Dev Blog 002; Progress Over the Holidays

It’s been about two weeks since my last post before Christmas. While I’ve taken some time to unwind and enjoy moments with family and loved ones, I’ve still managed to fit in a few productive coding sessions. Here’s where things stand with SwiftCPQ.

Significant Application Progress

The application itself has seen more progress than ever before. I’ve now reached a point where I can create a full proposal equivalent to what I used to generate with competing products in my previous role. The key difference? This version incorporates my spin on it—tailored to how my brain works when building proposals.

To showcase what’s working so far, I’ve put together a quick video preview. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can even pull the project from the public Github repo and test it locally yourself.

The best part? It’s incredibly fast. Of course, there are still a few bugs here and there (you might spot them if you have a keen eye), but nothing that can’t be solved with a bit of careful manual and automated testing.

Next Steps Toward MVP

While the editor is coming together nicely, the next critical step is building out the output generation functionality. After all, the editor is great, but if I can’t deliver a polished proposal to a client, then the tool doesn’t fulfill its purpose.

This part is on a tight timeline.

I’ve promised a client that I’ll send them a proposal in January, and I’m relying on reaching MVP status to deliver it. Pressure is now on, but that should make output generation my top priority for the coming weeks.

Establishing an Online Presence

SwiftCPQ now has its own domain: https://swiftcpq.app.

The website includes:

• A mission statement outlining the purpose of the project.
• A waitlist for early adopters interested in following along.
• A public Github repo featuring the planned feature list. (I’m looking to connect this with GitHub Discussions and integrate a voting system for gathering feedback.)

I’ve also set up a GitHub Sponsors page for anyone who wants to back the project financially. People can contribute to the project by going to the Github repo, and also, in the future, I plan to offer paid hosting, onboarding, and support services directly through the website.

My thought is that by using this approach, it lets me cater to both DIY entrepreneurs and more established Consultants/MSPs who need reliability and are willing to pay for the convenience at a better price point to my established competitors.

Licensing SwiftCPQ

SwiftCPQ is licensed under the AGPL 3.0. This ensures that the software remains free and open for anyone to use, modify, and distribute under the same terms. By choosing this license, I aim to preserve transparency, collaboration, and accessibility for the community.

A key reason for this choice is to ensure that the core platform remains community-driven and that no one can turn it into a SaaS offering without contributing back to the project. This keeps support and contributions centralized, allowing me to maintain control over the project’s direction and ensure it stays aligned with its original goals of simplicity, reusability, and accessibility.

Building the Community

To foster a community-driven approach, I’ve launched a Discord server. To keep things organized and spam-free, I wrote some Python automation to ensure only real users join. Writing in Python was a fun little detour—it’s a neat language—but I’m glad to be back in my TypeScript comfort zone.

The Discord server uses a role system so members can identify their business use cases for SwiftCPQ. My hope is to grow this community organically into a valuable resource for users and contributors alike.

Wrapping Up for now

In summary, SwiftCPQ is coming along quickly. The product’s functionality is solidifying, the website is live, and the foundation for a growing community is in place.

If you’d like to be part of the journey, check out the website, join the Discord, or dive into the Github repo. I’m excited to keep pushing forward and would love to hear your feedback and ideas as we build something great together!

Happy new year, and lets hope that 2025 is the year I can get this bloody project moving along!

🎉🍻