eysermans.com

Latest — Jan 28, 2026

Documentation has a new reader

I was cautious about flooding a code repository with documentation. There should be documentation close to the code, but in a limited and intentional form. A README with context about the application, a high-level architectural overview, and clear setup instructions to get a development environment running. Some teams add ADRs

More issues

Feature passports are the bare minimum

Founders need to focus on shipping new features. Revenue depends on delivering more value to users, so the pressure to deliver is real. What often gets overlooked is the state of the systems those features rely on. Legacy modules that need attention, old shortcuts that slow teams down, and parts

Feedback is your development team's fuel

Quick feedback is one of the strongest levers in product development. Teams slow down the moment feedback becomes delayed or hard to get. It starts on the developer’s machine. Engineers need to run the application locally, test changes, debug issues, and immediately see the effect of their work. If

Beware of rebuild bankruptcy

Rebuilds have an expiry date. Every day a team isn’t shipping the new version, they move one step closer to declaring bankruptcy on the effort. Teams sometimes need to rebuild a feature because too many shortcuts were taken, documentation is minimal, or key people have left. A rebuild can

The most important job for a startup founder

Many startup founders struggle to get their development team to deliver. Progress feels slow, so they start asking for daily reports and introducing standups to know what the team is working on. It seems like a reasonable way to stay informed. Unfortunately, by micromanaging, they unintentionally force the team to

Don't build an app just to be in the app store

Many founders want a mobile app because “every company needs one.” With limited budgets, that often leads to a shortcut: a wrapper app. A wrapper is a native shell that simply loads your web application in a web view. It gets you into the App Store quickly and shows progress.

The illusion of free money by whitelabelling software

We’ll whitelabel our application and get our money back! It sounds like an easy win: build a tool for yourself and then sell it to others to recoup the investment. But this idea is often gravely underestimated. Creating a product for the market is an entirely different challenge from

Communicate or be micromanaged

Nobody likes being micromanaged. In an ideal world, people would trust you to deliver, and you’d be left in peace to do your work. But in reality, software development is a black box for many. To them, engineers look like magicians, and the magic seems slow and expensive. Founders

AI reinforces cowboy development

In the early days, technical co-founders were used to shipping fast. It meant SSH’ing into the production server and pushing straight to production. It got them to product-market fit. But now there’s a team in place, and suddenly everything feels slower. So they revert to old habits. Skip

Build the solution that costs the least effort

By now, product teams understand the importance of user research. We know we need to talk to users, understand their problems, and avoid falling into the trap of “build it and they will come.” But even with sound research and a solid understanding of the problem, solutioning can get clouded,