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eHub: What is your web application/service about?

16bugs: 16bugs is about making bug tracking an easier task. Most available alternatives are most of the time difficult to install and use and with the big amount of features they provide they’re kind of overkill for small and medium projects.

eHub: Why did you start this project?

16bugs: I started it because I needed a good looking and easy to use bug tracker for a Mac application I was writing.  Then I realized it would have been nice to make it public.

eHub: How much time do you devote to its growth?  Do you have a day job?

16bugs: I spend most of my spare time on it. I’m currently enrolled in college, so I devote to it most of my evenings and nights.

eHub: How large is your team and what are your backgrounds?

16bugs: It’s a solo project. I’m currently studying Computer Engineering at Politecnico of Milan. Previously, I got a high school degree as a computer technician and have been programming since I was about 12 - I’m now 21. I started developing web applications using PHP and released an opensource app to help teachers creating online tests. About a year and a half ago I started experimenting with Ruby on Rails, immediately fell in love with it and this is my first full-blown application written with it.

eHub: What is your design philosophy?

16bugs: I try to keep it as simple as possible. And when it comes to features, I prefer to have just what’s really needed to accomplish a task, rather than having a gazillion features nobody will ever use.

eHub: What technologies are you currently using?

16bugs: Ruby on Rails with a MySQL backend.

eHub: If your project is live, what are the most requested features from your users/community?

16bugs: The most requested feature is an API and that’s what I’m working on at the moment. Many are also asking for email notifications, which makes me think: I’ve already got RSS feeds for that purpose, but it seems there is still someone who hasn’t jumped on the RSS bandwagon, yet.

eHub: Does your user base reside in a primary geographic location or is it distributed?

16bugs: It’s distributed.

eHub: Where do you see the project heading in the next 6 months?  The next 2 years?

16bugs: I’m currently polishing a few rough edges. And I’ll also focus on usability soon. So I think the next 6 months will be mostly aimed towards improving 16bugs’s overall experience.

In the long-run, instead, I’ll try to bring in more users and end up with the best bug tracking application for small and medium projects.

eHub: What is the greatest challenge to your success?

16bugs: There are some fierce competitors around, some are free and some aren’t, but most aren’t very friendly and intuitive to use.
If I’ll manage to establish 16bugs as THE friendly alternative to the bloat there’s around, it’ll succeed, otherwise it will be difficult to succeed.

eHub: What is the one thing you need to get to the next phase of the project?

16bugs: More paying users? Just kidding…

I definitely need to work on the usability side of things. I feel it is already much easier to use than other similar applications, but I’m no usability-guru, so I might had made wrong assumptions while building it.

Once I manage to bake in some more usability, it’ll really be the best bug tracking application around...or at least I hope so.

eHub: Do you have a business model?  If so, what is it?

16bugs: There is a free plan, but there are also paid plans which are the ones in charge of paying the bills.

eHub: If you’re able to disclose this information, how much traffic or usage do you see on an average day?

16bugs: 16bugs is still in its first month of activity during which it managed to get a very good amount of traffic - mainly thanks to links from websites like eHub.

eHub: What is the one thing you’re most proud of about the project?

16bugs: The huge “Submit a new bug” button. And its users are the coolest you can find around.

eHub: How would you describe the shift that’s occurring with the web right now to future generations?

16bugs: It could be many things.  Broadband connections allow for increased Internet usage and for better speeds - just a few years ago you could brew some tea while waiting for a page to open - so more people uses it.  Having more Internet users means there’s a bigger market to exploit.

And new technologies are making things much much easier for both users and developers: web apps get more user-friendly and programming languages get more programmer-friendly.

...oh, and everyone - more or less - secretly hopes to be acquired by Google.

eHub: What site(s) do you visit everyday other than your own?

16bugs: Flickr, Gmail and pretty much everything my feedreader tells me to read.

eHub: How many hours of sleep do you get a night?

16bugs: Usually about 6.

Thanks to Michele Finotto, creator of 16bugs for this email interview.