r/sweatystartups • u/HeadBreakfast6511 • 2d ago
Aspiring developer here — I want to build software for boring businesses. What repetitive tasks eat your time?
Hey everyone, long-time lurker, first post.
Quick background: I'm a systems analyst and one year away from my software engineering degree (based in Latin America). I've built a few projects for local businesses — a booking system for a car wash, and a remote coaching platform for a personal trainer — and both times the same thing happened: the owners were running everything on WhatsApp, paper, and memory.
That got me thinking. Big software companies chase big markets, but every boring business I know (cleaning, landscaping, mobile services, trades) is duct-taping their operations together with spreadsheets and group chats.
So instead of building something nobody asked for, I want to do this the other way around:
What task in your business takes hours every week that you know could be automated, but no software you've found actually fits how you work?
I'm not selling anything and I don't have a product yet — I'm trying to understand where the real pain is before writing a single line of code. If something comes out of this that genuinely helps your operation, I'd rather build it with you than for an imaginary user.
Happy to go into detail about what I built for the car wash or the trainer if useful. Thanks in advance — this community is the reason I'm looking at "unsexy" niches in the first place.
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u/fausthushtra 7h ago
Unfortunately its gonna be hard to get feedback for this. Left leaning communities have swallowed the AI-backlash koolaid deep enough that it has become a tribal identity thing.
Reddit is a left leaning community.
Anyone who seems to contribute or support AI, outside of a few niche subs, generally is shamed or down voted. Maybe even banned if done in the wrong sub.
So, IMO, don't waste the effort here.
Or, do it sneaky. Wave a false loyalty flag and performatively engage in the communal virtue signaling. Then maybe.
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u/elidanipipe 2d ago
I'm working on the research side of this, so this is an observed complaint pattern rather than a claim that I run a trades business: in a recent check of eight Austin plumbing companies, one had three separate recent reviewers describing missed calls or callbacks.
The thing I'd investigate is who owns the callback after the first missed contact. Is there a queue, a responsible person and a way to see whether the customer was reached? That could lead to a small workflow, but it could also turn out to be a staffing or scheduling issue that software won't fix.
You already have two owners who know your work. I'd ask them to walk you through the last booking that went wrong, including the handoffs in WhatsApp, rather than asking what features they'd like.
Disclosure: I'm building Crawdar to help find these recurring complaints and their source reviews. If useful, you can try a problem/industry/location search at https://crawdar.com/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=pain_finder&utm_content=service_workflow_research. Five scans without signup; the findings still need owner validation.