New project: SidekickJS - Javascript code quality tool

I've started work on a new potential startup: SidekickJS, a Javascript code-quality tool. It analyses your Javascript repository for basic Javascript issues, repetition, complexity and alerts you of changes. It's intended to replace a lot of the code-review boiler-plate I encountered while leading Javascript teams.

Going it alone

I'm going it alone for now, which is something I said I'd not do again. However - I very much do want a co-founder. Everyone I want to co-found with has a job they can't leave soon for various reasons

Additionally this time I can validate it myself. It's a programming tool and I can market to programmers: it's a matter of doing what I do already - blog posts, speaking at conferences and going to meetups. In addition I know people at around 15 companies I can validate the idea with.

Progress so far

This is now week 13! I finished my contract at Skimlinks on February 10th. I'm currently working with my first beta-testers, so I'm quite pleased with progress. It's quite easy to spend a lot of time arguing about stuff with co-founders early in a startup - there's so little information to go on it's hunches all the way down. Having 0 communication overhead and no discussions makes it easy to get stuff done - you just have to hope it's the right stuff!

Technically the project is Ruby + Javascript for the analysis, Rails + Postgres for the interface, Chef for server management. Going full-stack again has been a lot of fun so far: that said, I'm looking forward to validating so I can get a designer on board!

Join the beta

If you're on a Javascript team or know anybody else who is please join the beta! Any questions give let me know. I'll also be blogging about programming and bootstrapping at sidekicksrc.com.

Wish me luck!