MutexBot

... and extending them later for a broader appeal.

This is probably a bit of a bad habit of mine. I start using a tool and either it doesn't work exactly how I want, or the owners make it prohibitively expensive.

I then decide well.. I'm a software engineer.. I can just make my own, and do it right.

Hence the birth of MutexBot, a Slack app I created about a year ago. Initially it was just used to manage development environments but since making it available to the public, has now been used by hundreds of companies to manage all kinds of resources.

I know that ideally one should do market research first before investing time building a product, but I just tell myself - even if no one uses this and I need to pay X every month for server costs - will it still be useful, and be time well spent for me?

If the answer is yes... well, time to start hacking.