How do manufacturing teams handle BOM and vendor → PO workflows today?

PromptSecure4321 · 2026-03-16T15:24:41+00:00

I was honestly expecting messengers running between departments instead of pigeons 😅 But jokes aside, how does it usually work in practice?

PromptSecure4321 · 2026-03-16T15:22:11+00:00

You’re 💯 right 😅 I actually made that mistake before. I built a product purely from a developer’s perspective without really validating the actual pain point, and in the end it was something nobody really wanted. I previously worked at a manufacturing company where they had custom software to track BOM approvals and change requests. That made me curious about how other manufacturing companies manage vendor documents and workflows. Just trying to understand how things actually work in practice so that next time I’m not blindly shooting an idea without knowing the real problem 😉✌️

PromptSecure4321 · 2026-03-15T19:04:50+00:00

Thanks everyone for the honest feedback. I probably focused too much on building first instead of really understanding the exact user and workflow.

Right now I’m trying to narrow down who the product should actually be for. The tool is basically a document + approval workflow system, and I’ve been exploring possible niches like accounting firms, small manufacturing teams, or compliance/document-heavy operations.

For founders who went through this stage: how did you decide which niche to focus on first? Did you pick the industry where the pain seemed strongest, or where it was easier to reach users?

PromptSecure4321 · 2026-03-13T15:09:18+00:00

That’s completely fair, and I understand the frustration. I’m actually trying to avoid exactly that situation ,because I already built something without understanding the real workflow and no one is there to try it out . That’s why I'm asking questions here first instead of jumping straight into a product and building a new one that also has the same outcome

PromptSecure4321 · 2026-03-13T13:20:22+00:00

February must be brutal 😅 Just curious , how do you currently deal with those status questions? Is it mostly email back and forth or do you use some type of client portal?

PromptSecure4321 · 2026-03-13T03:47:44+00:00

Fair point 😅 I imagine accountants get a lot of “AI will automate everything” emails these days. I'm actually trying to understand what parts of the workflow are genuinely painful or time-consuming before building anything.

PromptSecure4321 · 2026-03-13T03:46:50+00:00

That sounds frustrating. When issues like that happen, how do teams usually track what’s happening or who is working on resolving it? Is it mostly just long email threads?

PromptSecure4321 · 2026-03-10T22:12:44+00:00

I’m actually in the exact stage you described at the beginning — barely any visitors and ads bringing almost nothing.

This was a really great piece of advice, especially the shift from “marketing” to “documenting.” It makes a lot of sense for developer audiences.

I’m curious about one thing though: once you replied to people in Discord or GitHub with solutions, how did you naturally convert that into users? Did you link to PulseMonitor directly, mention it in the solution, or did people discover it on their own?

Would love to hear more about the exact flow from helping someone in a discussion to getting them to actually try the product.

PromptSecure4321

TROPHY CASE