Macworld Expo is nigh.
It turns out that Macworld is spelled "Macworld" and not "MacWorld." This was a Very Important Issue brought up by our support guy, Drew, many times in the last week, as we attempted to modify our store and/or issue press releases.
Mike and Tim set up our booth today at Macworld; they're very proud of it. It's made of real wood! If you can find a booth with more wood in it at Macworld SF, I encourage you to buy their products!
I won't personally be at Macworld this year; I don't really like to travel much, so WWDC and O'Reilly are enough for me. Mike loves it, so he's down there with Tim, our new engineer. Stop by and say hi if you're there. They're good people. Also, they are both twelve years old. Seriously, you won't find a booth with younger people in it. Offer Mike or Tim a drink: it's funny.
Tim kicked some serious booty on 1.1, and I'm pretty proud of the release. 1.5 will be the big international release that a lot of people are waiting for, but I think 1.1 was pretty good for the amount of time we had to get it together. We got some new features, we got some speed-ups, and we got some bug fixes, all for FREE FREE FREE.
Sales are actually increasing every week, for the last four weeks. That hasn't happened on any product I've ever been a part of. Usually sales gradually fall off from the introductory week, which is like 50% of your sales for the whole year. We had a HUGE intro week, but after two weeks of falling after that, sales started going up again and haven't stopped.
I'm not sure what to do with this new data. At heart, I'm a pessimist, so when I run projections on this new company I think, "Naw, that's CRAZY TALK." I always assume we'll be broke and homeless in a couple months. The idea of making more money than I've ever made before scares the crud out of me.
We're going to work really hard on 1.5, and our HOPEFUL date for it is February 15th. The big, big goal for this release is: you should be able to scan an item you bought anywhere in the world, and if it's in some Amazon database somewhere, it'll be found automatically. We'll see if we can do it.
After that, we're starting on 2.0, with lots of AMAZING features that will COMPLETELY DESTROY YOUR SENSE OF EQUILIBRIUM. Also, Mike's very eager to start research on our new project, which is SUPER-SECRET except that WE'VE TOLD LIKE FORTY PEOPLE WHAT IT IS SO FAR. If you think can beat the secret out of my mom or John Geylense you're welcome to it: I've got to tell you that I suspect John would crack under torture long before my mom would.
I honestly don't know if this new project will even prove to be technically feasible. That's exciting for me. It's like when I started writing the video barcode scanning code: no one had ever done it before, and I had no idea if it was even possible, much less something that I, personally, could do.
Turned out it was. There aren't a lot of times in programming you get to do that kind of thing. I'm glad I'm partnered up with Mike, who has no concept of what's possible and what's not, so I can continue to be challenged. (And I'm thankful to all of our customers for supporting us to the point that we can do risky things and not worry about losing our houses.)
And, while I'm at it, I'm glad we have Tim -- he's a smart guy and is the most freakishly fast typist I've ever seen. (He never copy-and-pastes because it's actually faster for him to type stuff!) And I'm happy we have Drew, who is completely pedantic to the point that I smack him several times a day, but, honestly, what more could you ask in a support guy?
I've honestly never been so happy in my work situation. I hope it shows in my work.
Mike and Tim set up our booth today at Macworld; they're very proud of it. It's made of real wood! If you can find a booth with more wood in it at Macworld SF, I encourage you to buy their products!
I won't personally be at Macworld this year; I don't really like to travel much, so WWDC and O'Reilly are enough for me. Mike loves it, so he's down there with Tim, our new engineer. Stop by and say hi if you're there. They're good people. Also, they are both twelve years old. Seriously, you won't find a booth with younger people in it. Offer Mike or Tim a drink: it's funny.
Tim kicked some serious booty on 1.1, and I'm pretty proud of the release. 1.5 will be the big international release that a lot of people are waiting for, but I think 1.1 was pretty good for the amount of time we had to get it together. We got some new features, we got some speed-ups, and we got some bug fixes, all for FREE FREE FREE.
Sales are actually increasing every week, for the last four weeks. That hasn't happened on any product I've ever been a part of. Usually sales gradually fall off from the introductory week, which is like 50% of your sales for the whole year. We had a HUGE intro week, but after two weeks of falling after that, sales started going up again and haven't stopped.
I'm not sure what to do with this new data. At heart, I'm a pessimist, so when I run projections on this new company I think, "Naw, that's CRAZY TALK." I always assume we'll be broke and homeless in a couple months. The idea of making more money than I've ever made before scares the crud out of me.
We're going to work really hard on 1.5, and our HOPEFUL date for it is February 15th. The big, big goal for this release is: you should be able to scan an item you bought anywhere in the world, and if it's in some Amazon database somewhere, it'll be found automatically. We'll see if we can do it.
After that, we're starting on 2.0, with lots of AMAZING features that will COMPLETELY DESTROY YOUR SENSE OF EQUILIBRIUM. Also, Mike's very eager to start research on our new project, which is SUPER-SECRET except that WE'VE TOLD LIKE FORTY PEOPLE WHAT IT IS SO FAR. If you think can beat the secret out of my mom or John Geylense you're welcome to it: I've got to tell you that I suspect John would crack under torture long before my mom would.
I honestly don't know if this new project will even prove to be technically feasible. That's exciting for me. It's like when I started writing the video barcode scanning code: no one had ever done it before, and I had no idea if it was even possible, much less something that I, personally, could do.
Turned out it was. There aren't a lot of times in programming you get to do that kind of thing. I'm glad I'm partnered up with Mike, who has no concept of what's possible and what's not, so I can continue to be challenged. (And I'm thankful to all of our customers for supporting us to the point that we can do risky things and not worry about losing our houses.)
And, while I'm at it, I'm glad we have Tim -- he's a smart guy and is the most freakishly fast typist I've ever seen. (He never copy-and-pastes because it's actually faster for him to type stuff!) And I'm happy we have Drew, who is completely pedantic to the point that I smack him several times a day, but, honestly, what more could you ask in a support guy?
I've honestly never been so happy in my work situation. I hope it shows in my work.
posted by Wil Shipley at 2:27 AM
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