Blog & insights
Field notes from 85+ builds.
No hype, no theory. What we learn shipping AI operating systems for real mid-market companies — written by the people doing the work.
The Starbucks signal: why custom systems are eating SaaS
Starbucks spends $400M a year on software — and just walked away from IBM and Microsoft to build in-house. What the biggest companies in the world just told the mid-market.
Read →The 4 phases of every build (and the 3 points where projects die)
New agency owners think a $45K build takes a 10-person team. We've shipped dozens. Every one moves through the same four phases — and every failure hits one of three points.
Read →Adoption rate: the metric almost everyone ignores
You can ship the cleanest system in the world — if it sits untouched, you built nothing. The five rules we use to get adoption near 100%.
Read →More field notes land here as we ship. For the running commentary, follow @lukepierceops.