About

Stamper's Sidekick was started in late 2003 as a project for my wife, who had recently become a Stampin' Up!® demonstrator. I was disappointed that Stampin' Up!® did not provide any business management tools and I found their online customer manager lacking the detail my wife wanted to track.

My wife was a member of a number of online groups where other demonstrators gathered to share their business ideas. While she found that there were some business tools out there, most were very focused in their design and left us wanting more detailed business tracking. It didn't take long for us to find out that this was a common need among many SU!® demonstrators.

In my full-time career I am a network administrator and database programmer/administrator. I had been primarily focused on the database aspect of my job for the last 3 years and it seemed obvious that I needed to design a program for my wife to manage her business.

As we started working on the design and deciding what the system should do, it became quickly apparent that there was a lot of information to track - Customers, Events, Orders, Inventory - and a small customer manager program started growing into a full-fledged business management tool.

My wife started asking questions in her online groups about what other demonstrators would want to include in a software program for business management. We got so many favorable responses that it was apparent that we needed to expand our plans for my program. Soon thereafter, Stamper's Sidekick was born.

The Project
I started a Yahoo group in January 2004 and started inviting demonstrators to join so I could bounce ideas off of them on how to design Stamper's Sidekick. In no time I had a group of about 30 people who were giving me many great ideas.

In June of 2004, I started the Beta test and the Yahoo group became my Beta testers. The group has grown to over 120 participants. Without their help, Stamper's Sidekick would not be where it is today!