Example: You want to create a subscription. You can ask:

“How do I create a subscription?”

The AI responds with step-by-step guidance:

“To create a subscription, go to Catalog > Subscription Plans and click Create Subscription. You will need to define the price and interval.”

From there, you can follow up:

“Can you explain the interval options in more detail?”

The AI keeps context and replies:

“Certainly. The interval determines how often the customer is billed. You can choose Adhoc, Day, Week, Month, or Year.”

This conversational approach helps you explore features in depth without having to repeat questions or scroll through multiple pages.

Key features of the new AI search:

• Context-Aware Follow-Ups: Keep the AI “in the loop” so follow-ups build on previous answers.
  
• Use Your Own AI Tools: On any doc page, you can use your own ChatGPT or Claude with that page’s content as context and even copy Markdown for internal use.
  
• Faster Navigation: Quickly find the right docs and related topics without guesswork.
  

Note: The AI works from documented content only. If a topic isn’t covered yet, it may not have an answer. Documentation remains the source of truth.

The new AI search turns documentation into a conversation — making answers faster, exploration easier, and learning more intuitive.

Explore the Ask AI documentation to discover features, tips, and best practices.

The post AI-Powered Answers, Right in the Docs appeared first on FastSpring.

Your potential customers are no longer just Googling “best project management software” or “CRM for small business.” They’re asking ChatGPT to compare your product features, getting personalized recommendations from AI tools, and discovering solutions through conversations rather than traditional search results.

Google still handles more than 5 trillion searches annually, but that dominance is beginning to fray. As highlighted by recent industry research from Pubcon 2025, we’re experiencing a foundational shift: Search is no longer synonymous with search engines. From ChatGPT to social platforms, potential customers are finding software solutions outside of Google — and AI is accelerating this trend.

According to recent survey data, 66% of consumers believe AI will replace traditional search engines within five years, and 82% say AI-powered search is already more helpful than traditional search. 

This shift represents both a challenge and an opportunity for SaaS companies trying to reach customers earlier in their decision-making process.

How AI Search Changes SaaS Discovery

AI search doesn’t behave like traditional search engines, and this has significant implications for how customers discover and evaluate software solutions.

As industry expert Ryan Jones of Razorfish noted, “We used to optimize for humans who use Google. Now we’re optimizing for AI that reads Google for humans.” For SaaS companies, this shift changes everything about customer acquisition.

1. AI Search Provides Direct Answers

Tools like ChatGPT and Gemini synthesize information about your software directly in their interfaces. When someone asks, “What’s the best email marketing platform for ecommerce?,” they often get a comprehensive answer without ever visiting your website. 

Your product pages are no longer the destination — the conversation is the destination.

2. AI Uses ‘Query Fan-Out’ for Software Recommendations

When potential customers ask AI tools about software solutions, these tools don’t just process the exact query. Instead, they generate dozens of related sub-queries to gather comprehensive information about features, pricing, integrations, and use cases. 

This means that your content needs to address not just primary keywords, but the entire ecosystem of questions around your product category.

3. Product Information Is Atomized

AI doesn’t treat your website as a collection of pages. Instead, it ingests and references specific passages about features, pricing, integrations, and benefits. 

Every piece of content on your site — from feature descriptions to help articles — must be self-contained and structured for AI comprehension.

“We used to optimize for humans who use Google. Now we’re optimizing for AI that reads Google for humans.”

Ryan Jones, Razorfish

What This Means for SaaS Marketers

The ground is shifting rapidly, but SaaS companies can take specific actions now to maintain visibility and capture customers in this new landscape:

1. Optimize for AI-Driven Product Discovery

Traditional SEO still matters, but SaaS companies need to think beyond basic optimization. Your technical foundation — site speed, structured data, clean internal linking — remains crucial. But success now requires:

• Structuring product information for AI comprehension: Create clear, self-contained descriptions of features, use cases, and benefits. Avoid marketing speak that obscures actual functionality.
• Eliminating content bloat: Remove or consolidate weak product pages, outdated feature descriptions, and redundant content that confuses AI models about your core offerings.
• Thinking in terms of buyer intent: Structure content around the questions potential customers actually ask, not just the keywords they might search for.

2. Create Content That Answers Software Buyers’ Questions

If your product descriptions are vague, rely on industry jargon, or require context from other pages, they may be ignored by AI tools when customers ask for software recommendations.

Instead, focus on:

• Clear, benefit-focused feature descriptions that stand alone without additional context.
• Comprehensive FAQ sections addressing common software evaluation questions.
• Comparison content that honestly positions your product against alternatives.
• Implementation guides and use case examples that demonstrate real-world value.
• Integration documentation that’s easily discoverable and understandable.

The goal is to ensure AI tools have complete, accurate information about your software when making recommendations to potential customers.

3. Track AI Visibility and Expand Your Presence

Only 22% of B2B marketers currently track their brand visibility in large language models, representing a significant missed opportunity for SaaS companies where word-of-mouth and recommendations drive significant growth.

• Monitor AI mentions: Use tools like SERP Recon and BrightEdge to understand how often your product appears in AI-generated responses. Track whether these mentions are accurate and favorable.
• Build authoritative presence beyond search: Strengthen your visibility across channels where software buyers gather information:
  • Develop thought leadership content for industry publications.
  • Participate actively in relevant communities (Reddit, Discord, industry forums).
  • Create educational content for YouTube and podcast platforms.
  • Engage with software review sites and comparison platforms.
• Invest in digital PR and partnerships: Build relationships with industry influencers, participate in software roundups, and collaborate with complementary tools to increase your citation potential.

The New SaaS Marketing Playbook

AI search is no longer emerging — it’s here, and it’s already changing how customers discover software solutions. Organic traffic patterns are shifting, traditional keyword strategies are losing effectiveness, and customers are getting recommendations from AI before they ever reach your website.

This doesn’t mean traditional marketing is dead. It means SaaS marketing is evolving toward a more distributed, conversation-focused approach.

Focus on being discoverable across channels where your customers seek recommendations, not just via search engines.

Focus on content that educates and informs rather than just on converting visitors that are already on your site.

Focus on brand visibility that transcends individual marketing channels and builds authority in AI knowledge bases.

The companies that thrive in this new landscape won’t be those that game the algorithm, but those that consistently provide clear, helpful information about their software solutions wherever customers are looking for answers.

For SaaS, software, and digital product companies, this shift represents an opportunity to build more authentic relationships with potential customers by meeting them where they are — in conversations with AI tools, community discussions, and educational content — rather than waiting for them to find you through traditional search.

The post How AI Search Is Revolutionizing SaaS Marketing, and What You Should Do About It appeared first on FastSpring.

Below, check out some of the awesome ways FastSpring team members have been celebrating around the globe. 

To learn more about FastSpring’s meaningful history in the fintech and ecommerce space, check out our podcast episode with one of the original cofounders and the original CEO of FastSpring Dan Engel, and current CEO David Nachman. Read more, watch, or listen here. 

FastSpring Celebrates 20 Years Around the World

There were many ways we made sure to celebrate this impressive milestone for FastSpring — from employee swag boxes and cookie deliveries to office parties with cake cuttings and toasts! 

