But you know what? I don’t care.

To tell the truth, I couldn’t give a flying fig about signup numbers. Or maybe I could, I don’t really like figs.

Signup numbers mean nothing. They’re not just a poor target, they’re a false target. Signups aren’t the same as customers. Not even the same as potential customers. Signups aren’t even necessarily human.

We’re in this to build a sustainable business: to make truly great software, to help people add a little joy back to their daily business, and to make a living doing it.

We’re not building a tasty startup snack for Google to devour, digest, and defecate.

Our goal is to have a handful of very happy customers, not a legion of barely interested user accounts.

For us, the freckle experience has to be quality end-to-end or we might as well not bother. We won’t sacrifice that for popularity.

And if popularity comes to us anyway, we’re going to look away and resist it unless it can be used to further our goals for our product, our business, and for our customers.

The night before launch
And all through the office
Keyboards were heard
Seeking rhymes for “office”
Office? Office! There’s naught a word
… that rhymes with “office”

Maybe not. There goes the attempt at pre-launch poetry.

Or… does it? When in doubt, haiku—that’s what I always say.

Preparing for launch
Home stretch can’t stretch any more
Hooray! Sleepless night

Actually, we’ve beaten our ticket lists into submission, and as for that sleepless night, well, that’s not really the kind of “startup” we are. In fact, we’re not a startup at all.

This seems like a great opportunity to discuss what we are.

And principally, we are not a startup. We may be making a product, which may be starting out (or up, if you must), but that does not a startup make.

Instead, we’re the key peeps in two happy, tiny, successful consulting companies (slash7 and abloom) who are working together on a product—the kind of thing we need to use every day in our consulting gigs.

We’re powered by passion! And Red Bull! We’re funded by our own enthusiasm! Not with venture capital.

Our focus is on creating a small, sustainable business. We’re not looking for mega launch day press (in fact, we’re hoping to not get mega launch day press, yikes). We’re not interested in flashy parties or getting on TechCrunch.

We’re interested in helping to make your day-to-day experience more enjoyable. We want to make great software that makes people happy. There’s just not enough of that to go around.

Your freckle team is hard at work, burning the proverbial midnight oil! We use Campfire to stay in touch, talking about all the sorts of really important things you’d think we’d be talking about just a scant two days before freckle’s world premiere.

The secret’s out! Our next groundbreaking product: definitely a social network for clumsy people.

The corners? Rounded.