1. The biggest achievement must be that we’ve got our first big client, as a direct result of launching Vuzum’s website. We hope we get to be discovered by many more people once we’ll be out of beta. We’ve come a long way since 2008.
2. In less than a week I’ll be flying and moving to Spain, A Coruna. We’re opening our first international office, hoping to be closer to our customers from that part of Europe. It’s going to be a new experience for me, so wish me luck on that! It’s going to be a new experience for our team as well, as we’ve been used to work in the same office. :)
3. I spent the entire month of January learning Objective-C and I’ve got my BS in Computer science on my first iOS app. That’s two shots in one take. We slowly but surely focus our attention on iOS and Android. Mobile is one of the big plans we have in 2011.
4. We started work on our newest R&D project, Eclipo. It’s a small start-up that will help us track our clients, projects and payments. Once we consider it to be ready for public, we’ll make it available to everyone as well.
5. In less than a week Flabell will turn 2 years, and we’ve already passed the revenues generated in it’s first year of existence, in the last two months of 2011. :-) We’ve got big plans with both Flabell and Themesbell, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise. It’s good to see Flash has great momentum, despite Apple’s rant.
6. We’ve got an excellent team at Vuzum, as well as new faces. Great guys, well equiped. On that note, it’s a strange feeling to have no Windows base stations as working computers. We use MACs and Linux only. I’m wondering what’s your configuration. It seems Windows is not reliable anymore as an operating system that stays out of your way.
7. I’m planning to purchase the iPad 2, especially if it will have support for Flash!  What do you think? Wouldn’t that be a blast?! :)

And what’s better than that? When they share it with you! :) For this reason, I decided to share the last such email we received, to let you know how our customers feel about what we do, and most importantly, the fact that we’re really happy to be doing this for them!

Oh and just so you know, we now use 6 of your flash apps in different places. It would seem I have no need to go anywhere else for my flash needs. I really am impressed with you guys and what you’ve achieved over the past 2 years and I hope that it is reaping financial rewards; not just because you make great apps but also how you support them on your website, you guys really are a great example of work ethic, quality work and customer service.

Julian Bowman

In this article I’ll be as transparent as possible, so that you guys can make an idea of what running such a business means.

In our approach to using Flash, we decided to take the best from both worlds, and do client work as if it would be stock work, and vice-versa. This means our customers get the same kind of support we provide to our Flabell users (continuous, passionate, novice friendly and immediate), and the Stock Flash we resell on Flabell is built at the same high quality our Vuzum customers expect to get from us. (exceptionally written code, amazing designs and well though of interfaces)

There are 5 important things that need to be considered when creating Flash Stock: file consistency, quality, support, price and uniqueness.

1. Consistency

Let me put it simple: we don’t create cars and boats, but different kind of cars. And not only that we create different kind of cars, but we make sure all have the same main structure, which we build upon (4 wheels, one driving wheel, and so forth).

What if you would have to learn driving every time you would get up into a different car? Imagine how inconvenient that would be.

I made this parallel so you can understand why Stock Flash products needs to keep consistency. Two different files are always built on the same structure on Flabell. We take our time to do this in order for you to find your way around the files and code faster, and faster, and faster (the more files you look at, the better you get at it).

2. Quality

High quality Flash stock is hard to find, and when found, it’s only as good as it looks on the exterior. This is bad, as it cannot easily be customized without Flash skills. And let’s be honest, most people that buy Flash stock are not Flash Developers, which is exactly why they buy Flash Stock.

The promise we make is that our Flabell customers get the same high quality our Vuzum clients get – we put very much work into designing, implementing and testing our Flash Components, and we continuously update them with new features or bug fixes. All our components are highly customizable through XML, and all the components can easily be resized without Flash skills.

3. Support

When creating a Flash project for a single customer, there is usually one or two scenarios in which the client is going to be using the file, and most of the times, everything works great. When doing it for 20.000 users, not only will they require new features, but they will also find different ways of discovering bugs, ways in which one wouldn’t ever think of, unless the file is put under a similar stress-testing environment.