Employee Swag and Remote Celebrations

FastSpring’s success wouldn’t be possible without our amazing team members, many of whom are distributed and remote across North America, Europe, Asia, and beyond. 

To help thank everyone for their contribution to this momentous achievement, employees received gifts such as premium travel backpacks and gourmet stuffed cookies!

Amsterdam

At FastSpring’s Amsterdam office, team members went all out to decorate the office space and celebrate with cake and champagne! 

Belfast

The Belfast team supported a local LGBTQ+ baker in Lisburn called Frootcake, which was a great way to recognize FastSpring’s anniversary and celebrate Pride Month at the same time!

Halifax

Since a few of our team members throughout Canada are originally from Ukraine, the Halifax office celebrated FastSpring’s birthday with a Київський торт (Kyiv Cake) and Живчик (Zhyvchyk), which are traditional Ukrainian treats. 

Austin

In Austin, Texas, a crew got together to celebrate with a lot of FastSpring orange! 

Santa Barbara

At our home office in Santa Barbara, California, the party planning committee went above and beyond!

FastSpring: Powering the Digital Economy® for Two Decades!

For twenty years, FastSpring has been powering global payments for SaaS and software companies, video game publishers, and other digital goods businesses. As a merchant of record, FastSpring provides a fully managed payment solution including checkout, fraud mitigation, comprehensive sales tax and VAT compliance, and more. Founded in 2005, FastSpring is a privately owned company headquartered in California with offices in the UK, the Netherlands, and Canada.

To learn more about FastSpring’s meaningful history in the fintech and ecommerce space, check out our podcast episode with one of the original cofounders and the original CEO of FastSpring Dan Engel, and current CEO David Nachman. Read more, watch, or listen here.

Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

The post It’s Our Cake Day! FastSpring Turns 20 appeared first on FastSpring.

Likewise, in the tech-meets-ecommerce space, there were very few SaaS companies out there, live service gaming didn’t really exist yet, and software companies wanting to sell their software globally had very, very few options.

And the options that were available left a lot to be desired. 

That’s why on June 28, 2005, four tech founders — including Dan Engel, current Founder and Managing Partner of Santa Barbara Venture Partners — got together to found FastSpring. 

Twenty years later, we’re still going strong! Now led by CEO David Nachman and backed by Accel-KKR — and with technology more advanced and stronger than ever — FastSpring is celebrating its 20th anniversary by looking back on how we got here, applauding today’s team for our current successes, and looking forward to a bright future in the payments industry as an experienced partner our customers can trust. 

In this special celebratory post, we share:

• A special twentieth anniversary episode of Growth Stage, interviewing both FastSpring’s co-founder & first CEO Dan Engel and FastSpring’s current CEO David Nachman. Jump to podcast.
• A brief history of FastSpring, with some fantastically nostalgic photos of the team throughout the years. Jump to history. 

Growth Stage Podcast EP34: What It Takes to Build an Enduring Business

Building a lasting business isn’t easy. 

Knowing what really makes a company succeed long term can be even harder.

That’s why it can be helpful to learn from companies that have stood the test of time.

In this episode of Growth Stage, we celebrate FastSpring’s 20th anniversary with insights from its first CEO, Dan Engel, and current CEO, David Nachman. They share:

• What has helped FastSpring thrive for two decades.
• What mistakes to avoid when building your own business.
• What it really takes to build something that lasts.

Whether you’re planning to exit in two years or fifty, take a moment to step back and think about the long term future of your business. Watch or listen now!

Jump to video.  |  Jump to history. |  Jump to transcript.

Podcast Full Interview: Audio

Listen online or find it on more podcast services.

Podcast Full Interview: Video

Transcript available at the end of this post.

A Brief History of FastSpring (With Photos)

FastSpring was founded in 2005 with only $30,000, by a distributed team of four tech founders who only all got connected “through the transitive property,” Dan explains. “I only knew Jason, but then he knew Ken, and Ken knew Ryan.” 

Dan had had an idea for a shopping cart upsell product — which didn’t come to fruition — but after meeting Jason Foodman in 2005, Jason pointed out that the upsell product couldn’t even exist unless they owned the shopping cart in the first place. So Dan asked, “Well, what if we create our own shopping cart?” 

And since Jason was already working with someone who wanted to create a product with the ecommerce infrastructure to compete with Digital River, FastSpring was born. 

Dan recalls that he, Jason, Ken White, and Ryan Dewell all connected remotely from four different U.S. states via email and messengers, not even meeting in person for about the first four years as they worked on FastSpring; “Maybe every six months there’d be a phone call.” Dan and Jason handled front-end sales, while Ken led “phenomenal customer service,” and Ryan “just was an awesome coder.” He recalls Ken describing Ryan as “probably the best guy on the planet to build what we were building.”

Since all four guys had been CEOs already, they were all familiar with working on their own areas without needing much guidance. “We split up the business into silos, Dan explains. “Ken handled support, Ryan development, me on the sales side and also all the CEO role, and Jason on the sales side and some other stuff too. And that worked really well.”

The First Mission of FastSpring: The Golden Rule

Just what were the founders of FastSpring trying to build? 

“I think we wanted to build a business that treated its customers the way we thought we should have been treated as software vendors,” Dan says. They each had felt wronged in some way when working with Digital River or with payment companies that weren’t built to work with software companies, so they set out to build a solution with a driving force to “put some good into an industry that had a lot of bad experiences.”

He also describes Digital River in 2005 — only about nine years old then — as already having become an inflexible “technology dinosaur.” 

“So we wanted to build that next generation system.”

“I think that’s really what our driving force was: to put some good into an industry that had a lot of bad experiences.”

Dan Engel, Co-Founder and first CEO of FastSpring

“And we thought if we were just normal, nice people that cared, we could accomplish that,” he recalls. “And we did. Took a while, but we did.”

FastSpring’s Growth Trajectory

After a humble start in 2005 with only four ambitious people and $30,000, FastSpring took a little while to get off the ground. Dan remembers that “Not raising capital, going slower, sticking with Java, sticking with one developer — all those things made us go slower.”

But FastSpring eventually began growing quickly when they became popular in the Mac software community, which became their initial niche. “Eventually, we took over for Digital River and others as kind of the leading provider for Mac developers,” Dan explains. “But until then, it was a very slow moving train and we didn’t know what was around the corner.”

Besides having next generation technology and blowing away customers with service, FastSpring also offered pricing that contemporary competitors couldn’t beat.

“So how do you get anyone to switch away from FastSpring? They didn’t. We had retained I think 98.7 % of our customers, year after year after year, in an SMB business with thousands of customers,” Dan recalls. “I’m a venture capitalist now; I invest in software companies. I’m yet to find a company in all these years that matches what FastSpring obtained in its metrics.”

“I’m yet to find a company in all these years that matches what FastSpring obtained in its metrics.”

Dan Engel, Co-Founder and first CEO of FastSpring

By 2010, FastSpring had grown significantly, with Deloitte & Touche’s 2011 Technology Fast 500 awards ranking FastSpring the #1 fastest-growing company in the Greater L.A. area and #13 in North America. 

