A torn calf, a teenager and Star Wars talked me into building a software platform….There's no hours in a garden shed or lightbulb moment in this story. Just a man in his fifties with a dodgy leg, and too much Star Wars.

For over a decade I'd been carrying around the idea for an aggregated portfolio management system but a lack of coding skills and time meant it stayed just that. I was pretty sure it was a good idea. Throughout my career, I had been involved in the implementation of property and portfolio management software and had seen, over and again, sensible companies build complicated systems that tried to solve every problem rather than focus on providing a solid base for data presentation to help Asset and Portfolio Managers get on with the operational basics without wanting to throw their laptop out of the window.

Most of the market seemed to have been designed by technicians detached from the people who would use it. All they wanted to know “what was is let, what was owed, and what needed sorting out” to improve decision making.

The idea stayed just that. My problem was, no coding skills, and no spare time to speak of. Neither of those things resolved themselves on their own.

Then, last autumn, two things happened…One involved my son, the other was considerably less dignified.

My teenage son was doing his IB Computer Science course and needed to build an app. One evening at the kitchen table, I talked through my idea with my son, he listened but decided to choose something more interesting (his words), I then listened to him explain how AI could do the coding and it occurred to me that if he could knock up an app, maybe I could too.

Shortly after this I tore my calf muscle, which brought my year to an abrupt end. Left on the sofa with my leg elevated and in a boot for 5 weeks. Nothing to do but watch Star Wars… around the second Death Star, it occurred to me that I now had exactly what had been missing…time, and no more reasons to stop putting it off. So, with the leg still propped up and a lot of help (and frustration) from various AI tools I had a go at building my app.

And that was that, just a chat with my son and a torn calf that gave me no choice but to sit still.

The coding is a separate story, largely consisting of trial, error and a lot of patience with the AI tools but more on that another time