Balsamiq Blog

$10,000 in revenue in the first 6 weeks

by Peldi Guilizzoni. July 30th, 2008 under Before the Jump, Company / Business — 18 Comments

The huge amount of attention that my “Profitable, in 3 weeks!” post has received so far tells me that there’s a thirst for financial results of small bootstrapped startups in the interweb, so here’s another milestone report:

Less than 6 weeks from launch, Balsamiq Studios reached USD 10,000 in revenue.

Here’s the breakdown, week by week:

You see 7 columns there because I launched on a Thursday, but the chart shows weeks as starting on Monday.

Mockups for Desktop accounts for 98% of my sales and 89% of the revenue. Hopefully after yesterday’s licensing change sales of Mockups for Confluence will pick up some and contribute more.

Saying I am happy with this milestone is a big understatement, the feeling I have is more one of incredulity than anything else…if it’s a dream, don’t wake me up.

I’ll post another financial update here if I reach $100,000 in revenue (I wish) or if things go dramatically south. I sure hope it’s the former!

I have a very long TODO list for Mockups and for Balsamiq in general, so I’d better get back to work and keep the momentum going!

P.S. Some people asked me why I share my financial data so openly on the web. My short answer is: why not? The long answer could be the subject of another blog post: it has to do with gaining the trust of prospective customers by making Balsamiq Studios an open, honest and approachable company you’d want to do business with.

UPDATE: I wrote this post yesterday, but today was another record day, with 2 Team licenses of Mockups for Confluence and 4 licenses of Mockups for Desktop sold. So now the revenue is at $11,488. Also, I had an exciting thought: could Mockups be the highest grossing Adobe AIR app to date? That’d be cool.

— 18 Comments

18 Responses to “$10,000 in revenue in the first 6 weeks”

1. Michael Matti Says:
   July 30th, 2008 at 9:33 am

   No reason to be skeptical about $100,000: You’ve nailed a long-neglected niche with a cross-platform product that pretty much sells itself through word-of-mouth. Nearly anyone working in app design sees the appeal immediately and wants Mockups in their toolbox.

   Congratulations, and best of wishes for that other $90,000. It’s one thing to have a great idea, but it’s quite another to get execution so right, and so early in the game.

2. Matthias Winkelmann Says:
   July 30th, 2008 at 9:55 am

   Congratulations!

   I think it’s great of you to share the results. I think there’s always the fear that people will copy you if you’re successful, but success is more about marketing anyway, and that’s not so easy to copy. Since the people interested in your numbers are also your potential customers, it should work well.

3. Marshall Kirkpatrick Says:
   July 30th, 2008 at 10:26 am

   Congratulations! Your progress has been a lot of fun to watch via this blog. Fwiw, though, if these guys have sold almost any of their software, they are probably making more revenue from an AIR app so far http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/structure_data_and_air.php

4. Marshall Kirkpatrick Says:
   July 30th, 2008 at 11:02 am

   Ok, snotty comments aside, this did totally knock my socks off. Wrote a post about it at http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/balsamiq_mockup_creator_is_on_fire.php

5. Ashley Says:
   July 30th, 2008 at 4:08 pm

   Fantastic news! Now, can you keep the income on an upwards path each week/month, or at least keep it steady?

   Good luck, its amazing to hear a success story like this!

6. Rick Rodgers Says:
   July 30th, 2008 at 7:06 pm

   Well done. I rarely comment on blogs, but I wanted to thank you for your courage in posting this info and congratulate you on a great start. You built a solid product, and then you tagged it with a rational price which allows you to keep growing efficiently. I think a lot of people are uncomfortable when pricing newly created software as they are looking to scale and get more users, but by pricing it, you automatically enhance the perceived value.

   Rock on.

7. Christopher Says:
   July 30th, 2008 at 10:12 pm

   I noticed on the Read/Write post someone suggested you adding the ability to do iPhone mockups and you asked about images, etc.

