Your friendly neighbourhood software vendor
I think big software companies are about to lose their hold on their customers. Not to a rival company, but to someone down the road who will build, change and fix software for you, the way your local mechanic fixes your bike.
The mechanic down the road
You buy a motorcycle from a big manufacturer. When something goes wrong, you can take it to the authorised service centre. But if that centre is overflowing, or isn’t fixing the problem the way you want, you go to the mechanic down the road.
You buy a spare part, pay a small fee, and it’s fixed. You never had to write to the manufacturer. The fix happened nearby, by someone who knows you and your bike.
Software has never worked this way. There’s no one down the road. There’s only the manufacturer.
What it’s like dealing with big software
If you run a business on a CRM, an accounting tool or an HR system, you’ll recognise these.
Nobody to call
You get a help centre, a chatbot and a ticket number. Nobody knows your setup.
Built for the average customer
Your business isn’t average, so you end up bending your work to fit the tool.
Changes take forever
Anything you need becomes a feature request, one of thousands. It may ship next year, or never.
Your data is stuck
Your records live in their system. Leaving is painful, and that’s often on purpose.
The feature you’re still waiting for
Say you run a wholesale shop and pay ₹2,500 a month for an order-tracking app. You want one thing added: a WhatsApp message to the customer when their order ships.
With a big company, your request joins a queue. Months pass. The feature might come, or it might not. And the whole time, you keep paying for the app, because your business runs on it.
With a neighbourhood builder, you already have the basics: your data and your app. They add the message on top, and it’s live by Friday.
- You ask
- Support ticket
- Feature request
- Product roadmap
- Maybe next year
- You ask
- Builder adds it
- Live by Friday
Software already has standard parts
A mechanic can fix any bike because bolts and tyres come in standard sizes. Software has its own standard sizes, and most people have never heard of them.
Common file formats
Most data can be saved as CSV, JSON, SQLite or plain text. These formats are decades old, free, and understood everywhere.
Version control
Tools like Git keep every version of the code with notes on what changed. A new builder can read the history and pick up where the last one stopped.
Standard connections
Payments, WhatsApp, maps and email all connect to apps in well-documented, similar ways, called APIs. A builder doesn’t have to reinvent them.
order_id,customer,item,status
1042,Meena Stores,20 kg basmati,ShippedA spreadsheet in plain text. Every tool from Excel to Google Sheets can open it.
{
"order_id": 1042,
"customer": "Meena Stores",
"item": "20 kg basmati",
"status": "Shipped"
}The format most apps use to talk to each other on the internet.
SELECT * FROM orders WHERE order_id = 1042;
1042 | Meena Stores | 20 kg basmati | ShippedA whole database in a single file. It runs on nearly every phone in the world.
Order 1042
Customer: Meena Stores
Item: 20 kg basmati
Status: ShippedPlain text. Readable by people, by every computer, and by AI.
It’s the same order every time. AI tools can turn one format into another in seconds. So when you have a new need, you don’t need the original company. All you need is a backup of your data, and a builder can make something new on top of it.
It’s how we already build houses
When you build a house, the bathtub comes from one big brand, the sink from another, the tiles from a third. None of these companies builds your bathroom. A local contractor does. They imagine it with you, build it, and come back when something breaks.
With those standard parts in place, software can split into the same three layers.
Your land and your house. You can hire a different contractor whenever you like.
Your data, backed up in a common format any builder can open. Switch builders and nothing is lost.
Bathtubs, sinks and tiles from big brands, bought off the shelf.
Payments, sign-in, storage and AI, from the big tech companies.
The contractor builds your bathroom the way you want it, and comes back when something leaks.
A local developer builds the app around how you work, and fixes it when something breaks.
The first layer is the important one. Today, the software company owns all three. In the model I’m describing, you own the foundation, so you’re free to hire and fire builders the way you would a contractor.
The big companies still get paid for their parts. What they lose is you: the conversations, the trust, and the money that comes from changing things.
Software already has a few local mechanics
This model already exists in software. It just hasn’t spread far enough for anyone to see it as a trend. You’ll find it around a handful of platforms.
Many small businesses in India that run on Tally rely on a local Tally partner. Tally makes the software. The partner installs it, customises invoices and reports, trains the staff, and picks up the phone.
One free platform, and thousands of freelancers and small agencies building websites on top of it for local shops, schools and clinics. The client calls the agency, not WordPress.
In both cases the platform kept growing, but the customer relationship, and much of the money for customising, sat with the person nearby.
These are still the exceptions. They work because Tally and WordPress are unusually open to outsiders building on top of them. For most software there’s no one nearby: if it doesn’t fit, you live with it or file a feature request.
AI is what could turn these exceptions into the norm. A local builder no longer needs a platform that invites them in. They can build exactly what the customer needs from standard parts.
Working with your friendly neighbourhood software vendor
Picture a small physiotherapy clinic with two doctors and four staff. Today they juggle a paper appointment book, a WhatsApp group and a monthly clinic app that doesn’t quite fit. They want one system for appointments and patient records, with reminders sent to patients on WhatsApp, and they want patient data kept on their own computer. Here’s how I imagine it going.
