“Thus men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up.” - Henry Thoreau

Bitching is easy.
Building is hard. Very hard.
Especially with so many people bitching.

So let’s get specific - Tons of people are complaining about the apps in their tech stack.
Interior Designers.
Accountants.
Contractors + Sub-contractors.
Anyone that is in the medical profession.
Lawyers.
Marketing people
Finance
Anyone who is reliant on an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning).
The list is pretty dang long…

Do you know who I don’t hear complaining? Developers.

They have opinions about tools, sure, but if they don’t like GitHub, they choose a tool like GitLab or one of the dozen other similar options. Not a fan of Azure? Pick AWS or GCP. Don’t like that framework? Choose another. Don’t like Jira? Try Asana or Linear.  ARGH…I hate all of it, I will build my own tool. The list could go on and on.

In 2023 non-developers (I.E. the list above) can finally have a say in their tech stack. There are more and more low-code tools that allow you to build your own workflow and connect tools together with tools like Notion (a Firm Studio fav), Zapier, Monday, and Clickup. All it takes is curiosity and time.

In addition, when low/no/code won’t cut it, it’s never been cheaper to take your ideas to market through your own custom app. Your first project should be no more than $50k-$250k to prove you have the team and chops to pull it off. This should especially be attractive to a service company that is experiencing stable demand and is constantly fighting the inflationary battle where they must do something to maintain their team and margin profile.

If you find yourself in this blessed situation (you have customers, margin, and a team!) you have a problem and an opportunity! What will you do about it? Will you bitch or build?