   I while ago I found a set of graphics to just that at: http://daniel.room52.net/dev/iPhonePicKit/

   Still a big fan of Balsamiq (not a purchaser yet but will be) since mentioning it way back on June 19th on my other blog at http://socialinteraction.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/some-aha-moment-tools/.

   Keep up the great work, as an independent developer it’s great to read a success story, especially when the product is something useful and needed. While it’s great for internal and external development EVERY company doing internal enterprise development should have this tool! In fact I have been recommending it to everyone I know doing this type of work.

   To often developers create mockups that get rolled out to users and end up being horid (especially common in internal enterprise development) pieces of software. I’ve seen it myself, a user gets their hands on a “running” mockup made in VB or quickly hacked in Java, etc. and figures they have a complete program and they deploy it (see tears) rather than using it for what it is a use-case mockup. It’s one reason for such high fail rates in enterprise development… Mockups being deployed!

   Anyway…

   Cheers,

   Christopher

8. Peldi Guilizzoni Says:
   July 31st, 2008 at 2:02 am

   A little update: this post has sparked another interesting conversation on Hacker News: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=262258

   Thanks everyone for the nice words of encouragement!

9. Pooxi Says:
   August 1st, 2008 at 3:52 am

   I love your story
   Good job!

   I will definitely buy balsamiq if I need it!

   D.

10. » Application Mockup Creator Making Good Money (done in AIR) Says:
    August 1st, 2008 at 10:15 pm

    [...] 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 [...]

11. Ryan Stewart - Rich Internet Application Mountaineer » Blog Archive » Balsamiq AIR Application - $10,000 in Revenue in 6 Weeks Says:
    August 7th, 2008 at 1:13 am

    [...] cross-patform desktop apps and in this case, with a little bit of work, one developer was able to make a chunk of change: It’s a great story of a creative entrepreneur using new technology to address a key market [...]

12. 47 Hats - Bits and Pieces. Says:
    August 8th, 2008 at 3:51 pm

    [...] community some excellent Startup Marketing Advice. Peldi has been on a tear with Balsamiq Studio, posting $10K in revenue in the first 6 weeks. Want to know how? Read this [...]

13. Balsamiq, a Mockup Creator in AIR, is on Fire | Enetlive.net- Rich Internet Applications Blog Says:
    August 8th, 2008 at 5:50 pm

    [...] 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 [...]

14. Manish Jethani » Blog Archive » One-man ISV Says:
    August 11th, 2008 at 10:36 am

    [...] There seems no dearth of inspiration in the micro-ISV world. Meet Giacomo “Peldi” Guilizzoni, former Adobe ConnectNow engineering lead and now owner and sole employee of Balsamiq Studios LLC. You might have known him for his work on the FLV player or his contributions to Breeze Live, but today he’s drawing attention for something entirely different: his income. I am not talking about his salary, of course, which, as he puts it, is “steady at $0”. Instead, I’m referring to his company’s earnings from the sales of its very first product. Three weeks into the launch of Balsamiq Mockups, a mockup creation tool for UI designers, the company was already making profits. Within 6 weeks it had grossed over $10,000 in revenue. [...]

15. Revue de presse | Simple Entrepreneur Says:
    September 18th, 2008 at 9:16 pm

    [...] $10,000 in revenue in the first 6 weeks Le concepteur de Balsamiq livre ici quelques secrets sur les ventes de cet outil qui permet de concevoir très facilement des maquettes de sites Internet. Un très bon départ pour cet ancien ingénieur d’Adobe devenu entrepreneur. [...]

16. Mael Says:
    September 22nd, 2008 at 7:25 am

    I can’t remind how I worked without your software. You deserve your success.

17. kris Says:
    November 23rd, 2008 at 12:42 am

    Congratulations.
    I am sure you will achieve that goal. You deserve it.
    Great idea on a long neglected but essential area!

18. ReTox Says:
    August 1st, 2009 at 12:38 pm

    Peldi, all I can say: congratulations!

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