- 1
A conversation
Day 1They visit your shop or office and watch how you actually work. What do you track? Who needs to see what? What annoys you about your current tools?
- 2
A backup of your data
Day 2They export what you already have, from spreadsheets, old apps and WhatsApp groups, into a common format that you keep a copy of.
- 3
The build
Week 1–3They put the app together from ready-made parts, show you early versions, and change things as you react.
- 4
Handover
Week 3–4You get the app on your phones and computers, your data, and the code. It’s yours, the way a finished bathroom is yours.
- 5
Service when you need it
LaterLike servicing a bike every 10,000 km, you call them back when something needs changing. Some apps need this often. Many don’t need it for years.
And here’s what the builder’s quote might look like. Untick a line to see how the price changes.
The same idea works for a shop’s order tracker, a restaurant’s inventory or a factory’s attendance register. Custom software used to be something only big companies could afford. With AI doing most of the typing, a small business can have it too.
Why now
Building got cheap
AI coding tools have made software much cheaper to build. For small apps like these, work that took weeks can now take days. The builder’s real value is understanding the customer.
The parts are ready
Payments, sign-in, storage, maps, messaging and AI all come as ready-made components. A builder assembles more than they invent, the way a contractor doesn’t make their own bathtubs.
Owners want control
Small businesses are tired of handing their customer records to companies they can’t call. Software that runs on their own computer, with data they keep, is a real selling point.
Subscriptions add up
A small business can easily pay for five or six tools, each charging per user, per month. A one-time build that does exactly what they need can pay for itself within a year or two.
How new is this idea?
Did I think of this on my own? Partly. Plenty of people have written about software that’s personal and local, and I owe them a lot.
- 2004 Clay Shirky, “Situated Software”
Software made for one group in one place, which never needs to grow beyond it.
- 2019 Ink & Switch, “Local-first software”
Your own copy of your data should be the main one, with the cloud as a helper.
- 2020 Robin Sloan, “An app can be a home-cooked meal”
Sloan built a messaging app for exactly four people: his family.
- 2024 Maggie Appleton, “Home-Cooked Software and Barefoot Developers”
Semi-technical people in a community building tools for the people around them. The closest to my idea.
- 2024 Satya Nadella on the BG2 podcast
Microsoft’s CEO suggested AI agents will take over much of what business software does today.
- 2025 Ink & Switch, “Malleable software”
People should be able to reshape their tools as easily as they rearrange a room.
Almost all of them assume people will build this software themselves, with AI helping. I don’t think most people will.
Most of us don’t fix our own motorcycles or lay our own tiles, even when the tools are available. We call someone nearby. The big opportunity isn’t personal software. It’s the local trade that grows up to build and look after it: thousands of small shops and freelancers who know their customers and come back when something breaks.
Where I could be wrong
The strongest pushback I’ve heard, and how I’d answer it.
“Doesn’t every app store data in its own way?”
Inside, yes. But most business apps let you export your core data, usually as CSV or JSON. Exports aren’t always tidy, but AI tools make cleaning and converting them much easier. What would help further is shared conventions for everyday things, like what a clinic’s appointments or a shop’s orders should look like. Whoever creates those will be in a strong position.
“Won’t custom software need constant upkeep?”
It depends on the tool. Something that talks to payment systems or changing regulations will need regular attention. But a lot of software can be built once and left alone, with a service every year or two, like a bike every 10,000 km. 37signals still runs old versions of Basecamp for customers who never upgraded, because those versions do everything they need. If the basics work, you can let it be, and paying once is a feature.
Basecamp’s “Until the end of the internet” policy →“Everyone uses WhatsApp and Gmail because everyone else does.”
Agreed. Those will stay with the big companies, and a local builder will happily plug into them. I’m talking about the software inside a small business, like orders, appointments and attendance, where only a few dozen people use it and a good fit matters more than reach.
“How do I know a builder is any good?”
The same way you pick a mechanic or a contractor: reputation, referrals, maybe certification over time. And if your data is backed up in a common format, a bad builder can be replaced without losing anything.
“Big companies will just let you customise their products.”
Some will. They’ll become like the bathtub brands, selling parts and working with local builders. That still moves your relationship to the person nearby. The ones that lose will be the ones that keep your data locked in.
What I’m watching for
I expect this to become a big industry in the next couple of years. These are the signs that would tell me I’m right.
- Freelancers and small agencies selling “custom software for your shop” at fixed prices, like interior designers sell packages.
- Big tech companies starting programmes for independent local builders, not just large consultancies.
- Small businesses cancelling monthly software subscriptions for a one-time build.
- Kits that make running a private office server as easy as setting up a Wi-Fi router.
Big companies will make the parts. Your neighbourhood will build the software.
If you’re building something like this, or think I’m wrong, I’d love to hear from you on X or LinkedIn.
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