Sachin G Kulkarni

I recently reviewed a product’s “report” section.But they didn’t call it reports.They called it Sales Insights.

And instead of dumping charts, they did something different.They asked questions:

• How many new customers did you acquire this month?
• How does it compare to last month?
• How many customers are returning?

And right below each question… was the answer with simple graph.That changed everything.

Because their users weren’t tech-savvy.They weren’t looking for in depth MIS report…They were looking for answers.

A client once reported a “bug.”

The feature wasn’t working the way they expected. I checked the code. It was doing exactly what was implemented.

The issue? The requirement was never clearly defined for this functionality.

• What the client meant
• What was documented
• What was built

All three were slightly different. And that gap became a “bug.”

I was talking to a tech founder about a B2B SaaS tool. He proudly said, “Our pricing would be ₹2,000/month per customer.”

Sounds reasonable. Then I asked one question: “How much does it cost you to get one customer ?” . We broke it down:

• Sales calls and visits
• Demos
• Follow-ups
• Custom onboarding

It was easily ₹3,000 to acquire + onboard one customer. And plan was to charge ₹2,000/month.

I said : This is how SaaS quietly enters the graveyard if not calculated even before writing single line of code.

Most apps think login is simple: Generate a JWT and you’re done.

That’s where things go wrong. JWT tokens are meant to be short-lived (2–4 hours for security reasons)

So if you rely only on JWT:

→ Users keep getting logged out

That’s what I told a founder who came to me with an AI-generated website.

He wanted 5–6 small issues fixed. But the real problem wasn’t the issues.

The site had no branding, no structure, and didn’t even work well on mobile. Fixing it wouldn’t change anything for his business. I explained the same to him

That’s when he paused… and decided to rebuild everything.

A client once asked for a small update: “Just add three extra fields on this screen.”

Sounds easy. But that one change meant:

• Updating database structure
• Modifying APIs
• Adjusting validations
• Changing reports
• Handling existing data

What looked like a 10-minute UI tweak turned into a full system-wide update. And this happens all the time.

Because in software, nothing lives in isolation.Every small change has ripple effects. The problem isn’t the request. It’s the assumption that it’s “simple.”

Six months ago, a client was ready to pay me ₹1 lakh to start building an education portal.

I told him to pause. Because the core of his product depended on a third-party provider.

Instead of starting development, I asked him to sit with me and document everything:

• What he expects
• What the third-party actually provides
• What’s missing

The gap was huge.There were critical pieces the third-party didn’t support yet.

A few months ago, many companies rushed to replace developers with AI.

It looked promising.Faster output. Lower cost. Less dependency. But reality kicked in. AI-generated code started:

• Breaking existing features
• Lacking consistency
• Creating more maintenance overhead

And slowly, silently… companies started hiring developers back into the same roles.

Here’s the truth: AI can help you accelerate development.But it cannot take full ownership of a production system.

A few months ago, a person approached me to build an education platform like PhysicsWallah.

I asked simple questions:

• How many batches you currently have ?
• How many students per batch?

They avoided giving clear numbers. And that was the problem.

Because you can’t design the right system without understanding the current scale.

A friend wanted to build a simple e-commerce site. He comes from business background.

He approached a few developers.

• One suggested Shopify with a detailed plan
• One proposed a .NET-based custom solution
• Another said they’d build it in Flutter

Three options. Three directions. He got confused.

But the real problem wasn’t the developers. It was this: He never defined what he actually wanted.