Vendor lock-in: what it costs and when to accept it
Lock-in is not a defect in bad tools. It is the price of any tool that does real work for you. A four-question test for pricing the cost…
Functional and non-functional requirements: a guide for the founder paying the bill
Every founder writes the functional requirements. Almost none write the non-functional ones, and those are what decide the price of the build and what happens on launch day.
Story points, explained for the founder paying the bill
What story points actually measure, why nobody will convert them into hours for you, and the one conversion you can run yourself without corrupting the estimate.
Frontend and backend: the non-technical founder’s guide
Frontend and backend explained for the non-technical founder: how to brief precisely, read an estimate, and tell whether a bug is front or back.
Market Validation: How to Know People Will Pay Before You Build
Market validation is proving people will pay before you build. A non-technical founder's guide to testing real demand with commitment signals, not compliments.
Agile methodology: a guide for the founder who pays
Agile methodology explained for the person paying for the build, not for the people on the team: what it buys you, what it asks, and how to tell…
How to write a user story when you’re not the one building it
A user story is the smallest unit of a build brief. Here's the template, the four checks that separate a buildable story from a landmine, and a worked…
What is a sprint? A non-technical founder’s guide
What is a sprint? The fixed two-week cycle that turns an outsourced build into something you control, without becoming a tech manager.
What a Statement of Work Really Is (and How Not to Sign a Bad One)
A statement of work defines exactly what you're paying a vendor to build. Here's how to read one, and the clauses that decide who eats the cost.
What is a backlog? A non-technical founder’s guide
A backlog is the prioritized list of what's still left to build in your product. Why it's yours, not your dev's, and how to prioritize it without code.