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Free business idea: clone Pivotal Tracker as a solo dev / small team. People often ask: how do I find business ideas? Well, here you go: many people publicly

by kjksf 2y ago

Free business idea: clone Pivotal Tracker as a solo dev / small team. People often ask: how do I find business ideas? Well, here you go: many people publicly saying how they love a product that is going away. This is a validated product: people were paying for it. Apparently quite a lot of people. It doesn't get better than this. All you have to do is to clone the product. You can literally market it as a Pivotal Tracker clone. It's not like VMWare will care. You can research companies currently using Pivotal Tracker and build a database for cold calling / e-mailing when you have the product. It's also a product that is doable as a single person or very small team. With modern technologies (React or Svelte, hosted databases etc.) it's relatively simple to clone. Staying small is important: those businesses topple over when revenues don't justify expenses, especially if VC funding is involved and VCs are pressuring for going big or going bust. Or when a profitable product is acquired with the hopes of growing the profits but they don't grow. Stay small to keep expenses in check and you can build a profitable company. This is a bootstrappable business: a $100/mo Hetzner box, backend in efficient language (Go, C#), front-end in Svelte or React and you can serve lots of customers. The rest is your time and hustle.

neshaz 2y ago
Well, we took your approach and we'll see where it will take us. We are a company, so we made similar products before in our past, we should be good.
anonymoushn 2y ago
Given that it's impossible to sign up, it looks like most prospective cloners will have to learn all the features by watching videos and learn about the exported CSV format by asking former customers for their CSVs.
- ericpauley 2y ago
  Most people probably have a PT account lying around or can find a friend with one. I just checked and my account from 6+ years ago is still active.
- aantix 2y ago
  If anyone is making a clone, feel free to reach out to me. jim.jones1@gmail.com Previous user of Pivotal Tracker - I'll tell you everything that I loved and hated about it. I know a couple other devout users as well that I could introduce you to.
  - digitaltrees 2y ago
    I’ll reach out. I am planning to build it for my company
egorfine 2y ago
The biggest risk: people are going to flock to Linear, which is the next best thing.
- regularfry 2y ago
  You don't need to capture all of them, just enough to get to profitability. That might be a very small number, for the right minimal viable replacement.
  - j45 2y ago
    Totally, naysayers may be trying to eliminate all risk in something by a secret idea no one has done. When in reality, there is no risk free anything.
- rozap 2y ago
  It's been wild to see linear get clunky and slow over the last year or two.
quesera 2y ago
Ah, I do love the smell of fresh optimism in the morning! I think the biggest challenges are that a) the vast majority of solo devs capable of pulling this off quickly are well-employed, and b) the timeline for MVP++ is effectively January 1st, else the migrators will make different decisions. And that as soon as migrations happen, your storage costs will balloon, so you need a billing strategy on launch.
- diggan 2y ago
  > And that as soon as migrations happen, your storage costs will balloon, so you need a billing strategy on launch. Unless people somehow figure out a way of hosting stuff somewhere else than Amazon/$host_that_charges_per_mb_transit (Hint: they exist) Considering it would have to be a lean operation (assuming bootstrapped), then figuring out basic stuff like "We don't want to pay per MB sent" should be a pretty high requirement.
  - DrillShopper 2y ago
    What hosting providers would you recommend?
    - diggan 2y ago