This still isn’t the most difficult part. Having a team of people that continuously stay up to date with the products road-map, and are able to provide support for most of the platforms and environments where the components are installed, for thousands of users that get in touch on the forums, by email or by phone, is pretty difficult. We filtered the thousands of users by charging $4.99 for a Support Ticket which is available for one year, unless the client has already made a purchase on Flabell, for which he already receives a free Support Ticket.

This is helping us help our most important users, the ones that help the business grow.

Compare this to answering only one client’s emails or phone calls. It’s a huge difference, right? :-)

4. Price

The reason people purchase Stock Flash is to save money. In today’s competitive world they also look for getting the most for their money.

Let’s say that instead of paying 1000$ for an interactive Flash map (and waiting 2 weeks to have it done), they can get it for under 20$ as Flash Stock. They will save a whooping 980$, they will get to choose it, they will get to test it before buying it, they will get exceptional customer support, they will get it immediately, and if they purchase from the right place, they will get the most value for their money.

After the first experience, the buyer usually knows if he should return to a store or not, because he gets to interact with the support team, he gets to check out the source files and how easy it has been to setup the file on the server, and so on.

So what’s the deal? Well, if you have one customer that pays you 1000$ for a project, that’s the money you get and that’s it. On the other hand, if you resell a Flash Component 100 times, for 20$, you get twice the same amount. The only disadvantage you need to consider is the time required to get to those 100 purchases, and the fact that you might not get there if your Flash Component is not good enough.

The client disadvantage is that he will not purchase a unique file, but if it’s customizable enough, he can change it so much that nobody will find a similarity with the original one.

5. Uniqueness

When getting something done as custom work, you can make sure of one thing: it will have all the features you need, and it will be only yours to use. These are the most important aspects of why there are customers still looking for custom work, and it’s going to be a need for custom work as Flash Stock won’t ever be able to cover the different requests customers have.

There is a lot of work on the web, as interactivity is the blood of the internet, and that’s what Flash does the best. No matter what kind of content we create, we make sure it’s of the highest quality. It’s for you to enjoy using, and for us to enjoy creating! Flash on!

Seamless! Great suggestion. I changed my css file as per your suggestion.

To share with your co-workers:
For the last 12 years I had a landscape construction company with about 40 employees in California. Then all of a sudden everyone ran out of money and started losing their houses and therefore stopped buying what I was selling. I decided to let all my employees go and take my career in a whole new direction.

I chose advertising (online and in print). I basically switched from landscape design to graphic and web design. I had no experience in either. I have spent the last 6 months or so trying to figure it all out. Without bright guys like you and your staff creating a lot of the backed components for me to play around with for free I would not have learned as much as I have in such a short period. I just want to let you know, your timely response to my e-mails and your awesome lineup of products is greatly appreciated. Although with 30K or so people on your list, I’m sure I am not the first to say so.

Thanks again.
Bryan

P.S. a purchase is forthcoming

I’ve been so focused on getting Flabell where it is today, that I didn’t felt the 12 months passing since we launched it (on the 6th of March 2009). I thought I should give three advices for all of you that plan to start a website:

1. Choose your team for their character and then skills.
2. Be prepared to work every day, 24/7.
3. Be prepared to fail.

That’s about it. Everything else you’ll get to learn while you go. It’s a challenging road and it’s not for many to follow.

We had a small party (Happy Birthday Flabell!), we switched to a better office, and I shared some knowledge at the first Geek Meet conference in Iasi. So yes, I’ve been pretty busy with that and other stuff. You can see me here and here.

As I said, in this part I will share some numbers with you, so you can see how small the CTR is, using today’s advertising model.

Actionscript.org (forum)

We had our ads displayed for 12 days (18 Jan – 30 Jan), on a $500 campaign.

Impressions: 184,226
Clicks: 1,407
CTR: 0.76%

We canceled this ad.

Flash Speaks ActionScript (blog)

30 days (over), $50 campaign.

Impressions: 52,496
Clicks: 71
CTR: 0.10%

We canceled this ad.

WebTreats ETC (blog)

30 days, $15 campaign.

