Blog
Straight answers about building software
Written for founders, operators and the people signing off engineering spend. What things cost, how long they take, what to build first, and where the money usually goes wrong.
Is AI-generated code safe to ship?
What AI-generated code changes about your engineering risk, the four questions to ask your team, and the two metrics that reveal review becoming a formality.
Why AI features take five times longer than the demo suggested
The demo took two days; shipping took four months. Where that time goes, why it is nobody's fault, and the questions that get you a realistic timeline.
Should your startup build AI features?
How to tell a genuine AI use case from a defensive one, what inference actually costs to run, and the failure modes that cost customers rather than money.
Build vs buy: a decision framework that survives contact with reality
When to build software and when to buy it — including the ongoing costs of building that never appear in the comparison, and where buying goes wrong.
When to rewrite vs refactor
Rewrites fail more often than teams expect, for predictable reasons. How to spot the rare case where one is right, and how to replace a system incrementally.
Technical debt, explained for founders
What engineers mean by technical debt, how to tell deliberate debt from neglect, and how to decide when paying it down beats shipping features.
Technical due diligence: what to actually check
A practical checklist for assessing a codebase and team before an acquisition or investment — including what changed now most code is AI-assisted.
When to hire your first CTO — and when not to
Most early companies need a lead engineer, not a CTO. The signals that you genuinely need one, the cheaper alternatives, and what to test for.
Hiring engineers vs outsourcing: how to decide
In-house, agency or contractors: a decision framework based on what you are optimising for, and the hidden costs on both sides that founders find late.
How long does software take to build?
Why software estimates are wrong in a consistent direction, what actually sets a timeline, and how to plan around uncertainty instead of pretending it away.
Fixed price vs time and materials: which contract to use
Both pricing models fail in predictable ways. How to tell which fits your work, and how to structure either so the incentives point the same direction.
How we scope a build so it does not run over
The two-page specification format we use before writing code: outcomes, constraints, non-goals and acceptance criteria — and why scoping is now the constraint.
What to build first: cutting scope without gutting the product
How to cut MVP scope without gutting the product: find the moment of value, defer everything off that path, and decide what a person can just do by hand.
How much does it cost to build an MVP in 2026?
Real MVP cost ranges for 2026, the five things that move the number, the lines missing from cheap quotes, and how to spot an optimistic estimate.
How to choose a software development partner
The questions that predict a good outcome when hiring a development agency, the warning signs worth walking away from, and how to start small.
Got a build you are trying to scope?
Tell us the problem and we will give you an honest read on what it takes.