Even though I create shopping cart software, I consider myself a merchant as well. And just like any merchant, I once had a “first sale.” Brick and mortar merchants often frame their first dollar, but for online merchants it’s not quite as exciting to frame an electronic bank statement. Still, my first sale was exciting enough that I still remember it.

In 2001 I spent six months creating a shopping cart platform called BV Commerce.  BV stood for “Best Value.” And I named it that largely because I wanted to be near the top of Yahoo’s list of ecommerce software. (This was back when Yahoo was still THE search engine and alphabetical order actually counted for something.)

BV Commerce was the first commercial asp.net ecommerce application, and it was simple but good. Everything worked well, and I thought that because it was good sales would magically appear.

Luckily, I had a friend who owned a local hosting company who I’d done consulting work for in the past, and he decided to take a chance on me and use my software. He knew what I was working on and respected that even though I didn’t have all the features of the competition, reliability in shopping cart software was more important. He had a client who was having a really difficult time with an old ASP cart and put in a good word for me. That was the first copy of BV Commerce sold.

It’s hard to describe the excitement I felt when I saw that first store go live. My software had helped create that site. It was kind of like my kid—a boxy, pixilated kid. It got me hooked on entrepreneurship and software craftsmanship. And 11 years later, I still have the bug to create good software that helps people follow their own dreams.

What your first sale story? Was it exciting? Scary? Sad? Share your experience with other merchants, designers and developers.