Building web applications for others

They say the best posts get people thinking. I don’t know who ‘they’ are, but your post got me thinking so much that I couldn’t justify posting such a long comment here. I thought the best solution was to created a reply post on my site that links back to your original post. Hope you don’t mind.

http://blog.elaptics.com/articles/2006/08/26/can-you-flip-an-app

The underlying economics behind rapid web business development and the real estate bubble don’t track with each other. In the real estate bubble, the valuation of a house varies because of many external factors, and most importantly, physical limitations like land. It is a bubble and it will give up some fizz.

Rapid web development is about re-using information for the most part. The economics of information can be the opposite of traditional businesses becuase the more you use information the more valuable it becomes, with limited resources like a pile of coal, you don’ t get to use it twice.

I don’t see outsourcing development as an issue at all because many new companies can use open source and ‘best of breed’ apps as part of a new soluiton they stich together to test and see if there’s any demand. I don’t think it’s too compelling to create a new e-mail app yourself, for example, if that’s part of a bigger picture for what you’re doing.

I don’t see the same concerns as you do. I don’t even see it like a new gold rush. I see it more like evolving tools on the floor that the new entrepreneurs are picking up and mashing together. Their individual skills and accuracy in anticipating the demand for their services will shake them out. But, more people trying will create more and sharper tools for everyone.

I think that the point that Kevin was trying to make was the rise of speculative development as it correlates with speculative real estate investments. In short, the idea that someone can completely outsource a web product, not for the purpose of making a sustainable company or business or product, but for the purpose of making enough noise to be bought out or succeed overnight. The struggles with that are the same as with speculative real estate investing. In banking, they call it leveraged. The idea of an overwhelming debt burden (which can be argued in terms of both time and money) that should something not go exactly as planned (sell the property quickly) will sink someone.

It seems to me that the web, like real estate, should be looked at through business (should someone be participating in the online world for the sake of making money). You invest with a plan that doesn’t stretch you to the point of breaking….and you be willing and able to stay with it for the long haul.

I agree in part with the post regarding the economics of information, but I think that is a completely different subject (but one well worth discussing).

Hey Kevin,

Thanks for mentioning us - much appreciated.

Additionally it seems like he had experience in the web industry, although I’m not sure how much

I have a degree in Computer Science and originally started out coding in Coldfusion (yikes!). I then moved onto PHP and developed CMS’s for big companies like Honda, BAR F1, etc. So I’d say I have quite a bit of web experience.

We started Carson Systems because I felt I could build tools for the mass market, and be more profitable, than doing it for someone else.

The precursor to DropSend was a product I built myself called FlightDeck. It was a spectacular failure - only sold about 6 monthly subscriptions at £200/mo. We learned a lot from that and launched DropSend which focused on the mass market (not just web design agencies) and made it cheap (free!).

It’s really working for us. We still don’t have any full-time developers on staff. The freelancer that built DropSend still does occasional updates, but it’s getting harder to get his attention, so we’ll probably bring someone on full time to look after DropSend and Amigo, our new web app.

I think there’s going to be a ton of web apps that don’t work. But there will also be a ton that bring in a tidy profit every month (not huge, but definitely worth doing). That’s an exciting thing for web developers!

The best products always come out of “scratching your own itch” :)

Hmmm, seems the comment isn’t using my blockquote tag.

The line “Additionally it seems like he had experience in the web industry, although I’m not sure how much” is from Kevin :)