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Dan Counsell – Who made website design easier with RapidWeaver under RealMac Software.

Leave a Comment / Founder, Story, Tech Story, web design / By

Web pages in the present situation are essential to inform about products, services, and business to the customers. As well, these are one of the sources of income for many. There are many options available to build webpages. While managing web pages are a somewhat complex task. Also, most of the tools needed coding knowledge to build the site. However, RapidWeaver made it easy and faster to design and manage the web pages. It is a web design app designed by Realmac Software. With this app, one can build a website that looks eye-catching and will be responsive web design at the same time.

The most amazing thing about RapidWeaver is that there is no need to write codes to build a website.  Mr. Dan Counsell is a person appreciable for the development of such a useful app under Realmac Software.  He founded the company in 2002. Presently he is the director of Realmac Software.

Realmac Software- Creator of RapidWeaver

It is an independent software firm located in Brighton in England. In 2002, Dan Counsell established the firm to simplify web design. After two years of establishment, Realmac released the template-based website editor. This website editor known as RapidWeaver becomes very popular in a short duration. Thereafter, the firm acquired one social media app called EventBox. As well, acquired Cosmic Machine in 2009. Recently in 2014, Realmac Software released the OS X app.

Just in a few months, another app of Realmac software called Clear got popularity. In fact, it ranked 12th in the list of The World’s Greatest Apps. Clear is a dedicated app for iOS and the list was announced by Business Insider.

Glimpse to Founder life

Dan Counsell is a founder of RealMac software and mastermind behind the creation of RapidWeaver. As well, under his guidance, the firm released several useful apps. Includes Clear, Ember, and Typed.

Dan Counsell
Image Source: appdesignvault.com

Education and Early Career

He studied Graphic Design and did an illustration course. During his education, he was not a studious student. In fact, Dan was one of those students who get bored during lectures. Dan dropped the college and fortunately got the job in London. His first job was as a photo retoucher. However, he left the job in five years. Counsell wanted to do something interesting and that’s the end with the establishment of RealMac. For that, he invested his time to study programming. Let’s see how he built the successful app development firm in a very short tenure.

How he set up RealMac Software?

Saying goodbye to the old job, Dan started RealMac as a side project. For that, he learned programming. His hard work paid as he managed to build and sell the first app of the firm. It was AquaMatic. Initially, only five copies of AquaMatic had been sold. However, the number of buyers increased day by day. Thereafter, he never stopped and released a dozen of apps one by one.

About RapidWeaver

It is a web design app built for Mac. One can build a fine website with the help of RapidWeaver. As well, web page management is as easy as arranging the folders with this app. Moreover, the app features a responsive web design that is the need of the present world. Most of the website owners find RapidWeaver efficient to manage their web pages. Though, they don’t understand coding at all.

Other Apps of the firm

After the release of Clear, the firm released a photo manipulation software known as Analog. Thereafter, another app called Ember was introduced in the market. It was for the management of the screenshot. As well, the firm released one more app called Typed.

Achievements of RealMac Software

The RapidWeaver app has simplified the web design and management process. Thus, many praised the simplicity of the app. As well, another app called Clear was in second place on the App Store of Apple. In fact, this app was listed as Top App in FierceDeveloper’s list. Also, FierceDeveloper chose RealMac Software as “2012 Rising Star of Mobile Development”.

Bottom Line

Since 2002, RealMac Software and its app became famous among consumers. Clear and RapidWeaver got a good response from users. In fact, the app RapidWeaver made web page creation and management easy. As well, adding subpages and managing beautiful web pages is possible in a simple manner with RapidWeaver. Considering the need for Responsive web design, RealMac Software made RapidWeaver compatible with this feature. Thus, making it more useful.

37signals

37Signals: Jason Fried’s Web Design Company that launched the first commercial product Basecamp!

Leave a Comment / Product Management, start-up, Story, Tech Story, web design / By

37Signals is a remote software firm, which is, later on, changed its name as a Basecamp. Earlier, it worked in the field of web design. However, Basecamp shifted its focus towards web application development since 2004. Ruby on Rails, Basecamp, Campfire are the best-known products of the company. It is based in Chicago, Illinois and three web designers set up the firm back in 1999.

Jason Fried is one of the founders, presently serving as the CEO of 37Signals (Basecamp). Under his policies, the firm continued to build miscellaneous web-based productivity tools that match the requirements of the present era. Let’s see the journey of 37Signals, from web design company to web application development firm.

The Backstory of Foundation

It was a web design firm set up in 1999 by E. Kim, Jason Fried, and C. Segura. As a matter of fact, they named it after 37 radio telescope signals. Earlier, the firm worked for other several organizations to build and re-design their websites. The business was also running great and the company acquired lots of projects in a few months. But keeping track of all things got complicated as well, the team was somewhat disorganized. As a result, taken projects dragged on too long, miscommunication between team members increased, and things began to fall out of the track.

That time, Email was only medium for handling work, but it had limitations for long-running projects taken by the company. And so, founders realized that a better project supervision tool is a must to keep the track of all things. They searched several tools which can help them to organize the work to be done, communicate ideas as well as to share work with clients. Well, they found few, but those were complicated and hard to use.

Basecamp was born

After using several project management apps, the needs of owners didn’t fulfill. Thus, they opted to build a simple app on their platform. Soon, they started to use the tool for project administration with the clients. However, this tool showed results; projects ran better. As well, their clients appreciated the organization and improve communication. In fact, 37signals’ clients started asking about the software they were using for project managing.

That’s how the product of a 37Signals called Basecamp was born. Founders priced the software fairly and launched it in the market in 2004. 37signals adopted a new strategy in 2014, the company entirely focused on the flagship product. Also, renamed the company’s name from 37signals to Basecamp.

Basecamp boomed

37Signals’ first commercial product was Basecamp. After its launch, the Basecamp software used by many for project management. Churches, schools, consulting firms, publishers as well as governments started using Basecamp for its better project supervision. Thereafter, the firm launched several other applications in the market. Includes, Backpack, Campfire, Highrise, etc. Also, the web application Ruby on Rails, which was created for internal use of the company made public in 2004.

In 2014, Basecamp first hit the market, 15,000,000+ people have worked on a project with Basecamp. Since then every week, thousands of firms sign up to use Basecamp. As everything runs smoother with Basecamp, people like to use Basecamp for their project management. Basecamp enabled better handle on the business, in return, the teams become more self-sufficient. Also, Basecamp apps are available on various platforms including, iOS, Android, Mac, and PC, integrations.

Other Products of 37Signals

Apart from Basecamp, the company launched several other products in the market. In 2006, it launched an online chat platform called Campfire. However, it then merged into Basecamp 3. Thereafter, a free web application framework known as Ruby on Rails made open source in 2004.

Glimpse to Founder Life- Jason Fried

Jason shared a great contribution to set up 37signals in 1999. Also, he is the makes of Basecamp and other web-based tools of the company. He attended the University of Arizona to study Finance. Apart from that, he is Rework’s co-author. In addition, he is also a columnist at Inc. Magazine known as Getting Real. Where he published his articles monthly.

Presently, he is serving as the president of Basecamp, earlier known as 37Signals. Under his guidance, the company continued to build miscellaneous web-based productivity tools that match the requirements of the present era.

Bottom Line

The first commercial product of 37Signals, Basecamp is becoming popular amongst several firms that needed a better project management platform. In 2004, only about 45 clients were using Basecamp, which increased every year. Presently, more than 3.3 million peoples are using Basecamp for better project management. In fact, the number is rising day by day!