

Balsamiq Mockups Makes Big Impression on Hacker Community - agentbleu
http://thenextweb.org/2008/08/07/balsamiq-mockups-makes-big-impression-on-hacker-community/

======
briancooley
_This is one of those rags to riches stories that inspire us all._

Not exactly. Peldi seems to be doing well so far, but I'd characterize his
story to date as riches to rags (and hopefully to riches again). It's only
been 7 weeks or so since he launched, so it might be a bit early to anoint
balsamiq as a huge success.

I sure hope it is though. Very inspiring.

~~~
axod
I agree. It just depends on if the revenue continues, or dries up once most
people who want to buy it, have...

Still a nice success story so far though.

~~~
balsamiq
Hi there, Peldi here. I also agree, I didn't think the "rags to riches"
sentence applied to my situation either...

axod, I agree that Mockups alone might not be a sustainable business (though
it's doing MUCH better than I expected at the moment). My plan is to develop 2
new products a year, and to port them to as many Web Office platforms as it
makes sense (i.e. turn them into plugins to wikis etc). I have an ever growing
list of ideas for new products already. Together these sources of revenue
should be enough to keep a small business going, we shall see...

~~~
axod
Sounds like a good plan :) Should also be a lot of tie ins/plugins/extras you
can sell related to mockups I'd expect.

Good luck

------
papa
Looks neat, I'll have to try it out. Admittedly for someone like me working
with a very small team pencil/paper layouts are fastest (and cheapest).

Previously, if I needed wireframes of the sort that Balsamiq appears to be
good for, I'd use Omnigraffle. But I've known others to use everything from
Photoshop to Illustrator to Visio to Excel. And, of course, for web apps and
wesbsites, html mockups are always in the mix.

At the end of the day, you need to use what works well for you and anyone else
you are working with. But a hybrid approach that mixes different tools
depending on the task is generally what I'm after.

------
arjenschat
Just give me Illustrator. Way more flexible.

~~~
ashleyw
I thought that, and that Balsamiq Mockups looked way too simple to be useful -
but it isn't! I rebuilt the basic look of google maps in less than 5 mins...

The beauty of it IMO is it makes you think about the layout of the app/site,
not the look of it.

But, saying that...I will be sticking with photoshop for my mockups, just
because I DO use my mockups for the design too, but thats just a personal
preference, I know a lot of people want to build the layout then find a nice
design, thats where this tool is cool!

------
jawngee
I like Balsamiq, although I prefer Axure (wish they made a mac version) simply
because I can create a functional prototype and auto-generate functional
specs.

~~~
babul
The best ones I have used are LucidSpec (<http://elegancetech.com>) and
AxureRP-Pro (<http://www.axure.com>), but Balsamiq wins for basic conceptions
simply because it is web-based and it is easy to collaborate with others
across the globe hassle-free.

~~~
thenextweb
I prefer Illustrator for sketching because it is easier to drag certain
elements straight to Photoshop once you are done. But I will give this a try
anyway...

------
gunderson
For all the coverage this gets on HN, I tried to use the demo and nothing
loads.

~~~
balsamiq
Sorry about that, it's fixed now.

