

Balsamiq hires 2nd empoyee - BvS
http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/?p=1280

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mattjaynes
Impressive example of welcoming an employee on board - Valerie must be
glowing.

What a great tone to set for the culture of a fledgling company.

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vaksel
Congrats, you should do a year wrap up post(I'm pretty sure you haven't done
one yet, and you hit the 1 year milestone recently) and list all the
accomplishments for Balsamiq from start to finish.

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balsamiq
Hi vaskel, thanks for the idea. I consider launch date (6/19) to be the yearly
milestone, so we're not quite there yet. I already have something planned for
that day, but I probably will do a yearly summary at the end of 2009, just
like I did for 2008: <http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/?p=531>

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tsally
I think he mentioned it somewhere on his blog before, but does anyone know
what financial software he uses/used to generate the charts and graphics for
his earning posts?

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balsamiq
I use Excel 2008 for Mac - old school huh? ;)

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trickjarrett
Balsamiq is continually a great example for other entrepreneurs as well as an
example for a small independent web business. Another great post welcoming the
new employee and updating us on how it will change and improve the business
further!

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sachmanb
i meant to upvote you, clicked downvote by accident, seems to be no undo --
sorry about that

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nraynaud
It's a normal company now, with big titles, offices and support :)

The fun is gone.

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balsamiq
Actually, I think the fun is just starting! We still don't have offices, and
our titles are made up and meant to be fun.

But in a sense I do hope that we transition to a more "standard" small
business, that was the goal from the beginning. :)

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MaysonL
Actually I hope that you can transition to a nonstandard "big" business. Maybe
one like 3M - a lot of products, with a lot of autonomy in each product
division.

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staunch
Why not just get a couple support couple people at a low salary and put all
that profit away? If sales keep going the way they're going for the next
couple years you'll have more money than you'll ever need. And you can always
sell it off for a lump sum whenever you want. If you take the risk of trying
to build a bigger company you could end up walking away with much less.

I'm definitely not opposed to sharing slices of a bigger pie, but in this case
it seems unnecessary.

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kneath
I've found a lot of startups seem to think that support is a lower level task
and should be outsourced to the lowest bidder. The thing is, your customer
support _is_ your company. It's how your customers interact with you as a
company, and it's how they form opinions of whether they like you or not.

In my experience, great customer support is often far more valuable than a
bug-free product. Bugs happen, but if a customer runs into a bug and then gets
great support from your support staff -- they switch from a skeptic to a
passionate customer who tells everyone about your product.

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staunch
I completely agree. I meant low pay relative to the kind of money/equity a COO
generally receives. That doesn't mean you have to provide low quality support.

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balsamiq
Hi staunch, although Valerie's job title accurately describes what she's going
to be doing, it's also meant as a bit of an inside joke since she won't be
managing anyone. And while she's not getting any equity nor a big salary yet,
I hope to be able to offer her both one day!

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staunch
Hi Peldi, thanks for the replies. My goal was just to bring up the topic for
discussion generally because it's an issue everyone deals with at some point
and there's no "right" answer. Everyone has to make their own decisions and
I'm sure you're making the right ones for you. Thanks again and good luck.

