The Era of Personal Software

Jan 29, 2026

I am in a strange new period where making my own software is becoming easier than finding the right app.

I've been using Claude Code and Cursor to build tools for myself lately... tools I felt no other product out there fully had what I needed. Not polished products, just things that do exactly what I need. An expense tracker that works the way my brain works. A note-taking system that fits my actual workflow. The kind of software that would never exist because the market for "software that works exactly like Pranav wants" is precisely one person.

Here's what pushed me over the edge: I bought Pocket, a device for recording voice notes. Great hardware but it was basically a glorified voice recorder. But I felt the software was lacking. The notes didn't have what I wanted, the tasks were subpar, and it was overall just a "meh" experience. I had the device sitting idle in my backpack for a month. But the hardware was great. It wasn't my phone sitting on my desk actively recording; it's not obtrusive. I really wanted to use it properly.

So I built my own web app around it. Now it transcribes my class lectures, lets me chat with the content to understand things better, generates flashcards, and keeps context about my courses, syllabi, professors, and upcoming tests. The device went from a neat gadget to something I actually rely on. I connected it to the Canvas API so it can pull my assignments and classes. I connected it to Todoist so it can update my tasks...stuff I would otherwise forget.

The interesting thing is that even when my homemade version isn't as polished as the commercial alternative, I find myself appreciating it more. And when I occasionally go back to the "real" apps, I notice all the ways they don't quite fit. You can't unsee it.

The other thing: it's completely repairable. Something breaks or annoys you, you just fix it. You want a new feature, you add it. There's no roadmap to wait on, no feature request to submit into the void.

Yes, there are still some technical things you need to figure out. Deployment, keeping things running, that sort of thing. But honestly, these barriers are lower than ever. You can ask someone how to deploy something and have it live in an afternoon. The hard part used to be writing the code. That part is collapsing.

I think we're heading toward a world where spinning up personal software for a specific need becomes as natural as creating a spreadsheet. Not for everything, but for the things where the general solution just doesn't fit.

~ pranav