An Open Letter to Peldi Guilizzoni of Balsamiq

I admit that I'm relieved that this open letter was not another public bashing. I love stories like this and, most importantly, I really love balsamiq. I didn't know anything about its creator/founder, but I'm glad he's as upstanding as the product he produces.

I met Peldi a couple of years ago at SXSW and was impressed by his humility. He's personally answered all of the emails I've sent him. Usually really quickly. When I first me him, I was an Omnigraffle user and had paid for Michael Angeles (Konigi)'s UX templates for Omnigraffle.<p>Peldi hired Mike as the UX Director for Balsamiq. At that point, I knew I should make the switch.<p>When I heard they were building myBalsamiq, a collaborative tool for wireframes, they solved the problem of versioning wireframes and centralizing the repository. This is a team truly committed to building an opinionated wireframing product. Yes you have to make trade-offs. But you'll build better products. It's worth it.<p>It's one of very few products I bring up in conversation. Balsamiq is a company of which I'm proud to be a customer. Balsamiq, for everything your team has done, and everything you will do for the UX community and software development, I thank you.

About a year ago my wife and I were working on a project together and we had a complete miscommunication about some feature that I was supposed to build. At the time I was doing all of our UI design, so I was the only one who had a copy of Balsamiq. The entire miscommunication could have been avoided if my wife had been able to mockup a couple of wireframes really quickly. She emailed Balsamiq, told them what happened, and asked if they would give us a discount on a second license. They gave us a free one instead. What an amazing team. Peldi's interview on Mixergy was one of my all-time favorite - <a href="http://mixergy.com/balsamiq-peldi-guilizzoni-interview/" rel="nofollow">http://mixergy.com/balsamiq-peldi-guilizzoni-interview/</a><p>BTW, I've seen several other sites that do social polling like this. I've never had any interest in using any of them, but I just went through every one of your polls. Fantastic design, it sucked me right in. Congrats on your launch!

I'm also a huge fan of Peldi - I love that he personally responds to emails and tweets and seems to actually give a shit about his customers. (Very refreshing after my stint at Google, which is severely lacking in that department :).<p>I also love Balsamiq - I use it both to prototype web/mobile apps and also for diagrams in presentations (<a href="http://client-side-apis.appspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://client-side-apis.appspot.com/</a>). The sketchy feel makes the prototypes feel more flexible, perfect for encouraging iteration.<p>I've been using myBalsamiq (the online version) for a while, and though it is Flash-based, and Flash is the devil, it works pretty well and I recommend it.

Congrats on launching!<p>One small UI suggestion: put thumbs-up on the right and thumbs-down on the left. About 90% of the population is right handed and the word "sinister" originates from the Latin word for "left" [1]. Generally speaking, people associate the right side with good and the left side with bad. :)<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-handedness" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-handedness</a>

Peldi is a great guy and Balsamiq is turning into a reference example on how to run a successful software business with integrity.

Hey all: I'm shocked by (and so appreciative of) the responses to this. Thanks for directing the much-deserved love toward Peldi, too! He's seriously my entrepreneurial hero.

Aww shucks everyone, what a nice day to start the week. :)<p>OK, back to work! :)<p>Peldi

I had a very similar experience with the Balsamiq crew. Early on I didn't have much to offer other than this budding Web testing service I was working on. As it turns out, they have a Web site and saw value in it and accepted my barter offer. I was completely shocked. The outcome was two fortified notions: it never hurts to ask and the Balsamiq guys are great.

Great design. And it's nice to take time to thanks Peldi.<p>But why would a mockup software be so important to one's business?<p>Anyone could do a mockup with PowerPoint and yet I see mockup softwares popping up every week.<p>I respect Peldi for everything he has done in the entrepreneur community so I am not after him, I just feel I am missing out on something.<p>Thanks.

Balsamiq is a good piece of software but I wouldn't put an effort to ask for a free copy of especially when I'm broke. Instead, I would rather use pen and paper.<p>If you feel you really really need the software to aid you in building your product then be a good customer and pay the license.

Congrats on the launch of Quipol!<p>Peldi started Balsamiq on nights and weekends, and now it's supporting half a dozen families. If that is not a real, tangible definition of a successful business is, I don't know what is.<p>Also, one of my favorite product names (shows the founder's background/personality).

This was a heartwarming story. Peldi sets a very high standard. I am excited to check out Quipol and use it.

What a beautiful design on your site Quipol!

This was a nice read, congrats to the author, and I always had a good feeling about the balsamiq creator.

Sounds like a great story and a great guy.<p>But damn, I hate to see anything popularize AIR apps. Also consider OmniGraffle if you are looking for prototyping :)<p>Really don’t want to rain on parades. Just want to make sure people know there are (IMO better) alternatives.