From a Wedding Seating Problem to a Successful SaaS: The PerfectTablePlan Story

Andy faced a daunting task of arranging seats for 60 wedding guests and realized that existing software could not meet his needs, prompting him to develop a custom solution.

Leveraging his extensive background in FORTRAN, C, and C++, he built PerfectTablePlan in 2005 using C++ and the cross‑platform Qt framework, launching a desktop application for event seating.

The product quickly gained traction, securing an order within 24 hours and growing into a company where Andy handled development, sales, promotion, and support while his wife managed accounting.

PerfectTablePlan supports complex constraints such as “A must sit next to B,” dietary restrictions, and attendance confirmation, allowing users to design layouts for various event types and print customized seating charts and cards.

By 2015, the software had sold over 40,000 copies, generating several million pounds in revenue and serving high‑profile clients, including royalty and government officials.

Technical challenges arose when seating large events (e.g., 4,000 guests) required solving massive combinatorial problems; Andy employed a genetic algorithm to efficiently search for satisfactory arrangements, acknowledging that optimal solutions would otherwise demand years of computation.

The algorithm’s effectiveness was highlighted when Canada’s D‑Wave quantum computer used a customized PerfectTablePlan version to demonstrate quantum advantage on a 16‑guest optimization task.

Andy invested heavily in diverse marketing strategies—Google PPC, media partnerships, trade shows, email campaigns, magazine ads, forum engagement, phone outreach, blogging, and SEO—to drive sales, even creating a “crack‑me” page that educated users on the risks of pirated versions.

Over two decades, despite evolving competition and operating system changes, Andy continuously maintained and updated the software, which now comprises roughly 145,000 lines of C++ code and a 500‑page PDF manual.

His entrepreneurial journey illustrates the blend of technical innovation, relentless marketing, and disciplined self‑management that enabled him to achieve a comfortable, passive‑income lifestyle while running a one‑person company.