Startup Journey
Looking back at 2020
A detailed recap of what we achieved in 2020, and a quick look at what's to come in 2021!
Looking Back at 2019
The big rewrite is finally complete. Revenue grew over 11%. Read the recap of 2019, and take a quick look at what's to come in 2020!
New Home and Product Pages!
Our company has grown a lot since our last website update. We decided it was time to freshen things up a bit, starting from two important pages.
The Heartbeat Interview with Peldi of Balsamiq
Our founder Peldi answers the question: "What's something you wish you would have known earlier as a leader?"
Looking Back at 2017
It’s that time of the year when we recap the past year and share with you our plans for the next 12 months. Subscribe to the newsletter for more...
How We Stay Flat at 30 Employees
We haven't given up the dream of staying flat, even at 30 employees. Here is the route we are exploring, still without managers.
Spolsky's Four Pillars of Organic Growth
“Revenue, head count, PR, and quality--if one gets ahead of the others, you’re screwed.” An oldie, but goodie we have referred to since 2008!
What's Your Company's "Natural Size"?
Every company has a natural size. Answer this question and you’ll find out what kind of company you should build and how to grow it.
About Yesterday's Balsamiq Outage
A quick retrospective and an apology for our Feb 29, 2017 outage. The root cause was an AWS outage which took down over 120,000 sites.
Looking Back at 2016
We continue to truck along nicely, executing on our vision. 2016 was yet another record year for us, with sales almost reaching $6.6 million.
Peldi's Talk About Balsamiq's Journey So Far
Balsamiq's story is a compelling one: one man creates a product, builds a company and stays fiercely independent. It sounds good, but as you can imagine it's not without...
Looking Back at 2015
Hello again friends of Balsamiq! Peldi here with our traditional "state of the union" end-of-year report. You can find previous editions here: 2008, 2009, 2013, and 2014. As usual,...
Looking back at 2014
Hello again friends of Balsamiq! Peldi here with our traditional "state of the union" end-of-year report. You can find previous editions here: 2008, 2009 and 2013. As usual, this...
Looking back at 2013
Hello friends of Balsamiq! As 2013 comes to an end, it's time to revive an old tradition (2008, 2009) and look back at all that we have achieved this...
A myBalsamiq morning to forget: an apology
Hello friends. For the second time in the history of Balsamiq, I write you today to apologize for our mistakes. This morning we started what was supposed to be...
Italy's Balsamiq Pours Up New Wireframing Tools
“After a little more than two years in business, 75,000+ customers, more than $5 M in sales in 2011, 47% profit margins and 10 full time employees, Balsamiq routinely...
An update from Balsamiq-land!
Hello friends, long time no see! So sorry for not keeping you in the loop more about what's going on in Balsamiq-land. Although it might seem like we're not...
At Balsamiq, Everyone Blogs. Join Us.
The Balsamiq Blog is my third blog. I started in 2003 with Peldi's Little Blog in which I shared sample applications and things that I learned at work about...
Balsamiq Roadmap for 2010
This is part two of a two-part post about what happened in 2009 and our plans for 2010. We did this last year as well, it's becoming somewhat of...
A look back at 2009
Wow. Just wow. It's hard for me to believe how much has happened in Balsamiq-land in 2009. I feel like a completely different person than when I wrote the...
An apology
Hi friends. So I made a big mistake today. No, I made a few. I was so excited about the new pan feature that I decided to release it...
Tools we use for running our startup
Hi there. I've been wanting to write this post for a long time, but things were still evolving too much for me to come up with a definite list....
Why I haven't been blogging as much
Hi there. If you've been following this blog for a while you already know that lately I haven't been sharing as much as I used to. It's true and...
Introducing Marco Botton, Balsamiq's 1st employee
Feeling a great mixture of excitement, pride and trepidation, it is my pleasure to introduce to you Marco Botton, Balsamiq's first full time employee. How did this happen? A...
2000 customers
Hi there, just a quick post to record the fact that today marked the 2000th customer of Balsamiq Mockups. That's 2000 monetary transactions, the number of Mockups users could...
Balsamiq Roadmap for 2009
This is part two of a two-part post about what happened in 2008 and my plans for 2009. So 2008 was great, no, it was beyond great. I quit...
A look back at 2008
This is part one of a two-part post about what happened in 2008 and my plans for 2009. First, a few numbers about 2008: days in business: 196 -...
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...
Hit $100,000 in revenue, time to start looking up
I feel a bit sheepish posting this since I don't want to come across as bragging, but a promise is a promise, so here it goes... I just recently...
Personal: What's your story? Why start Balsamiq?
The following is a story that I told many people already, but didn't think was interesting enough to put on my blog until a certain Tamales Princess I know...
500 customers!
I just sold a license to my 500th customer! That's a much bigger number that I expected to reach in such a short time (it's been less than 3...
Lessons learned in Font Licensing
Hi there. If you have been following Balsamiq Mockups, you'll know that a number of potential customers have been turned off by my choice of "Comic Sans MS" as...
Balsamiq Mockups Makes Big Impression on Hacker Community
“Since its launch a few short months ago Balsamiq mockups has taken the hacker community by storm. Why? This is one of those rags to riches stories that inspire...
Startup Marketing Advice from Balsamiq Studio
First off, the title of this post is a bit pretentious for my taste, but I wanted to pay homage to Mike Speiser's excellent post on A/B testing using...
Balsamiq, a Mockup Creator in AIR, is on Fire
“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....
$10,000 in revenue in the first 6 weeks
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...
Profitable, in 3 weeks!
Sorry for tooting my own horn here but I think my current and potential customers will be happy to hear that business is going well, so here it goes....
Balsamiq: Week One Recap
Hi everyone. It's been now a full week since my official launch, and my what a ride it has been! I know the adventure is just getting started, but...
Launch: Balsamiq is Open For Business!
What's happening: Balsamiq Studios LLC is launching today. What it means to you: Balsamiq Mockups 1.0 is now officially for sale, both as a Confluence plugin and as a...
Weekly update - one week to launch
Hello there. As usual, I'm a little late with the weekly update (I might have to find a different name for it). This has been a busy 2 weeks....
Thanks for your feedback
Last week I posted the following on the Business Of Software forums: Free Software in exchange for quality website feedback Hi there. I am less than a month away...