Ehm...why all the past tense? We still ARE very much around...we just had our best year yet [1], and are on track to do even better. Don't count us out just yet! :)
Since we have a lot of customers like you, we have been investing more and more in educational content about UX for non-designers. Check it out if you're interested [1]. It's all fairly new so we'd love feedback on it.
Thank you! About a super minimal web CMS... I wouldn't build one. We can discuss more over email if you'd like, so we don't highjack the thread: [email protected]
We (Balsamiq) look up to Basecamp quite a bit, and people have compared our culture to theirs. Check out our blog for some of our policies and other stuff. Any questions, I'm here.
Hi there! Peldi from Balsamiq here. The profit sharing program is one of our most successful policies. The only update it required since 2011 is that we raised the percentage of profits to be shared from 10 to 15%, and we might raise it again in the future as we have more and more employees.
David! I met you at Better Software in Florence a few years ago, not long after I had finished scrounging up 2,500 euros to start Balsamiq SRL (I had to give my mother 1% of the company, otherwise I would have to deposit 10,000 euros, which I didn't have at the time).
I remember thinking "I hope this guys is successful" when I talked to you, and when the new law came into effect, I remember thinking "I wonder if that guy had anything to do with this awesome change". :)
As an Italian entrepreneur, thank you. I meet with lots of wannapreneurs, and I alyways tell them "it's cheaper now!". Now I can tell them "thank David Walton!" too. :)
I don't really want to get into this debate, but I've been running Balsamiq from Italy since 2008, and it's been just fine. Then again, YMMV...we're just a little mom-and-pop software shop, not a "startup" in the paulg sense of the word.