A Sri Lankan software product, not a services firm: one tool, sold by subscription to the world

A first step

Pick the one tool you would build and write a single page describing what it does, who it is for and what it costs per month. Show it to 20 people abroad who do that job, through the professional groups where they gather, and ask for a pre-order or a signed letter of intent. If nobody pays before it exists, change the tool before you write the code.

Who pays first

A small business abroad with one specific, recurring problem, which pays monthly for a tool that solves it better than the big platforms.

What leaves today

Engineers here are paid by the hour to build other companies' products, so the subscription revenue and the ownership stay abroad.

The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.

The test

Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?

The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.

In the book

• Ch. ThreeWhat We Have Already Built
  The stock exchange in Malabe

More from cluster 15

• 296Remote-work hubs in Kandy, Galle and Jaffna with fibre, power and a lawyer who knows the tax
• 298Accounting and bookkeeping outsourcing for small British and Australian firms, in their time zones
• 299Legal paperwork done for foreign law firms, since the common law is the same and the lawyers are here
• 300Typing up doctors' notes and reading scans for foreign hospitals, overnight, to their standard
• 301Architecture and engineering drafting services for firms in the Gulf and Europe
• 302Video editing, animation and game art studios selling to studios abroad

All 25 ideas in this cluster