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HWD App
Platform & Price Discussion |
April 20, 2016
Reflecting after yet another webinar I spent 1.5 hours of my unrecoverable time watching yesterday:
In the still, quiet, awake, caffeinated, sober hours of the morning, I have come to see clearly how we are inundated with Trojan Horses of one sort or another: "Look! A free gift!" we say to ourselves.
Gotcha.
If we're not careful, like being buried in a mountain of cheap plastic pens that don't write, our entire lives can become cluttered with these empty freebies.
No, my friend, that gift is just a long-winded sales pitch. The solution is not in the "gift." The "gift" is just a time-consuming way to persuade you to spend more time and more money chasing the ACTUAL solution.
In view of this I realize it makes the most sense to skip all of that, and just cut to the chase, ascertain the actual solution (presuming there is truly an actual solution and that this is not a total exercise in futility), and buy it.
Get it over with, buy The Thing, and progress.
Life’s too short to bury one’s self in a pile of cheap plastic pens that don't write.
Reflecting after yet another webinar I spent 1.5 hours of my unrecoverable time watching yesterday:
In the still, quiet, awake, caffeinated, sober hours of the morning, I have come to see clearly how we are inundated with Trojan Horses of one sort or another: "Look! A free gift!" we say to ourselves.
Gotcha.
If we're not careful, like being buried in a mountain of cheap plastic pens that don't write, our entire lives can become cluttered with these empty freebies.
No, my friend, that gift is just a long-winded sales pitch. The solution is not in the "gift." The "gift" is just a time-consuming way to persuade you to spend more time and more money chasing the ACTUAL solution.
In view of this I realize it makes the most sense to skip all of that, and just cut to the chase, ascertain the actual solution (presuming there is truly an actual solution and that this is not a total exercise in futility), and buy it.
Get it over with, buy The Thing, and progress.
Life’s too short to bury one’s self in a pile of cheap plastic pens that don't write.
February 26, 2016
Today I undertake to write this page after, yet again, researching the state of the art in the low-code application development space. My latest discovery is Podio, which I noticed in a recent podcast at Bigger Pockets, a social network for real estate investors, about opportunity management. Here on the Application Development page, I've added it to the list of low-code application development tools I can use to create business management solutions that aren't available in "out-of-the-box" software.
Because of its moderate and sustainable cost structure and robust, intuitive reporting, my favorite platform continues to be QuickBase. Also, since Intuit made it, its look and feel are similar to QuickBooks, the favorite accounting software of so many small and larger businesses.
By keeping the user experience similar to their experience in their accounting software, which is where final economic results accumulate, I find that working with QuickBase enhances business owners' pleasure and comfort, minimizes disruption and stress, and allows them to focus on running their businesses instead of re-orienting themselves to a different platform's look and feel. In short, it feels like "home."
The low-code application development space, which some call a "revolution", is new and fascinating. Each platform is like a box of interlocking plastic toy blocks or a hardware store. It contains tools and materials with which almost anything can be built.
So far, I find that platform value is in the process of being clarified. Pricing models vary. Some are strictly per user month, some begin with a minimum number of users, some are a fixed price for a band of users, and there are probably other models I have yet to discover and understand.
But what they all share in common is that they're all tools and materials. What is missing from the whole picture is the value of developer talent; and without that, all you have is a useless box of blocks or a pile of tools, lumber, hammers, and nails. Until somebody - preferably a master craftsman - picks up those tools and materials and arranges them into something useful, they just sit there.
I have noticed that some platforms also offer a "Marketplace" of "Free Applications." From platform to platform, the meaning of the word "Application" varies. For example, an "Application" in QuickBase is a "Workspace" or a "Bundle" of applications in Podio; and a "Table" in QuickBase is an "Application" in Podio. So when Podio boasts of hundreds of free applications to choose from in their Marketplace, they're really referring to one table that lists one kind of thing like a list of customers or a list of projects.
