Hi everyone,… I know, I know! Where the heck have I been? Working! I’ve been working, I tell you the truth. :p
Now seriously, I am soooo ashamed for not posting any updates lately but I have a good excuse: I’ve been working so hard for really taking FlairBuilder to a new level. Exciting things to be revealed soon!
It’s been 3 months already and judging from the perspective of a one-man humble show, living-room based start-up, I have been doing great from my first month. Just the other day, I marked my 100th license sold. Yeah, that means $10.000. 
Or close… There are some fees that go to my online payments processor, but I still get about $9.400, which is quite OK.
Actually, if I think twice, the sales really started rolling around 20th of May, following the great feedback (about this in a later post) I got from the awesome people on The Business of Software forum. So, I still got a bout 10 days to make $10k net income. 
I’ve been thinking once in while about how I’m doing from a financial perspective. Looking back to some other success stories, where others have made 10 times this amount of cash in the same period, one would say that things could have been better. With a better idea? With a better marketing strategy? Probably, I guess. On the other hand, I think about the current economical context, I think/wonder about how most of the small 1-man start-ups are doing? I’ve been told that usually businesses start with a period of no-profit. For me, the pass from an employee to a independent software vendor (ISV) was basically seamless. My first $2k were made in the last 10 days of May. Afterwards, things have settled to a constant pace of about $3k/month.
The bottom line here is that I haven’t started this business to get rich (although I wouldn’t mind if I will… ), I started it because I had to. I felt it my fingers, I felt it my toes. I’ve been working on this project for almost one year before quiting my job, and most of that time I had no perspective of starting a business. Many years before this project I also done lots of stuff in my extra time (this asks for another post, though).
In the past 4 months of being on my own I worked more, I had more fun and earned more money than I used to as full-time employee. My life has changed a lot in a short period of time (isn’t this a $100k worth thing already?) and I’m sure there are still lots of exciting things yet to come. Most of which depend on me making them happen.
Unknown, here I come!
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This article was brought to you by the creator of FlairBuilder, a prototyping/wireframing tool for websites and iPhone applications.
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Hi,
Great appliaction you have here but I must say you have got this idea from me! You need to say that out loud and give back what belongs to me. Now!
Cheers,
Cristian
Don’t think so!
Guys,
Would you mind fighting somewhere else!
Congratulations Cristian,
Reaching this milestone is a great thing, considering that you are a one man show. Keep Up the great work and good luck with FlairBuilder.
Congratulations ! I’m always interested in how your one-man company is fairing, and I wish you all th best in our future endavours. Sometimes I wish I could do the same thing myself, and who knows, I might someday…
@Andy, @Alex
Thanks guys for your encouragements! It’s very nice of you, both.
Cristian
Whoa, I just stumbled upon this app and man was I blown away. And now I see it’s a one-man-band? Dude, this is awesome!
Congratulations. As an entreprenueur, you have a few things that going for you that will guarantee success. Passion, patience.
You have a great product, i’m sure you already know that. The money flow will accelerate, the word is getting out there. If you wish, I could bounce some ideas on how to accelerate the deal flow.
But, it looks like your instincts are spot on. Congratulations.
Hi, I like your product. It´s cool but why you talk so much about money?
Nice. I just tried it and the first 5 minutes were not full of Ughs. I’ve used iRise in the past but found that (especially in this economy) companies are not willing to shell out that much money. To have a really intuitive and what appears to be a quite robust wireframing and prototyping tool that will do the job for a reasonable price is welcome to say the least.
OMG
I can’t believe you are naming this the flair builder.
Have you never seen the movie ‘Office Space’?
Any right thinking software developer who has watched that movie automatically hears derisive laughs in his head when he hears that name.
Only a marketing dweeb who saw that movie and over whose head the jokes flew totally over the top of would think that the name is interesting and exciting.
Please watch that movie and then consider a rename.
Congratulations!
Keep up with the great work – you’re setting up a great example, at least this is my opinion. Be careful not to sell the business too early as others have done and regretted afterward
If I may, I’m offering you two advices : do not change the name of the product – you have a brand now, don’t change it unless you really have to. Second, you might want to consider getting a team mate inside, mostly because things evolve much faster (I’m referring to client relations, gathering features requests, market the product and so on). I’m telling you this because you’ve said that you don’t need development help
You definitively need more exposure. I bought Balsamiq Mockups last month. It’s a really nice tool, but I was really looking for something to make interactive prototypes with. I would have bought FlairBuilder then if I would have known about it.
Luckily the licence for both tools is inexpensive, so now I own both
.