
cperciva wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right on both counts. I have a friend who is trying to find a way to make the Tarsnap website look nicer without losing its essential geeky/minimalist character; if/when he comes up with something I'll definitely be doing some testing to see how it compares. That said, I don't think Tarsnap's conversion rate is particularly bad -- I'd say that most important issue is simply getting people to the Tarsna…

You should consider partnering with (or contracting out) to someone already well familiar with OS X and interested in writing a GUI. Tarsnap has one of the technically best back-end implementations available, but the barrier to entry for an interested customer is incredibly high -- not just on OS X, but on UNIX as well. Even on UNIX, producing a working backup setup requires writing custom scripts to do so, and imple…

I'll be bold: You solved the backup problem, now the number one hinderance to your growth is solving the user experience problem.

I agree 100% -- and this was exactly my intention. I wanted to make sure that I had a solid backup system in place before I made it easy to use, because I hear far too many nightmare stories about backup software which is the opposite way around -- easy to use, but doesn't actually work.

A GUI will happen. Sample cron jobs for automating backups will happen. A web interface... well, that might happen, but really it needs to be built in to something like virtualmin.

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

#100

Post by cperciva »

rms wrote: post #97
cperciva wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you didn't incorporate a single piece of advice you received in that thread I filed a lot of it away for future reference, since I figured that having a website at all took priority over making it look as nice as possible. Is [the current aesthetic] for your sake, or for your customers? Both. Whenever I mention the possibility of changing the "feel" of the Tarsnap website, I hear an outcry from my current users. Of c…

You can do the SEO though. There's not much to it. Basically you just email people and ask them to link to you, or if they really want to do you a favor, link with the keywords "secure online backups" or whatever phrase you want to target.

You can do the SEO though. There's not much to it.

Huh. Really, that's it? I thought SEO was all about "optimizing" website text to include keywords multiple times and stuff like that.

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