Impressions: 93,172
Clicks: 17
CTR: 0.02%

We are going to cancel this ad. This is the 14th day.

Web Design Booth (blog)

30 days, $40 campaign.

Impressions: 82,262
Clicks: 22
CTR: 0.03%

We are going to cancel this ad. This is the 13th day.

Google AdWords

Google is charging per click, which is the right way if you ask me. (10 months campaign)

Impressions: 95,248
Clicks: 1,074
CTR: 1.13%

Cost: $218

There is an additional blog we are currently still advertising on, but since we are not going to cancel the ad yet, I won’t post it here, so we have real data when we decide to close the campaign.

Conclusions

Based on the numbers above, you can see that Google’s AdWords is the best advertising option there is today, because it is the most targeted campaign, due to the fact that users are searching for something specific, which Google serves through their search engine. The trick is they add the advertiser’s links first. And we are one of those advertisers.

Although Google’s CTR is just a bit over 1%, it’s still the best value one can get today.

It’s too bad Actionscript.org, with almost double the impressions in just 12 days, has a smaller CTR, and the money paid for the campaign are twice as much as what was spent on Google. It’s important to notice the daily impressions number on the blogs, way above Google’s impressions.

In Part 3, I will share our solution. I will write this part in 4 months, so until then, I strongly advise you use AdWords for your advertising campaigns. :-)

I have a test which I believe is quite important for your start-up, before you release it out in the wild. That is the NCSFMT test, or No Computer Skills Family Members Test. Yes, you read that right! :-)

Remember that most of the people still don’t know what a browser is. So do not expect them to understand or easily use your work.

Why asking your family members first? Because these are the people that trust you and that you trust. And because you tell them about your work anyway. They won’t hesitate to tell you if you look like a fool when you do, because they love you. :-)

So when is the last time you asked for their help on one of your online projects?

Test 1, four months ago

I thought we had a pretty good product, so I decided to run this test with the help of my little sister (22 yrs old). She is using email, and IM software, on Windows 7. She also knows how to open an application, such as 3DSMax or use Microsoft’s Word. She is using her personal computer. But she has no IT skills. None.

I thought I was in good hands, so I asked her to sign-up to Flabell, and download one of the free flash components we offer to our users. The one that she likes the most, so that she’s browsing the website a bit.

The horror

In the second she tried to use a random username and password, I told myself we’re doomed. :-)

-What are you doing? I asked.
- I’m trying to login. She said.
- Oh.. shit. :-(

She was trying to use her YM username and password. I didn’t blame her, for absolutely no computer skills, nor for NOT reading the obvious messages that were RIGHT IN FRONT of her.

I just stood there observing, writing down problems, and at the end of the tests I had 4 (four) A4 papers written on both sides. There were about 60 items I wrote down, which we had to do something about.

Let me tell you that she was not able to download any products or sign-up that day, unless I gave her clues. At that time we had 10% of our users not activating their accounts. It was something we wanted to fix as soon as possible.

The work

We had several weeks of continuous work. I barely enjoyed weekends, or late night resting. We had to go through all this information, and fix as much as we can, or better yet, IMPROVE, because there wasn’t anything that looked broke to us before her testing it. But the fact is, we had much to improve, yet we did not know it.

So in the past months, we changed the menu structure, we redesigned a big part of the website, we put more focus on typography, we improved every little thing we noticed at the first test, and we launched an improved version of Flabell.

I highly recommend you screw activation emails, and also try this amazing tool Userfly (if you have no family members with no IT skills).

Test 2, today

I decided today to ask her to do the same thing. Sign-up on Flabell, and download one of the free components.

Since now – four months later – we have more products, she started to click around on them, which I enjoyed. What I didn’t enjoy is the fact she was trying to interact with buttons, that were on the images. I mean.. since the images were for different Flash Components, their interfaces seemed real to her, so she tried to interact with them. I believe that’s something we have to fix, to make it more obvious that those are images. ;)

But other than this, I only wrote down two things. And in several minutes she was able to sign up and download one of our free products! Yeah! :-)

Managing expectations

I must say that I won’t ever put her try to use one of our products. I believe some products are for people who know how to use them. In our case, for designers and developers, that know about Adobe software or programming.

