Tools for MicroISV organizations

A MicroISV—a software business run by one person or a very small team—operates under a particular kind of constraint: every dollar spent on tooling is a dollar not spent on building the product. In 2007, the options for free, usable project infrastructure were more limited than they are today, but a focused set of tools could cover the essentials without licensing costs.

For project management, DotProject and NetOffice both provided web-based task tracking and collaboration. Neither was as polished as the commercial alternatives, but polish matters less than function when you’re a team of two trying to track what needs to be done this week. The same principle applies to documentation: TiddlyWiki, a single-file wiki that runs entirely in the browser, was genuinely elegant for its era—a personal knowledge base that required no server, no database, and no installation.

For organisations that needed to onboard new team members or create structured learning materials, Claroline offered e-learning capabilities that would otherwise have required an expensive LMS. And for the humbler but persistent need to remember things you’re working on, Zhorn Software’s sticky notes kept information visible without requiring a task-management system for every passing thought.

What these tools share is a philosophy: do one thing, do it adequately, and get out of the way. That’s worth more to a small team than a comprehensive platform that takes a week to configure. The constraint of a small operation isn’t a handicap—it’s a forcing function toward simplicity.

The specific tools have largely been superseded. Notion, Linear, Obsidian, and a dozen other options now occupy this space with better UX and more active development communities. But the principle of assembling a minimal, functional toolchain from free components rather than buying a suite you don’t fully need remains sound, and more achievable today than it ever was.