      Both OVH and Hetzner offers unmetered connections for their dedicated servers, only had good experience with both so far (besides when one of OVH's data centers burned down, but hoping that was a exceptional situation)
      - toomuchtodo 2y ago
        Backup to Backblaze B2, or, depending on architecture, rely on their object storage for hot data (depending on data cache and tier requirements). They partner with Cloudflare for free egress (on the Backblaze side) of public content as well. https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/pricing https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/pricing https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-and-cloudflare-partner-to-provide-free-data-transfer/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-and-cloudflare-part...
henning 2y ago
Don't people just use Trello instead?
- anamexis 2y ago
  Pivotal is very different from Trello
j45 2y ago
This genuinely is an opportunity as you're saying lol As someone who's built and launched something this big in a few months once upon a time, it feels like way too many technologies, it increases cycle time in ideation land. This would need to just be a postgres server, extended maybe by things like hasura and supabase, and a single codebase front end for all platforms. If postgres can't do it, don't do it. Front end... might be flutter. Could be svelte. Still, being a polyglot agnostic, for the dollar, in speed of development and more importantly iteration, per feature or update, in not needing to create an entire build, environment, nothing really seems to be as complete or as fast as Laravel, as much as it can shock to hear (I am not a heavy user, but considering it). Different strokes though, its just about speed of iteration.
jph 2y ago
Great idea! If you're reading this and want to connect about a clone, I'm joel@joelparkerhenderson.com.
mvdtnz 2y ago
> It's also a product that is doable as a single person or very small team. With modern technologies (React or Svelte, hosted databases etc.) it's relatively simple to clone The core product is relatively simple. But software packages like Pivotal aren't sold on their core functionality, they are sold on their value-adds like integrations, automations etc which take much longer and much more manpower to build.
jmartin2683 2y ago
It just went out of business for… reasons. There are better tools out there nowadays, apparently. Why emulate a sunken ship?
satvikpendem 2y ago
This happened when Mint shut down and a lot of other companies started advertising themselves as a Mint alternative. I'm building something similar too for my own needs (but open source, self host able); sadly it's still very early on so I didn't quite catch the migration wave.
RobKohr 2y ago
Challenge accepted! I've built a bunch of web apps for big companies, and I love the hell out of Pivotal Tracker and am crushed that it is gone. I immediately fired up my editor and took some exports from my pivotal tracker account and am working on building a data model to import them into and move from there to the UI. The base product is pretty straight forward, but there is a lot of nuance to how some things have developed in it. I will likely not capture everything in an MVP, and I am wondering if there are some key pieces that might be not thought of for an MVP, but you absolutely love about Pivotal Tracker that would be sorely missed in a new product trying to fill it's nitch. I also see some things that could be broadened and improved that are common in other project trackers. What are some thing you feel pivotal tracker was missing that really made it a difficult sell in businesses? Feel free to comment on this thread your feedback. I'll be watching it, and also, if any other competitors want to lock horns on developing it, they can have at your feedback too! If you want to be alerted to when I release this, as well as other things from me, sign up to my email list: https://mailchi.mp/73f113e474f1/robert-kohrs-blog https://mailchi.mp/73f113e474f1/robert-kohrs-blog or just follow my blog's rss feed at https://robkohr.com https://robkohr.com

