Introducing ReadyRoll

Today I am very excited to tell you about a new tool I’ve been working on. It’s called ReadyRoll, and it’s a new type of Visual Studio 2010 project designed with SQL Server database refactoring and developer productivity in mind.

It’s built on the idea that the best way improve a system and evolve its design is to refine it in lots of little increments over time, rather attempting a “big bang” type of change.

The database development tool market has a number of stellar products in it, and so I’m definitely standing on the shoulders of giants here. But I do believe that that developers and database professionals lack a tool that allows them to create a sustainable process in how they develop databases. What is needed is a tool that encourages experimentation, and fosters a virtuous cycle in improving the design of existing schemas.

It’s early days, but what I really want is for ReadyRoll to do for databases what ReSharper has done for code.

There will be a preview release available shortly with a 1.0 release to follow sometime in October. Please drop me an email on dan at danere dot com if you’d like to take part, I’d love to hear your feedback and of course will provide you with a complimentary license on launch for lending me some of your valuable time.

Of course the best way to get to know it is to see it in action! Read more about ReadyRoll, download it now, or watch this short screencast (duration 3:16):

If you can’t see this video, view the MP4 version

A Founder’s Dilemma

Warning: I am in a bit of a quandary and unfortunately it’s going to take a melodramatic stream-of-consciousness style rant for me to process it all.

My quandary is this: Despite being so close to delivering my software I also feel incredibly far away from doing so. Doubts about the product’s quality, usefulness and how it will ultimately be received are hampering my desire to finish it. I feel that at this stage nothing may be released because I’ve been besieged with a paralysis that threatens to nullify all of my efforts over the past 9 months.

What gives me greater pause to reconsider this folly of mine and just give the while thing up is this concern that my initial users will find the product deeply flawed and I will instantly become too disheartened to go on and get a version one out the door.

I know it sounds ridiculous, I mean who would actually care if the product sucked? I’m hardly in danger of being pelted with rancid tomatoes, since most things on the net that suck tend to simply go unnoticed.

If it is that a fear of being critiqued harshly is what’s holding me back then perhaps the best remedy is to bring that pain forward as soon as possible and face it head on so I can learn from the whole experience. Could it really be any worse than I imagine right now?

I sometimes wonder why the prospect of failure bothers me so much. After all, thought leaders such as of Seth Godin and Eric Ries consider the act of failure to be a vital stepping stone on the path to greatness. No doubt they have faced many failures of their own but managed to persevere and not let it stop them from ultimately delivering something of value to their customers/followers.

I think part of the problem for me in this is that where I stand feels like the loneliest place on earth: right now I have zero customers and not a single soul to share my vision with (i.e. a co-founder).

I’ve seen through the example of single-founder companies like Balsamiq what is actually needed to succeed as a bootstrapped software company. I honestly question whether I have what it takes to achieve anything remotely on the same scale.

But ending it at this point really isn’t an option. Right now I really just need to put my doubts to one side (along with all of the sage advice I’ve been lucky enough to receive in my lifetime) and just finish this thing so I can find out if anyone would want to use it, let alone pay for it. Yep, it’s time to man-up and take those vital steps forward over the precipice.

The challenge is this: 1 week to have a release ready to go… whatever state it may be in by then. It just needs to be something usable. Indeed, it may be far easier said than done but at this point I have to just grit my teeth and get on with it.