Flash Startups

Balsamiq Wireframes is a bootstrapped SaaS tool for wireframing and mockups founded by Peldi in 2008. Starting with $165,000 in revenue in the first six months, it grew to ~3,000 customers in eight months and now generates approximately $6M in annual recurring revenue. The company succeeded through word-of-mouth marketing, viral product design (the distinctive sketchy wireframe aesthetic), and blogger partnerships for SEO, without traditional paid marketing.

OMG Pop was a Flash-based gaming website that struggled against competitors like Farmville, facing shutdown with only 4-5 months of runway left. Dan Porter designed Draw Something, a simple drawing and guessing game with playback functionality, as a last-ditch effort. The game exploded virally, reaching 1 million downloads in 9 days and 50 million in 50 days, ultimately being downloaded 250 million times before Zynga acquired it for $200 million just six weeks after launch.