Looking Back at 2018
Hello friends of Balsamiq!
This post continues our tradition of looking back at the previous year and sharing our plans for the current one. Older editions are here: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2009, 2008.
We keep on keeping on
Another year has flown by, and the rate of change at Balsamiq doesn't seem to slow down. We continue to have to adapt to a new marketplace environment, and to a company that's now 33-people strong. We quite enjoy the journey, with its ups and downs. We're playing the long game, so we tend to think in decades, not quarters or years.
That said, we like to keep you up-to-date on how we're doing. Our main goal is to be transparent so that you can rest assured that we'll be here if you ever need to reach us, for customer service, or to suggest a new feature, or even just to chat! 😊
Our 2018 numbers
The main story is that the gradual shift from Desktop to SaaS - which we've seen since 2010 - continued steadily.
A growing number of people prefer to work online...it's more and more "the new normal" for software.
As you can see, our SaaS and online Integrations revenue grew nicely in 2018.
On the other hand, our Desktop revenue declined faster than we expected in 2018, resulting in a total revenue in 2017 of US $6,015,204.16. That's down 5.7% from 2017, but still way more than we need to operate profitably.
The Desktop revenue decline is due to the fact that, as you know, we've been focusing most of our efforts towards the new, fully-rewritten native versions of our desktop apps. We had hoped to release those at the end of 2018, but, as always in software, it's taking longer than expected. We're reaching the end of the tunnel now, we should be able to release in the next couple of months!
Another piece of data worth of note is the meteoric rise of Balsamiq Cloud, our new web app which launched at the end of 2017. It's a really good product - if we may say so ourselves 😉 - and more and more people are switching to it.
Cloud revenue is set to surpass our Desktop revenue this year, and become the biggest driver of future growth.
We're still very profitable
We have hired a bunch of people in 2017 and 2018, but we're still plenty profitable. We also have a nice big cushion invested in the bank, so we're not worried in the least.
We continue to run the company in a very conservative manner. We will continue to donate 3% of our profits to charity and to treat our employees, customers, and community very generously.
Revenue by country
This is the breakdown for 2018. Interestingly, it's remarkably similar to our 2017 chart!
What's planned for 2019
Without a doubt, the biggest focus of 2019 will be the release of the native Desktop clients.
Secondly, now that we're 10-years-old, we're going through a big effort inside the company to update our internal policies to set ourselves up for success for the next decade.
We hope you'll want to continue on this journey with us for many years to come! 😊
Peldi for the Balsamiq Team
