So, solving a problem for a customer of “self” is certainly a way of going about things, but one that I worry myself carries immense risk if you ever wish to sell the solution.<p>I have found that it is important not to be afraid of doing market research, surveys, conducting interviews or observations of existing people in action with existing solutions.<p>If you want to scratch your own itch, that’s cool. And it can work to produce a nice tight product, maybe could in this case.<p>But if I wanted to sell my product, I’d try to figure out if there is enough statistical significance in the market response before building it. Even just putting out and marketing an RSVP landing page for the tool, to see how many people might want it - you might get a load of potential customers who sign up and can give you feedback.<p>Since you’ve already decided to build this anyway, you aren’t concerned about competition - so what do you have to lose from seeing if other people want it? [1]<p>[1] Note - I do know that sometimes you don’t want to deal with other people’s opinions while building a product, and the author’s approach certainly is one way to go about it. Also, I guess accounting is a pretty well-known niche so a lot of the knowledge is already out there, maybe you don’t need much new input. But I felt a hypothesis here that could be tested and would be reinforcing if proven true.<p>EDIT: I see from the website the author is taking early access adopters, so maybe they are doing this. Actually I like the approach of doing this in the open and blogging about it, it was more the original blog post that triggered my reaction.
I like that approach (probably because I decided to use a similar one for my potential future SW, hehe).<p>Just to confirm, the concept is basically...<p>"I'll create the software X to fit my own specific requirements/needs, then I'll see if anybody else wants to use it as well (which would mean that that niche of people have the same needs/requirements), and if that's the case then I can decide if to put more energe/effort/$ into it otherwise it will just be something useful for myself"<p>..., right?<p>I think that for that to work the important detail about the concept&implementation is that the SW must be complete (~no critical bugs, all needed functionality is available) + not reliant on any external dependencies (e.g. hosting, downloads of data like Tax rates from anywhere, etc) + must use proven and stable technologies.
A stupid example would be "Tiddlywiki" (<a href="https://tiddlywiki.com" rel="nofollow">https://tiddlywiki.com</a>): I downloaded the html/js-file (proven & stable & compatible with all browsers) and it works with 0 external dependencies => I can be sure that I won't loose my notes whatever happens and that the full functionality will be always available, even if in the worst case I don't have an Internet-connection.<p>Btw., the GigoBooks app does not currently allow to save data, or did I overlook some menu-entry?
To the author, I'd be wary of the fact that not even you felt you needed what you're try to make. It doesn't sound like you'd have payed money for something over your existing, albeit old and hard for anyone else to get ahold of today, solution. If you're making it for yourself, for the experience if nothing else, and it would be a bonus other people might pay for it, then great.
I'm fairly certain this process will be entirely automated by QB in the next 5 - 10 years, QB Cloud almost already is, paying a nominal fee for that software is well worth not having to do it oneself. I think you will find there's a limited market for such technology in a mature market.