Stepping Up To The Plate

Hi, we’re Simple Focus, and we’re proud and excited to announce that, last week, we bought Ballpark from MetaLab.

First, a little bit about us: we’re a team of product and interface designers with offices in Memphis, Tenn. and Portland, Ore., and we both develop and manage our own products and provide consulting services to clients. Think MetaLab, but smaller.

You should know that this isn’t our first time doing this sort of thing.

In 2013, we purchased Pulse, a cash flow app for small businesses. Like Ballpark, Pulse is a an easy-to-use, highly useful app for small business owners just like us. It had an existing audience, but its owners wanted to sell because they weren’t able to give it the time and attention they felt like it deserved.

Since we acquired Pulse, we’ve put a lot of work into giving the app some much needed love. We’ve improved existing features, added a few new ones and have grown its user base. To be honest, the whole thing has gone way better than we expected it to, and we were open to the idea of doing it again if the right opportunity came up.

And then, there it was: Ballpark was for sale.

Although we didn’t see Andrew's announcement right when he posted it, when we did see it, we were immediately fired up about the idea of buying Ballpark. We knew we were the right team to take it on.

Ballpark has a great reputation, and we have a lot of respect for the people who made it. But, we figured that because it was something we had actually heard a lot of buzz about, it was probably way out of our league.

But, it never hurts to ask. We started talking to Andrew about purchasing Ballpark on New Year’s Eve. We were both feeling each other out, but he was so incredibly transparent about Ballpark’s stats that we quickly felt comfortable. It seemed like a perfect fit. We drafted a long, giddy email detailing exactly how excited we were, then promptly deleted it in favor of one that just said “We’re interested.” Sometimes, you’ve got to play it cool.

Now that we’re Ballpark’s proud new owners, we can be honest: we’re really effin’ excited about this.

Before you get nervous about our plans, know that we bought Ballpark because we think it’s great. It’s beautiful, it’s easy to use and it does what it does very well. We just want to put some serious time and energy into making it even better. We want to improve and add features, make some user experience updates and see Ballpark grow. We’re going to pump this thing up so much that it’s going to have to be tested for steroids.

Our plans start with getting to know you, Ballpark’s existing users, and learning from you. If you’ve got any questions or feedback for us, or if you just want to say hi, email us at support@getballpark.com or tweet us @ballparkapp.

We can’t wait to get started.

Oh, and be sure to check out this post by Ballpark’s founder, Andrew Wilkinson.