I recently had to build a simple Salesforce managed package for my startup. It enabled a two way sync between a custom object in salesforce and the data in our system. At the end of the day, it was basically a simple CRUD app.
However, this process was way more painful than expected. I had to learn Apex, Visualforce, and all the nuances of the salesforce developer platform. Salesforce documentation is really focused on building apps inside salesforce, so I ended up relying on blog posts to fill in the gaps. All in all, a project that should have taken a few days or a week ended up taking two months!
How are folks, especially in the early stages, building their Salesforce integrations? Is there a tool? Paying a consultant? Sucking it up and just doing it?