Frantic Software (Now Frantic)
Frantic is my longest running project now, of about 2 years
What is Frantic Group?
Frantic is a software (and some day hardware) development company I founded here in Minnesota. Our biggest product, FCloud, launches Aug 1, 2024.
(I say “Our” but it’s just me, theres nobody else.)
How did you get the idea? What’s the story behind it?
MID 2023 A year ago I was teaching myself the ins-and-outs of Linux by developing my own distro. I had decieded that i loved development so much that I decided I wanted to develop as a job, and not a hobby.
Why didn’t I just get a normal development job? Four reasons.
- There is SO MUCH competition that it would be damn near impossible to actually get hired
- I was just a kid and nowhere would hire me regardless of skill
- Running your own company is more fun
- Because I could
So I decided I was going to release the Linux Distro as a company, called Frantic Linux. I quickly realized two things:
- This would make me no money
- Building a linux distro that isn’t the same as everything else is impossible unless you REALLY know what you’re doing.
So after almost a month of development, I ditched the linux idea and the “Company” stayed dormant for a while. I say “Company” with quotes because at the time it wasn’t incorporated yet.
MID-LATE 2023
After learning about how Amazon runs a multi billion dollar cloud platform and I didn’t even know about it, I decided that I wanted to learn AWS and get hands on with it. I had also realized that I didn’t have a website yet for Frantic Group (Which was still Frantic Software at the time). So I signed up for AWS, and began writing a website. Back then I didn’t know any web frameworks or anything other than plain HTML/CSS/JS. Could you guess how that turned out?
I quickly realized how ugly this was, and switched to using Hugo as a temporary-but-permanent solution.
Much better.
It was in September when I went for my AWS Cloud Practitioner exam, and passing it changed my world in the best way possible. I knew, with at least some certainty, that I was capable as a developer. This event kicked off the pivot that changed my company and gave it a life that otherwise wouldn’t have existed at all.
VERY VERY EARLY 2024/VERY VERY LATE 2023
New Years was coming up, when something hit me like a truck. These normal-people cloud services are great and all, but after seeing how AWS’ pay-as-you-go strategy saved me money, and hearing my family complain about iCloud’s crappy pricing, I knew I had to make something.
FCloud was it’s name, and it changed what my company stood for.
On December 15th, 2023, I hit the most important milestone yet. More than the certification, more than the pivot, we were finally incorperated.
Development officially began on Dec 19, 2023, starting with the landing page, then the Dashboard, Then Cloud Store. The private beta for Cloud Store.
Private Beta 1 opened on Feb 4, 2024
Satellite development started on March 7th, 2024
This was way too long, and i’ve got more, but that can be saved for a book someday.
EARLY-MID 2024
I had gone crazy by this point, and was trying to do anything I could to make as much money as I could. I decided to take up warehouse robotics, without thinking of a place to build/house these robots. I was juggling pretty much 3 projects at once. It took my parents literally yelling at me until I realized “What the hell am I doing? If I keep going down this path of insanity, I’m going to run out of money and patience”.
So in very late April 2024, I had pivoted once again. No robotics, no more pay-as-you-go cloud for consumers, none of it. I was going to stick with what I was good at, developing and selling software for businesses. So, I basically trashed my existing MVP, rebranded FCloud, and started off on a new, more focused path. Some may see this as a major setback, but I believe it was exactly what I needed to kick my ass into gear and stop going strictly for the money. FCloud is now the one hub for all of a company’s cloud resources, no matter what platform the resource is on.
How did you come up with that shitty name?
Before I decided to turn my small project into a company, I was working on a FRAPS alternative, since FRAPS’ development is basically dead. This alternative was called FRAntic! (Short for “Frame Rate Application”)