We ran an agency on Harvest + Forecast + DocuSign + spreadsheets. None of it talked to each other. So we built Tidy — a single app for time tracking, scheduling, invoicing, agreements, and client portals. One place where your data actually connects. Here's why we built it and how it works.
When software projects go sideways, it's rarely because of bad code. More often, the trouble starts upstream—with unclear priorities, shifting goals, or mismatched expectations.
We pulled off a completely harebrained marketing scheme, and had a blast doing it. We built a devious little social game for a conference, gave away $1500 to the winner, and got a ton of bang for our buck.
One of our smartest devs had a great insight: talk about tradeoffs. Instead of, "No, that's a bad idea," they found ways to say, "Interesting! We can do that. But here are the tradeoffs if we do."
You can look at an error, or a problem, as defeat; but you can also look at it as an indicator of an opportunity to grow. Getting stuck gives you a path, a direction to explore.
The least error-prone line of communication is the shortest one. And so you, dear developer, must talk to your customers. Listen to them. Shadow them. Watch them work. Build a relationship. Know some of them by name. This will save you from all sorts of communication woes.
A powerful heuristic I used as a Product Manager was to always ask, "What problem are we solving here?" This reframes the question, "Why are we doing this?" But framing with problems tends to lead to more specific, less mushy answers. It forces you to dig a little deeper and do some critical thinking.
