June 2016 EmbroideryWare went into a commercial phase. Many have wished me well, others felt EmbroideryWare should remain free.
Going commercial was a hard decision for me. I wanted to see if the program had any real value. If users were willing to pay for it, it must be pretty good. Also I was loosing interest in developing it for free. I thought if I charged for it, and actually got people to buy it, I would be more motivated to work on it.
If you do a search for EmbroideryWare online you will find that a lot of the META tags under the search still say something like “Free Embroidery Digitizing Software for the DIY user.” The META tags have been changed but the search engines have not updated them yet. So it just looks silly when the program is no longer free.
Web traffic
WordPress will show you statistics on how many views your website has had, and various other statistics. Checking out the statistics is like watching the stock market. One days up and another is down. There seems to be no rime or reason to the chaotic behavior.
It is hard to predict what is working and not working with the product, with no real marketing data. I have read a lot of blogs on how to create interest in your product. One method was to send out emails to keep people engaged in what you are offering them. It’s a fine line between engagement and spam. How do you know.
Suggestion Box
I have a suggestion box in the forum of this website. I have got great feedback. I am currently working a lot of the things mentioned in the suggestion box. One of the items already implemented is the ability to import SVG files. This feature is so far my favorite. I use it all the time to create cool embroidery.
Other things I am working on are keyboard shortcuts, rulers, mm, cm, inch grids.
The last feature I would like to mention is the “ctrl” button snapping function. When the “ctrl” button is pressed it will snap to vertical and horizontal points of already drawn objects.
These new features are in version 2.1.2.
Wrap up
I hope you come back often to see what is going on with EmbroideryWare. Is has been an interesting journey for me so far. I am looking forward to more good things happening with the program.
Happy Stitching!
Jim
Hi Jim,
first I think your software is awesome, I’ve spent days looking for a free alternative to all the commercial apps. Until I almost gave up and started to consider buying one. Then yours came up from somewhere deep inside of google. And I really liked it from the beginning. Now I’m talking about the free version of the software. All the features it had were good enough for what I was looking for to do. So if at all possible, please reconsider not having the free version at all. I believe even without all the super feautures of the new releases it’ll still bring you users, who after they get to the point of needing the new features will upgrade. So please leave v1 available. For feature development it might be worth looking into crowdfunding for some of the new features. Even if not succesfull you get some free publicity from it.
All the best, wish you great success
Regards
Lubosh
Lubosh,
Thanks for your comment. I am very pleased that EmbroideryWare is working for you. EmbroideryWare has evolved so much since the free versions, going back is really not an option anymore. Generally in software development you are constantly trying to improve and fix versions that have already been released. My efforts must remain on evolving the current product in order to provide the best product I can to my customers.
The free trial has all the capabilities of the paid version. Actually it is the same program but setup as a trail. The trial period is for four weeks. This should give most people amble time to make a new design and stitch it out.
After the trial is over the program can be still used to create designs and save them, just DST output is disabled.
I think you will find that less than $20 dollars is a really reasonable price for a program with all it’s capabilities. I did a comparison to other programs out there and found it to be a fraction of the price of others.
Jim
Hi Jim, I tried your software for just 3 days and I knew I have to buy. Compare with others softwares on the market your price is incredible, we wont find any software that does what yours do, for thatprice. I really apppreciate how fast you answer my question, that also help me decide to buy it, because I knew I will have good support. Please continue working on it and dont forget about people like me that cannot afford expenses software. The best for you.
Marielena,
Thank you for your nice comments. Thanks for buying!
I am having a great time developing this product and comments like your make it worth it.
Happy stitching!