3 ms·

Hi there. Just FYI, I'm reading this if you have any questions. Peldi

agentbleu 17y ago
Peldi, I blogged about you sometime at the beginning of last year. At that time you was already at about 10K in sales if I recall. I'd be interested (and I am sure others would too) if you could do a post about the successful marketing techniques which have worked for you. I.e. what proportion of new clientele comes from your sponsorships of events Vs any advertising you do etc. etc... The main problem most people I assume find is they run into a plateau of sales where it levels off, whereas you have gone like a rocket - so more on where your traffic is coming from would be great. How about opening up your stats? (I know your all for openness's) would this be a step too far?
samh 17y ago
Hey Peldi, Congrats. I've read your marketing advice in your blog. Do you have any other tips for small software companies getting their product reviewed or mentioned in the press / blogs ? Cheers
- balsamiq 17y ago
  Hi samh, I revisited my old blog post as part of this interview: http://blog.asmartbear.com/balsamiq-studios-uncommon-interview.html http://blog.asmartbear.com/balsamiq-studios-uncommon-intervi... - I hope it will be helpful! :)
  - samh 17y ago
    Thanks
vaksel 17y ago
How come you didn't include website traffic stats like you did last year?
- balsamiq 17y ago
  Totally forgot, but it's also an indication of how little time I spend looking at them. What stats are you interested in? I can look them up for you.
  - vaksel 17y ago
    can you post # of uniques and # of page views? also a little bit more specific, so only post these if you want to...but can you post the top 3 traffic sources to your site for the last year.(if you have the user defined hack on Analytics, I'd love to know the specific urls which sent the traffic. But if not, just top level domain would do.) and maybe the top 3 keywords Google search queries that brought you the most traffic.
    - balsamiq 17y ago
      Ok here's the graph of visitors and page views: http://skitch.com/balsamiq/np3ws/balsamiq.com-2009-stats http://skitch.com/balsamiq/np3ws/balsamiq.com-2009-stats Traffic sources are here: http://skitch.com/balsamiq/np3w5/balsamiq.com-2009-traffic-sources http://skitch.com/balsamiq/np3w5/balsamiq.com-2009-traffic-s... FYI, I practically NEVER look at any of this stuff. But maybe I should? :)
      - vaksel 17y ago
        I think it helps you know what words you rank for and where your traffic is coming from. i.e. if you see that a particular site(that you never heard of), sent you 200 people, where each person went through 6 pages, compared to your average of 2...you know it's probably a good idea to go buy some ads there, since you know that site's audience will convert
      - cperciva 17y ago
        Looks to me like approximately 1% of visits to your site result in a transaction (1146608 visits, somewhere around 12000 transactions in 2009) -- does this sound correct to you?
crocowhile 17y ago
Being Italian myself, I'd like to commend you guys for your job: this kind of entrepreneurship is really rare in Italy and it's great you are contributing with such a fantastic example. I have just read on your blog < http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2008/10/14/personal-whats-your-story-why-start-balsamiq/ http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2008/10/14/personal-whats-your-... > how it all started and I found it so inspirational (maybe just because I am in a similar situation right now?!) Can I ask you if you ever regretted moving back to Italy? It seems to me you managed to separate the good aspects of life in Italy (Bologna and the family) with the bad ones (taxes and servers, i suppose, are in the US).
- balsamiq 17y ago
  Ciao crocowhile, we have not regretted moving back to Italy at all so far. Our servers are in the US, taxes are split in both places. HTH!
bvi 17y ago
Hey, just a quick question: Why don't you make it possible for the user to move the UI library pane from the top of the app to the left? It's a little bit of a pain to scroll left/right instead of up/down.
- balsamiq 17y ago
  It IS possible! :) Get the latest build, then in the View menu, look for "UI Library Position": http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups/desktop#download http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups/desktop#download
  - bvi 17y ago
    I am officially an idiot. I was trying to drag-drop the pane to the left, instead of doing the most logical thing. :-) Thank you, kind sir.
    - Poiesis 17y ago
      Stating the obvious, but clearly at that time for you that was the most logical thing.

