Developers’ corner: talking with Rogue Amoeba

Posted by Dennis Sellers Jun 5, 2006 at 5:27am

By Alf

(This is part two of our new series: “Developers’ corner” —subtitled “Making a living as a software developer. An interview with…”— by Alfonso Tejedor Escobar (better known simply as “Alf”). He’s content manager of FAQ-Mac, a Spanish Mac Web site and is an occasional contributor to “Macsimum News.”) This week Alf interviews Paul Kafasis (pictured), CEO of Rogue Amoeba.

Alf: What’s the main difference between the founding Rogue Amoeba in 2002 and Rogue Amoeba today?

Paul Kafasis: The biggest difference is definitely our scope. When we founded Rogue Amoeba, we had a single product (Audio Hijack) and just the three founders – myself, Quentin Carnicelli, and Alex Lagutin. At the time, we knew we had an interesting product, but that was about it. Quentin and I were attending college, and Alex was working at another job. Rogue Amoeba began as a hobby more than anything else.

In about three and a half years since, we’ve created 4 additional products, released almost one hundred updates and several major revisions, and seen our sales increase dramatically. We’re all now working for Rogue Amoeba full-time, and we have two full-time employees. We’ve grown from three guys tinkering in their spare time to a full-fledged company.

Alf: For quite a long time, you split your time between writing software revisions, studying, working as a system administrator and marketing Rogue. How did you survive?

Paul Kafasis: I think the simple answer to the question “How did you survive?” is “On very little sleep”. As you correctly noted, when Rogue Amoeba started, I was still studying Computer Engineering at Tufts University. In addition, I worked two part time jobs there, doing system administration. I wasn’t personally writing code, but I was involved in the development process, as well as handling support and marketing. I really did get by on very little sleep, and it definitely didn’t help my GPA (Grade Point Average). In the beginning, Rogue Amoeba was a very small part of my time, but it quickly grew to take more and more time. It’s great to be able to dedicate all of my work time to the company now.

Alf: Is Rogue Amoeba now your full time job?

Paul Kafasis: Yes, since graduating in 2004, I’ve been working full-time at Rogue Amoeba. All three founders (myself, Quentin, and Alex) work full-time, and we have for several years now. It is a full-time job, but it’s one we think is a lot of fun.

Alf: How is it to run a company with a partner that lives in Russia? How do you meet?

Paul Kafasis: It doesn’t really affect much, as far as day-to-day operations go. Alex telecommutes, and we handle standard business on IRC (Internet Relay Chat).

Alf: How do you decide on new products or enhancements to existing apps?

Paul Kafasis: Because we’re a small company with limited resources, we can’t afford to spend much time on a product that doesn’t provide a good return. It’s critically important for us to keep our ear to the ground and our biggest source of inspiration is our own customers. As far as enhancements and new features go, we generally watch how our customers use the software and listen to what they ask for from us.

As an aside, it’s important to know how to interpret this sort of feedback as a developer. Customers will often say “I want you to implement X”, but there’s much more to it. What is the user really trying to accomplish? Is there a better way to get that done? We strive to find out what a user’s ultimate goal is and then determine the best way to allow him to do it.

As far as new products, we generally look at where there are gaps in the market that we can fill, but here again we also listen to our customers. Nicecast was an idea we’d had brewing for a long time, a way to make internet broadcasting simple enough for anyone. Airfoil, however, came about due to demand from customers of our other products. In that case People saw what we could do with our Audio Hijack technology, as far as pulling in audio from any application, and made a very logical leap to using that technology to send any audio to the AirPort Express.

Alf: Do people tell you your apps are cheap? How do you fix a price point for your apps?

Paul Kafasis: People sometimes say that our software is priced too inexpensively, and a few people occasionally say that it’s too expensive. We tread a fine line there, hopefully slightly on the inexpensive side. We’d prefer to have twenty $20 sales over five $80 sales, because it helps us increase word of mouth.

As far as how we fix a price point, it’s a very complex scientific process. We take a look at things like the functionality the product provides, how valuable we believe it is, who the potential customers are, and what the costs is to us for development and support. Once we’ve taken all that into consideration, we pull a number out of thin air, and hope people will buy it.

Alf: How would you define Rogue Amoeba? Where does the “bad attitude” come from?

Paul Kafasis: Truth be told, Rogue Amoeba’s “bad attitude” is all bluster. We do make Good Software, but the Bad Attitude is pretty much confined to our mascot Ammo.

