Balsamiq

Just had a great mentoring session with Giacomo (Peldi) Guilizzoni , founder of Balsamiq ! As I work toward launching GainGuardian, his insights on product development and go-to-market strategy were invaluable. Peldi shared his experience growing from solo founder to successful CEO, and offered practical advice on validating ideas without patents. His suggestion to start with a minimal version that customers can try before investing in hardware resonated with me. If you're building a bootstrapped business and get the chance to speak with Peldi, don't hesitate. He cuts through the startup noise with practical wisdom that only comes from actually building something meaningful.

You thought the team was aligned. You thought the decision was clear. Then the Slack messages start rolling in: ? “Wait… this isn’t what we wanted.” ? “Can we tweak this real quick?” ? “Actually, the devs interpreted it differently.” Sound familiar? Rework isn’t a mistake. It’s a symptom—of decisions that were never really made. And it’s costing your team more than you think. In tomorrow’s newsletter, we’re breaking down: ? Why rework keeps happening (and why it’s NOT an execution problem) ? A 5-minute fix that catches misalignment before it leads to wasted dev time ? How we use wireframes internally to ship faster, with fewer surprises Plus, behind the scenes of our redesign. Sign up and join 12k newsletter readers: https://buff.ly/3Xf9bA4

We did it. We gave Balsamiq a facelift. And unlike a bad reboot of your favorite TV show, we kept the heart. What’s new? ? New branding for our new chapter! ? A cleaner, smoother UI. ? New wireframe templates to get you started faster. ? A redesigned website that won’t make you dig for help docs. And if you’re feeling nostalgic for the old look…just know we still love a fat marker wireframe. Check it out: balsamiq.com

This story from Giacomo (Peldi) about how he got Balsamiq featured in the The New York Times belongs in the #buildinpublic Hall of Fame! This was back in 2008 when Peldi was bootstrapping his software company solo. He was blogging and sharing his progress, revenue numbers, etc and that had never really been done before. The NYT noticed and wrote a piece on him with this headline: "Man Writes Software, Blogs About it, Makes $100k in 5 Months"

What’s New: Our Biggest Product Update This Year ?? https://lnkd.in/daQiJwwq

We love celebrating Balsamiq anniversaries, and today brings us quite a few! 16 years of Balsamiq and counting—thanks for sticking around. (And yes, that just may be a sneak peek of some new branding...)