When we first started customizing Zoho CRM for serious business operations, I had the same thought most reasonably technical people probably have: this should be pretty straightforward. Create a few modules, add some fields, build a pipeline, automate some tasks, and maybe connect Writer, Sign, WorkDrive, and email. What could possibly go wrong? That sentence, by the way, should be printed on a warning label and stapled to the forehead of anyone starting a CRM customization p

There are certain phrases in software that sound harmless until you’ve been around long enough to know better. “Can we just customize Zoho CRM a little?” is one of them. It sounds like a small request, maybe a few custom fields, a workflow or two, and a nice Zoho Sign integration so documents stop disappearing into the Bermuda Triangle of someone’s inbox. But as anyone who has ever sat at a hotel bar during a Zoho conference can tell you, “just customize Zoho CRM a little” is

I’ll admit something that probably won’t make me sound like a genius. When we first started thinking about software for business brokers and commercial real estate brokers, I thought we were building a better CRM. A CRM for business brokers seemed logical enough. Brokers have contacts, sellers, buyers, listings, deals, notes, tasks, and follow-ups. That sounds like CRM territory, right? Well, yes and no. A CRM is part of the answer, but it is not the whole answer. The deeper

In my first job out of college, I was a cost accountant at a chemical plant. Part of my job was to lead brainstorming meetings on cost savings with the workers. In the back of every meeting, chewing on a toothpick, was a grizzled old Vietnam War veteran named Bob. Bob was universally respected because he had the most seniority of anyone in the plant. But Bob wasn’t too happy about being in a meeting led by a 22-year-old kid. Whenever I, or anyone else, would make a suggestion

Last week, we discussed how we keep our promises, which differentiates us from most of the competition. We mentioned that we offer free “discovery” to our prospective clients, and that one benefit of this offer is the opportunity to evaluate clients before we agree to work with them. Internally, we call this our “No Jerk Policy” (we actually call it the “No A**hole Policy but this is a PG-rated blog, so we’ll censor ourselves). This policy of ours, put in other words, means t

This week’s This American Life episode really got me thinking. It’s a story about a guy named Ken who unknowingly stumbled into the NFT gold rush. Ken was working a regular job at Amazon, and in his spare time, he created a site called Pixelmap. He built it to practice a new programming language. Ken forgot about it until he was contacted by an online influencer named Adam McBride, who informed him that Ken had created one of the first NFT sites in history. Consequently, he w

Hollywood seems to be obsessed lately with famous start-up scammers. Browse through your Netflix, and you’ll see that Billy McFarland, Bernie Madoff, Elizabeth Holmes, and Anna Delvey have documentaries or TV series about how they defrauded investors out of millions and even billions of dollars. I admit it, I’ve seen them all. At first, I thought it was just a guilty pleasure. But upon reflection, I think these shows teach the wrong lessons and draw the wrong conclusions. In

I. Why Ethics in Code Generation Matters More Than Ever There was a time when writing code felt like craftsmanship. Every line was a decision, every structure a compromise between beauty and utility. But the rise of AI-assisted development has profoundly changed that dynamic. Today, I can type a vague prompt and receive fully functional code in seconds. Convenient? Absolutely. But with convenience comes complacency - and that’s where ethics quietly begins to erode. Ethics in

It is well known that custom software development projects are often complex undertakings. Even with extreme care, the project's results may still be inadequate due to miscommunication, failure to meet the objectives, or problems with the technology used. In this article, I will discuss a particular example of unsuccessful software development and its post-mortem analysis to explain the process in detail. In this case, the objective does not revolve around the failure but rat

I remember the first time I saw a developer break the rules in the best way possible. It was during a hackathon at a software company I worked with. While most teams were focused on refining existing features, one group decided to approach the problem from a completely different angle. Instead of optimizing the codebase, they built an entirely new solution using an unconventional technology stack. At first, their idea seemed too risky - why fix what wasn’t broken? But by the

I’ve read lots of business advice books, most of them in my MBA program but I continue to read one or two a year. For the most part, they have the same advice: be assertive, take calculated risks, take control of your own destiny, find your passion, etc., etc. However, there was one book I read over a decade ago that I still think about often – Seth Godin’s “The Dip”. This book has several messages, all of which resonate with me to this day. The first is that in order to succ

As a former software company founder I can tell you that a founder’s biggest fear is not being able to get a product launched before you run out of money. When this happens, a founder loses all credibility with investors and, oftentimes, with themselves. Consequently, when we started CodeStringers we wanted to offer a commitment that the competition doesn’t make– a guarantee that we’ll hit your budget and timeline. This ensures that your product sees the light of day and the

Even though we’re an outsourcing company, we also receive multiple solicitations a day from competitors asking if they can help us build software. They try every gimmick in the book to get us to respond– free lunch, free coffee, and lately, they’ve been offering some sort of free work upfront to capture our interest as a prospective client. This puts us in an odd position because we also rely on outbound marketing to bring in new business. So now, how is a prospective client

Like many custom software development firms that provide services to other companies, CodeStringers utilizes, among other vehicles, email marketing to a "high accuracy" source of company and contact data. We have numerous email program genres, including monthly newsletters, prospecting (emails that directly seek new clients), and thought leadership (white papers and other "high value" content resources). Beyond the Obvious: What is "Data Quality"? Contact data quality can be

Here at CodeStringers, we’ve seen founders make two mistakes vis-à-vis their MVP launch. They launch too early before the MVP is actually “viable”. Conversely, they may launch too late because they want the MVP to be perfect first. In other words, they launch after the MVP has reached its “minimum viable” state. Oftentimes, founders insufficiently plan what to do after launch because they spent so much energy focusing on the launch itself. So let’s take a look at each of thes

As an entrepreneur, it’s an amazing feeling when your customers tell you that your business is delivering something unique. I recently had this happen and wanted to share the anecdote. I was recently introduced to a potential new customer looking to build a software product for a new business. The contact who introduced us joined us on a call where I described how we typically engage with customers when defining and building a “minimum viable product (MVP)”. I stated that Cod

You can’t watch the news for more than five minutes these days without hearing predictions of a recession, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, tightening of credit markets, global supply crisis, et cetera. When consumers get wind of these adverse events, they begin a cycle of economic decline: Consumers get nervous, so they spend less, Businesses make less money than they did before, Businesses slow hiring and/or lay off employees, Which makes consumers nervous, so they spen

Research on the relationship between leadership and organizational success has shown that a leader's capacity for empathy and compassion has the strongest influence on organizational profitability and productivity. How does empathy relate to your ability to lead? What can you do to improve your leadership skills? In this post, we will define empathy and empathetic leadership and provide advice on how to enhance this skill. What is empathy? The term empathy was first introduce

As an individual If I could give one piece of advice to someone starting a business career, it would be to “know your lane.” I would tell them to do an honest soul-searching session and ask themselves a few questions: What are you good at? But perhaps more importantly, what are you not good at? What kind of work do you enjoy doing? (granted, “enjoy” is a relative term in business) Do you want to be challenged every day, or do you prefer something a bit more rote and routine?

As an adviser to new businesses, I’m a strong believer that no one succeeds alone in business. Yet I find that many entrepreneurs struggle and fail in the transition from personally developing an innovative idea to building the relationships necessary to transform it into a successful business. These relationships include investors, an operational team, and customers. I encountered this challenge, reaffirmed and magnified, in an inspiring book titled "No One Succeeds Alone: L