The best apps come from problems you actually have
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The Solopreneur Copilot P.S. read an web version of this email here: barrontech.kit.com/posts/ I've got a 14-year-old who cannot self-regulate his screen time. I know this because I've watched it for years. He'll play for 6 hours if nobody stops him. I tried rules. I tried conversations. I tried timers. All of them require me to be the enforcer, every single time, which is exhausting and adds friction to both of our days. So I'm building something. It's called Earned Screen Time. The idea is simple -- kids complete tasks, provide photo or video proof, I review and approve, and then they unlock time on their devices. No completion, no screen time. The incentive does the work instead of me. It's lightweight. It's not going to be some massive enterprise platform. But it solves a real problem I have right now, in my own house, with my own kids. And that's the whole point. The best products I've seen come from people building for a problem they couldn't stop thinking about. Not a market opportunity. Not a TAM slide. A real thing they kept running into. The Economic Resilience idea I'm also building comes from the same place. AI is going to displace a lot of white-collar jobs -- mostly the ones that were never really jobs to begin with. The people who held those roles inflated their importance for years. That era is ending. And there's no platform helping people figure out their risk, their options, and what to do next. I'm building that too. Two apps. Both tied to things I actually care about. Both lightweight enough that I can run them alongside consulting and CoSell Buddy without them consuming my life. This is the model I keep coming back to: build products that reflect your actual expertise and your actual life. Not something you think will go viral. Something you'd use yourself, or that someone you love needs. The apps that start that way are the ones that tend to stick around. Play the decade game with me. To your solopreneur success, Matt Barron P.S. All previous emails can be read here: barrontech.kit.com P.S.S. - follow me on all my socials here: |