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Balsamiq Business Strategy

How We Grow Balsamiq Without Outside Investments

Call us old-fashioned, but we grew up in a world before "attention economy", "eyeballs", and "growth hacking" were a thing.

We believe in doing good work, and charging a fair price for it to our customers. It's the way business has worked for centuries, after all.

We prioritize longevity over growth, so the idea of growing 10x in 5 years just feels odd and stressful to us.

Here's a collection of resources that influenced our bootstrapping journey, and thoughts on what we've learned along the way.

The Four Pillars of Organic Growth

You should be able to regulate growth so that revenue, head count, PR, and quality increase at roughly the same rate. A great article we have referred to since 2008!

Every Software Company Has a 'Natural Size'

Your choice of problem to solve dictates what kind of company to build, how big it should be, how to grow it, and whether you should bootstrap or get funding.

The Balsamiq Mantras

The Balsamiq Mantras are statements and concepts we try to keep in mind and embody every time we interact with someone, be it from our community or a colleague.

The Balsamiq Software Donation Program

We have donated thousands of Balsamiq licenses over the years. Here is why, and a kind invitation to other software companies to do the same. It’s a big win!

My Thoughts on Software Piracy

Here is why we don’t do much against software cracking, and why you shouldn’t spend too much time trying to protect your desktop application’s source code.

Our Internal Tools, and Why We Built Them

A behind the scenes look at some of the tools we built to help Balsamiq run smoothly, and the motivations behind building them. It’s educational and fun!

Disciplined Entrepreneurship

One of the biggest mistakes is to start coding before doing any market research. How can you go from idea to product while lowering your risk along the way?