Alf: No one has ever offered to buy Rogue Amoeba? Wouldn’t you like to enjoy the resources of a bigger company?

Paul Kafasis: Actually, at the end of 2005 we were approached by a company looking to acquire us. We spoke to them at length, but at the end of the day, it
didn’t work out. The resources of a bigger company might be nice, namely the deep pockets that would enable us to hire more programmers. However, with an acquisition we’d lose the ultimate control we have as far as the company and product development goes, and that’s something we want to retain. If the right offer came along, we’d consider it, but for now we have no plans to attempt to sell the company. We love what we do, and we want to continue doing it for years to come.

Alf: The DRM paranoia can put one of your apps (NiceCast) in risk … as well as a whole industry of Internet broadcasters. Is this going anywhere, or it will it fall apart?

Paul Kafasis: It looks like you’ve been reading our blog, including my recent post (http://www.rogueamoeba.com/utm/posts/News/how-nicecast-dies-2006-04-30-20-30). The specific issue here is that a bill could force broadcasters to use DRM in their broadcasts, and thus force us to either add DRM to Nicecast or kill the product off. We can’t really tell where this will go just yet, time will tell. We’re obviously hopeful that this portion of the bill will be removed or rewritten.

Alf: If Macs can run Windows, will Rogue Amoeba run to Windows too?

Paul Kafasis: I don’t see why we would, no. New ICBMs (Intel Chip Based Macs) can now run Windows, optionally but will most users on Apple hardware be running Windows? I’d say that’s very unlikely. We’ve built our software on the Mac first, and the Mac only, and we have no plans to abandon the Mac for Windows. If more people buy a Mac because it can run Windows, some of them will certainly they realize how great OS X is. That can only help us as more potential customers come to the OS X platform.

Alf: Can a company grow being Mac only?

Paul Kafasis: We certainly think so – we have thus far. The Mac may be a niche market, but it still has millions of users running OS X. There seems to be a culture of purchasing additional software on the Mac that just isn’t as evident on the Windows platform. As well, it’s far more likely that competition exists or will exist on the Windows platform, in the form of rival products or even freeware with some of the same functionality. So while there may be ten or even twenty times as many people running Windows, the difference in the size of the actual markets on each platform appears to be much smaller.

Alf: How has the Intel transition been for Rogue Amoeba?

Paul Kafasis: Overall, the transition has been relatively painless. We were fortunate in that we were able to rent an Intel Chip Based Mac (ICBM) from Apple right after WWDC in 2005, and then received an Intel iMac to replace it at the beginning of this year. Quentin and Alex did a fantastic job developing on those machines and getting us ready, despite the fact that Apple released the new ICBMs a bit earlier than was expected. Shortly after MacWorld, we had public betas and then final versions, as the new hardware started to proliferate. The biggest issue was waiting for minor bits of code from third parties to be updated.

This wasn’t work that really bought us anything in particular, except that our software stays current on the latest hardware. We’re hopeful, however, that the Intel switch will result in more potential customers.

Alf: Is the future brighter on the Intel side of the street? Do you feel Apple is growing its market share?

Paul Kafasis: I think it’s too early to tell right now. It certainly hasn’t hurt Apple too much – most of the mid-level and major developers have ported their applications over already, or are in the process of doing so. The biggest potential problem looks to be with applications like Photoshop, important applications that may not be ported for some time. Without Photoshop running natively on the latest hardware, some professional users will wait to buy a new Mac, and it’s possible they’ll instead switch to the PC.

Overall, however, I think the transition will be a positive thing. With the release of Boot Camp and its upcoming inclusion in OS X 10.5, the Mac is now a viable option for just about everyone. People should be less afraid of purchasing a Mac when they know they can fall back to Windows if required. Hopefully, that will lead to more people discovering the joys of OS X.

Alf: Would Rogue Amoeba be the same if the Internet didn’t exist? Have you considered “boxing” your apps?

Paul Kafasis: I would say Rogue Amoeba couldn’t even exist without the Internet. Twenty years ago, no one could have imagined starting a company with employees routinely working from home, with meetings occurring largely online, with a product being delivered right to users at the click of a button. Aside from the obvious idea that without the Internet as we know it our products wouldn’t have the same impact, the fact is that it enabled an entirely new way to start and run a business.

The internet has also made word of mouth the most powerful marketing tool we have. Before the internet, getting even a few hundred people to check out a product would have taken days or even weeks, and thousands of dollars. In 2006, a customer might blog about our software, describing how he’s using it or recommending it. From one simple post, hundreds or even thousands of people might come check us out, with no cost to us.