Peldi, I blogged about you sometime at the beginning of last year. At that time you was already at about 10K in sales if I recall. I'd be interested (and I am sure others would too) if you could do a post about the successful marketing techniques which have worked for you. I.e. what proportion of new clientele comes from your sponsorships of events Vs any advertising you do etc. etc... The main problem most people I assume find is they run into a plateau of sales where it levels off, whereas you have gone like a rocket - so more on where your traffic is coming from would be great. How about opening up your stats? (I know your all for openness's) would this be a step too far?

samh 17y ago

Hey Peldi, Congrats. I've read your marketing advice in your blog. Do you have any other tips for small software companies getting their product reviewed or mentioned in the press / blogs ? Cheers

balsamiq 17y ago
Hi samh, I revisited my old blog post as part of this interview: http://blog.asmartbear.com/balsamiq-studios-uncommon-interview.html http://blog.asmartbear.com/balsamiq-studios-uncommon-intervi... - I hope it will be helpful! :)
- samh 17y ago
  Thanks

vaksel 17y ago

How come you didn't include website traffic stats like you did last year?

balsamiq 17y ago
Totally forgot, but it's also an indication of how little time I spend looking at them. What stats are you interested in? I can look them up for you.
- vaksel 17y ago
  can you post # of uniques and # of page views? also a little bit more specific, so only post these if you want to...but can you post the top 3 traffic sources to your site for the last year.(if you have the user defined hack on Analytics, I'd love to know the specific urls which sent the traffic. But if not, just top level domain would do.) and maybe the top 3 keywords Google search queries that brought you the most traffic.
  - balsamiq 17y ago
    Ok here's the graph of visitors and page views: http://skitch.com/balsamiq/np3ws/balsamiq.com-2009-stats http://skitch.com/balsamiq/np3ws/balsamiq.com-2009-stats Traffic sources are here: http://skitch.com/balsamiq/np3w5/balsamiq.com-2009-traffic-sources http://skitch.com/balsamiq/np3w5/balsamiq.com-2009-traffic-s... FYI, I practically NEVER look at any of this stuff. But maybe I should? :)
    - vaksel 17y ago
      I think it helps you know what words you rank for and where your traffic is coming from. i.e. if you see that a particular site(that you never heard of), sent you 200 people, where each person went through 6 pages, compared to your average of 2...you know it's probably a good idea to go buy some ads there, since you know that site's audience will convert
    - cperciva 17y ago
      Looks to me like approximately 1% of visits to your site result in a transaction (1146608 visits, somewhere around 12000 transactions in 2009) -- does this sound correct to you?

crocowhile 17y ago

Being Italian myself, I'd like to commend you guys for your job: this kind of entrepreneurship is really rare in Italy and it's great you are contributing with such a fantastic example. I have just read on your blog < http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2008/10/14/personal-whats-your-story-why-start-balsamiq/ http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2008/10/14/personal-whats-your-... > how it all started and I found it so inspirational (maybe just because I am in a similar situation right now?!) Can I ask you if you ever regretted moving back to Italy? It seems to me you managed to separate the good aspects of life in Italy (Bologna and the family) with the bad ones (taxes and servers, i suppose, are in the US).

balsamiq 17y ago
Ciao crocowhile, we have not regretted moving back to Italy at all so far. Our servers are in the US, taxes are split in both places. HTH!

bvi 17y ago

Hey, just a quick question: Why don't you make it possible for the user to move the UI library pane from the top of the app to the left? It's a little bit of a pain to scroll left/right instead of up/down.

balsamiq 17y ago
It IS possible! :) Get the latest build, then in the View menu, look for "UI Library Position": http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups/desktop#download http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups/desktop#download
- bvi 17y ago
  I am officially an idiot. I was trying to drag-drop the pane to the left, instead of doing the most logical thing. :-) Thank you, kind sir.
  - Poiesis 17y ago
    Stating the obvious, but clearly at that time for you that was the most logical thing.