Archive • adamtaylor.me • Buttondown

The fault in our software devs

August 31, 2024

If you’re a business owner looking to solve a nagging technical issue related to productivity and you think that some better/newer/awesome-r software may...

The ruthless elimination of scope

August 30, 2024

When planning software you want to alternate between Context & Clarity. Alternating between dreaming about the big picture and the next immediately...

YAGNI (You ain't gonna need it)

August 29, 2024

The acronym YAGNI stands for “You ain’t gonna need it” and is perhaps one of the most commonly repeated phrases in software development, and with good...

Software Strategy: Betting on things that don't change

August 28, 2024

In business, as in warfare, he who completes the most OODA loops wins the fight. Optimizing for faster cycles is always a winning tactic. One surefire way to...

Business value first, tooling second

August 27, 2024

Many software developers will list their exceptionally written code as a feature or benefit of their practice. They fawn over their functions, as a poet does...

Like concrete, software is expensive to change later

August 26, 2024

By now, you’ve heard me preach about Being the Program. It’s a critical concept to ingrain as a scrappy business owner who can’t afford long deadlines and...

Value is not dependent on the medium

August 23, 2024

I just spent the last hour writing a newsletter where I tried to articulate the difference between value and the medium that delivers the value. People often...

You can't deliver anything without ruthless prioritization

August 22, 2024

Imagine planning a trip from Tennessee to New York. You want to make the entire trip in a day, you hate flying, and you refuse to be crammed into a train....

Points of failure in small business software systems

August 21, 2024

A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is an oft-forgotten, but critical piece of software planning. Ensuring your business doesn’t go under when disaster strikes...

Wolves in sleek clothing: Part 2

August 20, 2024

Let’s continue our series about understanding how to vet the quality of the developers and agencies you’re investigating for your next big project. (Check...

What are software maintenance costs?

August 19, 2024

We often think software is a “set and forget” investment. You build it, it does the job, and you profit—right? Sometimes, yes. But often, no. Software...

Context & Clarity

August 17, 2024

When I do a software discovery call, my goal is to get both the 30,000-foot view of the project and the very next actionable step to take; the “context &...

Wolves in sleek clothing: Part 1

August 16, 2024

An unfortunate side-effect of the inherent complexity of software is that it takes a bit of “know-how” to discern the good, the bad, and the downright...

Dollars in hand

August 15, 2024

If you build your own software instead of using something “off the shelf”, things can get expensive very quickly. How can you mitigate this cost and iterate...

A real-life example of checklist-driven development

August 14, 2024

For a non-technical business owner who wants to build the right software without wasting time and money, the best approach is to use Checklist-Driven...

Checklist-driven Development

August 13, 2024

The best way to guarantee your budget and deadline aren’t blown away is to utilize a checklist to guide your development. The alternative is to merely talk...

August 12, 2024

Premature optimization is the root of all evil. Many prospects I talk with begin their conversations by telling me they need custom software to solve a...

A "small bet" in real life

August 11, 2024

After reading so much about "small bets", you may wonder what exactly a small bet looks like. Today we'll explore a recent, concrete example I worked on....

It's all bets, all the way down

August 10, 2024

A useful paradigm in software is to imagine it as a series of bets. The more you understand the software being written and the underlying business, the...

There are other ways to build software

So you just learned that you aren't ready to build custom software, so... what then? Are you stuck until you get someone to pay for your idea? Nope! There’s...

Signals that you aren't ready to build

If you're a non-technical founder, meaning you are not the person who can write the code to solve your problem, there are concrete signals that you are not...

Bet-Driven Development

No matter how you build software (or anything for that matter), you're making bets. You're wagering that a specific amount of effort placed here will yield...

Building vs. Buying software (for non-technical business owners)

Code is a liability. Like a car, its usefulness may offset the cost of purchase and maintenance. But it will require maintenance. The more critical the...

Natural Project Planning: Part 5 - Target Acquired

You’re finally here. You've defined the "Why" behind what you're doing. You've envisioned what success looks like. You brainstormed all the ideas possible....

Natural Project Planning: Part 4 - Fill in the blank

After we've brainstormed several ways to get our desired result, we must begin sorting through these ideas. Inevitably, you've come up with big ideas that...

Natural Project Planning: Part 3 - There’s a storm a’comin

Brainstorming is the third phase of natural planning. This makes sense because after you’ve decided why you’re doing something and have pictured the outcome,...

Natural Project Planning: Part 2 - Seeing things

So you've laid out the principles and purpose of your project. The People™ understand the "Why". Nice! ...now what? Now is the fun part: we start seeing...

Natural Project Planning: Part 1 - The "Why"

Your brain is a wildly efficient planning machine. It can take problems like, "I am hungry" and analyze hundreds of variables to quickly figure out the...

Just Don't Do It

One of the great productivity tips I ever internalized was the art of not doing something. Too often, we're so preoccupied with can we do it, and how we'll...

Why are we building this?

My co-founder and I have turned down over $125,000 in potential project revenue in the first month of our software studio. Are we just shit business owners?...

Quick quotes won't cut it

While reviewing a project discovery call with a prospect today, I highlighted an interesting risk that came up during our discussion. The gentleman mentioned...

Squashing Scope-Creep

Software projects get expensive without clarity. That is—without a specific, measurable goal—costs will quickly bloat. "Scope-creep" is the name we give to...

Questions to avoid hiring a bad developer

Below are 3 questions crafted to give a glimpse at the experience of the developer you're interviewing. Senior developers with projects under their belts...

How to hire without sinking your software project

Hiring a software developer who can successfully deliver a software project is a near-Herculean task riddled with uncertainty. The stakes of failure...

Simple is not Easy

"Simple" does not equate to "Easy". Most 6-year-olds can attest to this, as they labor over the arduous task of cleaning their room. Simple can be harder...

Be damn serious about what you do

Last week I talked to a provider, let's call him Jim. Jim offered to help me set up some online ads, in exchange for $6,000 US Dollars, spread across 3...

0 to 1 is the hardest

Far too often, software is optimized prematurely. We have lots of cute phrases to warn developers of this tendency: “YAGNI (You Ain’t Gonna Need It)”, “KISS...