I Didn't Plan to Build a Time Tracker. But I Ended Up Building a Good One.
I didn't plan to build a time tracker. I'm a happily seasoned software engineer employee. I have a job, my own projects, a life outside the computer... the usual.
Then a buddy who runs a local consulting firm said his Harvest renewal had come in and was shockingly higher. The number on the invoice didn't make sense — they had gone from a small monthly bill to something that looked more like a year of rent. He asked our friend group what was everyone else doing and I took notice.
Pain points.
For Harvest, one of the biggest pain points my buddy talked about was how the time tracking for "Harvest" is a separate divorced experience from the scheduling app called "Forecast".
Beyond that, the lack of high quality reporting was a close second.
So I built Tempough around those two things first.
What I built
Tempough is a time tracker as it's most basic function. But the timer is honestly the least interesting part. What I'm proud of is that it does the whole arc — quote, schedule, track, invoice, with a sprinkling of business management — in one place, with reporting that knows about all of it.
I ended up with three goals.
Do at least what Harvest can do, and at least as well from a time tracking and forecast perspective.
Improve on quality of life, annoyances, and user experience issues.
Carefully increase the scope to include additional functionality that provides outsized usefulness.
A few specifics, because the abstract pitch sounds like every other landing page:
Scheduling is first-class. Most time trackers treat scheduling as someone else's problem. Harvest pushes you to their separate Forecast product. I built scheduling alongside tracking from day one, so a planned hour and a tracked hour live in the same database and you can see variance instantly.
The Schedule view. Add assignments. Update them. Drag and drop them.
The Gantt view. See the schedule and progress by person, project, or client.
Quotes turn into projects turn into invoices. Hours quoted set the budget; hours tracked draw it down; the invoice writes itself from the same data.
Invoice List
Reporting that answers business questions. Utilization, project margin, quoted-vs-actual variance, who's overbooked next week — the questions an owner actually asks on a Monday morning, available without exporting to a spreadsheet. Visualize the health of your business, your projects, and your employees in stunning reports.
Time flow report.
Easy Imports. Take your Harvest exports and upload them. Three quick imports and you're back in business.
Import directly from Harvest exports.
Client Portal. Self-service at it's best. Clients can log in and view their project list, statuses, invoices, quotes, and pay.
Client Portal
I didn't set out to compete with Harvest. I set out to build a tool my friend's team would be able to get more value out then expense they put in. A tool that not only lets them run their business, but helps them grow their business. The Harvest renewal was just the trigger to exercise that idea.
Why I'm writing this now
It doesn't take a lot of digging to realize this problem with Harvest isn't unique to my buddy. Different agencies, same renewal email, same scramble for an alternative, same patchwork of tools underneath. It became clear that "my buddy's specific problem" was actually a much bigger problem — small services businesses are running their entire revenue operation through a stack of tools that don't talk to each other, and the one tool many of them anchored on (Harvest) just priced itself out of their budget overnight.
So I built Tempough to be available to anyone. I'm intentionally not turning it into a hype machine. It's a small product, built by one developer, used in production by a real agency, and now available to anyone else in the same boat.
Tempough
I'm not trying to build a unicorn, I'm trying to deliver high value with attention to detail, quickly, at a reasonable price. You can use it for free as a solo time tracker and even try the paid tiers for free for 14 days (or however long you need to be convinced of it's value... seriously. Message me.)
What I'm learning
Three honest things I've learned building this:
Build what is useful. But maybe more important, don't build what isn't useful. Features that sound good when brainstorming might just be noise to the end user.
Don't lose focus. No one likes a mediocre at everything app. Applications that do a few things really well are far more valuable than feature bloated apps that just end up more confusing to use.
Feedback is crucial. No one builds good software in a vacuum. If you're someone who left (or is about to leave) Harvest, Toggl, or anyone else in this space, I'd love to talk to you. Even if Tempough isn't the answer for you, your specific complaint and willingness to work with me to build the tool that works best for you is the most useful gift you could give me right now.
If you're an agency owner, freelancer, or services-business operator wrestling with the same workflow, take a look. And if you've got opinions on what a good time tracker should actually do — drop them in the comments. I love the feedback and I read every reply.
I appreciate your time.
— Tim
