How I Start New Apps

Apps I make for myself start with an idea for some core useful bit. If I can then make some code to demonstrate that idea then I'm off to the races thinking about how an app using this idea could be helptul and wether or not I think people would pay for it.

I recently did this for my latest app which is on the way to release. I wondered if I could reliably generate accessible PDF files that work with screen readers and allow users to copy the text from them like you'd expect. This seems like it should be a pretty obvious yes, but given how many bad PDF files I have handled, I thought it was worth a test. If if could be done I knew I could make a reliable invoicing app that didn't need subscriptions like I was paying to use a webservice because it ran entirely on my local machine

The answer was yes! After a bit of research it was totally a thing I could make the computer do. I slapped together some example UI to see how it might look to be extra inspired:

I am also confident this is an app people will want to buy. The sales pitch is simple: If you're a freelancer or very small business that needs to handle invoices you can pay me a one time fee to handle them on your computer with a well-thought-out tool instead of paying a monthy fee to a web service that may leak your info or increase the price or some such at any time. My own business depends on one such web service and it costs me about 130$ per year. That's money I'd rather not spend.

So now the proect has progressed, my friend Florian is helping to make sure the app and the generated invoices look nice. Once we are done, you'll of course hear about it!