

Tools we use for running our startup - BvS
http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2009/10/30/tools/

======
Joynr
Peldi keeps impressing us with his carefully written and useful articles. I
have followed his blog since he released his product and I am convinced he is
a great role model for bootstrapped entrepreneurs. The thing I am most
grateful for is that Peldi actually took the time to document the whole
process all the way back when he still was working at Adobe and secretly
planning to start his own business. Just go back to his blog and check all the
postings from 2008.. a great story. Good work and thanks for sharing how do
you do run a great company!

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stuff4ben
I'd love to know the monthly cost for using all of those hosted tools. Sounds
very expensive.

~~~
balsamiq
Good question, let me try to answer. I'm doing this out of memory so some
might be wrong: \- DropBox is $99 a year for 50Gig \- we get Confluence hosted
for free because we're a successful Atlassian plugin developer \- I forget how
much Last.fm is but I think it's very cheap, plus the free version is plenty
good enough \- I think we're paying about $250/month for Slicehost right now
\- a SkypeIn number is $60/year I think \- we're spending $34/month for
Freshbooks \- we're spending $49/month for GetSatisfaction because we signed
up at the very beginning (they had an offer) \- E-Junkie is $10/month \-
Paypal pro is $30/month (I think) \- Spreedly is $19/month

That's pretty much it! What does it add up to? In general, I can tell you that
it's a very small percentage of our expenses (salaries is where our $$
goes)...in a way we can't afford NOT to use these tools.

~~~
davidw
Depending on what you're doing, you can definitely save money and get similar
service with Linode:

<http://journal.dedasys.com/2008/11/24/slicehost-vs-linode>

Basically, with Slicehost, you are paying to have 64 bit pointers - without
that, the price difference isn't that big.

~~~
anApple
Never change a running system!

I would never change my hosting company if I would be fully satisfied and I
would only be saving 100$ a month.

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wheels
+1 for WriteRoom. I write all of my blog posts there and then migrate them
over to Wordpress. I wrote most of our initial business plan in WriteRoom as
well. The biggest lesson: formatting is a distraction. Worry about it only
after you've got content.

Generally I'm also a big fan of full-screen things -- I live and die by my
full-screen, light-colored-on-black Emacs.app.

~~~
cturner
I haven't upgraded my mac to snow leopard yet. Main reason is I'd like to know
- do they have a way of getting a smooth, full-screen console on it yet? On
leopard iTerm works. (You used to be able to get a plugin to make normal
terminal do it, but this broke in leopard)

~~~
wheels
I use Megazoomer: <http://ianhenderson.org/megazoomer.html>

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jamesbritt
"Enough said."

No, not really.

I don't get the use of this phrase. It feels smug, as if there's some special
understanding that everyone is just supposed to "get", or else you're just not
with it.

Either say something, or don't, but please don't play coy in telling me that
you're not going to tell me something.

~~~
balsamiq
Hi there Peldi here from Balsamiq. You know, you're totally right. I wasn't
happy about how it came out either. Using it was a lazy move. Let me go back
and expand it.

~~~
kyro
You're really good at customer service.

~~~
Sukotto
Maybe that's how he started with $10,000 and built a $800,000 company in only
10 months. Dude's like a customer service (and marketing) machine.

I argued with a friend the other day that his success was just a perfect storm
of such things as "great idea", "great implementation", "lucky timing", and a
few other things.

But on reflection, and talking it out, we came to the conclusion that his
obsessive attention to customer service and business transparency where the
true multiplier that basically got him to the freedom line in less than a year
instead of the 5 years it should have taken him.

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nixme
He mentions using Typinator. Does anyone know how it compares to TextExpander
or TypeIt4Me?

~~~
tortilla
I've used TextExpander and Typinator. I'm currently using Typinator because it
seems to perform better. I remember I was getting some freeze ups with TE a
couple years back (don't know if that's still the case).

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kyro
Nice to see him recommend and praise GetSatisfaction and showing that although
they've received quite a beating recently, 37signals/etc, there are customers
out there that actually find them useful.

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chrischen
Thanks for the post. I don't have a job so this is how I find out what people
in the industry use, and what's tried and true.

Also pickledonion's articles was how I moved from hosting on an xp home box to
Linux.

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physcab
Interesting sets of tools. I have one recommendation though...check out
Grooveshark instead of Last.fm and let me know what you think :)

~~~
johns
Lala.com is pretty good too.

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Mongoose
That's quite a comprehensive list. Cool to see Screenr on there in addition to
Screenflow.

Have you tried Google Quick Search Box? (<http://code.google.com/p/qsb-mac/>)
It does all the same things as Quicksilver, but has always seemed snappier to
me.

~~~
evgen
I would love to know why there seems to be such variation in QSB performance.
It has been nothing but a dog-slow pile of fail for me and everyone else I
know who has tried it, but apparently it works just fine for some people.
Quicksilver was always fast for me and now that it is no longer being
maintained I have found LaunchBar to be a nice alternative if you don't mind
paying a couple of bucks.

~~~
mbreese
Agreed. On Leopard QSB was much faster than spotlight. However, when I
upgraded to Snow Leopard, it got 10x slower. Funny thing though... Spotlight
got significantly faster. So I'm not using just Spotlight.

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wastedbrains
Great write up and list, thanks for sharing, very interested Typinator. I
might have to check that out soon.

We use a lot of the same tools. We ended up going with Presently over Yammer,
but I bet we would be happy with either. It has been a great way to keep a
remote team on the same page.

~~~
jseliger
"very interested Typinator. I might have to check that out soon."

This is the program I've always wanted but didn't realize I want. I already
bought it.

------
jason_slack
Interesting tools, Typinator looks very nice.

For me, a very simple tool: iTunes

good music = less stress, relaxed mind, hit those milestones.

laugh if you wish.....

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mynameishere
What tools do you use?

 _IBM_

or

 _Microsoft_

or

 _Java_

Can you see the attraction to one-size-fits-all solutions as opposed to the
bewildering panoply witnessed above?

~~~
simonk
Sure, if someone was able to make all those tools as well as the start ups.
Half of those things IBM or Microsoft doesn't even have a product for.

