roobasoft v2.0: roobasoft is now rocket
October 1st, 2009
Short story
I’ve co-founded a new company, rocket, with the designer I worked with on Concentrate. Over the next month or so all roobasoft products will be transitioned over to rocket and will be sold through rocket’s online store. This is mostly a name change. I’ll still be the man doing the development and support, but now I’ll also have Dave helping to make things prettier and more user friendly.
More details
Shortly after hiring Dave to work on Concentrate I asked him if he was interested in partnering up in some way. At the time he was working full-time-ish for a startup with potential to be a big deal, so although he was interested, the timing wasn’t right.
4.5 or so months later and the timing was better, so we decided to talk through it. We ended up meeting at least once a week for lunch for a good month or so talking through details. Then in early September we met with an accountant and worked through business details. At this point it really started to take shape. Finally, on September 22nd, 2009, the secretary of the state of Idaho stamped our articles of incorporation and made it official, we were business partners. We’ve now got a fancy website, all sorts of official documents, a bank account and two names (our official company name is Made By Rocket, Inc., but we have a legally assumed business name of rocket).
Why?
- Our skills are complementary. I now have access to a designer without having to worry about hours spent, and Dave has access to a programmer without having to worry about hours spent.
- We worked well together. Regardless of how we did it, it was clear we’d be working together in the future. So partnering up seemed like a solid choice.
- Two is better than one. We’re both excited to have each other to bounce ideas off of, help keep each other on track and to help make better business decisions (or at least make sure we talk through things first).
How?
I’m guessing some of you are interested in how things are structured, so here’s a short explanation:
roobasoft, LLC will still exist and will remain 100% owned by my wife and I. All existing roobasoft apps will remain owned by roobasoft. roobasoft will license the rights to sell the apps to Made By Rocket, Inc. (an S-corp). rocket is co-owned 50/50 by Dave and I. That’s it. It’s really all a bit simpler than we thought and probably simpler than it sounds. Feel free to shoot me an email if you have any questions or want to know more, I’m happy to provide more details.
That’s it. So roobasoft still exists, but it won’t be publicly active in a month or so. Our plan is to put a page up on roobasoft.com explaining it’s now rocket and pointing to madebyrocket.com. However, I do plan to keep this blog and will probably even continue to post things here. We’ll see.

