On 600 signups

Today we’re on track to whiz by the 600 accounts mark. This is by far faster than we were expecting, with the low-key launch that we’d planned. Imagine: at least 600 people have come to our site, skimmed our copy, clicked the big old pink trial button, chosen a plan, and filled out the forms. That’s a lot of accumulated time and attention.

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.