Field Notes From Cyfrania
Chronicles of software developers: sweet successes, bitter failures, and everyday routines shared to inspire, spark thoughts, offer hints, or just for a pleasant read.
Against the Clock: Deadline Rescue Tips for Product Owners
Imagine this happening - a serious threat of missing deadlines looms over your project. For an entrepreneur developing an app, the consequences can be very serious. At the very least, this means overspending the budget, but it's usually much more than that. This can also be forever missed opportunities to participate in a significant industry event, which the release was timed to. Or undermined trust of investors and partners, disappointed user expectations, and marketing efforts gone to waste. All these prospects are extremely unpleasant - which means it's time for a crisis plan. What does…
Time and Materials vs Fixed Price: Which Fits Your Business?
Money and deadlines are the two aspects that concern entrepreneurs the most when they want to develop a website or an app. This is not surprising, as everyone wants to save money and realize their idea as soon as possible, as time plays against them in the highly competitive IT world. When searching for developers, the entrepreneurs should pay attention not only to their professional skills, expertise and experience, but also to the pricing contract they use. The early outsourcing contracts were traditionally based on a fixed price model, but nowadays, another business model, time and…
How to Reduce App Development Cost?
How to create an app and not go bankrupt? How to reduce the app development price? Sooner or later, every entrepreneur asks themselves these questions. It's good if this happens before the start of app development. However, it often happens when app development expenses are already out of control. What does this mean? The entrepreneur and the development team had agreed on a certain amount, but the budget has long since exceeded the acceptable limit. This is the worst nightmare for any entrepreneur who dreams of bringing their idea to life as quickly as possible, but the developers fail…
App Owner and Tech Debt: Detecting and Managing the Unseen
At last, you've found it - an article for understanding technical debt in software development with no tech background, focused on app owners needs, free of tech jargon and needless tech details! It finally explains in human language just what you need to know for decision-making. With over two decades in the IT industry, I am convinced that when a project is handled by experts, product owners don't need to know anything about the technical debt - that's the team's domain. So, if you are aware of this concept, it's a sign that your team has failed, and the problems are…
Monolithic vs Microservices Architecture: Which One To Choose
Often entrepreneurs who want to create some service may hear such strange words as "microservices" or "monolith" from software developers. What is a monolith? What are microservices? Why is it necessary to know them? What is the difference between these architectural approaches in development? Before starting to implement their idea, entrepreneurs should find answers to these questions and decide which approach better fits their business requirements and capacity. Why? Firstly, the entrepreneurs are responsible for their project and hope for its success. Secondly, they invest their money in…
Speed vs Quality: Which Is Preferred in Software Development?
In September of this year, I was fortunate enough to visit the Seamless Saudi Arabia exhibition. After speaking with some attendees and exhibitors, I was able to identify several trends of the IT market in Saudi Arabia. One of them is that due to fierce competition, developers often exaggerate their capabilities or tell the customer what they want to hear. Sometimes, they promise that the project will be ready on time, even though they know that this is unlikely. Why do they do that? Because if they…
How to Conduct A/B Testing on Monetization in Your App
Before launching, we used to just hope that our guesses about users' desires weren't too far off. Now the app's live, we can test and know for sure. This article's about A/B testing - an easy-to-use, budget-friendly, and powerful tool for confirming whether what we're about to do will succeed and how it could be done better. To be more specific, we'll focus on monetization testing - at the end of the day, making money is what a commercial app's all about, right? We aim to guide you through the A/B testing methodology step by step. **Once you've read…
Is It Easier to Build a Website or an App?
When entrepreneurs have an idea of launching a product or service, they are usually impatient to bring it to life as soon as possible. But what is the best way to realize this idea? Is it in the form of a website or an app? Entrepreneurs need to find answers to these questions by considering price, speed of development, advantages and disadvantages of the two approaches. If we don't go into detail, a website is easier to develop. But! Websites and applications can come in various types, each serving different purposes and…
Developers Portfolio: Guide for Entrepreneurs
When called upon as a developer expert to assist in selecting talents for app projects, I frequently observe entrepreneurs struggling with how to make a portfolio assessment for developer candidates. Lacking tech knowledge, they find it tough to judge developers' skills. In this article, I will address the challenges and pitfalls that might arise. Additionally, I will outline my approach on how to assess a portfolio to aid you in making a reasoned decision. In developers portfolios, you'll probably stumble upon a bunch of tech…
Question of Trust: Funds Gone, or Chance Left?
There is a special category of entrepreneurs among those who approach our development company. These are clients who come with unfinished projects, having undergone highly negative experiences with their previous developers. Having participated in the rescue of numerous such projects, I have some advice to share. In this article, I will outline the typical scenario that plays out in such instances, using a particular project as an example. Furthermore, **I will showcase how the startup's co-founders could have avoided a significant portion of the adversities…
