Author Archives: Elia Freedman

Waiting on a Winning Streak: Infinity Softworks Closes a New Funding Round

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I don’t like to gamble so don’t usually play cards. Since I don’t play, I haven’t developed some amazing strategy for winning nor do I have the kind of memory that allows me to count cards/play odds and offset my inexperience. But I found myself in a card game anyway. There were six of us playing and I kept drawing lousy hands. I kept folding early and often, before I could lose much money. We played round after round, with me folding with small or zero bets and my chip pile dwindling slowly.

Finally, the cards changed in my favor. With only a handful of chips left, I bluffed my way to a solid pot then started drawing good cards. Before I knew it I reeled off seven or eight winning hands in a row, riding them to a nice pile of chips, and putting everyone else at the table on the defensive.

It dawned on me recently that I have been running Infinity Softworks the same way the last few years. As with cards I didn’t play this strategy on purpose. Instead, my cautious nature led me to it, going after small pots, biding my time for the right opening, staying in the game. Waiting. Other companies were betting all in — on mobile, on the web — and I was starting to wonder if I’d lost my nerve, if I’d be able to see the big opportunity when it hit. And frankly, I almost missed it.

This past summer and fall turned into what I thought was going to happen in 2001: the mobile software market is finally becoming a reality. Amazing hardware powered by Apple, RIM and Google is coming to fruition. The innovation curve is accelerating. Reasonable software distribution is coming back. And all of these devices are web-enabled, connecting our customers to the world.

I have found kindred spirits, people who also see great opportunities and have stuck with me for years. Years of caution finally paid off. Infinity Softworks closed a round of funding that will kick start our FastFigures and FastFigures Mobile efforts, giving us a solid foundation to build from and the ability to power through these tough economic times. (Read the release here.) This, the first winning pot in the latest of Infinity’s card games. I smell a streak coming on.

Costs To Do Business, Then and Now

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I was thinking recently at how the cost of business has changed in the 12 years I have run Infinity Softworks. A brief list of the changes we’ve seen:

  • In 1997, we had to offer telephone ordering and be able to ship products to customers. Many of our customers didn’t even have an email address. Originally, we’d email ordered product to our customers that ordered electronic software. Now none of that is needed. We don’t even offer physical product any more. Just downloads off the web.
  • In 1997, we had to staff both sales and support lines and support an 800 number. Now we really don’t have any of them. We handle all sales and support via email. We try to keep our response time down to a few hours and can do this partly due to the use of a BlackBerry when we are not in the office.
  • In 1997, we had to get a credit card machine to process charges. We kept it in a closet hooked up to a phone line. We would get the card over the phone and put the customer on hold while we processed the card. No one would give us the ability to process cards on the web (and none of our customers trusted it). Now, everything is over the web and there is no human involvement in the process.
  • In 1997, the costs to run a single server was a thousand dollars a month. Now, we pay about $40 per month with better quality and capabilities.
  • In 1997, 70-80% of our support issues were install and reinstall issues. Now, well… it’s the same. But improved software stores means these issues should be eliminated.

The bottom line? In the 12 years I’ve run Infinity Softworks, our costs have been reduced by 90%. I believe, for the first time, that it’s possible to run a highly successful and profitable software business without the number of people and dollars that it used to.

In fact, I’m betting on it. In 2001-2, we raised $550,000 to build Infinity Softworks. We added a number of people, expanded server capacity, and generally used the money to build infrastructure for the future. Now, I think we can build a far more successful business with far less dollars up front and far fewer employees to make it happen.

One Programmer’s Lament

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Since Infinity Softworks had to get small in order to grow, I took on the task of programming again. Before 2007, I really hadn’t written any code since 2000. Since 2007 I have been involved in learning no less than five “development” languages: Objective-C for iPhone; RIM’s special Java flavor for BlackBerry; Ruby on Rails, CSS and HTML for the web version of FastFigures. This does not include the other one I still need to learn. We’ll need JavaScript for FastFigures.com but I was overwhelmed with everything else and couldn’t manage any more programming knowledge in my measly little brain.

I wouldn’t call myself a great programmer. I’m competent and seem to be able to get the job done as long as it’s mainly focused on user interface. I can’t do the hard-core programming. Luckily, my other full-time developer handles all the guts of the applications.

My lament, though, is not over having to learn so many different languages but instead how quickly the knowledge seems to seep out of my head. Being engrossed in Apple’s Objective-C language for the past few months, we really haven’t touched the website. Now we are working on a UI overhaul and new web capabilities and I actually need a refresher course on those web languages. I literally stared at CSS and HTML code one morning for two hours, as if I was trying to read Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. It just made no sense at all. And this is something I have done a lot of over the years!

Albus Dumbledore has this really cool device called a pensive. In the Harry Potter books, he’d just drop his knowledge into this pensive. When he needed it again, he’d pull the knowledge out and put it back in his head.

Either that or I need someone to stick their fingers in my ears to plug the leak.

Loyalty Part 2

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Last time I wrote about my customers, employees and investors who have stayed loyal, have stuck it out with me, and how much I appreciate that. (If you missed it and you are one of the unnamed many, thanks!)

As I have watched these names move from device to device, it makes me wonder which device makers are really creating brand loyalty. Clearly Apple is the king, as the tongue-wagging fanboys get overly excited about every device they bring out. (Frankly, usually for very good reason as they make some amazing devices.) RIM is another one, although their loyalty is more of the cool, upper management variety than the technology geeks of the world. It’s the “look, I can send emails rapid fire while the rest of you slobs are wasting time waiting for the train” variety.

This is where Palm and Microsoft are struggling. It seems that people can’t wait to get away from Windows Mobile, that it’s a compromise when they can’t get something else. The loyalty doesn’t seem to be there.

Palm is a different case. They once had it. The loyalty of their customers was of the Franklin-Covey, life organizer variety. The “you can pry this device from my cold, dead hands” variety. Somewhere along the line that disappeared. Now all those customer names are appearing on lists waiting for iPhone or BlackBerry Storm versions of our software. Maybe they got tired of waiting; maybe they got tired of the horrible support and square pegs in round hole products.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe these folks have been waiting for a new Palm — that promised device from those vaunted luminaries of mobile tech. And maybe they will be rewarded. When Apple almost died, they had also almost lost their loyalty base. That group has come back en masse over the past decade and, at the same time, Apple has added a whole new generation.

Can Palm pull it off, too? We’ll see.

Loyalty Part 1

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I have to admit that I have been taken aback a bit by the loyalty some of customers feel towards our products. In the past few months, as we have been collecting names and email addresses for our new FastFigures Mobile for iPhone product, a number of very familiar names have been popping up. Some have followed us from platform to platform. Others have been using our stuff on Palm or Windows Mobile devices and are now moving to iPhone or iPod Touch and don’t want to go without us. I have even heard from more than a few that have been carrying around an old device to use specifically with our powerOne software!

There were plenty of opportunities to walk away from this. For goodness sake, Infinity was practically dead at one point before the idea of FastFigures came back to me and a couple of us who are crazy enough to not take better offers decided to rebuild.

And it’s not just customers. Another employee stuck it out with me, riding Infinity from it’s peak to its trough and then being stubborn enough to not give up. Plus the previous investor who believed in the business and me enough to lend a hand when we needed it most.

Since I only know a few of your names and you know who you are, thanks! I hope you realize how much it means to me.