But what can we do, when there are users that do not know about XML, ActionScript or PHP, that want to use our interactive products on.. let’s say.. their blogs? How can we help those people, who have no IT skills other than writing in their Admin Panel?

Should we expect them to get these skills, or we should just ignore this market?

That’s all good information for big and medium companies, but what if you’re a single person and you do your work on the web?

I have good news for you: selling digital goods is a very profitable business, and you might want to jump into this business straight forward.

It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to sell (Flash Components, Photography, Digital Art, Blog Templates, etc), as long as it’s digital content or services. Digital goods don’t require handling, storage, mail delivery and can be sold any number of times.

Users can easily download your products, and if something isn’t right with one of the products, you can fix it and the user can download it again, at no extra charge! How cool is that?

Now that I have your attention, I’d like to give you some tips and tricks, as we’re managing our online store of digital goods for almost one year now.

Tips and Tricks

1. Invest in your brand

It’s one of the best ways you can make your users remember you. Don’t do what the crowd does. Be special, be different, create an image for you business, an image that makes users feel good about your company. This will take the relationship between you and your users to the next level, making it more personal.

2. Be original

Being original helps spread the word, as you’re selling something nobody else does. Do your best to create the most extraordinary products, and customers will come.

3. Don’t neglect Customer Service

Bringing new users to your store is not the hardest thing. Keeping users inside and making sure they return is what you should focus on.

Let your users know you are listening, by answering support queries, by opening a blog for your store and even a Twitter account.

I had an excellent experience with MT last week. Our server went down, so I wrote them an email, which was automatically replied, telling me that our email will be answered in 24 hours. I needed support right away, so I contacted them through their Twitter account. And you know what? They instantly got onto the issue and fixed our server!

That is excellent customer service, and you should offer it to, as we do!

4. Open your own Store

It’s hard to be as creative as you can, when there are some boundaries you can’t pass, so my advice is to open your own store. Build your business from scratch, in your own personal way. Users will come to your store to purchase from you, not from the competition around you.

Going on the same store where all the competition is, is not a good idea on the long term. Care to guess why? I’ll give you a hint: thousands of products such as yours, flooding the customer’s attention. Quality, not quantity. This should be your motto!

5. Have fun

Managing your own store, customers and products 24/7 is something that will take a lot of your time. If you plan on going in this direction, make sure you are passionate about your work, and ready to spend a big part of your time getting the business off the ground.

Once you do that, you’ll be able to enjoy a growing business without much hassle. Good luck!

We just got the stats for 2009 from Rob Ford (theFWA) and it seems we were on the spot with our Flabell banner. From the 40 advertisers, we were the second ones clicked on.

I guess you can’t beat clever ideas + bright colors. :-)

We closed the year with 31.008 users, a bit more than the 10.000 users we were expecting to get by the end of the year. So 2010 starts good for us!

Without further ado, here are the stats:

I purchased three t-shirts without much thought, from Ugmonk. It was one of the stores in the list, which I really found easy to browse. I didn’t knew about this website or the brand before that moment.

Let me ask you this: when is the last time you purchased a product from a brick and mortar retail store, without being familiar with their brand? I know I didn’t do it many times, unless I had to.

We are the I want this outfit generation

My beautiful gf is manager at one of Zara‘s stores here in Iasi. She was with M&S before that, Kenvelo before that, and so on. In whatever store she worked, she always told me about customers that wanted to purchase the entire outfit exposed in the window. I guess this is similar to how professional recommendations work online, and people are looking for that offline.

As a potential customer, you have access to only a handful of exposed outfits, and usually it’s almost impossible to find the best clothes that go well one with another. Online shopping provides more freedom and control than shopping in a store.

Why shopping online?

I believe a company can bring many advantages to a customer by opening an online store. Shopping has evolved with technology, and now is the time to take your business to the next step. Here are some of the reasons why people shop online:

• Convenience – your customers can visit your store from the comfy of their heated house at any hour, and they can start purchasing in 2 minutes.

