Boris Yankov

In the last year, I have been working hard, developing my killer app FusionDesk.

Today is its official release.

Not being officially released, didn’t stop it from:

• Being published on a download site - Softpedia crawled my product I added to Plimus and published FusionDesk.
• Being cracked - some crackers saw the Softpedia publication and cracked a beta version of FusionDesk
• Being sold - I sold few copies to people that were eager to start using FusionDesk even in its unfinished state.

FusionDesk has a paid and a free version, so why not take a look at it?

Anyone even remotely interested in Web 2.0 apps will be delighted to learn that FreshBooks just reached 80,000 customers. You can read an interview with their CEO here.

But aren’t you asking yourself, do this number anything without no details are provided?

Users 2.0

One thing that has lost its meaning with Web 2.0, is the concept of a ‘user’. Is a user someone who is paying for your application? Or is he someone who typed in a user name and a password, for a chance to take a look at your service? The exact definition varies a lot, from person to person.

As a simple example: I have registered twice for a free account at FreshBooks. Am I considered two users or what? In the old days, no one cared to count the downloads of their programs as an actual user. Things certainly change.

Customers 2.0

To be fair, FreshBooks looks like a decent application, with good potential. I am sure they have real customers, paying real money. And money are so Web 1.0. Who needs money if they have visitors? I guess the real problem I have with this, is the number of 80,000 users cited.

But lets talk about me for a sec, before continuing, should we? I have a free program called MSConfig Cleanup. It is of the old-style type, out-of-fashion desktop application. It gets about 300 downloads per day. This should be about downloads 110,000 per year. Now I am confused. These people, downloading my app, are not paying anything. Are they customers of mine? Or should I have a Web 2.0 application to be able to claim them as customers?

Profits 2.0

Lets get back to FreshBooks. How much exactly are they earning each month?

To be honest, I don’t know. No one except them doesn’t know. But let’s try to calculate their revenues.

First try. The guys are not hyping anything. They actually have 80,000 paying users. Their prices are $14, $27 and $39 respectively, to an average of $26.7. Eighty thousand people paying this much means over 2 million dollars each month. Not bad at all, huh? Should we be waiting for an IPO soon?

Second try. The guys are reporting their total users, including the free accounts registered. We assume a typical rate of 1 paying customers per 100 visitors that registered for an account. We get 800 people that registered for FreshBooks and paid for using it. In the 2 years running this business, the FreshBook guys retained 30% of them (hey, we are trying to be realistic this time). And should we calculate in, the fact that the cheaper accounts usually (always?!?) get more registrations? So how much profits per month would are we speaking of? $5000.

Reality 2.0

There is so much hype around Web 2.0 that even successful businesses with reasonable, back-to-earth applications can’t resist the temptation to lie with their numbers.

Keep in mind that FreshBooks is not a social network site, and it is not even written on Ruby! It even does have profits! May be it is not a Web 2.0 application after all. Let get back to reality, should we?

Should you join the ASP?

For some time I was wondering if joining the ASP (Association of Shareware Professionals) is a good idea. I knew it will be helpful to me but was hesitant to part with $100.

Well I had finally decided to join and have done this on 1st Dec, just 5 days ago. Let me share my impressions with you.

The Forums

I had heard that the private newsgroups are the biggest benefit you get when joining. Nevertheless I was impressed with the number of posts.

Take a look at the screen shot from my newsreader:

These are the counts of unread posts for the last 3 years. Impressive, huh? Not only there is plenty of relevant information but the average poster is very experienced in the software/shareware field. I was pleasantly surprised.

Now you can get a competent answer to your questions that were roaming your head for so long!

ASPects

ASPects is a monthly newsletter sent to the ASP members. It’s really nice and contains information written exclusively for it that you can’t find anywhere else.

And if you are in a research mood; there are a hundred issues to read from the 90s. Take a look at the first issue dating back from 1988!

Other benefits?

Furthermore you can get numerous discounts on software sold by ASP members. They range from 30% to getting the software free.

The Community

One of the unexpected benefits to me was the feeling to be a part of a great community and being able to have contacts with the successful people of the industry.

So should you join the ASP? The answer seems obvious: Yeah, definitely!