Comments on: Idea #12: Household Inventory Database

By: Donnie Hale

Donnie Hale — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 20:08:10 +0000

A little late to be making this comment, but just in case…

Quicken (Deluxe?) used to include a feature called Quicken Home Inventory. My wife and I used that to inventory our house. I don’t know if the recent versions include it, as we haven’t used it in a while. One thing (it may have been mentioned and I missed it) – it should include a feature to associate digital photos with the inventory entries.

As an aside, I’m a micro-ISV wanna-be, too. It sounds like I’m about where you are (I’ve got a specific idea and am alternating b/w working through the crap stuff that Walsh’s book makes clear is still important and the fun stuff of defining the feature set, doing a high-level design and user interface flows, etc.). This idea was on of the ideas I briefly considered but rejected because of Quicken Home Inventory.

FWIW…

Donnie Hale

By: benji

benji — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 06:04:56 +0000

Yaaaaay!!! I love you, too!!

By: Mom

Mom — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 03:55:36 +0000

Great idea! I love you, Benjie.

By: Tom H.

Tom H. — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 14:49:38 +0000

Another micro-ISV blog recently claimed there were around 20 different companies in the “collection tracking” space. How will you differentiate?

By: anon

anon — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 12:43:18 +0000

If you add a barcode scanner thingie so once things are in the database, they can be signed in and out automatically, that might be better than having to do it manually. But that requires hardware which you might not be willing to sell.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 23:55:15 +0000

The idea of making it a web app is a good one. Seeing if any insurance companies would play along is also a way to push it but also tends to involve a lot more leg work to sell them on the idea.

I can see the overall merit of the idea. I’m sure there are plenty of type-As out there who would buy it. Unfortunately, I’m not so organized.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 21:00:32 +0000

If you lose everything, then “everything” by definition tends not to exclude the useful PC where you kept the list of everything. “Item #1: This PC.” ;) An automatic web backup system would be neat, though – if people trusted it to not be a shopping list for theives.

A PDA version (or at least front end) so people can enter data while walking around the house would be good.

By: benji

benji — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 18:14:05 +0000

Yeah, I thought about the webapp thing too, for the same reasons: safety of data in case of emergency.

But to me, safety-of-data would be a secondary concern. My primary interest in this kind of software would be the ability to quickly add new items to the database, search for existing items, and change the status items (loaned to John, etc).

Maybe the software could run locally by default, but then I could also offer secure online storage (with automatic synchronization), just in case of a tragedy.

By: Dmitry Skavish

Dmitry Skavish — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 16:28:31 +0000

It sounds interesting, but I would rather do it as web app for something like $10-$20/year. And in case of a disaster your data is not lost.

By: Keith Casey

Keith Casey — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:28:04 +0000

Hmm… I have to admit that this one sounds interesting. Years ago, when I was still heavily involved in theatre (3-4 shows/year), I pondered a similar system for props and costume management.

While your idea would fit something like that, I think you could also reach out to insurance companies. When I first had to get renters’ insurance years ago, I had to document a bunch of stuff about my possessions. Something like this would enable me to do it once – when I got the policy – and then just keep it up to date as necessary.