Ask Clients & Profits Sales:

If Apple hadn't offered a free weekend test-drive of the Mac 128k, Clients & Profits might never have happened.

Mark Robillard, the creator of Clients & Profits, was a San Diego State senior in 1984 when the Macintosh appeared one day on a counter at the student store. "There was a line out the door to try MacPaint," he remembers. "I waited an hour for my turn, and when I first touched the mouse I knew I wanted one."

His obsession with the Mac began that day. "When Apple offered a free test-drive for a weekend that fall, I jumped on it" even he knew he couldn't afford it. As a college student, finding $2,500 to buy it was impossible. "I gave it back on Monday, but was now driven to use it." By the spring of 1985, he was in Los Angeles selling Macs at Computerland. It was there he met the ad agency owner who inspired him to create Clients & Profits for the shop's Macs.

"I loved all the things that made a Mac a Mac," Mark says. "I love the consistency and uniformity as much as the sheer elegance of the windows, menus, and other GUI elements. It was a very inspiring and exciting time to be a software designer."


Making Clients & Profits 1.0 in the apartment, 1986

Throughout the company's 20-year history, Mark has used Macs to develop Clients & Profits. The company's collection of vintage Macs includes every model used to create a major version of Clients & Profits.

"One of the best things about being in this business is buying every new Mac that comes out," he says. Having long ago replaced his desktop Macs for laptops, he now uses a 17" MacBook Pro exclusively. "The Mac keeps me thinking like a creative, and that motivates everything I do. It works for me, and it's worked for my clients. I wouldn't want to work any other way."