• 24/7 every day - the internet doesn’t close after business hours. This means no rush for your customers, and increased profits for you.

• Professional recommendations – your best people can provide the best recommendations to your customers, such as in my example with the exposed outfit, that always gets purchased.

• Excellent customer service – through twitter, blogs, chat, phone. This virtual customer service can handle thousands on clients, while a single staff person in a retail store will not be able to help more than one customer at a time. The good part is you will be able to keep track of how the customer was handled, and improve the communication with them.

• Great customer experience – the customer can use a search form to browse through thousands of products, with no effort, to make an informed decision. The interactivity of this environment allows for a lot of creativity when it comes to helping a customer finding the right product to purchase.

• Product delivery - your customers can purchase as much as they need, without thinking about carrying the products at home. These will be delivered at their door.

Why selling online?

There are serious advantages of opening an online store. I will list only some that come to mind, but remember things go digital, and an online presence is mandatory for any business that wants to be found by potential customers.

• No geographical boundaries – your store is opened world wide, and you don’t have to be where your clients are. You can reach people from middle and upper class through the internet, and you don’t need to be in NY, London, Paris or Rome.

• Online marketing – users can come directly to your online store, through smart advertising (microsites for new collections, interactive banners, social media promotion, etc). They are a link away, if you do this right.

• Less staff needed - since there won’t be much interaction between your customers and your employees, you will only need a handful of people for maintenance and delivery. This way you will save money on training and team building.

• Languages – you can make your store in as many languages as you need. There has to be no staff member to speak with customers in signs or another language. :-)

• Cheaper advertising – no need to do much offline advertising. Online advertising is cheaper, better, and the results can be measured precisely.

• Detailed information - you can allow your clients to view all details about your products before they purchase: videos, images, audios and testimonials from other buyers. How can you do this offline?

• Customer information – you get to keep the email address and real data (address, name, etc) of your customers if they choose to. This way you can easily send them news of any offers based on their previous purchase.

• Sharing (free advertising) – like I did with Ugmonk on twitter and this post. Your users can share the link to your store with their friends and family.

• Infinite virtual shelves – you can display as much merchandise as you want, without the need of renting the largest space around.

• Save on taxes – by having less employees, less merchandise to move around, and no physical presence.

• Handling payments – there can’t be any human error because all transactions are digital, and they go directly in your business’s bank account.

• Less exposure to theft – since there are no customers trying your products, there is no potential thief either.

• Precise statistics - you can collect statistics that will help you grow your business, such as how many users visited your store, when, where from, what they purchased, how much time and money they spent on your website.

• Get personal – you can open a twitter account for your business, or a blog, where you can show customers how the products are built, display testimonials and take advantage of the interactive environment. For example, customize the look of your store to go well with the seasons or any special holiday.

• Not expensive - there are no recurring costs when having an online store, such as rent, product transportation, heating, electricity, water, cleaning, security, etc. This means huge savings every month!

• Get viral – do minisites to promote your new collections, and bring thousands of customers to your online store.

• Use real models - you can use videos to show how your products look on real models. Beautiful clothes look better on beautiful models. Make your products look better!

• Interaction – through your store, your customers can communicate about your brand, compare prices and features. Let users comment and rate your products. Use testimonials to promote your products.

• Customization – allow your users to customize your products to their needs, in an interactive way. Either by creating or assorting different products with ease.

Create your online store now!

Be online, that’s the place where your business can take the most advantage of!

Hire an agency or do it yourself. Vuzum is one of the companies that is able to do that for you, but there are many more companies you can work with, based on your budget and preferences. Make sure you choose the best one for you.

If an online shopper has a good first experience with your website, he will return to buy more. Make sure your website has what it needs to be able to bring back customers.

This made all the difference, and I knew that this is the direction we need to approach. We have the right skills, and we can compete with any company when it comes to building Flash Components. While on other markets the products are built by early starting freelancers of any age (13+ yrs), in our team every developer (24+ yrs) comes with many years of experience and professional studies (BS in Computer Science).

