Written by Adam Juras
OpenAI’s new Apps SDK is being pitched as a new “App Store moment”, but it’s actually closer to SEO inside a walled garden than a true platform play for independent developers. Let’s unpack this. The ownership problem Ownership is the essence of product defensibility. And in OpenAI’s ecosystem, you don’t own: Intent : ChatGPT mediates discovery via model routing. UI : Strictly constrained widgets…
We ditched estimates completely at tutti.ch in 2019, and I haven’t used them ever since. Instead, we did “right-sizing”. Most of the industry is doing some form of agile now, yet only 7% of software projects are on time and on budget. So why do we obsess over perfectly predicting what we can do in 2 weeks? Estimating complexity, not time, does not make it better. Even after attending all the agile…
The teacher finishes a lesson and asks “any questions?” Silence… You think hard, but nothing comes to mind. Then one hand goes up. A kid speaks up and everyone, including the teacher, pauses for a second. A flash of genius! Clear thinking grounded in real understanding. It’s so obvious in retrospect. Why didn’t I think of that? I deeply admired them. Even felt envious! Today, you ask AI instead of…
Maybe you noticed, this year I posted every week on LinkedIn. That was a goal I set for myself. Last week, I skipped one. It taught me a principle I have seemingly forgotten. If I take one step back, I see there were clear benefits. I made actual friends, not just connections. Here’s a (hopefully not too awkward) public shoutout to Ady Rugina, who is one of them. I really value our exchanges. You…
A week of using Cursor extensively to build Varient changed my mind completely. I built in a matter of days what took us, a small team, weeks in the past. I’ve found five must-have principles that made the difference: Planning. Write down in simple words the project context, the new feature and jobs to be done. Breadboarding. Like in electrical engineering, split the feature in the needed…
“The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” This simple idea from Isaiah Berlin has fascinated me my entire career. As a natural fox, jumping between product, engineering, and leadership, I’ve often envied hedgehogs with their deep, specialized expertise. Then AI flipped everything upside down. Some say hedgehogs will thrive because deep expertise is the last thing AI can’t…
I was stuck for two days on a feature after Sonnet 3.7 almost one-shot it, but then I just couldn’t make it work. This morning I started from scratch and implemented the whole thing in 1 hour, the old-fashioned way. That’s it. That’s the post. Actually, just when I was about to hit “Post”, I had an observation. The psychology of coding with AI is strange. On one hand, you write (or say) prompts in…
Here’s an honest log of my first 60 days of solopreneurship. For transparency, I took screenshots of my LinkedIn stats, GitHub contributions, and of myself (lol, does an elevator selfie count as a real life screenshot?) You can see them here 1. Varient Score: 3/5 I’m at 90%. Let’s see if the last 10% follows the usual law of taking just as long. What’s working: The tech stack (Remix + Phoenix)…
These claims around AI coding tools are getting wild. I want to see for myself what’s behind the hype. Having switched between coding and management roles multiple times, each transition forced me to relearn how to build efficiently. I’ve developed an interest in finding the right tools and workflows that deliver results. Here’s my current flow. I start sketching on a whiteboard. Then refine in…
Note: This is a reaction to a post on LinkedIn. To get the full context, read the story here . Let’s talk about local engineering jobs being replaced by cheaper locations. I hired well over 100 developers in the past 15 years. While in Switzerland, I hired in Zurich, Belgrade, and in Bucharest. Before that, I worked in outsourcing in Romania and hired in Cluj and Chisinau. My guess about AI…
This is an honest log of a day working with AI. 8AM. My new MacBook arrives. Quick setup, then get to work! ChatGPT generated a checklist of tools for me to install. “Since you do ecommerce, AI, and backend development, here’s what I suggest: … “. Okay … Looked perfect on paper. Like my dating profile from 2009. I raced through the instructions like a hacker in a Hollywood movie. Until I hit a…
Every morning I read one chapter from Rick Rubin’s latest book. It helps me push through building Varient . This quote hit home: The inspired-artist aspect of your self may be in conflict with the craftsperson aspect, disappointed that the craftsperson is unable to create the physical embodiment of the inspired artist’s vision. This is a common conflict for creators, since there is no direct…
I went back and forth more times than I care to admit. No-code? Full-stack JS? Backend-first? A hybrid approach? Here’s my reasoning. I settled on: Remix + Phoenix + Oban Is it the perfect stack? No. But is it perfect for me ? Absolutely. As a reminder: I’m building a Shopify App that improves the conversion rate of stores using AI. Let’s dive in! Why Remix? This one’s easy. Shopify is pushing…
I received so many positive reactions after last week’s announcement! Yes, I’m giving entrepreneurship another shot! It feels amazing to see friends cheering. But it also felt a bit strange when people congratulated me. I mean… I haven’t actually built anything yet! 😅 Starting is easy. The hard part is what follows. So let me share what I’m working on. 🥁 Here’s something wild: 88% of Shopify…
This is my 7th startup since 2007. You’d think I learned my lesson by now. But there’s something about creating products from scratch that keeps pulling me back. It’s one of the things I deeply enjoy in life. Designing, coding, branding, writing. The self-expression that comes with it. The whole journey of turning ideas into reality. YCombinator says we’re in the Golden Age of Building. And I…
The text on the image says: “Art is art and everything else is everything else.” This morning, I had an epiphany. I woke up, I picked up Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act, and started reading it. Then it hit me. A realisation that feels as real as a rock. You can pick it up, touch it, inspect it. You know it’s there. A true AHA! moment. Non-debatable. I am an artist. After 37 years of trying to…
I’ve been quiet recently, and there’s a reason for it. End of 2022, I was about to face a year full of questions. After 13 years of working back-to-back jobs, it was inevitable. Am I still on the right path? Am I climbing the wrong hill ? Why am I doing what I’m doing? I felt tired and started losing the joy I once had in my day to day job. Why was this happening? Was it a mid-life crisis? (I sure…
After 6.5 years of being part of the best team I’ve ever met, March marked my last month at tutti.ch. I needed some time to reflect, and now that I’m starting a new chapter, I can share my thoughts. It wasn’t an easy decision to leave as we’ve not only created a culture that’s truly special, but managed to turn the ship around while scaling the team from 20 to 60+ people across multiple countries.…
I started web development exactly 10 years ago. During the past years I’ve worn several hats, from developer to project manager, product manager, I am now back to my initial love: web development. When I picked up web dev last year in April, it felt better than ever. Why? What changed in the past years? Did I mature or the business? I sure hope both, but for the latter I’ve gathered some points.…
Written in Hakone, Japan 🇯 The more I travel and see the world, the more I love Europe and my roots. Recently I’ve read a study saying that 92% of europeans are pessimistic about their future. Only 8% believe that things are getting better. That’s alarming! This collective feeling has great impact on everything around us: our self-perception, work, society, and the economy. The news have that…
It’s a daunting task to learn anything that is as complex as coding. People you follow are disproportionally more knowledgable than you are. You have acquaintances who are smarter. And every day you discover at least one new term that uncovers an ocean full of information. You start questioning yourself. These thoughts have a tendency to sneak up on you especially when you’re facing hard problems.…