My Tiny Company has 1000 Software Developers (and So Does Yours)

It was a frustrating moment. I had missed a deliverable. Too many things in my head. 

Is this the moment where I can’t deliver? 

I needed a system. So I started building an epic spreadsheet where I track everything. Except that didn’t work, and I knew it wouldn’t work because this story repeats itself for me. As much as I hate to admit it, Excel can’t solve every problem.

So I started to look around the internet for good project management software. That’s when I realized something:

There are hundreds (if not thousands) of people anticipating my problem, trying to solve it and vying for my business. Monday.com, Asana, Click Up and AirTables are more broad. Jetpack Workflow and ONVIO client center are more finance-focused. And the list goes on at Product Hunt.

Who’s paying for them?

1. Investors: These products often operate at a loss. Many don’t aim to be profitable ever, they just hope to be purchased by a larger company
2. Employees: So many of these employees work at a discount while hoping for a buyout
3. Larger companies using the products: Many products use small companies as loss leaders, in an effort to gain enterprise-level adoption
4. Future customers: Eventually they will raise prices, but not yet

Who’s not paying for them? 

1. Me (and you)

Who's not paying for them?

Me (and you).

I get 30 days free. If I like it, I might pay $20/month for some of these products while others have perpetually free versions. I can cancel whenever I want or switch to a competitor’s product if it’s better. 

And no, your data isn’t paying for this either. While your data is what’s paying for your consumer products (Google, Facebook, Youtube), business products are not monetized in the same way.

The sum of this is that my tiny (but awesome) company, Weir Consulting, has 1000 software engineers working on solving my problems every day. And rather than paying market rate of $100M/year, I’m paying $10k/year.

So what does this mean for you?

1. Go out and try a bunch of software products. People way smarter than you and me are trying to solve your problems for cheap.
2. Your company can be more efficient with these products. Organized project management and a synched up tech stack will blow away your competitors.

What software are you loving lately?