Simple Software

I’m interested in the movement of people building simple apps to solve their own specific needs. They may need something that existing software doesn’t do, or find that a subscription costs too much for the small part they would use. Frontier AI tools are making it practical for more people to build software around those needs.

The same idea extends to enterprises. A company can build an internal tool around a particular workflow rather than adapt that workflow to a software service. But I’m just as interested in what this makes possible for someone with a small, specific need.

My son, Marcelo Pierry, and I are going to try this with a simple task management app. We want to track personal tasks and keep a backlog of software projects we’d like to create. The core principle is to keep it simple and make it fit our needs.

We tried OpenAI’s Spaces, but our work stayed within OpenAI, and I couldn’t edit it from my phone. We want something we can use across the tools and devices where we’re discussing ideas and doing the work.

We want easy integration with bots like Dots, Grok Bot, and Muse, along with frontier coding agents. When we discuss a project with a bot, we want an easy way to keep it in the backlog. When we work on it with a coding agent, we want that agent to be able to use and update the same tasks.

We’re going to make it open source so other people can use it or adapt it to their needs. We’ll start with what Marcelo and I need for our own tasks and projects, and use it ourselves to decide what needs improving.

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This writing reflects my personal perspectives on product management, AI, and content discovery. It does not represent the official position of my employer or any affiliated organization.