Building Phaxio has been an awesome experience for us.  Our goal was, and continues to be, to build an API platform that would have developers sending faxes in minutes. Phaxio isn't the first company that Josh and I worked on but it has taught us some amazing lessons that I'd like to share:

1. Value Your Work.

If you’re the typical developer, you may not think that your site is as cool or sexy as the next guy’s. But, if you’re building something of value and something that people want, then people will pay. It’s not your necessary to make them pay through the nose, but people don’t mind paying for something that solves their issue and makes their life easier. If you’re working hard to give that to them, it’s only fair that you get paid. 

2. Develop Something for Developers.

Developers are the best users, hands down. Normal people don’t understand web and software development. (If you’ve ever designed a website for a friend, you know what I mean.) Normal people don’t understand that you don’t just “put up a new feature” ot “put a 200 field form up.” Hell, normal people don’t understand why you might need a company like Phaxio. “Can’t you just tell my website to send the fax?” 

Sound of you smacking client 

But developers know where you’re coming from. Developers understand that releasing new features takes time in development and testing. And, developers are often willing to provide helpful advic, criticisms and, support. We’ve even been offered additional servers, funding, jobs and workspace.

3. You Worry Too Much.

We started letting people use Phaxio a while ago without much thought. After all, Phaxio was just something that we developed for *us *to use. But, when the phone started ringing with developers that had the same problem, we wanted to give them access to a product that would save them hours of time. We didn’t want to worry about complicated pricing and building out features. We released Phaxio “as is,” and people were fine with it. (Of course we’ve been building it out since then.)

4. Post Your Phone Number.

We always put our phone number on our sites. We like when people call and ask us question about Phaxio because it puts a voice with a name. Sure, we’re always happy when you recharge your Phaxio account, but we really like it when you let us know what you’re working on and how you’ve implemented Phaxio.

Having a phone number also gives a sense of accountability to Phaxio. To this day, if you call us, we will answer (exception of late Friday-Sunday Morning). If we’re on with someone else, expect a call back.