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Bitwise Interviews Michael J. Leaver

2BrightSparks company news and announcements
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mike
2BrightSparks Staff
2BrightSparks Staff
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Joined: Thu May 06, 2004 5:02 am

Bitwise Interviews Michael J. Leaver

Post by mike »

The Secret of Our Success

Discover how, in just three years, 2BrightSparks has grown into a successful software company. What's the secret of our success? Huw Collingbourne tries to find out as he speaks to the man who started it all, Michael J Leaver?

"HC: What's the story behind 2BrightSparks? When, how and why did you create the company?

MJL: Around three years ago (2003) I was working in a software development business that produced resource management software for hospitals and other healthcare providers. Everything was written in Delphi 5 and I'd been using Delphi since version 3. One problem I had was keeping local backups of the source code and other documents. There were freeware backup programs available at the time, and of course you could easily write a batch file and use xcopy; but being a typical developer (i.e. I wanted things done my way) I decided it would only take a few hours to cobble something together, and so wrote the first version of SyncBack.

I made it available on my personal website and was surprised to find out other people thought it was worth using. It remained free but I accepted any and all donations via PayPal. Mike de Sousa, now a director at 2BrightSparks, was the first person to make a donation and we started chatting via email. I soon discovered Mike could do many things developers like myself can't, e.g. create graphics, design web sites and interfaces, produce help files, etc., so we decided to start 2BrightSparks but still keep everything freeware.

Later I received another donation from Richard Gascoigne, also now a director at 2BrightSparks, who lives just a few minutes walk from me, so we met up, had a beer, and talked about SyncBack. Richard was an experienced businessman who'd worked in many software companies, large and small. It was Richard who convinced Mike and myself to turn it into a real business (December 2004) and produce a version of SyncBack freeware for sale, which is now called SyncBackSE. I quit my job (not an easy decision as I had no other income) and SyncBackSE went on sale in February 2005. We currently have five employees, soon to be six."

Bitwise presents the full article at:

http://www.bitwisemag.com/2/Selling-You ... %2c57.html

If you come across reviews or features about SyncBack/SE, FindOnClick, UndeleteOnClick, or our OnClick freeware programs, either on the Internet or in magazines, we'd very much appreciate hearing about them. Please contact us at:

http://www.2brightsparks.com/contact.html
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