Over the years I have been infatuated with building new tools getting a chance to work on greenfield projects; ironic given the fact that I work in digital analytics mostly using established platforms like google analytics, tag manager & mixpanel.
Itch has always been to start anew…
Increasingly I have been leaning towards finding tools that get me 90% there and then using the tools api / zapier to create a bespoke solution. Generally a small chrome extension or a formatted filtered view in google is all thats needed to get the perfect tool I wanted.
Find tools that get you 90% and customize it using api to make them bespoke
And its been an rewarding strategy for one you solve your own problem,
You get the job done instead of getting sidetracked
It gives you joy using something you built everyday
Finally chances are you find a passionate little audience that hit the same problem and now randomly sends you hi fives!
Over the last year or so we’ve built a bunch of tools for asana the super awesome project management tool that can (sometimes) feel like a project itself. Bitbucket, Google Tag Manager.
We even gave them a name playthinks.
And I am enjoying cooking more of these up; this also is an interesting turn for one of my goals for the company to build our own things but with slight twist narrowing to what we also use.
Its by no means a for profit strategy [atleast not directly] but if all you want to do is build things and have things that are a little weird to suit your kinks without being taken over you can’t go wrong with this approach.