In my understanding, a true application works with many tables and relates them to each other in helpful ways. For example an accounting system like QuickBooks contains many lists like a Chart of Accounts, Customers, Vendors, Products, Services, and so on, and connects all of them so that the end result, the "application", behaves like an accounting system should, producing truthful reports.
This is where craftsmanship and artistry matter: designing and connecting any number of tables in such a way that they answer important questions truthfully. They're what distinguish a terrible application from a great one.
Defined as such, if we attempt an apples-to-apples comparison of the number of true applications available in, for example, QuickBase and Podio, we find that, as of this writing, in its marketplace Podio offers 82 "app packs" versus QuickBase's 844: one tenth.
But that just addresses quantity, not quality, and both platform providers will tell you that the free applications they offer in their marketplaces are rough templates that will need to be refined to fit your situation.
Refined how, and by whom? Considering how it makes all the difference between something that works and something that doesn't, who does that refinement, and what is it worth?
Currently, the marketplace is fairly silent about that, and by offering "free" apps, it implies that it's not worth anything, that it's included in the price of the platform.
Do you really believe that? I don't.
If you do, please be aware that you're likely to wind up spending (wasting) a lot of time experimenting with creations that aren't really right for you that are, in many cases, poorly built. Considering the ever-growing quantity of choices now numbering in the hundreds, the search for the right solution is like finding a needle in a haystack and, over time, will in the foreseeable future probably become ever more challenging.
If you compare the situation with more conventional, traditional fields like construction or health care, the value becomes quickly obvious. Remembering that you get what you pay for, would you let an inexperienced backhoe operator near your house, or put a scalpel in a child's hands? Of course not.
Realizing how thoughts create things, isn't it obvious that one should be just as serious about the information necessary to make wise business decisions?
Have you ever seen what happens when an application is orphaned from its author, developer, or creator? It's not a pretty picture. In such cases folks commonly talk about the importance of documentation but all too often, that is because it doesn't exist and they wish it did. Recipients of orphaned applications wind up trying to guess what the developer was thinking. It's messy, frustrating business.
If an application is intricate at all, this is what can happen if you avail yourself of a "free app" in a marketplace. To refine it and really make it useful for yourself, you wind up in a similar position, working with sketchy documentation and trying to read the developer's mind. Including Opportunity Cost, it can become quite the expensive bunny trail.
I ask you to bear all of this mind when you consider HWD pricing. Remember that the cost of the platform itself is like the cost of a box of building blocks, tools, or materials. The price of HWD represents a ready-to-use product built with these tools and materials, and the active, ongoing support of its creator to help you refine and use it for your exact situation.
When you consider the alternative - the cost of in-house labor or of outside assistance surmounting learning curves and creating something useful - I hope you can see how the price makes total sense.
Thanks for reading this, and I look forward to working together soon.
For your success,
Kris Freeberg, Economist
Making End$ Meet
[email protected]
(360) 224-4322
Today I undertake to write this page after, yet again, researching the state of the art in the low-code application development space. My latest discovery is Podio, which I noticed in a recent podcast at Bigger Pockets, a social network for real estate investors, about opportunity management. Here on the Application Development page, I've added it to the list of low-code application development tools I can use to create business management solutions that aren't available in "out-of-the-box" software.
Because of its moderate and sustainable cost structure and robust, intuitive reporting, my favorite platform continues to be QuickBase. Also, since Intuit made it, its look and feel are similar to QuickBooks, the favorite accounting software of so many small and larger businesses.
By keeping the user experience similar to their experience in their accounting software, which is where final economic results accumulate, I find that working with QuickBase enhances business owners' pleasure and comfort, minimizes disruption and stress, and allows them to focus on running their businesses instead of re-orienting themselves to a different platform's look and feel. In short, it feels like "home."
The low-code application development space, which some call a "revolution", is new and fascinating. Each platform is like a box of interlocking plastic toy blocks or a hardware store. It contains tools and materials with which almost anything can be built.
