ANTIC Interview 303 - Lee Konowe, American Software Club - a podcast by Randy Kindig, Kay Savetz, Brad Arnold

Lee Konowe was founder of American Software Club, a mail-order software company. American Software Club sold software for CP/M, Atari 8-bit, TRS-80, Apple II, IBM PC, Commodore 64, and other platforms. It started out with a sort of Columbia House "software of the month" model, where you automatically received a "choice of the month" software package each month — which you could keep and pay for, or return at no cost. Later the company switched to a more traditional mail order catalog model.

 

The company was founded around June 1981. In an article about software clubs in InfoWorld magazine, the company said it had about 2,000 members by the end of its first month. By February 1983 it claimed 10,000 members, and by September of that year had 15,000 members.

 

This interview took place on June 7 2017 for me, and June 8 for Lee in New Zealand.

 

 

"Very quickly it occurred to me that there was a need to put people who were producing software together with people who were consuming it."

 

American Software Club ad in H&E Computrpnics magazine, 1982 (page 11)