The Secret of Our Success
Discover how, in just three years, 2BrightSparks has grown into a successful software company. What's the secret of our success? Huw Collingbourne tries to find out as he speaks to the man who started it all, Michael J Leaver?
"HC: What's the story behind 2BrightSparks? When, how and why did you create the company?
MJL: Around three years ago (2003) I was working in a software development business that produced resource management software for hospitals and other healthcare providers. Everything was written in Delphi 5 and I'd been using Delphi since version 3. One problem I had was keeping local backups of the source code and other documents. There were freeware backup programs available at the time, and of course you could easily write a batch file and use xcopy; but being a typical developer (i.e. I wanted things done my way) I decided it would only take a few hours to cobble something together, and so wrote the first version of SyncBack.
I made it available on my personal website and was surprised to find out other people thought it was worth using. It remained free but I accepted any and all donations via PayPal. Mike de Sousa, now a director at 2BrightSparks, was the first person to make a donation and we started chatting via email. I soon discovered Mike could do many things developers like myself can't, e.g. create graphics, design web sites and interfaces, produce help files, etc., so we decided to start 2BrightSparks but still keep everything freeware.
Later I received another donation from Richard Gascoigne, also now a director at 2BrightSparks, who lives just a few minutes walk from me, so we met up, had a beer, and talked about SyncBack. Richard was an experienced businessman who'd worked in many software companies, large and small. It was Richard who convinced Mike and myself to turn it into a real business (December 2004) and produce a version of SyncBack freeware for sale, which is now called SyncBackSE. I quit my job (not an easy decision as I had no other income) and SyncBackSE went on sale in February 2005. We currently have five employees, soon to be six."
Bitwise presents the full article at:
http://www.bitwisemag.com/2/Selling-You ... %2c57.html
If you come across reviews or features about SyncBack/SE, FindOnClick, UndeleteOnClick, or our OnClick freeware programs, either on the Internet or in magazines, we'd very much appreciate hearing about them. Please contact us at:
http://www.2brightsparks.com/contact.html
Before posting, and to avoid disappointment, please read the following:
- This forum is not for 2BrightSparks to provide technical support. It's primarily for users to help other users. Do not expect 2BrightSparks to answer any question posted to this forum.
- If you find a bug in any of our software, please submit a support ticket. It does not matter if you are using our freeware, a beta version or you haven't yet purchased the software. We want to know about any and all bugs so we can fix them as soon as possible. We usually need more information and details from you to reproduce bugs and that is better done via a support ticket and not this forum.
- If you are entitled to technical support then please submit a support ticket. Please do not post the same question to the forum and also via a support ticket. Once again, 2BrightSparks does not provide technical support via this forum.
Bitwise Interviews Michael J. Leaver
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- 2BrightSparks Staff
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- Joined: Thu May 06, 2004 5:02 am