Blog · 90 posts
The App Store itself costs $99 a year. The build quote is a down payment on a multi-year commitment. Here's what an iOS app actually costs.
Kseniia Cherepakhina 6 min read Why the ranked "best mobile app development companies in the USA" lists are mostly paid placement, and the one metric that actually predicts a good app.
Illia Hrybovskyi 6 min read Most AI consulting startups bill for the strategy deck and demo, the cheapest, most disposable part. The value was always in the engineering.
Illia Hrybovskyi 7 min read The honest answer to how much it costs to develop a mobile app: it's not a sticker price, it's a multi-year burn rate driven by indecision, not features.
Illia Hrybovskyi 7 min read Hiring a lone freelancer to own your app is the most expensive cheap decision you can make. Where the freelance model fits, and where it breaks products.
Kseniia Cherepakhina 8 min read Offshore staff augmentation is sold on rates 40-60% below US pay. The number that governs the outcome is attrition, and the rented-seat model runs hot.
Kseniia Cherepakhina 6 min read The strategy deck is the cheap part of an AI project. Where AI projects actually die, and how to pick a boutique firm that builds.
Kseniia Cherepakhina 7 min read A hard-truth take on what AI consulting actually is: most of it ends at a roadmap, and the only version worth paying for is indistinguishable from engineering.
Dennis Vorobyov 6 min read A fractional CTO decoupled from a team that ships is a consultant with a better business card. The real question is who owns delivery.
Kseniia Cherepakhina 8 min read The productized, ticket-queue version of DevOps as a service rebuilds the wall DevOps was invented to demolish. Here's what the model should include.
Illia Hrybovskyi 6 min read The advisory-hours version of CTO-as-a-service advises and leaves. The version that works owns delivery, hiring, and the roadmap.
Illia Hrybovskyi 7 min read What an outsourced DevOps team delivers, how to choose an engagement model, vendor vetting, costs, and the Eastern Europe talent advantage.
Kseniia Cherepakhina 14 min read A hard-truth take on CTO-as-a-Service: the model only earns its money when the fractional CTO is attached to the people shipping the code, not the deck.
Kseniia Cherepakhina 6 min read A hard-truth take on "app solutions": why the word "solution" is the lie in the pitch, and why the real decision is product versus team.
Dennis Vorobyov 8 min read Bespoke software solutions are worth it only for your actual differentiator. Most projects fail because they go custom everywhere at once.
Illia Hrybovskyi 6 min read Offshore developers don't fail on geography or rate. They fail on churn, the variable that actually predicts your build's outcome.
Illia Hrybovskyi 7 min read An MVP builder optimizes speed-to-code, the one thing that almost never kills a startup. Here's what it ignores, and what to build instead.
Illia Hrybovskyi 6 min read Most RAG consulting fixates on models and frameworks, the commodity half. Retrieval quality and evaluation are what decide production survival.
Illia Hrybovskyi 6 min read Hiring one full-stack developer to own your whole product sets them up to fail. What full-stack actually buys you inside a team with real code review.
Dennis Vorobyov 6 min read A bespoke software development company earns its premium only if the same senior team stays for years. Continuity, not custom code, is the product.
Kseniia Cherepakhina 8 min read The build cost of an AI agent is the least important number. Where the money actually goes, and why a flat quote prices the demo, not the system.
Dennis Vorobyov 7 min read A boutique studio founder argues that AI consulting for small businesses sells a strategy deck the buyer doesn't need, and what to buy instead.
Illia Hrybovskyi 7 min read Most nearshore outsourcing examples sell a map and a savings percentage. The variable that decided the outcome is who was still on the team in year three.
Dennis Vorobyov 7 min read MVP as a service sells a fixed-price, fixed-timeline package. But the MVP that works becomes your production system. Plan for who runs it after delivery.
Illia Hrybovskyi 6 min read