I decided to find the best people to work with. Nobody can beat that! :-)

There have been several months of development, and the development is still in progress. I will write about this more, but I want to describe a bit what makes us different now, from a customer’s point of view. The customers wouldn’t care less if naked girls or nerds are working on a product, as long as it’s working right. Well, we’re naked nerds, and the products we build are exceptional! :)

Flabell provides high quality Flash Components and excellent customer service, at affordable prices.

Let me repeat that:

• high quality Flash Components
• excellent customer service
• affordable prices

1. High quality Flash Components

• we follow conventions to build our Flash Components with the same structure – this makes it easy for any customer to reuse any of our components, because no two files are different

• we write exceptional code, object oriented, AS3 based – this should be a guarantee of our involvement, but also an example for those who purchase a product to learn from it

• our designs are vectorial (.ai files), integrated directly in Flash – it’s very important to have a file optimized in every way, so we make sure that the smallest details are taken into consideration

• all source files and fonts included – this helps our customers to make any changes they need, and learn from our files

• our products are highly customizable (xml based): size, colors, settings – this makes our products remarkable, and every user can change a product so much, that two customizations of the same Flash Component, can make the same product look totally different

• reusable in html or other AS3 Flash projects – no restrictions at all, either used in another Flash project, or a static website

• highly creative, original and useful – naked nerds are always creative

• true diversity – our road map is clear: we’ll build any kind of Flash Component, and then improve and diversify it – this is why we release newsletters, contact forms, drop downs, check boxes, rating systems, templates, video players, video galleryes, slideshows, banner rotators, zoom utilities, 360 rotators, panoramic viewer, etc..

2. Excellent customer service:

• staff’s #1 priority is customer support, on both email and comments page of each product

• we provide video tutorials for helping our users to understand difficult (or not so common) issues

• we provide help files, which users can read online, before they download and use the product

• download and use before purchase – it’s an option any of our Flash Component has, so you can download and use the Flash Component in your project on your local server, before you purchase it. This helps you see if this component fits your needs, before you purchase it

• view more examples and the customization level of a component – we provide a link where we show different customization options for our products, from which users can see how highly customizable that particular product is

• we’re working on releasing an online forum for the community, and we hope this will help our users in many ways

3. Affordable prices:

• featured flash component always on sale (usually at 50% price)

• we give Gold Tickets, received after purchasing 10 Flabell products in a year – by using one, a user gets a file for free

• we give Silver Tickets, received after purchasing three consecutive commercial products – by using one  Silver Ticket, you will be able to purchase a product at half it’s price

• membership – it’s an option that opens our library to a customer for a year, so you can download any of our Flash Components for free

• 10 gold tickets bundle pack – makes any product ridiculously cheap!

• monthly free files – our users can see what they can expect from a Flabell product, before they make a purchase

• purchase once, and use as many times as you need license – this isn’t a typo. You can use one Flabell Flash Component for 10 different websites or many more, with no additional payment to us. We’d love to see how creative you can get!

• many payment options – PayPal, Credit Card, Google Check-Out, MoneyBookers (some are still in development)

• purchase without registering – we don’t want to take too much of your time

4. On top of that..

We are a very passionate team, which is always available for customizing any of our products, to fit your exact needs. We’re part of Vuzum team, and every Flabell component is built at the same standards our clients expect us to deliver: exceptional quality. This is what makes us different!

We are giving back to our community, not only by giving away free files and providing excellent customer service, but also by allowing them to use our affiliate (referrals) program, through which they can help our Flabell community grow, but also earn money while doing so (up to 50% of each referred user’s first purchase).

We have “New Flash Components every week!“

At the same time, I’m sure any reader of my blog has heard about Adobe Flash. If you didn’t, please stop reading, as this blog isn’t for you. Otherwise, carry on. :-)

The extension of a source file generated by Flash, is .fla. Most of you are familiar with .swf or .as (ActionScript) files.

So the name is a combination of both fla+bell. It’s quite a good name actually, and it’s very appropriate for our business model. On Flabell, we sell a new Flash Component every week, at half the price or less. When the bell rings, the Flash Component isn’t on sale anymore. You can still purchase it, but you’ll purchase it with no discount.