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EngineeringProduct5 min read
The dev-tool you should build (probably not the one you're thinking of)
Everyone wants to build a developer tool. The ideas that actually work are usually not the ones the founder originally had — and the difference is worth thinking about.
Dev tools are romantic: build something for engineers, by engineers, with great DX and word-of-mouth distribution. Most fail not because the product is bad but because the market wasn't actually waiting for it.
Why most dev tool ideas don't work
- The pain is small enough that engineers route around it.
- The buyer is the engineer but the budget owner isn't — and neither is willing to pay.
- The market is dominated by free tools that are 80% as good.
- The category requires enterprise distribution that startups can't fund.
Where dev tools do work
Solve a specific pain that ranks in an engineer's top three monthly frustrations. Make the bottom-up adoption obviously easy and the top-down purchase obviously valuable. And pick a category where the alternative is roll-your-own — not where well-funded incumbents already operate.
A dev tool that engineers like is necessary. A dev tool that someone will actually buy is rarer and harder.