Identity Crisis

Figuring out what Cruncher can do and should do

Ezra 'God' Olubi. has always maintained the greatest problem with developers in Nigeria is that they think code is the solution. They think code is the business. My version of that misconception has always been that product is the solution. I like my ideas to go to fruition, and hardly ever bother about how much of a problem I’m solving for other people, as against scratching a stubborn itch on my design fingers.

I’ve always thought far as I can build a good version of a noble idea, I’m good. Somehow, I didn’t learn with Peerducate (we built a product that was eventually not used), and now for Cruncher, this is turning out to be a headache too. You see, the ultimate question is how can you build a business around something that people want. Two things stand out in that question.

1. Make sure you have a plan to turn your shit into a business if you want it to pay you money someday
2. Make sure your shit is actually something people want

A week ago, I had a brief meeting with a brilliant guy in investment banking that had a lot of ideas for me as per what Cruncher can be and should be. Some of his ideas were quite very futuristic, but mostly they were all practical. Since then, I have been unable to make one more stroke on the design or write one more line of code, because I’ve been very conflicted. I’m writing this post to see if I can get any feedback or find something in this process of writing.

When I built the first version of Cruncher, I wanted to build something for myself to see the summary of my bank statement, and I did that. However, when I started redesigning, I was building for people, not myself anymore. My original idea for this second version (screenshot)included

1. Small charts for viewing trends over time
2. Ability to add multiple account statements from different banks
3. Ability to sort and filter through transactions based on different parameters
4. Ability to see people that you’ve been sending money to/receiving money from. i.e Pull out names and their credit/debit summaries
5. Ability to search and save searches

From conversations with my friends and other random people, this is what people want

1. An app to see all this information on the go
2. They don’t want to manually upload transaction sheets
3. They want real categorisation, so they can set spending targets for these categories and see how they’re doing over time. e.g Food, Clubs, Airtime
4. They want Cruncher to advise them on how they can save

Right now, my restrictions are

1. I can’t build an app… yet.
2. There’s no easy way I can think of to get bank statements without manual uploads
3. The transaction sheets don’t have good enough data for categorisation
4. I can’t now align my set of features with what it seems like people want

So I’m stuck thinking of what to define as core set of features for this version. There’s also the concern of how to make it used by people, what banks can and should be talked to, how to get to these banks (I’m not a business person at all). I’m currently trying to talk a friend into being a business partner so he can do the runs, yet I’m conflicted about it all. Can I build something really useful, and is it worth it to start chasing banks down without a core idea.

I’m still thinking about this. If you have any advice, kindly reply me or email opemipoaikomo@gmail.com.