Some software products are built for a dream. Others are built for a need. definitely falls into the latter category. Bugfender Bugfender is a log storage service for application developers that collects everything that’s happening in the application, even if it doesn’t crash. So, devs can reproduce and resolve bugs more effectively and provide accurate customer support without needing to contact the user or take a look under the hood. The product solves the ‘but it works fine on my machine’ problem, whereby bugs surface in our applications but don’t appear on our own devices. It respects users’ privacy, it’s battery and network-efficient, and, crucially, it keeps logging even if the device is offline. The Nuts and Bolts of Bugfender is an SDK that can be added to our apps during development. When a user downloads our app, the device’s NSlog or Logcat files can be sent automatically to our servers. Bugfender The logs are stored in the cloud, with a web-based management tool to view them. This is really the core of the product: we built our web console with powerful filters so we can narrow our search down to very specific groups of devices when fixing problems. We can even focus on one individual user if the problem is limited to them. This is impossible with tools like Crashlytics and Instabug because they only gather information when there’s an exception or a crash. The Origin of Bugfender We built as an offshoot of our mobile design agency, which produced a range of apps from military-grade IoT to sports and healthcare. Bugfender Before we started Bugfender, the only way to fix bugs in our apps was to get physical access to an affected device or call an impacted user and ask them to describe the problem. However, the user base for our apps was typically spread across entire continents and comprised hundreds of different devices. Getting direct access to the problem was usually impractical, not to mention intrusive. So, we decided to build an internal remote logging tool that would feed the information straight to us. This wasn’t a play to create the next Facebook or Google. It was a response to the problems we faced on a daily basis as devs. The Growth of Bugfender Bugfender started out as a garage project. We were running code sprints on our own time so we wouldn’t have to dig into the company savings. But we soon realized this could be much more than an internal experiment. In fact, it could benefit the entire software industry. Since then, we’ve built Bugfender into a viable business with its own team and roadmap. We’ve secured a full range of customers all over the world, from indie and freelance developers to multinationals with dozens of devs. Our co-founder in March 2017, at a time when Bugfender’s revenue stood at $6,500 per month. That number has now more than trebled to half a million dollars on an annual recurring basis. did an interview with Indie Hackers Bootstrapping Seed and early-stage funding were booming when we launched Bugfender, and the software was extremely sexy due to the evolution of smartphone technology. Around the time Bugfender launched, we saw the launch of sophisticated features like mobile payments, fitness trackers, and high-quality cameras, all of which made crash reporting more important than ever. However, we decided to stay small rather than pursue the big money, primarily for lifestyle reasons. Both Bugfender and our parent company were already committed to remote, flexible working. We used early versions of today’s async technologies, we all worked our own hours, and we committed to maintaining a good work-life balance. So, after lengthy internal discussions, we decided to stay bootstrapped. While we wanted to create an amazingly successful project, we didn’t want to do so at the expense of our personal lives. Customer Support It was clear from the outset that customer support would be crucial to Bugfender. The product exists to provide a fast, clear, and constant flow of information. Our relationships with clients must reflect this. Right from the outset, we decided that engineers and designers—the people who create and maintain our product--would be the ones responding to customer questions. Even the Bugender CEO still handles some of the support by himself. He actively pings and prods customers into asking questions, suggesting things, and basically contacting us for anything they might need. What’s more, the devs write all articles and blog posts themselves (including this one). We retain a copywriter to proofread our material, as many of our team are not native English speakers, but the core content is always written by devs and framed by the issues that our users are reporting. By engaging with our customers directly, we’ve been able to understand what they need, what works and what doesn’t, what they love, and what frustrates them. A great deal of the changes we’ve made to Bugfender came directly from user feedback. Analytics tools can provide a certain level of insight, but direct customer feedback is even more beneficial. We’ve found that if the question is relevant and quick to answer, customers are always happy to answer you. And as a “small” bootstrapped company, we try to give the best support to our customers. Other software agencies spend fortunes on SEO to game the Google rankings, but we prioritize word of mouth and long-term loyalty. We might not be able to compete against big brands in certain areas, but we are proud of the customer support we provide, and our approach means we are more flexible and open to adapt the product to our customer needs. What’s next for us? Here are a few things we’ve got in the pipeline: Improve statistics to provide better insights to our customers about their app usage; Automatic network request logging; Integration with backend logging… …and any other feature that our customers request. Bugfender is a product shaped by requirement rather than aspiration, and it will continue to be so.
