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Software Development
Guides & Resources
Practical, no-BS guides on building custom software. Whether you're deciding to build, choosing a tech stack, or scaling an existing system — we've written the guide for it.
Essential Guides
Build vs Buy: The Decision Framework
When to use off-the-shelf software vs building custom. A practical framework for the most important software decision your business will make.
Read guide →When to Go Custom
The 5 clear signals that your team has outgrown SaaS tools and it's time to invest in custom software.
Read guide →Cost of Custom Software
Real numbers on what custom software development actually costs in the US, with breakdowns by project type and complexity.
Read guide →In-Depth Guides
How to Choose a Tech Stack for Your Project
Choosing a tech stack is one of the most consequential decisions in any software project. The right choices accelerate development, simplify hiring, and set you up for long-term maintainability. The wrong choices create compounding technical debt that gets harder to escape over time.
Read guide →API-First Architecture: A Practical Guide
API-first architecture means designing and building your API before the frontend, mobile app, or any other consumer. It's a fundamental shift from the traditional approach where the API is an afterthought — bolted onto whatever the backend happens to expose.
Read guide →Technical Debt: What It Actually Costs Your Business
Technical debt is the gap between the software you have and the software you need. Like financial debt, it's not inherently bad — taking on strategic tech debt to ship faster can be the right business decision. But unmanaged debt accumulates interest, and eventually the payments consume all your engineering capacity.
Read guide →SaaS vs Custom Software: The Decision Guide
The SaaS vs custom software debate isn't really a debate at all — it's a context-dependent decision that depends on your team size, growth trajectory, regulatory environment, and how central the software is to your competitive advantage.
Read guide →Security Best Practices for Custom Software
Custom software gives you full control over your security posture — but that also means security is your responsibility. Unlike SaaS where the vendor handles most security concerns, custom software requires intentional security decisions at every layer.
Read guide →Scaling Custom Software: A Practical Guide
Most custom software doesn't need to handle millions of users on day one. But it does need to scale gracefully as your business grows, without requiring a complete rewrite every time you 10x your user base.
Read guide →Hiring Developers vs Using an Agency
When you need custom software built, you have three main options: hire developers in-house, work with an agency (like us), or use freelancers. Each approach has genuine advantages and real trade-offs.
Read guide →Agile Development: What to Expect as a Client
If you're hiring a development team to build custom software, they'll almost certainly use some form of agile methodology. But what does that actually mean for you as the client? What should you expect, what's your role, and how is it different from traditional project management?
Read guide →From MVP to Production: The Evolution Path
Congratulations — your MVP worked. Users want what you're building, and now you need to evolve from a proof-of-concept into a production system that can handle real load, real data, and real customers' expectations.
Read guide →Total Cost of Ownership: SaaS vs Custom Software
When comparing SaaS to custom software, most people compare the sticker price: $50/user/month vs a $50,000 development project. But sticker price tells you almost nothing about what the software will actually cost your business over its useful life.
Read guide →Data Migration: Moving From SaaS to Custom Software
Data migration is often the scariest part of moving from SaaS to custom software. Years of business data locked inside a platform, in formats you didn't choose, with relationships you might not fully understand. It feels like defusing a bomb.
Read guide →How to Write a Software Requirements Document
Most software projects fail not because of bad code, but because of bad requirements. Vague specifications, unstated assumptions, and scope that shifts mid-build are responsible for more wasted development dollars than any technical challenge.
Read guide →Software Testing Strategy for Custom Software
Testing is the most misunderstood aspect of software development. Some teams test nothing and fix bugs in production. Others chase 100% code coverage and spend more time maintaining tests than writing features. Both approaches waste money.
Read guide →How to Build a Product Roadmap for Custom Software
Every custom software project needs a roadmap — but most roadmaps fail because they try to predict the future instead of planning for uncertainty. The goal isn't to map every feature for the next 2 years. It's to align your team on priorities, sequence work logically, and create a framework for making trade-off decisions.
Read guide →API Security Best Practices
APIs are the backbone of modern software — and the most common attack surface. A single misconfigured endpoint can expose customer data, allow unauthorized actions, or enable denial-of-service attacks. API security isn't an add-on; it's a fundamental design concern.
Read guide →Database Scaling Guide for Growing Applications
Most applications don't have a scaling problem — they have a database problem. The application server scales horizontally by adding more instances. The database doesn't. When your application slows down, the culprit is almost always the database: slow queries, missing indexes, or a schema that wasn't designed for your current data volume.
Read guide →Have Questions?
Our guides cover the most common questions, but every project is unique. Book a free consultation for advice tailored to your specific situation.