Why is it so hard to turn software I built for my own business into a product?
Short answer
Because going from one location or brand to two multiplies the complexity about 5 to 10 times. Everything hard-coded has to become a setting, and each fix is small but there are dozens. Build for yourself first, in a way that's naturally reusable, and only package it once it works. Building two versions at once cost me a month.
I run three software products, and as of September 2026 only one of them, greetform, was ready to sell. The others worked for me. That's not the same thing.
Why is the second location the hard part?
"Doing it for one location, one everything, versus two, increases the complexity, like, 5 to 10x, right?"
Doing the second one means the whole system has to be truly scalable. The difference between two and 200 isn't nearly as big as the difference between one and two.
The work isn't one giant problem. Each remaining issue might take 10 minutes of chatting with AI to solve. But there are about 50 of them, and 50 times 10 minutes is a lot.
Should I build the sellable version from day one?
Not the way I tried it. I built one internal system to be sold, which meant building two versions at the same time: a plain template version and the real one. It just did not work. That was a disaster, and it cost me a month and 50 hours or more.
The better path is to get it working for yourself with pieces that are naturally duplicatable. If that works, it can become a sellable product in about a month.
How do I choose between quick and reusable?
My rule while a product is mostly in-house: whatever's easiest to make our lives better is the goal. At the same time, if it takes the same effort to do it right for the long term, do it that way.
What breaks when one system runs many brands?
Hard-coded details. My rule: nothing that belongs to one brand should be hard-coded anywhere. Locations and other brand details live only in that brand's own data, and only tools that apply anywhere are shared.
I once saw a second city's site mention the first city. That scared me, because it should never happen. If a brand leaves a field empty, it should show blank, never borrow another city's content. More on that in running newsletters in many cities.
Where should a redesign go first?
On your own accounts. When I redesigned greetform, the couple of brands using it let me manage it for them and mostly cared about their daily results email. A week without a finished insights page was no big deal, so I didn't need every screen finished before switching over.
How do I know it's ready to sell?
When the remaining fixes are done for every brand, not just yours. I held lightbreak back and sold only greetform until then, even though we were already using lightbreak in-house. See what an MVP needs and what can stay manual.
Answered by TJ Larkin. From client calls, my own product notes and work with my AI agents, 2024-2026. Last updated .