BackupBrain: My MicroISV Venture

I’ve been blogging now for a couple of months and I suspect some may be curious as to why I set up this ISV. What is my first product?

Well, read on for the concept-in-brief…

The basics of the whole ThoughtFiler concept, distilled to its core, is Stuff. Digital stuff. Your digital stuff.

Everyone now has such a mass of electronic stuff that needs to be kept track of. E-mails, documents, pictures, websites, blogs, IM messages/chats, et cetera, etc…

…ThoughtFiler is (or will be) an umbrella for tools for tracking, storing and retrieving stuff in as simple and straightforward a way as possible (i.e. tools that do most of their work unnoticed & in the background until needed).

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Over the years, I’ve tried many systems for organising all of the information that I want and/or need to keep track of in my life. I’ve also observed the various techniques that others use to organise themselves using both electronic and other methods. And that’s where the idea that became ThoughtFiler began - in my own frustrations at the PIM tools available and in my own ideas about how they should work.
Most of the PIM software applications sit at one of two extremes:

1. They are totally freeform in how your information is stored and structured.
2. They are a completely hierarchical-based system.

Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with either of these approaches but, for most people, a solution that sits somewhere between these two is better. A good PIM should be able to adapt better to what a user is doing and what kind of information they are dealing with.
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So, I suppose at it’s simplest, ThoughtFiler can be described as a new kind of PIM. It’s a secure place for your stuff that you can access from anywhere: the web, your PDA or on your desktop using a web browser or the client-side application.

Does this sound too broad an application to work? Maybe, but it’s an application many of us need.

Does it sound like too grand a plan for a Micro-ISV? Probably, but it won’t start off anywhere near as grand as it will become. I’ve got my development planned out in such a way that will enable it to grow in a very modular and controllable fashion. Every step of the devel process will (or should) result in a usable product/service.

Compared to some of its competitors it will do a lot more. Compared to other competitors it will do less. But to its users, it will do just enough to allow them to simply manage their info and get on with more important work.

More soon…