Then in 2018, Accel-KKR purchased a majority stake in FastSpring. By then, FastSpring counted companies such as Microsoft and Adobe among its customers, with services provided by around 80 FastSpring employees. 

FastSpring’s Mission Today: Unleashing Innovation Around the World

Today, FastSpring is a global leader in the payments, subscriptions, and tax management space as a leading merchant of record. With offices in Santa Barbara, Amsterdam, Belfast, and Halifax, FastSpring has grown to have over 130 employees serving 3200+ companies throughout more than 200 regions, with support for 21+ languages and 23+ currencies — all while filing over 1,000 tax returns every year, so that the companies who use FastSpring don’t have to.

Providing an industry leading platform for SaaS, software, video game, and other digital products businesses to sell and monetize their products around the world is a privilege we’ve earned over the last 20 years, but we haven’t forgotten where we came from. 

Current CEO David Nachman echoes original CEO Dan Engel’s thoughts about FastSpring’s mission, but builds upon it. What gets David excited is enabling and democratizing the software industry so that people anywhere in the world can build software and compete with bigger, more capitalized players in highly developed markets.

“It’s gotten dramatically easier to build software anywhere and do it in a really, really competitive way,” David explains. “What hasn’t gotten easier is selling it globally.” In fact, in many ways, thanks to increasingly complex tax codes, proliferating payments options, and the increase of fraud, selling software cross-borders or monetizing a game outside of an app marketplace has only gotten harder. 

“So you’ve got this paradox of, you can develop software now at any scale anywhere in the world, but it’s not easy to bring it to market successfully without a solution like ours,” he says. “And that’s what we do.”

“By democratizing software development and commercialization of it, ultimately, we’re playing into a trend of unleashing more innovation around the world.”

David Nachman, CEO of FastSpring

“By democratizing software development and commercialization of it, ultimately, we’re playing into a trend of unleashing more innovation around the world,” David continues. “That’s kind of the big lofty mission that excites me. And I think it excites a lot of people here.”

Twenty years is quite a milestone, so we’ll be celebrating all month! That includes cake cuttings and toasts with our team members around the world on June 28, our official incorporation day and 20th birthday. Check back later this month for photos, and here’s to the next 20! 🥂

Podcast Transcript

David Vogelpohl (00:04)

Hello everyone, and welcome to Growth Stage by FastSpring, where we discuss how digital product companies grow revenue, build meaningful products, and increase the value of their businesses. I’m your host, David Vogelpohl. I support the digital product community through my role at FastSpring, and I love to bring the best of the community to you here on Growth Stage. In today’s episode, I’m super excited. What we’re going to be talking about is what it takes to build an enduring business.

David Vogelpohl (00:32)

We’re going to do that through the lens of celebrating 20 years of FastSpring, the company that puts on Growth Stage and joining us for that conversation to celebrate FastSpring and talk about building an enduring business. I’d like to welcome first FastSpring’s original CEO and one of the original cofounders, Mr. Dan Engel. Dan, welcome to Growth Stage.

Dan Engel (00:53)

Thank you very much. I’m excited to be here and I’m excited we made it to such a successful 20 year journey.

David Vogelpohl (01:00)

I can’t imagine what it must be like to look back on your legacy and have this be something so enduring be part of that. And I know you’ve done a lot since then. And I’m kind of curious to learn a little bit more about that here in a bit. Also joining us for this conversation to kind of take a look at the past and where we are now. I’d like to welcome FastSpring’s current CEO, Mr. David Nachman. David, welcome.

David Nachman (01:23)

Great. Well, thank you, David. I’m also super excited to be here and I definitely owe some gratitude to Dan. Wouldn’t be in my role today if it weren’t for what he did 20 years ago today.

Dan Engel (01:30)

Mm-hmm.

David Vogelpohl (01:33)

Now it’s so interesting to think about those long-term effects our short-term decisions sometimes have. And so we’re going to try to peel back as much as we can here on this episode, ⁓ to give folks a view into what it takes to build an enduring business, what mistakes to avoid along the way and how to build a business that stands the test of time.

So ⁓ we’ll kick it off. David Nachman, I’d like to start with you. ⁓ For those, maybe this is their first time seeing the Growth Stage podcast or they’re not familiar with FastSpring. Could you explain what FastSpring is and what you do here?

David Nachman (02:13)

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. What we do is pretty straightforward. We are an end to end e-commerce platform for companies that sell digital goods on a global basis. So it’s often software companies, it may be gaming companies, maybe other forms of digital goods, but the commonality for everybody that’s selling on our platform is they’re trying to reach a global audience, which isn’t really an easy thing to do.

in commerce and payments. There’s a tremendous amount of complexity there. And they’re all selling digital goods. So that’s what we do. I am the CEO of the company. I joined the company about six years ago, just over about a month ago from six years ago.

David Vogelpohl (02:55)

Oh, wow. Congratulations on the six year mark there. A little over 25 % of FastSpring’s history, it sounds like. And then Dan, tell us about your connection to FastSpring and what you’re doing now.

David Nachman (03:01)

⁓ yeah.

Dan Engel (03:07)

Well, let’s see. It was ⁓ 2005 that ⁓ I met our co-founder Jason Foodman. And I had an idea for something we wanted to do having to do with upselling into shopping carts. And Jason said, well, that is a really good idea, but we’re not going to be able to do it unless we own the shopping cart. ⁓

And I said, well, what if we create our own shopping cart? And Jason said, well, it just so happens I’m working with a guy on that concept to compete with Digital River, which was the 800 pound gorilla at the time that had come out in 1994, went public, became worth a billion dollars. And so we decided that we would build that e-commerce infrastructure and shopping cart capability. We never ended up doing my idea

having to do with upsells, but obviously the foundational part that we needed is what became the business over time.

David Vogelpohl (04:05)

And this is you, right? Is this from around the time of the founding? These are the original founders, correct?

Dan Engel (04:11)

Yeah, that could be. I’d have to see exactly what year that was, but that’s uh — Jason’s all the way to the right hand side on the other opposite end of me. then Ken and Ryan. And what’s interesting is I only knew Jason, but then he knew Ken and Ken knew Ryan. So through the, I don’t know, transitive property or whatever it is, we all kind of knew each other. And that’s how we started working together. And we were all in four different states from one another.

And ⁓ we did it despite not being in the same place. And we actually went for about four years, I believe, without ever even seeing each other. Everything was just email and ICQ, which is chat. And maybe every six months there’d be a phone call. But some of the guys weren’t the type of people that were dying to get on the phone or meet in person that didn’t have the same personality as maybe Jason and I did as kind of the more salesy front of the business.

David Nachman (04:50)

Thanks

David Vogelpohl (05:05)

Was that the balance between you four where you and Jason were more on the business side and the other two for Ken and what’s the other person’s name? Yeah, Ryan. ⁓ and they were more technically focused.

