Web development
What the first version should contain, and what it must not
Everyone agrees on starting small and nobody agrees on how small. The rule that has worked for us: one journey, all the way through, including its bad days.
2 min read
Before you brief anyone
Notes for the person deciding whether to build something, and what to build first. Budgets, timelines, the trade-offs nobody mentions until the invoice arrives. Nothing here is written for other developers: if a piece cannot help you decide something or ask a better question, it does not get published.
26 articles so far, in four groups: what an internal tool costs and how it is scoped, what changes when the product lives on a phone, how automated tests earn their keep, and what it takes to release and keep something alive. New ones arrive every few days — the schedule is set, so the queue does not depend on anybody remembering.
AllWeb developmentMarketplace developmentCRM developmentClient portalMobile developmentTest automationDeployment and support
What it costs, how long it takes, what to decide first
Test automation
What to test first when you cannot test everything
Nobody has the budget to cover every screen, and covering every screen would not help anyway. A short, opinionated method for choosing the first fifteen journeys.
3 min read
Mobile development
Native or cross-platform, in plain terms
One codebase or two is the first real decision in a mobile project and the one most often made for the wrong reasons. Four questions that settle it.
2 min read
Web development
When buying software is the smarter answer
Studios rarely tell you not to build. Here is the test we use, and the three situations where the honest advice is to buy a boxed product instead.
2 min read
Test automation
Your test suite is red and nobody cares. Here is how that happened
Almost every team we meet has tests. Half of them are failing, the pipeline is set to continue anyway, and everyone has quietly agreed not to mention it. The cause is almost never laziness.
3 min read
Client portal
A shared drive is not a client portal, and the difference costs you at the worst moment
Sending clients a folder link works until the day someone asks who saw what, or the wrong version gets signed. Here is where the line actually is.
3 min read
Mobile development
What a mobile app costs, and what actually moves the number
The honest answer is a range, and the range is wide for a reason. Here is what sits inside it, and the four things that change the figure more than anything on the feature list.
2 min read
CRM development
Moving ten years of deals into a new CRM without losing the useful half
Data migration is the part of a CRM project that is quoted as a line item and turns out to be a quarter of the work. Here is what makes it expensive and what you can decide in advance to make it cheaper.
3 min read
Web development
Why two studios quote the same project three times apart
You send one brief and get back three very different numbers. The spread is not greed — it is four different readings of the same sentences, and closing it is your job as much as theirs.
2 min read
Marketplace development
Commission, subscription or listing fee: picking how your marketplace charges
This is a business decision that quietly rewrites your software. Pick it before the build, because each answer needs a different thing to exist on day one.
3 min read
Client portal
The portal question nobody asks until it is too late: who can see whose documents?
Access rules are the part of a client portal that breaks silently and looks normal from the inside. Here is what to specify before anyone writes code.
3 min read
Test automation
What automated testing actually costs, and what the money buys
Quotes for test automation range from four thousand to forty-five, for work that sounds identical on the page. Here is what sits behind the numbers and how to tell which one you are being sold.
3 min read
CRM development
What a custom CRM costs, and why two studios quote it three times apart
The number depends on four things, and none of them is the number of screens. Here they are, in the order they move the price.
3 min read
Web development
When roles are not enough: access across branches, brands and legal entities
Manager, admin, operator. Three roles will get you through the first year, and then someone opens a second location. What replaces roles, and why it is painful to add later.
3 min read
Marketplace development
They met on your marketplace and paid somewhere else. Now what?
Disintermediation is not a bug you can patch. It is a pricing problem wearing a technical costume, and the platforms that survive it solve it with what they offer, not with what they block.
3 min read
Web development
Software that has to keep working when the internet does not
Offline-first is easy to promise and expensive to retrofit. What it actually requires, why a silent sync is worse than no sync, and how to tell whether your project genuinely needs it.
3 min read
Client portal
What a client portal costs, and the number that actually drives it
It is not the number of screens. It is the number of systems the portal has to read from, and whether any of them can be trusted to answer on time.
3 min read
Web development
Why standard ERP software cannot handle made-to-order production
Off-the-shelf systems assume the thing you are making already exists as a specification. When every item is built for one person from measurements taken once, that assumption quietly breaks everything downstream.
3 min read
CRM development
Custom CRM versus the boxed one: the test that settles it in an afternoon
Most companies should buy the box, and we say so before taking money. Here is the specific test that tells you which side of the line you are on, and what it costs to be wrong in each direction.
3 min read
Marketplace development
What escrow actually costs you to build, and when you do not need it
Holding a buyer’s money until the work is accepted is the feature that makes a marketplace a marketplace. It is also what separates an eight-week build from a twelve-week one. Here is what you are buying.
3 min read
Marketplace development
The parts of a marketplace that only break after launch
The demo always works. What fails in month two is the paid order whose seller was banned, the deposit that half-arrived, and the dispute about a file nobody kept. A list worth reading before you sign anything.
5 min read
Marketplace development
Adding AI to your product without handing your margin to the model
Generation costs money every time someone taps the button. Here is the metering, refund and abuse question to settle before you ship an AI feature, and what it looks like when it is done properly.
5 min read
Marketplace development
Who holds the money, and why that decision shapes your whole marketplace
Before the catalogue, before the app, one question decides your build, your legal shape and your support load: at what moment does the buyer stop owning the money and the seller start.
5 min read
Web development
How to brief a development studio so the estimate means something
Vague briefs come back as padded estimates, and the padding protects the studio, not you. Six things to write down before you ask anyone for a number.
4 min read
Marketplace development
How long a marketplace app really takes, and what makes it longer
A two-sided marketplace is three products, not one. Here is what genuinely drives the timeline, and which decisions add months without adding value for your first users.
4 min read
Web development
What a custom operations system costs, and when buying one is smarter
Custom software is not automatically the right answer. Here is how the money actually breaks down, and the three situations where an off-the-shelf product will serve you better.
4 min read
What we build
Web developmentMarketplace developmentCRM developmentClient portalMobile developmentTest automationDeployment and support
Reading rather than deciding? The case studies are the same arguments applied to two real products, with the prices, the timelines and a demo you can open on sample data.