Whats new?

Here’s the latest and greatest report on the iMDone story.

For those of you who don’t know, iMDone is “Issue Tracking for Tiny Teams”. But truthfully it can be used by teams of any size. It combines TODO, FIXME, BUG, HACK, etc. comments into an electronic kanban board.

The Product

nodejs app

iMDone started it’s life as an npm package. It runs as a web server process with a browser front end. Over time it developed some traction in the open source nodejs community, so I decided to break out the fundamental code into it’s own module called imdone-core. This is what enabled the next phases of the product.

node webkit

My next experiment was a node webkit app. This proved to be a real hassle, as I had to run a different build for every platform (Windows, Mac and Linux). I also put up the app for sale, but with a free version available, I think the motivation to purchase was lacking.

Chrome app

In the fall of 2014, I decided to start an iMDone chrome app. I thought it made sense to take advantage of the chrome webstore traffic, but iMDone for chrome still has less traction than the original npm package.

imdone-atom

Just a few weeks ago, I released imdone-atom. This was the direct result of feedback I gathered after sharing the chrome product with some trusted colleagues in the Madison, WI startup community. What I've learned is that developers don't want to leave their IDE or editor to look at issues. If you're not familiar with Atom, it’s a text editor from github designed by developers.

In a little over two weeks of availability, the atom package has been downloaded over 140 times, and has 4 stargazers.

Product Roadmap

The biggest problem I haven’t been able to solve is revenue. People just didn't seem willing to pay for the node-webkit or chrome versions and there is no precedent for a paid atom package.

Considering the traction of the npm package, I still think it makes sense to offer a web app. Consider the non-technical stakeholders on a software project. They won’t be checking out the source code, right? So why not provide them a web version of iMDone that updates when the code is checked in.

Right now I’m looking for Beta users and figuring out the pricing model.

If you have any questions or suggestions, you can reach me at jesse@innobuilt.com.

Originally published at blog.imdone.io.