Idea
The idea spawned from my days of “fixing computers” for residential customers and small/medium sized businesses. The team was small (2 of us) and we pretty much winged all things when it came to organization. We would go from site to site taking care of issues ranging from installing software and fixing major problems with end user devices and some server stuff.
As we acquired more and more clients it became more of a challenge remembering client’s assets and the work that was performed on each visit. Sometimes we would go together, but not always, so that lead to asking the client what did we do last time when we were out here (lol). We tried Zendesk but to us the tickets just weren’t cutting it. Often it felt as if we were forcing the software to do what we want it to do and not using it on how it was intended.
After a good run with that business we canned it and reflected back on how much of a pain it was that we didn’t really have any organization with client’s assets and wondered if it would be beneficial to write a web app that does so. I think more and more to myself of how it would have been nice to have one place sorted by client with information that was important to us and that place be accessible from anywhere that has an internet connection. So it led to me to do some research and see what type of software offered such features and what type of cost was involved.
Researching the Idea
As you can imagine in today’s times it isn’t hard to find software to do what you want and this case wasn’t any different. The only catch was most of the software I found was for “Enterprise” level. The software for consultants was usually a watered down versions of the “Enterprise” level. Another crazy thing was that none of them had pricing readily available, and to try it out you had to schedule a demo with someone. In other words you had to become a part of their spam list so they can ask you 50 times on why you do not want to buy the software. So to start off its not looking too good on finding a pre-made solution but looking good for making my own solution.
Taking the research further I decide to ask others in the field on what they are using and if they are happy with it. I asked on reddit.com and here is the link to see what some said publicly: http://simplurl.com/it-question. As you can see the contenders are Connectwise, Kaseya, and Autotask. When I first seen these I felt intimidated because they seemed huge, successful, and offered way more than I can offer.
These companies used words and jargon that made your head hurt. Then I started to take a look at the feature list and realized that their offers are huge and bloated, and it is hard to tell what their core service(s) is/are. Some offer time tracking, invoicing, ticketing, remote management and more! On top of that most of these solutions are actual desktop apps and which I assume aren’t very mobile.
So I ask in google groups, find people on craigslist in other states than mine (Ohio), ask a few in person, and its amazing at how the answers differ when you ask the same question in different settings. Some of the answers out side of the top 3 names are spreadsheets, paper and Quickbooks. I start to feel as if I have enough information on if there is a market and think in terms of the Lean Startup and decide to make an MVP advertising that the app will be a free beta. The question I want answered is if people will even signup for such an app so I put out this http://simplurl.com/lscott-mvp.
Results
I return to the same places google groups, reddit.com, craigslist and start to spam people for signups. Here is my attempt on reddit: http://simplurl.com/reddit-signup. I receive 2 from craigslist and 6 from reddit within the first week with a very light push. With those results I am impressed so I start to build out the simplest version of the app I can to keep the hype going.
8 signups aren’t a lot in a grand scheme of things but my thoughts are I can really reach out to this small group of early adopters and get answers on the hows and whys to take for the next step. I could reach out to these people easily and personally. Other aspects are support, cost, and failure, with more people these issues are amplified. The more people involved the more support emails I have to deal with and if the app is a total failure the more apologies I have to send out, and the more people using the app the more I would have to pay for performance and servers.
Next I will share thoughts on why I think pushing a free beta isn’t ideal.
