Software event tracker.

Whilst trying to figure out what kind of SaaS app I want to develop, I've tried to follow the great advice posted on this site by trying to find a problem to be solved before a solution.

I got to thinking - what are the problems that I face commonly in what I do as a developer?

The main problem I face these days when developing a product, is knowing what features to support and improve based on their use.

I know there are so many different ways I as a developer could capture events in my software (when someone clicked X / used this feature I wasn't sure was even in use and could deprecate if nobody used it) but I just don't want to sink a load of time into building it.

So I thought about creating a software event tracker for developers. It would consist of an off the shelf dashboard capturing the events you are most interesting in knowing about. So for example, I could create an event in the dashboard for 'Enabled dark theme.' and then after a week, I would know how many of my new users had enabled it after sign up.

For ease of implementation, I would just have events come into the server via webhook. So for the developer, if they wanted to track a piece of functionality, they would take the steps below (again using 'enable dark theme' as an example):

1. Open the dashboard
2. Create a new event
3. Name it 'Dark theme enabled.'
4. This would provide a unique URL to post to when the event happens.
5. In my code, I go to the dark theme enable function and add an HTTP POST call to that unique URL, which would register an event in the dashboard.

It could be accompanied with a very basic API, which allows the developer to send through custom info. For example, I could give them a .NET version which has a custom event exception they can use or it could have a javascript specific call etc.

It could even analyse the data over the course of say a week and then send a weekly report to the dev with suggestions on which areas of the project to focus on based on usage.

They could also attach a financial value or (story point style value) to an event. So somebody signing up for example.

It would be essentially just a centralised dashboard for counting events sent in via webhook. Nice and simple for developers who are unsure how to build their product roadmap. It would be built with lean development in mind, so that we are using actual evidence to justify our roadmap.

I'd love to hear thoughts as to whether I am barking up the wrong tree and would be very grateful if you'd answer the poll to say whether this would justify a paid service. Thanks!