Dan Engel (05:15)

Ken and Ryan. Yeah, totally. Yeah,

Ryan just was an awesome coder. He was probably the best guy on the planet to build what we were building. I mean, that’s what Ken said at the time, because he had built a company called RegNow, sold it to Digital River. By the way, all three of the other guys built and sold companies like FastSpring to Digital River. So we knew this space really well, and they knew it even better than I did. But yeah, Jason and I were on the business side, and Ken…

is amazing dealing with people through email. But he won’t pick up the phone. But we had phenomenal customer service that he led. And Ryan just wanted to code and wanted to own it himself. Didn’t want other coders. Didn’t want to spend time managing other coders. He just wanted to build his dream, again, the next generation of what he had built before using Java technology and doing things in a way that would be much more beneficial over the long term.

David Nachman (05:46)

answer.

you

Dan Engel (06:08)

over the existing solutions like Digital River, which became kind of the technology dinosaur that was inflexible. So we wanted to build that next generation system.

David Vogelpohl (06:17)

It sounds like there was a lot of synergy there between you four and a good balance. And it seems like you and Jason were able to kind of team up, I guess, on the business side and then Ken and Ryan on the technical and customer success side. It’s also interesting to hear about your virtual posture as co-founders back in that day and using ICQ and thriving in that kind of environment.

Um, of course, way pre pandemic, this was 2005 when the company was founded. Um, and then to hear about how much Digital River played a role in your company, in your lives back then, and to think of FastSpring’s enduring nature, even going beyond, you know, Digital River, um, uh, offering in existence, I guess, uh, recently kind of winding down there. Um, and to think about how that’s an interesting representation of FastSpring’s enduring

Dan Engel (07:06)

Mm

David Vogelpohl (07:13)

⁓ but maybe that’s one of the ways I might think about an enduring business. ⁓ I’ll start with Nachman on this question. David, to you, what does it mean to build an enduring business? What is that? How do you define that?

David Nachman (07:29)

Yeah, I think, I mean, the first thing I would say for a business to be enduring is it’s got to be adaptable. This business, like just about any business, there’s ebbs and flows and there’s times when everything is going great and there’s times when it’s a lot more challenging. And, you know, in my experience, like there’s a lot of things that need to go into strategy and execution to succeed as an enduring business. But I think the foundation of all of it is the team and the culture.

If you look at the businesses that I think have endured over time, it’s often the team and the culture that really, really stand out because the challenges are going to change over time. And you need a team that knows how to adapt to that. And if you’ve got the right team and people are passionate about what they’re doing, know, in my experience, generally they’re going to figure it out.

None of us have a perfect crystal ball. Certainly, I’m sure Dan, when you started this company 20 years ago, you had no idea what some of the challenges might look like today. But I think you built a great cultural foundation that I think still persists today. I think a lot of the elements of the culture that were there when you started it are still like a real, real strength for us. So to me, that’s kind of the foundation of all of it to build an enduring business.

David Vogelpohl (08:47)

Yeah. I like that idea of flexibility. What’s the saying — “Steady seas don’t make skilled sailors,” and like,

Dan Engel (08:48)

you

David Vogelpohl (08:53)

⁓ being able to roll with the punches and adapt and survive and thrive. I could see that being critical to building an enduring business. ⁓ Dan, what about you? What does it mean to build an enduring business?

Dan Engel (09:06)

Well, it’s kind of the same things because what he’s talking about there about adaptability and flexibility, that’s exactly what I was saying earlier. We specifically built a system from the ground up ⁓ that had the adaptability component that was missing from the competition.

That’s why Digital River doesn’t exist anymore. That’s why we were able to ultimately leave them some degree in the dust because they weren’t able to change with the times. And we knew, because we all had been customers of Digital River. mean, everybody was back then. It’s a long time ago. And we knew that they couldn’t deliver when we needed new functionality and features. They were stuck. Right. So that was a really big part of it. But I think culturally, you know, the biggest advantage FastSpring ever had

was based on culture and how we treated our people, meaning like the employees, the partners we had, and then how that trickled down to how they treated the customers. And we had a theory, which is not too novel, but isn’t practiced as much as it should be, that customers should be treated like gold. And we had happened to be in an industry where the competition felt very much the opposite. ⁓ They just

A lot of these companies were led by kind of arrogant folks that didn’t think too much about the customers. And, you know, you’d write into PayPal, nobody had ever sent you anything back or Digital River couldn’t get your account manager to respond. So we came up with rules like you’re going to hear a response within, I think it was 24 hours, even on weekends, even on holidays, ⁓ guarantees like that. And we absolutely delivered on it. We strive to wow.

every single customer, both the end user and our merchants, you know, the software companies. And the kind of things that they were saying were, and I don’t know if it’s still on the website anymore, but the old testimonials that I used to throw up on the website were like, I feel like I just left the spa, or I’ve never had this kind of experience in a services business before. We were blowing people away. And how were we able to do that when we had like four support reps and our competition had like 250?

because we’re just normal people that cared. That’s all. And those were the kind of people that hired and people like themselves who gave a damn. And we had been in the shoes of the customers who were frustrated working with Digital River. So we tried to build a business that would be the opposite. And it totally worked. And also it’s an advantage that we had, which didn’t really cost money, that nobody could beat. No competitor could beat. They could try to match it.

you know, blowing away your customers and wowing them with the experience, but they couldn’t ever beat it. And so part of what made the company so enduring is we had low prices and couldn’t really beat us on pricing. We had next generation technology instead of kind of the inflexible dinosaur tech of our competitors. And we blew you away with customer service. So how do you, how do you get anyone to switch away from FastSpring? They didn’t. We had retained

think 98.7 % of our customers year after year after year in an SMB business with thousands of customers. I’m a venture capitalist now, I invest in software companies. I’m yet to find a company in all these years that matches what FastSpring obtained in its metrics.

David Vogelpohl (12:16)

I can attest that nature has lived on and we see similar levels of success in ⁓ our business today, including winning awards like a ⁓ gold Globee and silver Stevie for that customer success. I think that foundation you laid and the seeds you planted are still bearing fruit.

Dan Engel (12:37)

Good. That’s great to hear.

David Vogelpohl (12:39)

Excellent. Yeah. Super cool to see that, ⁓ endure the test of time. Cause I know service can be one of those areas that definitely erodes over time, especially over like a 20 year history. ⁓ it was also interesting to hear you talk about how, if you have a team, if you hire a team and develop a team who cares, that’s like so critical to building that differentiation in that enduring nature.

And I thought that connected well to what David had shared a little earlier around flexibility and developing teams in that same way to address challenges that you have no idea what’s coming around the corner. ⁓ and I thought that was an interesting connection there. ⁓ speaking of like how, speaking of missions by sake of example, what was FastSpring’s mission in the beginning, you talked about like being better than Digital River, but like, was it more than that? Like, how did you view the mission of the company at that time?

Dan Engel (13:33)

I think we wanted to build a business that treated its customers the way we thought we should have been treated as software vendors. Everything that was wrong with the experience of working with Digital River and its competitors and non-software specific platforms like PayPal, we wanted to correct that because we felt wronged ourselves.

⁓ So I think that was a big part of the mission. And we thought if we were just normal, nice people that cared, we could accomplish that. ⁓ And we did, took a while, but we did. And we did displace a lot of those alternatives. ⁓ mission-wise, I think that’s really what our driving force was, ⁓ is to put some good into an industry that had a lot of bad experiences.

David Vogelpohl (14:21)

David, 20 years later, how do you define FastSpring’s mission now?

