Hello! Welcome to the AMPS Software blog, this is an introductory post to accompany the launch of the blog.
What is AMPS Software?
AMPS Software is a 2-man company that makes software (namely websites & mobile apps). We aim to make software that is high-quality, innovative, secure, and human-friendly (i.e. prioritizing things like privacy) while being affordable for our customers.
Who is AMPS Software?
AMPS Software is run by its co-founders, Andrew Mitchell and Pat Stucker. Each has their specialized skills, but responsibilities are shared between them and they both do their part to ensure the company's success and keep their customers happy. We are proudly based in the Cincinnati, Ohio region.
Andrew Mitchell
Andrew leads the design and development of software. Although his programming skills are primarily self-taught, he holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from Wright State University.
Pat(rick) Stucker
Pat leads marketing, sales, and customer support. He holds a bachelor's degree in business management from The Ohio State University.
The AMPS Software Manifesto (aka Our Values)
We have a few core company values. You could call this our company manifesto, we value these things above all else, including profits.
Quality
We believe strongly in creating high-quality software products. In the software world, this means making things that are lightweight, performant, secure, non-invasive, and user-friendly.
Innovation
We aim to release products with a purpose. We aren't here to make quick profits by doing copycat clones of other products. We aim for our products to stand out by having innovative features and designs, outstanding user experience, and being accessible to as many users as possible.
Secure
Our aim is to provide the highest levels of practical security possible. We won't cut corners to save a few pennies here.
Human Friendliness
We think of our customers as people and not just numbers on a spreadsheet. We are here to make great products that while profitable - are not excessively so. We won't cut corners or sell out our customers just to make a little bit more money. This means things like valuing user privacy. We collect as little user data as possible, and what we do collect we aim to keep to ourselves, transmitted and stored securely. This is why our software follows non-ad-based monetization models - it's nearly impossible to implement advertisement-based monetization without selling advertisers user data - so we cut ads out completely. Instead, our users pay us directly for access to our software, and in return, we have no need or desire to sell user data.
Affordability
Software shouldn't be prohibitively expensive. The reasons why modern software prices are so high even though it's easier than ever to write it and the hardware underlying has never been as capable and quick as it is now are many. There are a few primary ones that stand out: inefficiency, too much abstraction, and feature overload.
Inefficiency means many things here: companies utilize poor or outdated tech stacks that hinder rather than aid in their development; companies hire many developers with a varying range of skills and fill their schedules with meetings, training, and other things - leaving little time for actually working. Instead, a small set of developers that are competent in the technologies being used would be just as if not more productive at a much lower overall cost (Twitter could be a good case study here, Elon trimmed much of its development team and yet it continued to operate without many code or availability issues).
Too much abstraction refers to how software is written. Many companies utilize too many technologies in what should be a simple project. This results in having more developers than you otherwise would need to maintain all these layers. We keep our software solutions simple and costs low.
Feature overload happens over time. Often when an application is first shipped, it comes with a few standout features and a reasonable price. As an application ages, the developer behind it will decide they need more features to stand out from the competition, so rather than competing on price and quality, they shove features that appeal to less and less of the user base. We aim to maintain affordable products without continually adding bells and whistles.
Transparency
We aim to be as transparent as possible. We plan to open source pieces of our code where it makes sense. We will also post company/product-related data on our website where and when it makes sense, as well as posting insights into the company on this blog. To wrap this all up neatly, let's be clear: as a completely independent and self-funded company, we aren't beholden to making profits for stockholders. Nor are we beholden to keep code, information, or data confidential at the request of investors/VCs that could otherwise be opened for transparency. We are a proudly Ohio, USA-based small independent company, 100% owned and funded by our two co-founders. This enables us to pursue our stated values, whereas most companies cannot, either because they are publicly traded (this means a legal obligation to pursue profits for shareholders), are backed by VCs (which have a similar aim of profit), or are backed by private investors who are usually pushing for profit. We intend to remain independent and self-funded so we can pursue our values.
Much more to come
We are just getting started, and have purposely kept this post short and sweet. We plan to publish more in-depth content in the future, feel free to bookmark our blog and check back for new posts!