<i>This is one of those rags to riches stories that inspire us all.</i><p>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.<p>I sure hope it is though. Very inspiring.
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).<p>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.<p>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.
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.