Startups

Why Visme took its time coming out of beta

The Rockville, Md.–based company wanted to make sure it was launching what users wanted.

Visme offers a suite of visual presentation and design tools. (Screenshot)

At the end of May, Visme CEO Payman Taei announced that the company’s platform for creating visual content is officially out of beta.

It was several years in the making.

The Rockville-based company’s platform has been available since 2015. Visme has also been making money since then, offered through a “freemium” model where certain services are offered for no charge but more advanced tools require a cost. Taei said the bootstrapped company became profitable in that time, and the product had 1.3 million users. Teams from IBM, NIH and NASA started using it. But in that time, Taei said the company continued making changes.

Still, the “beta” label remained. The platform is designed to provide what’s needed to make a presentation or infographic without graphic design skills. It offers templates, graphics, photos and fonts. Getting the right tools to make things simple took time, not to mention navigating a space that has big players like PowerPoint and Photoshop. The Visme team has continued rolling out new features. They also kept collecting feedback about changes or additions users wanted to see. But recently, Taei said the suggestions from those users about new additions have been fewer.

“We wanted to take our time to make the decision that this product is ready to be open to everyone for professional and personal use,” Taei said.

With the new version being released, Taei detailed a host of changes to existing sections, as well as the launch of a printables category and tools for productivity.

More new features are in the works. So while the product is now formally launched, the work of improving it continues.

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