by kjksf 2y ago

neshaz 2y ago

Well, we took your approach and we'll see where it will take us. We are a company, so we made similar products before in our past, we should be good.

anonymoushn 2y ago

Given that it's impossible to sign up, it looks like most prospective cloners will have to learn all the features by watching videos and learn about the exported CSV format by asking former customers for their CSVs.

ericpauley 2y ago
Most people probably have a PT account lying around or can find a friend with one. I just checked and my account from 6+ years ago is still active.
aantix 2y ago
If anyone is making a clone, feel free to reach out to me. jim.jones1@gmail.com Previous user of Pivotal Tracker - I'll tell you everything that I loved and hated about it. I know a couple other devout users as well that I could introduce you to.
- digitaltrees 2y ago
  I’ll reach out. I am planning to build it for my company

egorfine 2y ago

The biggest risk: people are going to flock to Linear, which is the next best thing.

regularfry 2y ago
You don't need to capture all of them, just enough to get to profitability. That might be a very small number, for the right minimal viable replacement.
- j45 2y ago
  Totally, naysayers may be trying to eliminate all risk in something by a secret idea no one has done. When in reality, there is no risk free anything.
rozap 2y ago
It's been wild to see linear get clunky and slow over the last year or two.

quesera 2y ago

Ah, I do love the smell of fresh optimism in the morning! I think the biggest challenges are that a) the vast majority of solo devs capable of pulling this off quickly are well-employed, and b) the timeline for MVP++ is effectively January 1st, else the migrators will make different decisions. And that as soon as migrations happen, your storage costs will balloon, so you need a billing strategy on launch.

diggan 2y ago
> And that as soon as migrations happen, your storage costs will balloon, so you need a billing strategy on launch. Unless people somehow figure out a way of hosting stuff somewhere else than Amazon/$host_that_charges_per_mb_transit (Hint: they exist) Considering it would have to be a lean operation (assuming bootstrapped), then figuring out basic stuff like "We don't want to pay per MB sent" should be a pretty high requirement.
- DrillShopper 2y ago
  What hosting providers would you recommend?
  - diggan 2y ago
    Both OVH and Hetzner offers unmetered connections for their dedicated servers, only had good experience with both so far (besides when one of OVH's data centers burned down, but hoping that was a exceptional situation)
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      Backup to Backblaze B2, or, depending on architecture, rely on their object storage for hot data (depending on data cache and tier requirements). They partner with Cloudflare for free egress (on the Backblaze side) of public content as well. https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/pricing https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/pricing https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-and-cloudflare-partner-to-provide-free-data-transfer/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-and-cloudflare-part...

henning 2y ago

Don't people just use Trello instead?

anamexis 2y ago
Pivotal is very different from Trello

j45 2y ago

This genuinely is an opportunity as you're saying lol As someone who's built and launched something this big in a few months once upon a time, it feels like way too many technologies, it increases cycle time in ideation land. This would need to just be a postgres server, extended maybe by things like hasura and supabase, and a single codebase front end for all platforms. If postgres can't do it, don't do it. Front end... might be flutter. Could be svelte. Still, being a polyglot agnostic, for the dollar, in speed of development and more importantly iteration, per feature or update, in not needing to create an entire build, environment, nothing really seems to be as complete or as fast as Laravel, as much as it can shock to hear (I am not a heavy user, but considering it). Different strokes though, its just about speed of iteration.

jph 2y ago

Great idea! If you're reading this and want to connect about a clone, I'm joel@joelparkerhenderson.com.

mvdtnz 2y ago

> It's also a product that is doable as a single person or very small team. With modern technologies (React or Svelte, hosted databases etc.) it's relatively simple to clone The core product is relatively simple. But software packages like Pivotal aren't sold on their core functionality, they are sold on their value-adds like integrations, automations etc which take much longer and much more manpower to build.

jmartin2683 2y ago

It just went out of business for… reasons. There are better tools out there nowadays, apparently. Why emulate a sunken ship?

satvikpendem 2y ago

This happened when Mint shut down and a lot of other companies started advertising themselves as a Mint alternative. I'm building something similar too for my own needs (but open source, self host able); sadly it's still very early on so I didn't quite catch the migration wave.

RobKohr 2y ago

Challenge accepted! I've built a bunch of web apps for big companies, and I love the hell out of Pivotal Tracker and am crushed that it is gone. I immediately fired up my editor and took some exports from my pivotal tracker account and am working on building a data model to import them into and move from there to the UI. The base product is pretty straight forward, but there is a lot of nuance to how some things have developed in it. I will likely not capture everything in an MVP, and I am wondering if there are some key pieces that might be not thought of for an MVP, but you absolutely love about Pivotal Tracker that would be sorely missed in a new product trying to fill it's nitch. I also see some things that could be broadened and improved that are common in other project trackers. What are some thing you feel pivotal tracker was missing that really made it a difficult sell in businesses? Feel free to comment on this thread your feedback. I'll be watching it, and also, if any other competitors want to lock horns on developing it, they can have at your feedback too! If you want to be alerted to when I release this, as well as other things from me, sign up to my email list: https://mailchi.mp/73f113e474f1/robert-kohrs-blog https://mailchi.mp/73f113e474f1/robert-kohrs-blog or just follow my blog's rss feed at https://robkohr.com https://robkohr.com