Chris ArmstrongIt’s Niice’s 10th birthday today! They grow up so darn fast…
We couldn’t decide between facepainting or ice skating… so instead we celebrated by launching Niice Docs on Product Hunt https://www.producthunt.com/posts/niice-docs
10 years feels like a good time to thank some folks who were instrumental in helping get the Niice ball rolling, even if it was only a nudge:
@danmall was the first person I showed a mockup of Niice to, and the first person to say “that looks cool, you should build that”
@[email protected] was the person who took my basic prototype and actually made it work, and did the lion’s share of development for the first few years.
When we launched the first version (one week after my call with Dan), @elliotjaystocks tweeted about it and gave us our first big boost (back when going viral was still a good thing). Traffic started snowballing from there, and we started to get featured by the likes of
@[email protected]
@[email protected]
When I told Jon Gold about the traffic we were getting, he recommended putting ads on it.
I shared an office with @andymcmillan at the time, and he encouraged me to reach out to the likes of Campaign Monitor & Mailchimp for “sponsorship”.
@buzz was heading up design at Campaign Monitor then, and liked what we were doing, so very kindly sponsored us for several months (despite a miniscule clickthrough rate). Mailchimp, Squarespace and others did the same.
At the time, I was still consulting for a couple of startups in Dublin, and still exploring lots of different business ideas... including, randomly, an app to help farmers track cattle (even though I know nothing about farming).
@paulca was the one who told me to wise up and focus on Niice, since it already had momentum, was bringing in revenue, and was actually in a space I was interested in.
I didn’t like the idea of building an advertising business, so set out to figure out what we could build that users would pay for directly. @[email protected] was the first to mention the problem of asset management, though it would be a few years before I would understand and tackle that problem.
Andrew Fulton helped with all that initial research, and figured out a pricing model (along with many MANY other things).
We built a basic moodboarding tool, and waited to see if anyone would actually give us real money.
@markjohnson was our first paying customer (we didn’t know each other then, but he’s now a great friend). I have no idea what he thought he was paying for.
Folks were incredibly generous with their time and insights. Some, like @[email protected] and @[email protected], became long-term advisors, hoping for nothing in return except to see us do well.
We started to gain customers who could see our potential better than we could. Including:
- Chris Hardtman @ Time (now @ NBCU)
- Forest Young @ Wolff Ollins (now @ Rivian), and
- Blake Robertson @ Playstation (who trusted us with a larger contract that enabled us to start growing the team)
I’ve been so fortunate with our team, especially the veterans:
Emma Rose, @ThePaulMcBride and @williamipark have been coming up with better ideas than me for 5+ years now.
Emma Rose, @ThePaulMcBride and @williamipark have been coming up with better ideas than me for 5+ years now.
I’ve lost count of the folks who have helped in various ways in the last 10 years: https://twitter.com/itsdavidhughes, @leckie, @petermcreaper, https://twitter.com/colinyoung87, https://twitter.com/jordanmoore, https://twitter.com/davidjrice, @tosbourn, https://Twitter.com/aexmo, https://twitter.com/fehler, @shiflett, @kevinsharon, @Szlwzl, https://twitter.com/hishellywilson, @BijouType & many others... whether it was feedback, code, encouragement, advice & more.
When I started my own business, all I wanted to do was make cool stuff with talented, passionate people... and I got my wish 😊 Here’s to the next decade!
Tim Brown@armstrong Cheers, Chris! Loved reading your story in this thread.
Andy McMillan@armstrong Congratulations, Chris! Really loved getting to share an office with you the last few months I was in Belfast. Hope you'll come visit sometime!! 🙌