Switching Funkeemonk

MacApper is running a contest for the best “switcher” story: someone ditching Windows for the Mac. Today’s entry was interesting, Joe Goh founder of FunkeeMonk a windows programmer turned Mac software developer.
Personally, I was less interested in his “switching story”, than in the story of how he got started with his business. As near [...]


MacApper is running a contest for the best “switcher” story: someone ditching Windows for the Mac. Today’s entry was interesting, Joe Goh founder of FunkeeMonk a windows programmer turned Mac software developer.

Personally, I was less interested in his “switching story”, than in the story of how he got started with his business. As near as I can tell, Joe chose the absolutely hardest route possible to create a salable software application. Don’t take my word for it, read his “Bittersweet story in 15 slides” (warning: pdf link). It chronicles his creation of “FunkeeStory”, the wildly un-googleable name for his Treo->Mac SMS message application.

While, I’ve nothing but respect for Joe and his work there are a couple things I might have done differently if I were in Joe’s spot:

1. Created a “starter” application that was a release milestone with fewer features than the 1.0 of FunkeeStory. Anything to: get users, get cashflow, get an “real” release under your belt. Some sort of Treo/OSX file transfer application seems like a possible step.

2 Charge more. It’s obviously not the whole story in the slides but pricing decisions were made based on feedback from users saying “Your app is too expensive!”, even after discounting from $25 to $20. This is extremely dangerous as users would say the same thing even if it was $10. My suggestion would be to go the other route, pick a date a couple weeks from now and say that on that day you’re doing to double the price. Explain on the site that you need mexican food and microbrews to function and output more great software and take the resulting sales data as another price point on your supply demand curve.

It might also be helpful to read Camels and Rubber Duckies by Joel.


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5 Comments

  1. Joe Goh added these pithy words on May 22, 2007 | Permalink

    Heya!

    Thanks for mentioning my entry! I do agree with the pricing bit (as you can read from the presentation), and this is definitely one of the biggest lessons i’ve taken so far from running this company.

    However, I have to disagree that FunkeeStory is “un-Googleable”. Search for it yourself - you’ll find that its pretty easy to find. :-)

    FunkeeStory 1.0 also fits pretty close to what you describe in your first point too. Its really the most stripped down version of an SMS syncing app that can be possibly produced really. A file transfer app is out of the question since that’s already an in-built function of the Treo.

    Cheers!
    Joe

  2. Michael Buckbee added these pithy words on May 23, 2007 | Permalink

    Joe,

    I did a search for “Funky Story”, which I would guess is the number one way someone who had just heard of your product would attempt to search for it and I didn’t see a result in the first page. Same deal for searching for “Treo SMS”.

    There are all sorts of schools for thought on naming things, but as a thought experiment would “Delicious Monster” be the success it is if it were: “Delycyous Monster”?

    Thanks,

    Mike

  3. Joe Goh added these pithy words on May 24, 2007 | Permalink

    Actually, your example perfectly illustrates why I used “Funkee” instead of “Funky” for my app name.

    Delicious Library is written by the guys behind Delicious Monster. Its reasonable to expect that if another product line is released by Delicious Monster, it would be named Delicious *.

    The same goes for Propellerhead Software and their various products starting with RE (http://www.propellerheads.se/)

    As for my case, I came up with the company name first,which was FunkeeMonk Technology. My goal (eventually) is to come up with a whole series of products, all with names like Funkee*

    Now, why not FunkyMonk Technology then? Turns out http://www.funkymonk.com is already taken so that’s why I settled for this name instead.

    As for searching for “Treo SMS”, I don’t know why it wasn’t appearing on your terminal, but on mine, my website is appearing on the front page for me when I searched for it using Google (result #9 too - not bad I think)

  4. Michael Buckbee added these pithy words on May 25, 2007 | Permalink

    I was probably just being a moron and missed the #9 spot for “Treo SMS”. It sounds like you’ve got a good plan for naming/branding going forward.

    Good luck with all your stuff Joe.

  5. Joe Goh added these pithy words on May 26, 2007 | Permalink

    Thanks for your well-wishes Michael, and I wish you success and good luck in your endeavours too.

    Good luck to us all! ;-)

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