David Nachman (14:26)

Yeah, so I think a lot of what Dan just shared is still very true and very important in what we’re doing. ⁓ What gets me excited is kind of the bigger trend we’re playing into in enabling. And for me, it’s about democratizing the software development industry. And what I mean by that is if you look over the last 20 years, since the company was founded, barrier after barrier has come down that allows people

to build software anywhere in the world at any scale and compete with much bigger, much better capitalized players in highly developed markets. going way back, open source, developer tools, cloud computing, online marketing, now we’ve got the AI boom. So it’s gotten dramatically easier to build software anywhere and do it in a really, really competitive way. What hasn’t gotten easier?

is selling it globally. It’s actually kind of gone in some respects in the opposite direction. Tax complexity around the world has gone up a ton. Enforcement has gone up a ton.  The regulatory environment around data has gone up. Payments has gotten a lot more complex. The proliferation of payment methods around the world uh is pretty incredible, and the adoption of a lot of these payment methods  is really high. Fraud

⁓ is going up. I don’t know if it’s exponentially, but it’s certainly going up at a high rate and the complexity of that fraud is going up. So you’ve got this paradox of, you can develop software now at any scale anywhere in the world, but it’s not easy to bring it to market successfully without a solution like ours. And that’s what we do. ⁓ and if you look around the world, there’s, know, no monopoly on development talent in places like Silicon Valley. And there’s talented developers everywhere in the world now.

but there were barriers to them competing. So By democratizing software development and commercialization of it, ultimately, we’re playing into a trend of unleashing more innovation around the world. That’s kind of the big lofty mission that excites me. And I think it does excite a lot of people here.

Dan Engel (16:18)

you

David Vogelpohl (16:39)

Excellent. Love hearing that. ⁓ Dan, so we’ve talked about like it’s a 20 year episode, right? So we’re doing like the worm and fuzzy stuff, but I want to go to like the stuff that made you lose sleep at night in the early days of FastSpring. Tell me about a big mistake you made that like almost tank the company or just like took you in a really bad direction. I mean, we are publishing this, so like take that into heart there, but

Dan Engel (16:53)

So.

David Vogelpohl (17:08)

Was it, was it deprecating this website? mean, this is a fire of a 2025 website, but like, me about the mistakes you

Dan Engel (17:11)

Ha ha!

looks a little pruney to me. ⁓ Well, obviously we made lots of mistakes. think, you know, one key decision was we kept coding really just within Ryan’s domain and didn’t hire a bunch of developers. And I think there were benefits to that and costs. And sometimes we were frustrated we weren’t going faster. ⁓ Because when we came out, a company also came out around the same time. unlike us who did everything

by the way, with $30,000, I put ten grand in, that’s all I ever put into FastSpring. We had a competitor, the head also sold their company to Digital River and they put like 35 or 50 million into their company and they started eating our lunch. So that made us kind of frustrated and concerned because they were getting a lot of clients we had hoped to get. So that was one decision. And also I think using

Java, think, had a lot of benefits, but also I think it slowed us down as well. Now, in the long term, it was beneficial and a great decision because it kept us flexible and extensible. But let’s see. So one of the scarier things that happen is, so when you’re processing payments, there’s risks that you might process in payments that are violations of, say, your relationship.

in your agreement with say a Visa or MasterCard. And we got really good at policing and avoiding any transactions going through the system that would violate any of those agreements. like with hackers, you figure out a solution to avoid the hacking and then the hackers find a way around it and then you find a solution to solve that and then they find a way. So it wasn’t perfect, you know, it’s life. And we had a particular incident where some

content got through that we did processing for is a tiny amount, but it still was very problematic. And that was very costly to us. We had to deal with MasterCard and you know, to have an angry MasterCard is a real problem because you can’t stop working with MasterCard if you’re accepting credit cards, right? That kind of got this duopoly or whatever you want to call it. So that was an example of a really scary experience when we had to deal with, you know, people like Visa MasterCard and

some of the risks around processing that could have really hurt our business and changed things. ⁓ And I would say, in terms of the team that we had, we got along incredibly well. It probably didn’t hurt that we weren’t in the same office and hardly ever saw each other. That can really have a lot of benefits. The biggest fight we ever had, and when we had it, I thought, my God, this is gonna be such a battle for years, was picking the name.

⁓ After we had that, that was like a real battle and I didn’t know what the future would bring. And we went years and years with really not having any fights, maybe until the end when we were selling the business and not everyone wanted to necessarily sell at the same price and money gets people to fight. But ⁓ other than that, ⁓ we really made a great call with the kind of team that we had as founders because we had a team of four former CEOs.

which meant we were all able to kind of do our own stuff without anybody needing to help us. Right. And so we, we, we, we, we split up the business into silos, Ken handled support, Ryan development, me on the sales side and also all the CEO role and Jason on the sales side and some other stuff too. And that worked really well. but, ⁓ anyway, so those are some thoughts on some of the things that were challenges over the years. and,

not, raising capital, going slower, sticking with Java, sticking with one developer. All those things made us go slower. And for me, made me anxious. ⁓ but some of the other partners, they were okay with waiting and having the business take a long time. And it sure did. My wife, ⁓ nicknamed it “SlowSpring,” ⁓ because, ⁓ you know, it was like year three and a half or something and we still weren’t getting anywhere. And I kept telling her, it’s right around the corner.

David Nachman (21:15)

it.

Dan Engel (21:22)

Finally, things picked up. They picked up because we became popular in the Mac software community. We found a niche, right? ⁓ I don’t know what would have happened to FastSpring if we hadn’t found that niche. ⁓ But eventually we took over for Digital River and others as kind of the leading provider for Mac developers. But until then, it was a very slow moving train and we didn’t know what was around the corner.

David Vogelpohl (21:44)

think that’s a bold lesson for people watching and listening who are just starting out and thinking about how to get traction about how you were able to kind of niche down in your core ICP and find that, you know, kind of handhold foothold to start moving further up the mountain. I also thought you had tension in some of the mistakes where you talked about the desire to go faster and invest more, but then you talked about growing pains around things like dealing with hackers and

maybe processing transactions you shouldn’t have and how that affected and put risk into your business. And so like with FastSpring, you know, we’re offering payments and subscriptions and tax compliance and a lot of startups are like compliance. What are you talking about? I’m blowing and growing. I’m, ready to go. Do you think that like maybe moving slow and being more purposeful did have value other than just being, you know, “SlowSpring” and making you a little frustrated with the growth?

Dan Engel (22:41)

Probably. Two of my partners would say definitely yes. They would be, yes, they are more patient people than I am.

David Vogelpohl (22:44)

Would those be Ken and Ryan?

Nice. I like that. ⁓ But yeah, I think about that a lot, you know, in this day, I don’t know how much you’ve kept up with the merchant of record space, but there’s a decent number of startups getting into it. And so I just imagine what it must be like to start from near zero and develop these rules, and this experience, and this understanding, and a platform that reacts to it all. ⁓ Certainly a grand adventure, but definitely no easy task.

Dan Engel (23:15)

Yeah.