As far as boxing our software, it is certainly something we’ve examined. However, retail margins are just awful. An ISV (Independent Software Vendor) would be lucky to get 35 percent on an average retail software sale, and it could be well be less. Between paying for production costs, shipping, middlemen, and shelf fees (paying a percentage to the Apple stores just to get on the shelves), it’s expensive in terms of both money and effort. For now, we’re sticking to download-only sales.

Alf: How did you get into Ammo merchandising? Do you really sell it?

Paul Kafasis: Absolutely, we’ve sent plush Ammo toys to customers around the globe. As for how we got in to it, it was largely on a whim, though it actually took many months to finally get to the final product. This was a fun side project that I came up with and worked on, finding someone to create the product and working with them to get it right. It’s a nice little promotional tool, and people really seem to like them, particularly the hang tag that comes with it. We’ve heard of people giving them to their young kids, which strikes me as odd. I wouldn’t think people would give their children an angry, gun-toting amoeba as a toy, but they do.

Alf: I see you have a “corporate” blog. What’s it’s function? Is it important?

Paul Kafasis: “Under The Microscope,” our corporate weblog, is one of many tools we use to interact with our customers. We use it to post news about the company, links to articles we think are interesting or relevant, and all sorts of random and fun things as well. Is it important? It’s important as a way for our customers to get to know us a bit, and realize we’re just a small company trying to do big things. It’s not as important as other things we do, certainly, but it’s a good way to show our customers some inside information on Rogue Amoeba and have a bit of fun.

Alf: How do you get feedback from your clients?

Paul Kafasis: We hear from our customers in many ways, from our weblog and forums to trade shows where we exhibit. The best way we collect feedback, however, is definitely via our support email. By watching trends across hundreds of emails, we can notice when bugs are occurring as well as finding out what customers are doing and what they want to do.

Alf: What will be the next “killer” app from Rogue? Will you move away from audio?

Paul Kafasis: We actually have four new applications in various stages of development right now, all due out within the next twelve to eighteen months. These four new applications are at various stages of development, and I can’t comment too much on them. One of them, dubbed Fission, will be entering beta testing sometime this month and we hope to release the 1.0 this summer. Without giving away too much, Fission compliments Audio Hijack and Audio Hijack Pro very nicely.

As far as the future in general, we have no plans to move away from our focus audio. Our experience and reputation in digital audio has helped us grow, and we hope to continue to capitalize on that and provide users with quality audio software.

Alf: What do you expect from the Leopard that’s coming -besides virtualization?

Paul Kafasis: I talked this one over with Quentin, and he had some interesting thoughts. He’s expecting more of Mac OS to adopt the iLife-style windows, as well as Xcode with an integrated Interface Builder. We both agree that Spotlight and Automator will be updated with significant backend improvements. And of course, there’s the eternal hope for a new Finder.

It’s interesting, the first several versions of OS X were enormous updates, featuring major bug fixes, and speed improvements. I’d say that was true through OS X 10.3. I just wasn’t terribly excited about OS X 10.4, and it took some time to update. I have a feeling OS X 10.5 will be somewhat similar. But perhaps Apple will have a few must-have improvements. We’ll know soon enough.

Alf: What would you tell to a Mac developer that is about to start developing?

Paul Kafasis: It’s difficult to pick just one thing. I’ve counseled several different people who were just getting started, and there are all sorts of tips that I hope proved useful. One of the biggest things we stress at Rogue Amoeba is something from a book called The Cluetrain Manifesto, and that’s the idea that “The market is a conversation”. What we take that to mean is that it’s vital to talk to your customers about anything and everything related to your products. Listen to what they need and what they want, and build off of that.

We also had a post a couple years back on our site that I often point people to (http://www.rogueamoeba.com/utm/posts/Article/Rogue_Amoeba_s_Good_Ideas-2003-07-15-10-00), detailing a few ideals we strive to uphold.

Perhaps the single most important thing to understand, however, is that there’s a lot more to developing consumer software than just programming. Without decent code, of course, an application is nothing. But without decent presentation – things like a good website, a well-written manual, and responsive support, it would be very difficult for an application to really take off.

So there you go, a few tips to help get started. But talk to more people and absorb as much information as possible from people who’ve been there. There’s no substitute for personal experience, but listening to those who’ve gone before you is certain to help.

Alf: Thank you very much for your time and patience.

Paul Kafasis: Thanks for having me!

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