Ninite's origins date back to early 2008, when Swieskowski and Kuzins launched BaseShield, a virtualization project for Windows that would run applications in secure containers.
The original idea and product had enough merit to graduate from Y Combinator and help the co-founders raise a small angel round. But the general public wasn't responding with the same fervor. "It was hard to package that up and sell it to users," Swieskowski explains.
After nearly two years of work on the original product, the co-founders switched to Ninite. The first iteration of the so-simple-it's-stupid software installer was released at just the right time in October, 2009 -- right before Microsoft released Windows 7.
"We saw a huge uptake from people. Within a week, we were getting posts on random technology blogs; within two weeks, we had 10,000 users in the beta."
And for good reason. The installer automates installs offscreen, always grabs the latest available version of apps, picks the most appropriate version and language edition for the user's PC, and auto-updates installed software upon re-run.
Accidental App Curators
As Ninite worked to simply the application installation process and give users a one-stop shop for picking and downloading great apps, its co-founders slowly became curators of the best Windows applications.
The Ninite site features dozens of hand-selected browsers, messaging, media-imaging and file-sharing applications, among other things; and Swieskowski and Kuzins go to great pains to ensure that there are no junk apps or scam installation add-ons.
The pair also solicit tips and requests from users, and Ninite has grown to become a powerful distribution mechanism for software titles.
Quiet Simplicity
"We believe in simplicity," reads Ninite's About page. The words epitomize both the product and its creators.
Simple has its perks. Ninite became profitable a few months ago, roughly one year after releasing a for-charge Pro product aimed at IT professionals and super users.
Now Swieskowski and Kuzins are looking to shed the perception that Ninite is merely something nice to use when setting up a machine and hope to turn the startup into a destination that users return to frequently for single-app downloads.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, gbrundin
Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark