Field notes

Blog

Practical write-ups from the trenches — guides on the unglamorous parts of running a small tech business and shipping software for it.

Custom CRM

The Build Was the Easy Part

A financial services firm with about a hundred agents left a well-known CRM this year. Writing the software took less time than deciding what the stages should mean — and that gap is the whole reason buying stopped being the automatic answer.

2026-09-11 · 9 min read
AI & Development

Your Sales Manager Can Write Code Now. That Is Not the Hard Part.

AI coding tools put the people with the most business knowledge within reach of the codebase for the first time. The evidence says the bottleneck moved rather than disappeared — here is where it moved to, who this actually fits, and an eight-gate test before you try it.

2026-08-29 · 15 min read
Business

Forty Years of CRM, and the Year the Argument Changed

From a DOS pop-up in 1984 to $41 billion a year, the CRM keeps solving the last generation's problem and creating the next one. For forty years the build case lost on cost and the buy case won by default. In 2026 that finally reversed, and the history explains exactly why.

2026-08-29 · 13 min read
AI & Development

Your Developer Used AI to Build It. Here’s How to Tell If What You Own Is Production-Ready.

You paid for software you suspect was largely AI-generated. Ten things a non-technical owner can verify — repo ownership, tests, secrets, backups, monitoring — without reading a line of code.

2026-08-25 · 9 min read
AI & Development

I Build Client Software With AI Coding Agents. Here's What Actually Changed.

I use AI coding agents on paid client work. What actually got faster, what did not, and what it means if you are the one paying for software.

2026-08-25 · 8 min read
Integration & Automation

What It Actually Costs to Make Your CRM and Accounting Talk to Each Other

Manual re-keying between a CRM and accounting has a price you can calculate. Here is how to run that number — and where native connectors, Zapier, and custom integrations each stop working.

2026-08-25 · 8 min read
Case Study

The Spreadsheet That Ran a Label Factory

A wholesale label manufacturer in Tempe ran its daily operation on spreadsheet macros. How that became their own server, web portals, and a daily export file nobody has to think about.

2026-08-25 · 7 min read
Business

What a Custom Internal Tool Actually Costs in 2026

Software quotes for the same one-paragraph description routinely vary 10x. My rate, how a first build is actually sized, and why you should only pay for the hours you need after that.

2026-08-25 · 9 min read
AI & Development

The GoDaddy Moment for AI App Development Is Coming

GoDaddy collapsed web hosting from sysadmin work to a credit-card checkout. Lovable, Bolt, and v0 are doing the same for web apps — the production stack for cross-platform mobile is next.

2026-05-29 · 7 min read
Digital Marketing

Automatic Tweets on Twitter

This article provides an overview for automation within Twitter, with a focus on automatic Tweets.

2021-05-14 · 3 min read
Mobile Development

Getting Started Creating a Mobile App + Website

This article provides an overview for what accounts you’ll need and links to step-by-step instructions to create a mobile app and website.

2021-05-02 · 1 min read
Mobile Development

Upload Missing dSYMs for iOS On Firebase Crashlytics

This article provides step-by-step instructions for addressing missing dSYMs on Firebase Crashlytics for iOS apps.

2020-06-20 · 1 min read
Mobile Development

Resign an .IPA File and Submit to App Store Connect

This article provides step-by-step instructions for resigning an .IPA file and how to submit an .IPA file to App Store Connect.

2020-05-24 · 7 min read
Digital Marketing

Logo Design

After reading this article, you’ll understand how to get high-quality logo designs with no graphic design experience required.

2020-04-18 · 3 min read
Digital Marketing

Google AdSense

After reading this article, you’ll understand the basics of Google AdSense and how to install on your website.

2019-11-17 · 1 min read
Web Development

Securing your Website using Let’s Encrypt

After reading this article, you’ll understand the basics of the security implications between HTTP and HTTPS. We’ll also discuss the role of Let’s Encrypt in enabling HTTPS for free.

2019-11-15 · 1 min read
Business

Business Checking Account

After reading this article, you’ll understand the use of a business checking account, what documentation is required to open one, and some of the timing considerations needed for planning your business launch.

2019-11-01 · 2 min read
Business

D-U-N-S Number

After reading this article, you’ll understand what a D-U-N-S Number is, why you need one, and how to get one.

2019-10-01 · 3 min read
Mobile Development

Creating Mobile Developer Accounts

After reading this article, you’ll know the mobile operating systems and associated app stores worthy of creating and maintaining app store developer accounts.

2019-09-01 · 3 min read