We started selling Fog Bugs, our bug tracking software, and within the first few months, we were making around $5,000 a month, which was enough to sustain us.

Using a bug database is crucial for managing product development effectively, especially as your team grows.

It took us eight years to find success, which is normal in the startup world, and sometimes it can take even longer.

At Fog Creek, we were always concerned about running out of money, which made us very careful in our business decisions.

It took three years before we had a product that was actually used to solve problems, and during that time, many team members were exhausted and close to quitting.

We followed the steps in Steve Blank's book to figure out a repeatable business model, which took us about five years.

As late as the late 2000s, customers told us we weren't an enterprise company, which was a significant challenge for us.

When we realized our competitors were shipping faster, we shifted our approach to product development, setting ambitious goals like building 25 new features in one month to drive innovation and focus.

We had a beautiful growth graph, but we realized we were running a business with only a 5% margin, which isn't sustainable for a software company.