Great post. I'd much rather read this type of success story than all the get rich quick examples given in mainstream media. You overcame obstacles and willed yourself to succeed.

One theme in your post I find really interesting. You talk about how your next move always came to you over time. That's really interesting, because you give the impression that the solution was not immediately apparent, and only after years of sales and feedback you realized how to evolve the business. Even if the data had been in front of you for quite some time, it seems that at some point a light bulb went on about how to expand, and from that moment it was obvious.

I didn't think of it this way but yes, some of the ways to expand were in front of me and were really obvious in retrospect. I can't believe I didn't think about selling to ISPs sooner. It was definitely the biggest blunder I made.

This startup story emanates the true hacker spirit. Some good lessons in here as well.

1) You continuously provided something of value to your users.

2) You listened to what your users had to say and iterated accordingly.

3) You pivoted sensibly when your prime market was diminishing.

A good example of some basic startup rules that we often read about on HN, put into practice.

Great story! Sure, creating the next world changing product and making millions would be awesome, but when it comes down to it, what I really want is to work on interesting challenges, make my own decisions, and support my family.

Great story. It just goes to show you that you are better off being close to your customers and carefully listening to them than dreaming up revolutionary products in your imagination. It is a bit unfortunate for those of us with overactive imaginations, but it is the truth.

Point taken, but:

  "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." - Henry Ford

Someone has gotta be innovative.

I've seen this quotes many times, and it's only today that it occurred to me that it's being incorrectly applied

hristov is talking about customers Traysoft already has and who are using his product. Henry Ford is talking about potential customers who aren't using his product, who've never seen his product and who don't know anything about his product (or anything like it). Big difference

True, but this wasn't made clear, so I felt the need to "debunk". "Ask your customers what they want" is a common startup catch phrase, and while it does apply in many situations, it isn't as clear-cut and true as many seem to think.

It belongs in the same bin as "execution is everything," "ideas are meaningless" and "you need a cofounder to succeed." Useful and oftentimes true, but by no means a universal truth.

The problem with Ford's quote is that the customer offers a solution. In such a case you need to ask further questions to find out the problem he wants to solve. Had Henry Ford realized that, he would have found out customers wanted to get from A to B faster and he wouldn't have quipped this silly 'they want a faster Horse'. They didn't actually want a faster horse. As soon as you understand the problem, you're free to come up with innovative solutions.

There are still a few exceptions though: you can create a new market by appealing to a need people didn't have until you offered a solution. Fashion, fads (including fads for children), arguably Twitter,...

Welton's law of startup advice: for each and every bit of trite startup advice, there is an equal and opposite bit of trite startup advice.

Great log about how you - dare I say it - pivoted and build a business out of something you did as an aside!

It's more of a U-turn than a pivot, at least that's how it felt for me.

Very cool stuff. Also that library looks pretty sweet. I'll keep it in mind if I ever find myself needing something like it. Congrats!

Great post! Lesson: build multiple MVPs, quickly ship and see which stick, then let the market forces be your compass.

Brilliant. Thanks for taking hte time to share your story!

Good story.

I guess this shows that you don't need fancy HTML5/CSS/rounded borders/custom fonts/etc. etc. to actually build a business. As much as I love eye candy and love spending hours tweaking my projects to get them to look "just right," this is something I have to always remember. Shipping and getting customers is what ultimately matters.

(One pet peeve though: many of the recent HN posts linking to company blogs don't include a link back to the homepage. Everyone, please have a link! The standard top-left logo works really well for this. Immediately after reading your blog, my first intention is to see your product. Don't make me edit out "blog." from the URL by hand.)

> many of the recent HN posts linking to company blogs don't include a link back to the homepage. [...] Don't make me edit out "blog." from the URL by hand.

I'm glad I'm not the only person who has noted this lately. :)

Listen to this advice and follow it!