SoftOrbits is a photo and video editing software development company founded by Eugene Ustinenkov in 2006. Focusing on developing small-scale single-feature utilities, SoftOrbits has managed to become one of the niche-leading companies, being recognized by CNET, OISV, and Softonic, and earning over a million yearly downloads with 300,000 users.
In an industry dominated by giant companies that develop comprehensive one-tool-for-all solutions, SoftOrbits’ strategy might seem difficult to pull off effectively, but the team was able to find its own unique niche in the market and become a successful, long-lasting business with bright prospects. But how was this made possible?
“To put it simply, we are 100% convinced that accessibility and simplicity beat flexibility all the time — these characteristics are by far the most important for most software products in today’s world. If you target a non-expert audience, you have to make your tools as intuitive and convenient as possible first and foremost — otherwise your customers will find someone who will provide it,” says Eugene Ustinenkov, CEO of SoftOrbits and AlarmFront.
The team behind SoftOrbits came up with this approach back in the early days of the company. As Ustinenkov explains, the only way to compete with industry giants is to focus on an entirely different aspect of user experience instead of trying to play by their rulebook.
“As a small startup, you would never be able to create a comprehensive flexible tool that provides a few hundred functionalities — and you shouldn’t. Instead, find a very specific thing that the industry leaders overlook and double down on it. In our case, we found that most amateur photographers don’t want to spend hours learning how to manually fix their photos using complex software — they want automated tools that would do it for them. So we created several utilities to help with noisy photos, blurry photos, and so on — and immediately found a loyal audience,” says Eugene Ustinenkov, CEO of SoftOrbits with more than 10 years of software development expertise.
Today, SoftOrbits continues to follow its strategy and even expands on it by adding AI functionalities to increase accessibility and ensure that the user doesn’t have to learn the software to achieve the required results.
“A lot of people view AI as something that destroys people’s creativity or at the very least tries to replace it. We believe that there are multiple ways to use the technology, and it doesn’t have to be about generating images from scratch. If you use AI to help with boring, non-creative, and frankly annoying tasks, you only make the creative process better for everyone. AI is unparalleled when it comes to understanding what the user needs and providing that on the spot, so we’re very excited to implement it into more of our products in the future,” says Eugene Ustinenkov, CEO of SoftOrbits, Candidate of Technical Sciences.
Another goal for SoftOrbits is switching the distribution model to SaaS to ensure that users won’t have to rely on their hardware to access the utilities. This is another step towards global 24/7 access that will make the team’s solutions even more convenient.
“SaaS is one of our priorities at the moment, and we believe that it is by far the best distribution model we can use. While the transition process will take some time and will require significant effort on our part, we are sure that it is worth it in the end,” says Hannes Jansen, writer and editor at SoftOrbits.
Want to connect with SoftOrbits?
Whether you’re a client interested in SoftOrbits’ products or a business owner willing to partner with the team, you can reach out at support@softorbits.com or visit softorbits.net.
