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Notes on building software.
Plain-spoken articles on development, platforms, and getting digital projects done right.
What custom software actually costs in India — and how to know if you need it
Real price ranges for custom business software, what makes a quote go up, and the honest test for whether you should build at all or just buy something off the shelf.
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AI-built or WordPress? We measured 19 of our own sites
One hosting account, 19 live sites, 13 of them WordPress and 6 hand-built. We counted the files, then checked what the published research says about plugin vulnerabilities and AI-generated code. Neither option is safe by default, and the thing that actually failed on our own server was neither of them.
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Our mailing list had 306 subscribers. Not one was a person.
The list had grown on its own for weeks without a single campaign. Grouping the signups by network block took ten minutes and answered it: four datacenters, zero home internet connections. The worse discovery was what our own form had been doing.
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Why 200 location pages will not get you found
Thirty services times forty towns is twelve hundred pages, and it costs almost nothing to build. We tried it on our own website. Here is what the audit found, with the numbers.
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Why a small jeweller needs an ERP, not just accounting software
Five things happen on a single jewellery bill that no ordinary retail software models — and they interact. What we learned building and running an ERP for a gold house.
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How to choose a web development company in Udupi or Mangaluru
Ten questions that separate a studio that will still be answering the phone in two years from one that will not. Written by people who answer these questions for a living.
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How to get your business quoted by ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI Overviews
Search is quietly changing from a list of links into a written answer. Here is what actually decides whether that answer mentions your business — and what to change on your site this month.
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Shopify or WooCommerce for an Indian D2C brand?
The honest comparison, with Indian realities included: UPI, COD, GST invoices, shipping partners and what each platform actually costs once you are running.
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GST e-invoicing, and what it does to your billing software
IRN, QR codes, the IRP and the thirty-day window — what e-invoicing actually requires, who it applies to, and why it is a software problem rather than an accounts problem.
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Your Google Business Profile matters more than your website
For a shop, clinic, hotel or workshop in coastal Karnataka, the map listing usually decides who gets the call. Most listings are half-finished. Here is how to finish yours.
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Do you need an app, or is a website enough?
Almost every business that asks us for an app needs a website that works well on a phone. Here is the test that tells the two apart, and what a PWA does to the question.
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WhatsApp, a marketplace, or your own store?
Most small brands in coastal Karnataka sell through WhatsApp, then jump to Amazon, then wonder where the margin went. A clear-eyed comparison of the three channels and when each one is right.
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Should your website be in Kannada?
A question almost nobody writes about honestly. What Kannada content actually does for local search, when it helps, when it is wasted effort, and the cheap middle path.
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When a spreadsheet stops being enough
Excel runs an enormous number of good businesses, right up until the day it quietly stops. The signals that you have outgrown it, and what to do that is not a six-month ERP project.
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Why slow websites lose rankings in India
Your site loads instantly on the office wi-fi. Your customer is on a mid-range Android phone on patchy mobile data outside a shop. Only one of those two experiences is being measured.
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