Build the missing piece

Every tool I have built this year started the same way: someone asked a question, and answering it took four tabs and ten minutes.

What is today's conversion? Which products sell out this week? Who changed that price? What are we really earning back on ads across the website and the marketplaces? None of these are exotic. All of them were slow.

The gap is the problem

Off-the-shelf software is built for the average business. A brand with retail stores, marketplaces, a paid membership and its own point of sale is not the average business. The tool almost fits, and the almost is where people spend their afternoons.

The instinct is to buy something bigger. The better move is usually to build something smaller: one screen, one question, one source of truth, private to the team, done in a week.

Small tools compound

A dozen small tools sounds like sprawl. In practice they share almost everything: the same data, the same sign-in, the same look. The fifth one takes a day because the first four paid for the groundwork.

And each one changes behaviour a little. When the sell-out list is a notification, people act on it. When the ad numbers are on a phone, they get checked before the meeting, not in it.

The rule I use

If a person does the same thing on the same schedule, it should run itself. If a person asks the same question every day, it should be a screen. If nothing you have can answer it, that is the brief.