It

was, and I think one error was that we didn’t really have expertise in the whole merchant account payment processing business. I mean, yes, software and what used to be called shareware, and the Digital River side of things. But the actual — like all the intricacies of working with like, Visa, Mastercard, Discover, AmEx, PayPal, and doing global payments and different currencies and different really didn’t know that stuff.

And so sometimes we learned some hard lessons because of our ignorance. ⁓ It would have, if I were to do it again, I would bring someone involved in the early days who really had spent, I don’t know, 20 years in that payment we didn’t have to figure out what we didn’t know. I think that was costly to us. And I think that was something missing, a missing ingredient that fortunately, we were successful despite it.

David Vogelpohl (24:07)

Did you underestimate the complexity of payments?

Dan Engel (24:10)

I think so. Yeah, I think so. ⁓ And the deep understanding that was needed to really know what we were working with and what we were doing and how it was viewed by others playing all different roles in the industry, the ISOs, IPSPs, the Visas and Mastercards, the acquiring banks, the gateways, we just didn’t really have a great understanding of how all of those different parties were seeing us in their world.

And so we didn’t necessarily navigate it the best way that we could have if we had known more.

David Vogelpohl (24:45)

Sage advice. ⁓ As you look back at your time with FastSpring, founding it, bringing it up, eventually selling it, and the roles and companies you’ve led since then, what lessons did you learn in your FastSpring days that you took forward into your future adventures?

Dan Engel (25:03)

Well, you know, we built FastSpring to not be able to fail because we had all been serial entrepreneurs and had built businesses. Some worked, some didn’t. And one thing that I figured out is if you don’t have a clock tied to money and burn, it’s really hard to go out of business. so…

We built the business from scratch with almost no money. Like I said, I put in 10 grand and the co-founders contributed their time for no cash, just for equity, right? Significant equity, founders equity. ⁓ And so the only way the business could fail is if we lost interest. Nothing external could really make us fail. It really was in our control. So it’s a question of, we lose interest before we get enough customers that this business is big enough that we care about it? And it’s making a difference for us. So with that,

⁓ It gave us quite a runway to be able to figure things out, which took really four years to really start taking off. And believe me, the first three years wasn’t just fun. And of course, while you’re building it, you don’t know if you’re ever going to make it, so you might be wasting your time. So it’s not always the most motivating every day. But I’ve built every business since like that, ⁓ where it’s either profitable for day one or it just doesn’t have that burn and that pressure.

Because what’s the number one reason businesses go out of business? They run out of cash. So if you can get rid of that risk, you’ve got a really good chance of making it. So I’ve had a lot of successes in my career. FastSpring is one of them. There’s a whole bunch of other things I’ve done and all that. And the thing that they all have in common is they all failed before they succeeded. I mean, people don’t see that. They just see the news headlines and great exit for FastSpring, or Picasa, or what I did at Google, or

GoTo Meeting in Santa Barbara. But all those things failed first. So the only reason I’ve been able to figure out how to build these businesses successfully now, including my venture capital firm, is because of all the things I did that failed in the past. And so I think that’s the biggest lesson that I bring forward to every business I do and hope to pass on to other entrepreneurs and to my children and whatnot, that it’s really the failures where you learn how to succeed.

David Vogelpohl (27:12)

I imagine what that must be like. So these are the years and the number of employees from back in those days. And you were saying like, it really took you better part of this time period to get it ramped up. And then you can start to see the business grow over time. It’s very efficient business still during that time.

Dan Engel (27:29)

Well, keep in mind, so in 2013, that was 23. They weren’t really employees, 12 full-time. The rest were part-time contractors. We made them employees later after we sold the business. But that was at a time we were doing over $100 million in revenue. We had 12 full-timers. So it was very efficient and we did not in any way measure ourselves by number of people. It was by revenue and profit.

David Vogelpohl (27:51)

That’s great to hear. ⁓ so Dan has founded the business with his co-founders and they’ve gone on this grand adventure, eventually selling the business. ⁓ Nachman, tell me the backstory between about when you joined the business and what you were kind of doing right before that.

David Nachman (28:11)

Yeah,

I’ve been in B2B tech just about my whole career. Immediately before joining FastSpring, I was running a business that had a very highly tailored content management platform for local government.

So it was cities and counties, they would host a website on it, but also we would power a lot of the constituent facing functionality. you we sort of powered the digital city hall strategy that, you know, a lot of local governments are moving towards. We had sold that business to someone who was really consolidating all of the gov tech industry.

Dan Engel (28:32)

.

David Nachman (28:53)

And I found my way indirectly to FastSpring, was drawn to it for a whole host of reasons. But that’s ultimately, you know, what brought me here or the backstory in terms of what I was doing before I got here.

David Vogelpohl (29:08)

And then as you entered the business, what were your perceptions at that time? ⁓ How did you think about FastSpring’s mission then versus now? ⁓ We had this great meeting the other day where we were like, where did you get wrong about FastSpring when you first joined the company? What about for you, David? What did you get wrong about FastSpring when you first joined?

Dan Engel (29:24)

Okay.

David Nachman (29:29)

Yes, I think some of

the same things that Dan mentioned. I’m not sure that I necessarily underestimated the complexity of payments, but I’m not a payments guy by trade and experience. We had a lot of generalists even at that point in the company. We had a lot of really passionate, a lot of really talented people. And I’ve kind of always been one of those people who believes, OK, if you get the

know, get smart people that are driven, they’re going to figure out problems. And yes, but they’re not going to figure them out as quickly. In many cases, it’s someone who’s got the pattern recognition of having seen that same problem 15 times before. ⁓ And I think I waited a little too long ⁓ to really bolster a lot of our domain expertise in the business. And as I started to do that, ⁓ just

Dan Engel (30:05)

you ⁓

David Nachman (30:23)

What it did in terms of accelerating the business was pretty profound. And it was one of those where I sort of stepped back and said, wow, I should have done that a long time ago. I’d say the other thing is when I came into the business, my perceptions were very positive of the business. Great solution, great customers, business growing at a very healthy clip. So it was a very healthy business. wasn’t a turnaround of any sort. It was how do we take it to the next level?

Dan Engel (30:30)

Okay.

David Nachman (30:52)

So what was missing in my mind was that it really wasn’t built to scale

to anywhere, you the size we are today or, where we think we’ll be over the coming few years. And like a lot of small businesses, a lot of single points of failure, you know, some of that was people, some of that was vendors, some of that was technology. The business sort of survived and thrived on individual heroics. So, you know.

not a lot of ⁓ systems in place, processes, et cetera. And we didn’t really have a leadership team that had scaled to where we wanted to go. So I felt like we did need to bring in people that were more experienced and kind of knew the journey that we were embarking on. And I think a little bit of what I got wrong there.

