Stuck In The Middle With You

First I’ll start with the good news: Witsi.co is live for public beta, starting right now. What’s Witsi.co? Well, I’ve talked about it in previous articles. It’s a way to track your credit card spending in order to maximize your rewards. Check out the FAQ, and the rest of the Witsi.co blog for more information. It’s been my passion project for the past several months, and it’s finally up and in a state that I am happy with. This is an incredible feeling right now.

Happy is a strong word: I’m not like…ecstatic with where the project is. There’s a hundred extra features I want to write, and I’m sure there’s 1000 bugs I need to squash. The tag on the git repo as of this post is v0.1.20, this thing is obviously not thought of as complete. But, it’s in a fairly stable state, and I’ve got most of the major bugs I could find worked out. I feel comfortable enough to start letting people in to use the tool. It’s good to get feedback.

But holy crap it’s better than I could have hoped for! I’ve never cared about a piece of software more than this. That’s saying a lot: I’ve created a lot of different products over the years, and I still hope that every one of them is in use. I get bothered, sometimes physically, by bugs I’ve written in pieces of software several years old. But this one, well this one is different. I built this from the ground up, off an idea I had, started an LLC, did research, did design, did testing, all on my own. I bought graphics. I got my brother to write copy for me (As much as I love blogging, I can’t write copy to save my life). This is my private brainchild! I’m really just…hoping people like it! It’s going to change peoples spending habits, and help people get money!

But it’s not finished. I shouldn’t be hyping this thing up this much until it’s finished, right?

It’s really weird arguing with myself like this. It’s probably weird for you to read as well. But this has been going on in my head for the past couple months. I’m a CEO pushing my engineers to release, and an engineer pushing back on an overly ambitious business department. And it’s all just me, trying to figure out when the right balance of stability and features will make this something I want people to check out.

And oh do I want you to check it out. But don’t be too harsh. But tell me everything you think. There’s chat windows all over the site currently, just so you can leave feedback and ask questions. We’re here to help.

For some reason, I thought that the action of releasing the software would take some of the stress away. Like I know as a person that’s been in the software industry for over a decade that no project has ever been released and then it’s finished, but I’ve had this milestone as a target for months, and thought “once I get there, then I can relax”. But that’s not even close to true. That milestone was just that: I’m a mile down a LONG road, one that I hope I can stay on as long as I can. I’m stuck in the middle. Hopefully you all are coming with me.

The cool part is, from here on out, I’m just need to learn. I need to learn what I need to learn. That’s exciting.

Give Witsi.co a shot! I hope it’s helpful for you.