So far, I find that platform value is in the process of being clarified. Pricing models vary. Some are strictly per user month, some begin with a minimum number of users, some are a fixed price for a band of users, and there are probably other models I have yet to discover and understand.
But what they all share in common is that they're all tools and materials. What is missing from the whole picture is the value of developer talent; and without that, all you have is a useless box of blocks or a pile of tools, lumber, hammers, and nails. Until somebody - preferably a master craftsman - picks up those tools and materials and arranges them into something useful, they just sit there.
I have noticed that some platforms also offer a "Marketplace" of "Free Applications." From platform to platform, the meaning of the word "Application" varies. For example, an "Application" in QuickBase is a "Workspace" or a "Bundle" of applications in Podio; and a "Table" in QuickBase is an "Application" in Podio. So when Podio boasts of hundreds of free applications to choose from in their Marketplace, they're really referring to one table that lists one kind of thing like a list of customers or a list of projects.
In my understanding, a true application works with many tables and relates them to each other in helpful ways. For example an accounting system like QuickBooks contains many lists like a Chart of Accounts, Customers, Vendors, Products, Services, and so on, and connects all of them so that the end result, the "application", behaves like an accounting system should, producing truthful reports.
This is where craftsmanship and artistry matter: designing and connecting any number of tables in such a way that they answer important questions truthfully. They're what distinguish a terrible application from a great one.
Defined as such, if we attempt an apples-to-apples comparison of the number of true applications available in, for example, QuickBase and Podio, we find that, as of this writing, in its marketplace Podio offers 82 "app packs" versus QuickBase's 844: one tenth.
But that just addresses quantity, not quality, and both platform providers will tell you that the free applications they offer in their marketplaces are rough templates that will need to be refined to fit your situation.
Refined how, and by whom? Considering how it makes all the difference between something that works and something that doesn't, who does that refinement, and what is it worth?
Currently, the marketplace is fairly silent about that, and by offering "free" apps, it implies that it's not worth anything, that it's included in the price of the platform.
Do you really believe that? I don't.
If you do, please be aware that you're likely to wind up spending (wasting) a lot of time experimenting with creations that aren't really right for you that are, in many cases, poorly built. Considering the ever-growing quantity of choices now numbering in the hundreds, the search for the right solution is like finding a needle in a haystack and, over time, will in the foreseeable future probably become ever more challenging.
If you compare the situation with more conventional, traditional fields like construction or health care, the value becomes quickly obvious. Remembering that you get what you pay for, would you let an inexperienced backhoe operator near your house, or put a scalpel in a child's hands? Of course not.
Realizing how thoughts create things, isn't it obvious that one should be just as serious about the information necessary to make wise business decisions?
Have you ever seen what happens when an application is orphaned from its author, developer, or creator? It's not a pretty picture. In such cases folks commonly talk about the importance of documentation but all too often, that is because it doesn't exist and they wish it did. Recipients of orphaned applications wind up trying to guess what the developer was thinking. It's messy, frustrating business.
If an application is intricate at all, this is what can happen if you avail yourself of a "free app" in a marketplace. To refine it and really make it useful for yourself, you wind up in a similar position, working with sketchy documentation and trying to read the developer's mind. Including Opportunity Cost, it can become quite the expensive bunny trail.
I ask you to bear all of this mind when you consider HWD pricing. Remember that the cost of the platform itself is like the cost of a box of building blocks, tools, or materials. The price of HWD represents a ready-to-use product built with these tools and materials, and the active, ongoing support of its creator to help you refine and use it for your exact situation.
When you consider the alternative - the cost of in-house labor or of outside assistance surmounting learning curves and creating something useful - I hope you can see how the price makes total sense.
Thanks for reading this, and I look forward to working together soon.
For your success,
Kris Freeberg, Economist
Making End$ Meet
[email protected]
(360) 224-4322