⁓ in some of these initial hires was I was very focused on getting people that, you know, kind of knew how to operate at scale. And culturally I missed on some of them in terms of abandoning a lot of what’s made the company so special and so effective, which is kind of the entrepreneurial scrappiness. And it’s a, you know, it’s a rare breed of person that has that hands on entrepreneurial scrappiness and can also scale. ⁓ you know,

Dan Engel (32:08)

you

David Nachman (32:14)

Often those are great founder type people that could do magic that a lot of more experienced company people can’t do, but they don’t scale as well. ⁓ So initially I did bring some of those people in and it just, they weren’t the right fit. ⁓ And over my first few years here, I started to really realize what’s the culture that really correlates with

success in our particular business. And part of it is this is the most dynamic, most complex business I’ve ever been at for its scale. I mean, we’ve got a very global footprint. We’re operating in highly regulated industries. We’re dealing with payments. We’re dealing with software. We’re dealing with complexity around tax. We’re dealing with a lot of regulation around data. It’s kind of infinitely complex. And this goes back to this notion of adaptability. ⁓

Dan Engel (32:47)

Okay.

David Nachman (33:11)

You have to have some level of scrappy entrepreneurialism to thrive in this business. But it also has to be paired with, you know how to scale a business and it’s not all about, hey, I’m just going to do the heroics to get us to the next challenge. It’s no, I’m going to build a foundation where if I’m not here, this business will still run quite well. So.

Dan Engel (33:25)

you

David Nachman (33:37)

So I think, you know, there are definitely things I got right, but there were some things I got wrong in trying to make that transition from more of a startup company to a really scalable company.

David Vogelpohl (33:48)

Yeah, that’s kind of like an awkward teenager-y zone a little bit. that’s a whole, sorry, go ahead.

Dan Engel (33:48)

Hm.

David Nachman (33:51)

That’s right. ⁓

We definitely went through our awkward teenage phase. I hope we’re out of that now.

David Vogelpohl (33:57)

Yeah.

Knock on wood on that one for sure. I still got to build the enduring business of the future, right? ⁓ We’re kind of getting towards the end here, so I want to make sure to hit on a couple of things here in the last little bit. Nachman, since I’m on you, I’ll stick with you for this one. But if somebody’s out there and they have a startup and they’re listening to all these points of view,

David Nachman (34:03)

That’s right.

David Vogelpohl (34:22)

maybe taking some notes along the way, but what’s the one thing that that person should ⁓ get from listening to you about building an enduring business? What’s your number one piece of advice?

David Nachman (34:33)

It’s embrace change and change before you have to. ⁓ You can’t build an enduring business doing the same thing for any period of time. period of time is shrinking with every given year. mean, given what’s going on with AI right now, ⁓ know, the timeframes over which things evolve is just collapsing. it’s, you know, constantly think about how your business is going to be.

reimagined and go do that. ⁓ Don’t let somebody else do that to you. You’ve got to get out in front of it.

David Vogelpohl (35:08)

Great one, embrace change and change before you have to. ⁓ Dan, what about you?

Dan Engel (35:14)

⁓ I would say treating your own people extremely well and having that then trickle down to how they treat your customers and the concept of treating your customers like gold and bending over backwards to ensure that they are just wowed by the experience of working with you compared to what they’re used to from alternatives. And then I think in terms of building a business, removing the obstacles as much as possible that

lead companies to fail, including dealing with things like burn upfront.

David Vogelpohl (35:46)

I it. I love the people first thing. I think this is like the Dan Golden Rule. Treat others as you want them to treat your customers. I love it. ⁓ All right. ⁓ Last question. Sorry about that little mic pop there. Dan, um we’re going to show this recording to the FastSpring team and they’re pretty much all going to listen to it and watch it. Do you have a special message for them to celebrate the 20 year FastSpring anniversary?

David Nachman (35:53)

Thank

Dan Engel (36:16)

A special message. Well, you know, I guess, you know, it’s I’m glad that everybody’s part of something with the humble roots and mission that we originally started on to try to offer a better alternative in an industry that was plagued with some negativity. But I think, ⁓ you know, I challenge everybody to really think about how to make the next 20 years of FastSpring successful, dealing with all the change. Change has been a big ⁓

theme here in our conversation. So we have all the different things happening around, say, AI, or how people purchase software, or what Apple’s Store looks like, and what they can and can’t do. All different facets are going to continuously change. And so I hope folks are thinking about how they can continuously adapt to ensure that FastSpring survives and thrives through all the shifts ahead. Some will be good and some will be bad for the company so that we can have this kind of a conversation again after another 20 years.

David Vogelpohl (37:12)

Nice, I like it. Dan, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation. It was super interesting to hear about your backstory and some of the things that went into building such an enduring business. But thank you so much for joining us today.

Dan Engel (37:27)

You betcha. Thanks for having me and congratulations on the 20 years and thanks everyone for doing such a great job at the business.

David Vogelpohl (37:33)

Thank you, of course. then David, thank you for joining and picking up the torch and then sharing your backstory here at the helm.

David Nachman (37:41)

Well, thank you for having me. I’ve enjoyed the discussion. I’ve learned some things about the business. I don’t think I knew Dan, so it’s fantastic to get the time to interact and learn a little bit about our roots and history.

Dan Engel (37:50)

Okay.

David Vogelpohl (37:52)

Excellent. And for those watching and listening, if you’d like to learn more about FastSpring, you can visit FastSpring.com. Thanks for joining us for the Growth Stage podcast. I’ve been your host, David Vogelpohl. I support the digital product community as part of my role here at FastSpring. And I love to bring the best of the community to you here on Growth Stage. Thanks everybody.

The post What It Takes to Build an Enduring Business: Celebrating 20 Years of FastSpring appeared first on FastSpring.

The 2024 edition of ChinaJoy, themed “Stay True, Game On,” is scheduled from July 26th to 29th at the Shanghai New International Expo Center (SNIEC). This year’s event will focus on deepening player experiences and supporting international growth for game companies. 

“‘Stay True’ is to express the deep love and persistent pursuit of the game industry for more than 20 years, whether it is the organizer of the exhibition or the members of the industry. Game, as a new cultural carrier, is not only a form of entertainment, but also represents a process of creation and exploration. ‘Game On’ emphasizes that ChinaJoy will continue to bring endless game experience and endless joy to the vast number of game players.”

FastSpring helps you bring that endless joy to players beyond the borders of any region by offloading the complexity of global payments, sales tax and VAT compliance, player payments support, and many other aspects of payments management. Spend less time managing your payments and compliance and more time making great games!   

For video game studios, attending ChinaJoy is a strategic move to expand your global reach and tap into the thriving Chinese gaming market. With a massive and engaged player base, China represents a lucrative opportunity for growth and innovation. ChinaJoy provides a unique platform to connect with local publishers, investors, and service providers, forging valuable partnerships and accelerating market entry. The event also offers a chance to gather crucial market intelligence, understand player preferences, and stay ahead of the curve in this rapidly evolving industry. 

Also in the B2B section is the ChinaJoy x Game Connection Indie Game Festival which aims to promote new high-quality indie games worldwide, and will be presented online on Steam & Steam China.

Where to Get Tickets

Still need tickets? Head over to the registration page to grab your ticket to get access to incredible speakers, unparalleled networking opportunities and proprietary software that will maximize your experience even more!

How to Connect With FastSpring at ChinaJoy

Stop by our booth B286 in hall W4 or connect with the team, (Jay and Leo) via the ChinaJoy WeChat to learn more about subscription management, international taxes, and how using a merchant of record can enable you to collect payments faster on your website. Schedule a demo now or at ChinaJoy in person!

