Possibilities - Letter From Phil 2/92

Contact:   eSoft, Inc. (Makers of TBBS)
           15200 E. Girard Ave., Suite 3000
           Aurora, CO  80014
           (303) 699-6565      Voice
           (303) 699-6872      Fax
           (303) 699-8222      BBS
           support@esoft.com   E-Mail

LETTER FROM PHIL 2/92
---------------------

*** From February 1992 Possibilities Newsletter ***
*** Copyright 1992 by eSoft, Inc.  All Rights Reserved ***

Letter from Phil
by Phil Becker

Growth.  It's the most exciting and also the most difficult part of life.  If 
you aren't growing you're dying, but sometimes it feels just the opposite!  
Nothing in the human experience is scarier to face or more exhilarating to go 
through than growth.  And it's safe to say that all of us at eSoft are 
experiencing all the feelings associated with the rapid growth of the past few
months. 

We're adding people to our staff and building new custom office and lab space 
so my mind is focused on both dealing with and enjoying the growth these days.  
This month I'm going to express a few of those feelings and tell you about 
some of the exciting things going on here as eSoft expands. 

Parenting is the ultimate growth related job and I've always felt that raising 
children teaches parents more about themselves than anything else they will 
ever do.  I know it has for me -- especially since the job of raising my three 
boys became all mine when my wife died a few years ago.  Recently I've noticed 
the similarity between being a parent and building a business like eSoft and a 
product like TBBS. 

As a parent when you see your child understand and become able to master some 
portion of life your joy has no limit.  When they miss the obvious far beyond 
the time you think they should "get it" you feel failure in a way that can't 
be expressed. 

When children are very young, success happens routinely as they learn to walk, 
talk, and master many smaller parts of the world.  You see everything again as 
fresh and new at these times.  Life never looks more exciting than it does 
through the eyes of a small child. 

As your children become older, however, the steps they must take become much 
larger.  Discovery comes less and less in those discrete moments and more and 
more as part of a process that makes it difficult to tell how they are doing.  
The result is that parents spend more time being uncertain how their children 
are doing as scorekeeping becomes much more complex. 

The recognition that you have less control than ever just as your child faces 
the biggest and most important tests of life explains why it is so easy to 
spot parents of teen-age children.  As eSoft grows up I find that these 
feelings are also true of one's business ventures as well. 

I was reminded of this when one of my boys reached voting age this month.  As 
a dutiful parent (meaning seeing my job based on where I thought he was in the 
development process) I spent several evenings discussing the U.S. political 
system with him.  A few evenings into this process he turned to me and said 
"Just tell me how to register so I can vote for [candidate x]". 

A bit more discussion indicated to me that not only was he not as naive about 
politics as I had thought but knew far more about the process and his place in 
it than I gave him credit for.  As usual, although I am the most concerned 
about his development I was the last to see that it had already happened.  
Being too close to a problem can make us blind -- especially if we are 
emotionally invested in its outcome. 

It is no secret that handling the release of TBBS 2.2  stretched eSoft's 
resources to the limits.  The result is that eSoft is growing up another notch 
too.  With the release of the latest set of field mods, TBBS 2.2 is now more 
reliable and more stable than TBBS 2.1 was in most installations and I have 
finally been able to step back and see the big picture much more clearly. 

As with my boy I saw that eSoft and TBBS have already grown up much more than 
I had realized, and it was time to acknowledge that fact.  This has been 
another record month of TBBS sales and the extremely rapid growth must be 
addressed.  The first result of this recognition is an immediate addition of 
staff in both the order fulfillment and tech support areas. 

In addition eSoft will be moving into new custom built office space in June.  
Our current offices have been adapted to our growth over the years by knocking 
down walls and expanding chunk by chunk.  After several such expansions the 
result is an office layout that no longer can handle the shipping volume and 
work load we now have. 

We will remain in the same building so only our suite number will change (Our 
current address will continue to work so there will be no interruption in mail 
delivery etc).  The floor above us has never been built out so we are able to 
custom design our new space to go there.  It's been exciting spending time 
with the architect and realizing we'll finally get the layout we want and 
need.  It will have space for a fully automated shipping department as well as 
for a tech support and development lab layout that I've wanted for years. 

Another thing that has become obvious to me is that as PC technology has grown 
and our installed base has increased dramatically the old method of 
distributing and installing field mods has become impossible for many of you 
to reliably follow. 

To address this need I've collaborated with Adam Hudson to design and produce 
a new field modification system called UPDATE and I'm thrilled with the 
result.  I describe this system in an article in this issue, but in short I 
can say that the UPDATE program is another tremendous step in making TBBS 
maintenance easy and automatic.  The reaction to it so far has been everything 
I could have hoped for. 

It seems that while I was too busy to fully notice until now, eSoft and TBBS 
have reached a level of maturity that I could only have dreamed of ten years 
ago (and as usual I was the last to notice).  The emotional feeling that I get 
seeing all of you using TBBS 2.2 to do things that no one would ever have 
predicted BBS software (or even personal computers) could do is really 
indescribable. 

As I reported last issue there is much more capability to come this year for 
TBBS and all of it is exciting.  But this month I've been savoring the 
realization of what TBBS has already become.  You may be sure that moments 
like this will cause me to increase my efforts to make TBBS and eSoft even 
more able to meet your needs.  It is a privilege and a thrill to see it all 
happening.  I should stop and just look at it more often! 

- END -
PS0292-1
Rev. 2/92

Copyright (C) 1994 eSoft, Inc., All Rights Reserved.  Permission granted
to distribute this file in its entirety, without modification, to any
interested party.  Any other use requires the written permission of
eSoft, Inc.

IMPORTANT:  The information herein is subject to change without notice.
Please call or write to confirm factual information of importance to you
or your organization.

