Posts tagged ‘dribbble’

Let the games begin! Rich Thornett and I have been building Dribbble for what seems like years (oh wait, it has been that long). About a week ago, we quietly rolled back the curtain so the public could finally see what’s been happening in private beta. I’m pretty damned excited about this.

Firstly, what is Dribbble? From the FAQ:

Dribbble is show and tell for designers, developers and other creatives. Members share sneak peeks of their work as “shots” — small screenshots of the designs and applications they are working on. It’s also a place to talk design, give and receive feedback and iterate toward better work.

By posing the question, “What are you working on?“, Dribbble creates a 400 × 300 pixel window into the creative process that didn’t exist previously (many of you may remember Cameron Moll’s Screengrab Confab back in 2004, an early inspiration). A place to peek over the shoulder of those creating beautiful things, leaking works-in-progress or teasing with glimpses of unreleased projects. A place to discover new designers, illustrators, developers and other creatively-minded folks to give and receive feedback. And a place to iterate and play off the shots of others. What Rich and I have been actually creating is a community.

We’ve bootstrapped Dribbble 100%, working on it in our free time. I’ve been continuing the writing, speaking, client work, etc. that happens here at SimpleBits, while Rich is a full-time Ruby on Rails Developer at Cambridge-based PatientsLikeMe. I’m proud of what we’ve been able to create between the two of us, while juggling other responsibilities. Working on this with Rich has been one of the most exciting, challenging and enjoyable projects I’ve worked on to date, and I’m feeling very fortunate to have been able to collaborate with him right here in Salem (truly the next big web hub, yeah?)

I also couldn’t be happier with the path we’ve taken with developing Dribbble: a slow one. Building the community one member at time. Worrying about details. Iterating constantly. Listening to feedback. We’ve never been in a rush.

Quality has been one of our main priorities since opening up the beta some 9 months ago. It’s the reason Dribbble is still invitation only. Not because it’s an elite hangout, but that having the community draft new talent keeps the cat photos out (almost) and helps us scale the app as needed.

Much much more to write and talk about going forward. But for now, it’s great to have the court opened up to the public, and we’re looking forward to making the experience even better and growing the community. For now, get in there and check out some of the amazing things that people are working on. It’s truly inspiring.