Happy 10th Anniversary Homestead!
We just hit a big milestone here at Homestead: 10 years in business! Technically, we didn't launch the first version of Homestead until January 1998, but we use October 1st as our official birthday because it lines up with the anniversary of the original company, KartoffelSoft. I started KartoffelSoft on October 1st, 1994, so it's the 13th anniversary of our company if you trace it back to the very beginning. It's amazing how far things can progress once they gain a momentum of their own.
KartoffelSoft was an educational software company that paid the bills by "bootstrapping" (read: doing anything that was legal for money) while we tried to invent great software that would free us from the indentured servitude of technical consulting. All these years later we've built something quite different than what we set out to do, but in many ways it is much more exciting and bigger than our original dreams.
Maybe there is a lesson there for aspiring entrepreneurs? You rarely recognize the true "big idea" at the beginning, but if you don't start somewhere you are guaranteed to get nowhere.
Happy Birthday Homestead. A sincere "thank you" to our hundreds of employees and millions of customers who have been a part of our journey so far!
--jsk
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUSTIN from Smallbiztechnology.com!!!
Posted by: Ramon Ray | October 05, 2007 at 05:12 AM
Congratulations, Justin, from The Journal Blog! Here's to your next 10 years.
Posted by: Dawn Rivers Baker | October 09, 2007 at 06:00 AM
Hi...I have been a Homestead member since 2000. I LOVE Homestead! However, I am pretty blue about blogs and other items. So, when is Homestead going to add a full feature blog? I mean I know we can add rss feed, but it's not the same. I see you use Typepad, but it's important that blogger comments, link back to our domain and not typepad, for ranking. What about a forum to add on? I really need one. Justin, I actually have a LOT of ideas floating around in my head for Homestead. I would love to talk to you. I don't know if you are available to talk to. I apologize for posting this here, but I was hoping you would get to read this before your other emails. God Bless!
Angie
Posted by: Angie | November 08, 2007 at 10:36 PM
Hi Justin, I would like to thank you and the team for establishing homestead.com for such a long time. I still remember at that time, Homestead.com offered a free service for website building.My first website ever was hosted here. It was YusCapoeira.homestead.com. It was homestead first who had the drag n drop website building tools, followed by geocities as i remembered.
Thanks to you guys, i now have more knowledge in webs authoring. I really really appreciate what you guys had done before.
Thanks.
Posted by: yusri | November 12, 2007 at 09:14 AM
A blog and a forum option...that's what I need too. I use Blogger and have used Typepad, but I'd love to see Homestead add these options for us. That would rock. Happy Tenth!!!!
Posted by: Sherry | November 27, 2007 at 07:27 AM
Wow this is very inspiring as i have just started a business and am still bootstrapping. I hope i can say the same 10 years from now and it gives me the courage to keep going.
Posted by: Jabali | January 26, 2008 at 04:14 AM
Hello All,
Homestead rules ! I have been able to make over 20 web sites like http://www.floridaflatfeemlsfsbo.com
And make money with flat fee mls and do not have to go to work ! Thanks Homestead !
Posted by: Paul Gioffre | February 23, 2008 at 01:55 AM