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Cool idea! We built a lot of internal tools at my last startup (bloc.io) because it was an operationally intensive business. I would have definitely tried this

by choxi 8y ago

Cool idea! We built a lot of internal tools at my last startup (bloc.io) because it was an operationally intensive business. I would have definitely tried this out. Your premise that most internal tools use the same building blocks seems accurate based on my experience, a lot of it is collecting and analyzing data. I'd also add that the most underrated cost is maintaining a tool, developers are usually excited to build something new and when they're working in a fresh codebase they can build and iterate quickly. The real pain is when no one has used a tool in a couple months but needs it now, and the original dev has moved on to some other project so there's no one available to update or fix it. That's one of the biggest reasons we started using more third-party SaaS options instead of building our own, even if they were expensive and only an approximation of what we actually wanted.

tennien 8y ago
This is definitely true and one of our insights as well. All you need to use retool is basic working knowledge of sql and javascript, so there's no dependence on the original author.
dvdhsu 8y ago
Thank you! > I'd also add that the most underrated cost is maintaining a tool, developers are usually excited to build something new and when they're working in a fresh codebase they can build and iterate quickly. The real pain is when no one has used a tool in a couple months but needs it now, and the original dev has moved on to some other project so there's no one available to update or fix it. That's one of the biggest reasons we started using more third-party SaaS options instead of building our own, even if they were expensive and only an approximation of what we actually wanted. That is a good point - and we've used that a few times in sales pitches. The benefit of Retool is that it's pretty clear what's going on (oh, new column added to table, so let's add it to our KeyValueMap too). And so keeping things up to date requires a lot less context. Thanks for the thought - we will bring this up more in our sales calls :)

by choxi 8y ago

tennien 8y ago

This is definitely true and one of our insights as well. All you need to use retool is basic working knowledge of sql and javascript, so there's no dependence on the original author.

dvdhsu 8y ago

Thank you! > I'd also add that the most underrated cost is maintaining a tool, developers are usually excited to build something new and when they're working in a fresh codebase they can build and iterate quickly. The real pain is when no one has used a tool in a couple months but needs it now, and the original dev has moved on to some other project so there's no one available to update or fix it. That's one of the biggest reasons we started using more third-party SaaS options instead of building our own, even if they were expensive and only an approximation of what we actually wanted. That is a good point - and we've used that a few times in sales pitches. The benefit of Retool is that it's pretty clear what's going on (oh, new column added to table, so let's add it to our KeyValueMap too). And so keeping things up to date requires a lot less context. Thanks for the thought - we will bring this up more in our sales calls :)