Last year I was reflecting on my now 15 years in the industry. Looking back, what I remember first is all the amazing people I worked with, some of which have become life long friends. You made the journey so much fun!
Next, I remember how far I’ve come. Starting out as a young engineer who didn’t know what he was doing, working too many hours, but having a ton of fun. Going from backend engineer to frontend, then full stack, then engineering manager and finally as Head of Product. It’s been amazing coming all this way and being able to look back fondly on my time so far.
After a while in the industry I started seeing some patterns though. There was never enough time to make truly great products for users. Instead of working towards improving the features making the most impact for users, it became about creating most impact for the business. There was always this looming shadow, the ever shrinking runway. This great pressure to grow, to expand at all cost with the ambition of becoming the next unicorn.
And I get it! Some of the greatest products out there were created by people with great ambition and wouldn’t have been possible without a boat load of money, which has to come from somewhere.
But there’s a different way. A slower, less chaotic way. Putting the users first, making sure the product actually solves problems. Building a sustainable business, not just chasing revenue.
Instead of waiting for the right company to come around, I decided to do it myself. I’ve launched my own company, Nurtured Bits! It’s just me for now, fully bootstrapped. No outside money.
The first product launches today, DaraCMS. It’s a CMS for teams managing Markdown content in Git. A great setup, especially for technical teams, with one big downside. It becomes hard for the rest of the organisation to contribute. DaraCMS solves this, by providing a file and media manager, both WYSIWYG and pure markdown editors in a clean and fast interface. I think this fits well in a lot of teams who need to allow access to other people in the organisation, while keeping them from stuff they shouldn’t mess with. And it’s just a nice editing experience, even for technical people who are usually annoyed with overly simple tools.
You can check it out here: https://daracms.com/
- Tobias