Topic
Build It Yourself
You do not always need the pricey monthly app. This is where I take popular paid software like QuickBooks and MenuFit and show when you are better off with a custom tool you own outright.
Read the overview → Custom Business Software Should Be Invisible The best custom business software is the kind nobody thinks about because it just works. Here's why invisible beats the bloated SaaS you fight with daily. Read → How I'd turn a business's pile of documents into an AI knowledge base A business already owns the answers, buried in PDFs, Word docs, and old emails. Here's how I'd turn that pile into a searchable AI knowledge base. Read → Self-hosted software vs SaaS and why people are dropping their subscriptions A Reddit thread asked if anyone else is mass replacing SaaS with self-hosted tools. My take on why it's happening and where the DIY route hits a wall. Read → Custom software vs off-the-shelf when your SaaS bill keeps climbing Off-the-shelf SaaS keeps raising the rent. Here is the real multi-year cost of renting your tools versus building custom software you actually own. Read → I built a custom QuickBooks alternative in React for a company that was done paying A local business was sick of QuickBooks being slow, bloated, and pricey, so I built them custom accounting software in React with Plaid. Here is how it went. Read → I built my own Wispr Flow alternative for iPhone and Mac Wispr Flow costs $15 a month. I built my own dictation app for iPhone and Mac instead. Here is exactly how it works and what I fought through to get there. Read → I built my own MenuFit app instead of paying 10 bucks a month I liked the MenuFit app but not the $10/mo. So I built my own with Claude Code, and it does live web search to hit my macros. Here is exactly how. Read → When to build vs buy software, and when to just hire me Build vs buy software, explained for small business. When to just buy an off-the-shelf tool, and when to hire me to build the right-sized thing instead. Read →