Building software for unsexy problems 🤓

Atom CTO July newsletter

Welcome to the latest Atom CTO newsletter where we share tech news and stories for founders and entrepreneurs who are starting and scaling businesses.

Editor’s Note

Someone referenced a quote to me the other day, he wasn’t quite sure who said it but it went along the lines of: “There are no original ideas, everything has been invented, what we are doing now is taking multiple ideas and making them into something new.”

I’m not sure I entirely agree with this sentiment, but I will say that most of what we do as entrepreneurs is to take something that exists and make it better.

This is where the notion that entrepreneurs should focus on unsexy ideas comes from. In an article we have listed below the author essentially states that all the big sexy ideas are being tackled and big money is being poured into them but what we really need are people that will tackle the unsexy ones and I have to say I do agree with that.

Oftentimes I come across founders that are enamoured with new tech, they want to implement the shiniest and brightest thing out there but they don’t have an ultimate purpose for why they want to do that whereas the companies I am currently seeing that are succeeding are those that are solving real problems for people but they aren’t the sexiest issue to be tackling.

A case in point is one of the companies we are working with at the moment that wants to digitise their procurement process.

Common sense you say, well it is but the issue for the company isn’t that there isn’t tech that exists out there already to do what they want - the problem is that the tech is too expensive, complicated and is overkill for their needs.

All they want is to receive a customer request and then send back a standard quote via email. They don’t want to have to spend lots of time typing into various systems to get the job done.

This definitely isn’t sexy but it is a game changer - the company can process orders quicker, it can understand whether the quotes they’re giving match the costs they’re incurring and they can have their team work on fulfilling those orders rather than spending time filling in forms online.

Most importantly for them, they’re taking the knowledge out of the heads of people that are retiring and creating a standard system that anyone can plug into.

It ain’t sexy but it will allow the company to process more orders and ultimately that’s what you want as an entrepreneur - to add value so we can all have a better life.

As ever, if you are interested in learning more or have a tech challenge you need to solve, then we are here for you! Email bhairav@atomcto.com

Bhairav Patel
Managing Director
Atom CTO

Interesting insights

Latest events and articles in tech and entrepreneurship collected by the Atom team:

The effectiveness of Chat GPT all depends on the inputs, to get the most out of it, you need to craft your questions carefully. This article highlights 10 Chat GPT prompts to help improve your startup’s marketing and communication efforts. 📣

It’s time to ditch your competitor comparison slides… why? Showing your investors a competitor analysis isn’t about exhibiting dominance in every singe metric, it’s about demonstrating a deep understanding of the market and its players. 🗑️

Watch what you post online, the entire internet is now fair game… Google has announced that it is going to scrape all online content to train its AI, according to updates to its new policy. 🧠

Where’s the talent? With remote working becoming the norm, as well as distributed teams working across borders and timezones, where are the hubs of talent? Sequoia’s Atlas is an interactive map showing where tech talent tends to reside. 🌍

Software = always sexy? In the vast sea of tech startup competition, how can one stand out? The answer lies in building software for unsexy problems, because all the glamorous stuff has most probably been covered already, and that’s where all the competition is. 🍆

Podcasts

Send us your speaker recommendations! 🧞‍♂️

We’ve taken a little podcast hiatus over the Summer but we’re busy planning the next series of episodes which will focus on startup investments. We are looking to interview the experts in the startup finance field. If you know of anyone, get in touch!

We are looking for:
- Serial startup founder with experience making partnerships
- Startup incubator or accelerator coach
- VC specialising in small startups
- VC customer success or angel investor
- VC representative

If you have someone to introduce us to, just drop us an email to: info@atomcto.com.

Subscribe to the Atom Ventures podcast here 🎧

Apple: https://tinyurl.com/s9k3zuz
Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/vuny4pc
Google: https://tinyurl.com/4d38hsuv
SoundCloud: https://tinyurl.com/5h4ch2jh

Keeping in touch ✉️

Connect with Bhairav on LinkedIn
Follow on Twitter
Send us an Email: info@atomcto.com