Blog · 83 posts
Most custom business software shouldn't exist. Build only your differentiator, buy the commodity, and treat scope, not code, as the thing that kills projects.
Illia Hrybovskyi 7 min read IT staff augmentation is sold as flexible skill on demand. What it actually meters is ramp time and turnover. The fix isn't more augmentation.
Illia Hrybovskyi 8 min read The search for the "best Android app development company" is a category error. Retention, native judgment, and code review predict a good app, not rankings.
Illia Hrybovskyi 8 min read The tidy phased SaaS development process is a fiction. Scope discipline and team continuity are what actually ship product.
Kseniia Cherepakhina 6 min read An MVP project is a small production system, not a disposable prototype. "Ship cheap and throw it away" quietly costs more than it saves.
Kseniia Cherepakhina 7 min read The weekend SaaS MVP is a trap: "minimum" ate "viable," and the throwaway you validate with becomes the codebase you can't kill.
Dennis Vorobyov 7 min read After 11 years on the vendor side, here's what separates good partnerships from bad ones. A framework for evaluating dev shops.
Dennis Vorobyov 9 min read A hard-truth take on outsource development: the cheap-rate arbitrage pitch is the part that fails, and continuity — not hourly rate — decides whether it works.
Kseniia Cherepakhina 6 min read DevOps consulting that hands you a pipeline and leaves rebuilds the silo the movement killed. The only engagement worth buying makes itself unnecessary.
Dennis Vorobyov 7 min read Most "custom web development services" sell you a launch when the real cost and risk live in the years after — here's what to actually judge a vendor on.
Illia Hrybovskyi 6 min read Ranking countries to outsource software development is a category error. The real predictor of outcome is seniority and retention, not the flag.
Dennis Vorobyov 6 min read Most CMS development services profit from the confusion between content and application. Here's what buying them well actually looks like.
Illia Hrybovskyi 7 min read An opinion piece arguing that the "hire dedicated iOS developers" pitch sells the wrong unit of work — and what to buy instead.
Dennis Vorobyov 7 min read An MVP in software is a scope decision, not a quality level — and confusing the two is why most "minimum viable products" are neither viable nor a product.
Dennis Vorobyov 6 min read A hard-truth take on the staff augmentation model: flexibility is the wrong reason to buy it, and continuity is the thing that actually pays off.
Kseniia Cherepakhina 6 min read Fractional CTO rates run $200–$400/hr or $5k–$25k a month. The hourly number is the least useful figure in the deal. Here's what you're paying for.
Illia Hrybovskyi 6 min read Most AI automation agencies sell fragile no-code demos. The only automation that survives production is owned, engineered software.
Illia Hrybovskyi 8 min read Staff augmentation means you rent the hands and keep the accountability. The only version worth buying is the one where the hands don't rotate.
Kseniia Cherepakhina 6 min read Nearshore means your engineering team is 1-3 time zones away. Portugal, Poland, and Latin America lead the market. Here's what to look for.
Dennis Vorobyov 10 min read A fractional CTO is defined by accountability, not hours. Most of what's sold under the title is advisory theater. Here's the distinction that matters.
Kseniia Cherepakhina 7 min read What an MVP really costs: why the $10K quote is a trap, why $40K–$100K is the real band, and why scope discipline sets the price.
Dennis Vorobyov 6 min read An opinion piece arguing that hiring remote developers is a retention and team-design problem, not a sourcing-and-screening one — and what to do instead.
Dennis Vorobyov 7 min read An opinion piece arguing that agentic AI consulting, sold as standalone strategy, fails where agents actually live — in engineering, evals, and ownership.
Dennis Vorobyov 7 min read An opinion piece arguing that rapid MVP development optimizes the wrong variable — building speed was never the bottleneck; deciding what not to build is.
Kseniia Cherepakhina 5 min read