This website building tool began as a "hobby" for myself, Ken Williams, a retired software entrepreneur. It is not a company, and until very recently, there were no employees. I retired in 1996, after a 25 year in the computer industry, mostly spent as founder and CEO of a large consumer software company - Sierra On-Line. Sierra was responsible for numerous hit computer games such as Half-Life, Kings Quest, Leisure-Suit Larry and hundreds of other titles. Sierra was also a leader in education through its Brightstar and Coktel Vision subsidiaries, and in productivity software, with titles such as Homeword.

TalkSpot.com began as a simple tool to allow other members of my home owners association to talk to one another. It was never my plan to grow the site or tools into a commercial software product. For me, it was a way to keep myself current with technology. I enjoy writing software and I enjoy helping others. As time progressed, TalkSpot slowly began to allow non-techies the ability to create complex websites that rival those costing 10’s of thousands of dollars!

I get excited about empowering people to do something that was never possible before. I enjoy pioneering. I'm having fun building this software, and enjoy the excitement that others have using it.

Years later, the TalkSpot system has been used to create close to 20,000 sites; sites ranging from travelogues to family photos and complete websites for businesses. I was just looking at the stats, and usage is growing over 20% per month, and this rate is increasing!

I’ve recently brought on my son to assist in designing and determining the direction we will go, as well as another developer and a graphic artist. We have taken the best aspects of the old system and reassembled them to create a far more intuitive, yet equally powerful toolset. As an avid boater myself, it seemed like a fun idea to first bring it to the boating community.

The TalkSpot system has been running for upwards 5 years and I’m as excited about it now, as I was when I first started. My educated guess is that it will continue in place for many years to come. We are a small team with limited customer support. We are documenting the product slowly, over time, and there are parts which are not documented and can be confusing. The slight cost is just enough to help keep us afloat and moving forward.

I am still reasonably young, 50 years old, but have no plans (and no need) to ever work again. It is not my plan to grow Talkspot.com into a commercial software product. Even now, there is much I could easily do to attract more "clients", but I'm of the opposite opinion. I want enough "clients" to keep life interesting, but not so many that it becomes a real job.

Start building your site and you'll see why it is so popular, and continues to grow. Good luck, and enjoy!