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Comment by aymeric | Hacker News Reader

Great design. And it's nice to take time to thanks Peldi.

But why would a mockup software be so important to one's business?

Anyone could do a mockup with PowerPoint and yet I see mockup softwares popping up every week.

I respect Peldi for everything he has done in the entrepreneur community so I am not after him, I just feel I am missing out on something.

Thanks.

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Uh. He didn't say that. He said that getting Balsamiq gratis meant something important to him, and that and Balsamiq itself (which is so much more awesome when you actually use it than you'd think a mockup tool could be) kept him from getting discouraged while building something.

This post put such a smile on my face, but then I read the comments and it's like, here's the guy who doesn't believe the letter, and here's the guy who sees this as an opportunity to harp on Adobe AIR, and I'm afraid to see what the next nasty comment is going to be.

"had you not been so gracious, Quipol might have never happened"

@tptacek nailed it on the head. It wasn't a rational thing. It was emotional. All I'm trying to say is that Peldi's generosity affected me in a huge way. It was a tonic—a positive starting point that I've cherished ever since.

@myoder, I understand you being grateful to him, and I would be too. And it is great that you wrote the letter.

My question is more about "had you not been so gracious, Quipol might have never happened".

A mockup software doesn't seem to solve any important pain that can't be solved without and yet I see a lot of mockup softwares being created.

So my question is more about, why is a mockup software so important to you? What did it help you do that you couldn't have done without?

>It wasn't a rational thing. It was emotional. All I'm trying to say is that Peldi's generosity affected me in a huge way.

What is it that you don't understand about that? As several posters have already pointed out, the letter isn't about what the software did for him, it's about what the act of generosity did for him.

Peldi's gracious gesture made myoder feel great and gave him drive that helped him finish his product. You're focussing on the wrong thing.

I clearly didn't do a great job writing my post—my apologies. I was simply saying that Peldi and Balsamiq helped me get the ball rolling on a positive note. Who knows what would have happened had I waited to act on Quipol—there's a real possibility that I wouldn't have ever done so. Sometimes, inspiration and ideas pass, and, for better or worse, they never come back.

Mockups with PowerPoint are just not effective. Also, with apps that are more than just a couple pages, it quickly becomes cumbersome, even inside Photoshop or Illustrator.

With Balsamiq, you're able to think out loud and get more decisions made faster. Also, when you're working in a team and not 100% clear on what the solution you're building will end up becoming, it helps a lot with the communication.

Lastly, when you know what you're building, it takes a lot less time building it (at least for me it does.)

For example, we're about to build and launch a new product in the next couple weeks. By spending some time creating a wireframe prototype that the whole team can click around in (https://volcanic.mybalsamiq.com/projects/customerloyalty/gri...) we've been able to tweak what we want version 1 to be and narrow our scope quiet a bit to just the essentials.

I'd say wireframing, particularly with myBalsamiq, is very beneficial for web app development.

Agreed. It helped me get Quipol pared down to just the must-haves in a very short time.

Thanks for taking the time to answer. I see better how it can be useful for teams.

Good luck with your project.

I've played with many different mockup applications (I've got a blog post about them I'm working on currently). I got started playing with them due to a free license I got from Peldi in return for blogging about it.

The short answer is that the tools are efficient. A good mockup tool bridges the gap between providing enough information that you can communicate ideas and being able to do so very quickly. PowerPoint doesn't communicate the ideas as well as other tools; and it is definitely slower than other tools.

Today, Balsamiq is still my tool of choice on my laptop. iMockups is my tool of choice on my iPad. One of the primary reasons is that I can export BMML files back to Balsamiq.

I think this "open letter" is a little disingenuous. A nice heartwarming letter of thanks by a poster that signed up to HN 4 days ago. Maybe I'm cynical, but this seems like astro-turfing.

Oh man, that's hard to hear. I'm sorry that it comes off that way. While building Quipol, I was more of an onlooker. Maybe I should have been more active earlier.

It shouldn't be hard to hear. If it's not true then who cares what I think. Like I said, I probably just be cynical.

What a nasty thing to say. Can you take a second and consider what might prompt you to go out of your way to write this?

Actually it appears he's correct.

Hey Paul, that's harsh. What gives?

Why, because he mentioned the name of his startup three times, without once even saying what it does?

What a discouraging thread.

It might be because I asked my 3 roommates to vote up on the link for me. That was clearly a very stupid and selfish idea, and I'm sorry for doing so. Like I said to BigCanofTuna, I'll learn (fast) to be a better community member. I apologize.

Because among other things both these comments are from the same IP address:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3232690

I feel really bad for you having to deal with stuff like huge voting rings and people making sockpuppet accounts but sometimes I wish you'd just keep stuff like this behind the scenes.

He's astroturfing... a thank-you note?

There's real manipulation on HN. This wasn't it. Look at the comment thread you jumped into more carefully.

This place just gets more and more frustrating. It must be 10x worse to own it, but still.

Settle down man.

Definitely wasn't a scheme or evil plan, just my roommate who happens to be my loving girlfriend. Even so, I understand your frustration, and I'm sorry about that, Paul. Lesson learned.

I don't see it as nasty, just an observation of various facts that lead me to believe (perhaps incorrectly) that the post has ulterior motives. But since you ask, this is what lead me to comment how I did.

- HN is about sharing and opinions, so I decide to share mine.

- The poster opened an HN account 4 days ago and the startup was launched 5 days ago.

- "Open Letter" titled posts almost always leads to someone bashing a product or individual. Imagine how relieved HN will be when they see that it is indeed a "heart warming" thank you letter...did you feel good reading this?

- Without the product the startup wouldn't be here. All credit goes to Balsamiq while conveniently encouraging you to view the startup.

- And, as a software developer (who has one more than once been NOT paid for services rendered) this one really raises my suspicion. The poster received the software 8 monts ago and will get the $79 to Balsamic ASAP.

Anyway, right or wrong, that is how I came to my original comment. I'll take my down votes if necessary.

edit: formatting

If he wanted to pump his startup, he'd have pumped his startup. As it stands, the only thing he had to say about it was his name. The post was about Peldi.

HN needs a lot of policing, but much, much less of this bogus fake kind.

You shouldn't get down votes. I totally get where you're coming from, BigCanOfTuna. I'm not perfect, and maybe I shouldn't have linked to Quipol at all. When I said I'll get you the $79 ASAP, I thought it would make people laugh. I meant it, but I also thought it would be funny. Also, I didn't know that open letters were notoriously rude. I just thought they were open to everyone instead of on a one-to-one basis (the openness was my way of giving back to Peldi by giving him a glowing, deserved review). Anyhow, you're good. I appreciate you explaining your rationale, and I'll try to do better in the future. If I violated any written or unwritten codes of conduct on HN, please accept my apologies. Thanks, BigCanofTuna.

The same reason analytics software is cropping up - it's easy for geeks to write. So lots pops up.

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