The post Join FastSpring at ChinaJoy 2024! appeared first on FastSpring.

Join us at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland on July 9 and 10 for an extraordinary event dedicated to all things technology and innovation.

Immerse yourself in a diverse array of programs, workshops, and presentations, where industry experts will share their wisdom and cutting-edge trends will be unveiled. Embrace the spirit of collaboration and giving back during the event, where you can contribute to discussions on the latest developments in software, product management, and marketing, and make a lasting impact. Also, don’t miss the opportunity to engage with thought leaders during keynote sessions and network with like-minded professionals.

You must also explore the beauty of Edinburgh. Experience the rich culture, tantalizing cuisine, and awe-inspiring sights that this dynamic city offers. Edinburgh, a city rooted in history with its stunning medieval architecture and vibrant arts scene, is renowned for its cultural festivals and historical landmarks. In recent times, Edinburgh has become a thriving hub for tech startups and innovation, attracting talent from all over the world. Connect, learn, and be inspired in this captivating city, where technology meets tradition and innovation thrives amidst cultural splendor.

Where to Get Tickets 

Still need tickets? Head over to the registration page to grab your ticket to get access to incredible speakers, unparalleled networking opportunities, and proprietary software that will maximize your experience even more! Tickets include entry to the conference days (July 9-10), including lunch, snacks, and coffee, as well as an invite to the official Turing Fest After Party. As a ticket holder, you’ll also get the opportunity to register for various workshops and networking events.

How to Connect With FastSpring at Turing Fest 2024 

Stop by the FastSpring Meeting Space or connect with the team via the Turing Fest 2024 app to learn more about subscription management, international taxes, and how using a merchant of record can enable you to collect payments faster for your business. Schedule a demo now or at Turing Fest 2024 in person!

FastSpring is how plugin, theme, and SaaS companies sell online in more places around the world. We handle every payment need from subscription management to tax collection, remittance, and more so your business can go farther, faster. We’re also the leading merchant of record for global software companies — powering over a billion dollars in worldwide transactions every year. We’ll manage your checkout, VAT and sales taxes, compliance, and more, freeing you to focus on what you do best: building great software. Sign up for a free account or request a demo today to learn more.

The post FastSpring at Turing Fest 2024! appeared first on FastSpring.

Say goodbye to the traditional method of sifting through pages of documents using keywords. With Owlbot AI seamlessly integrated into our search, you now have the power to ask questions in natural language and receive precise, relevant responses in real time. Whether you’re seeking product information, troubleshooting guidance, or code snippets for API calls, Owlbot AI has got you covered.

What sets AI search apart from basic document searches? It’s all about the way you interact with it. Instead of rigidly typing keywords, you can now frame your queries as questions, allowing for a more intuitive and conversational search experience. No more guesswork or trial and error with specific keywords — simply ask, and Owlbot AI will deliver.

We know achieving perfection requires continual refinement. Although our goal is to provide accurate and thorough information, it’s worth acknowledging that, similar to other AI search tools, Owlbot may occasionally produce inaccurate or partial responses. Your feedback is invaluable in pinpointing areas for improvement within our documentation to minimize such occurrences, so please feel free to share what works and what doesn’t. Together, we’ll enhance the AI search experience to better cater to your requirements.

Here’s how it works:

1. Type your question or phrase into the search bar.
2. Relevant documentation related to your query will populate.
3. Press Enter to generate the AI response, or click on the relevant document (if you want to bypass the AI response).
4. Provide feedback on the response you received by clicking on either the Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down icon.

We’re committed to continuous improvement, and your feedback plays a crucial role in shaping the future of our AI search feature. By sharing your feedback, you’re helping us deliver a more efficient and accurate search experience tailored to your needs. To help you navigate this new tool, refer to the Owlbot AI Documentation Search page on FastSpring Docs.

Of course, we understand that there are times when manual searching is still necessary. That’s why we’ve made it easy to toggle between AI-powered search and traditional keyword-based searches. Simply click the ⌘K FOR MORE or Ctrl+K FOR MORE Button located in the search bar, or utilize the keyboard shortcuts (Mac: ⌘+K or Windows: Ctrl+K) as you start typing in the search bar to transition modes and reach the basic search engine. This feature enables you to locate documents you wish to review by using the familiar search filters you’re accustomed to.

We’re thrilled to usher in this new era of intelligent search at FastSpring. With Owlbot AI by your side, finding the information you need has never been easier or more intuitive. So go ahead: Ask away, and let’s embark on this journey of innovation together!

The post Introducing FastSpring Docs With Owlbot: AI-Powered Search for Documentation appeared first on FastSpring.

FastSpring finds inspiration in a cutting-edge incubator for cleantech startups — also known as the LACI.

One of the things that truly sets FastSpring apart as a business is our values. We are constantly pursuing new ideas that not only help businesses selling software, SaaS, or digital goods but also shape the evolving tech landscape at large.

Our exploration of innovative tech often pushes us beyond the beautiful coastline of Santa Barbara. Recently, I had the opportunity to visit a true pioneer in the emerging cleantech space known as the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator. I am thrilled to share some of the highlights from the visit below.

Introducing LA’s Cleantech Incubator – LACI

As a digital strategist, I am always inspired by individuals and organizations that are building towards making the future a better place. So when a few members of the FastSpring team were invited by LACI’s SVP of Operations, Ben Stapleton to take a tour of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator located in LA’s downtown Arts and Innovation District, well let’s just say… the team and I were stoked!

The Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator is a unique partnership among public, private, and educational sectors that are all invested in supporting cleantech businesses in Los Angeles. The non-profit organization is supported by the Mayor’s office, the city’s universities, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, and more. In its first five years, LACI incubated 67 companies which raised a total of $134M in funds and sent over $335M in long-term economic benefits to the city.

“This is a co-working space. What we’re working on right now is shared services with the focus being creative brands, legal, accounting, HR, you know, IT support. We’re trying to manage the process, provide consistent service for people at reasonable rates while providing each of our companies a bit of credit to spend on the shared services so that we can see where they place their chips.” – Ben Stapleton

LACI is the business equivalent of baseball’s farm system: it identifies local talent, nurtures it, and helps it get to market, resulting in more jobs and a bigger green economy in Los Angeles. A few notable members of their roster include Green Commuter, Avisare, and Permacity.

Building an Economy—Green or Digital.

Ben explains that there is a strategic imperative to building a green economy. The city’s primary economic growth strategy is to drive innovation in clean technologies. The Los Angeles region is already the largest green economy in the nation, and there is an unprecedented economic opportunity as the country rebuilds its energy and transportation infrastructure, shifting energy dependence away from fossil fuels and toward sustainable energy sources.

This tour truly struck a chord with us at FastSpring. Our goal is and always will be to help our customers maximize and grow their digital business globally. It was refreshing to see a similar-minded group pushing the boundaries of tech to help shape the future of business around the world.

We are thrilled to follow along as LACI works to make Los Angeles, and the world, a cleaner place.

For more information about LACI, please visit https://laincubator.org/.

By the way, do you know of any amazing businesses doing forward-thinking things to help make the world a better place? Tell us all about it on Twitter. Tweet us at @FastSpring.

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