A2A Protocol Explained
Google's A2A protocol lets any AI agent talk to any other AI agent. What it does, how it works, and why it changes everything for businesses.
Guides on SaaS and custom software development
Long-form, practical guides on scoping SaaS MVPs, building custom software, integrations, customer portals, dashboards and handover. Written for founders and product teams who want to ship owned software without guesswork.
56 articles
Guides
Why SaaS pricing workflows should not live in Google Docs
Pricing systems need plan logic, approval, version history and buyer behaviour, not another duplicated doc.
How to replace monthly reporting PDFs with client dashboards
Live reporting works when the data model is designed around how the client reads performance.
What to build before hiring another operations person
When the same handover breaks every week, software may be the cleaner hire.
How to scope a first SaaS system in 14 days
Fix time and budget, then scope. One workflow, one system, clear handover.
Cut proposal turnaround from days to one hour
Send proposals while the buyer still remembers the call. Template logic beats copy-paste.
When your SaaS needs a customer portal
Stop spreading updates across email, support tools, Notion and Drive. One owned place for status, files and approvals.
The 15 hours SaaS teams lose to manual reporting every month
Pull product, revenue and CRM data into one view instead of rebuilding reports.
Building an internal CRM that your team actually opens
Route leads, track delivery and surface blockers in one workspace, not five tabs.
Own the codebase: why SaaS product logic should not be rented
100% code ownership, deployment notes and workflow logic stay with you. No licence lock-in.
Move delivery status out of Slack and spreadsheets
Run cleaner when project status lives in owned software your team trusts.
When to build custom software vs use existing SaaS
Use SaaS when the problem is solved. Build when your workflow is the differentiator.
Customer onboarding without the email ping-pong
Collect briefs, assets and approvals in one auditable flow, not twelve threads.
Simple build pricing for SaaS systems
SaaS builds from £5,000 and Enterprise from £18,000, with fixed scope and full handover.
The 5 places SaaS teams lose hours every week
Pricing, reporting, onboarding, customer comms and glue work, mapped to what to build first.
What a proper software handover looks like
Source code, deployment access, docs and clear ownership. No mystery system.
Track retainer profitability without another spreadsheet
One view for founders: pipeline, workload, margin and what needs attention today.
Proposal approval flows that do not slow deals down
Reusable sections, pricing blocks and sign-off, without rebuilding from scratch.
Integrations SaaS founders actually need in a first build
Product analytics, Stripe, HubSpot and CRM, connect the data you already have.
What fits inside a 14-day SaaS software build
Scoped around one bottleneck: onboarding, reporting, portals or internal ops.
Founder-led builds: why it matters for SaaS founders
You work directly with the person designing and shipping, not a handoff chain.
How to write a scope of work clients actually sign
Clear deliverables, assumptions and acceptance criteria beat vague promises and over-lawyered walls of text.
The SaaS kickoff checklist that stops projects drifting
Same steps before every build: brief, access, stakeholders, success metric and internal owner.
A product update narrative template founders can reuse
Headline, what moved, why it moved, next actions, structure commentary so updates stop taking all day.
CRM hygiene sprint: clean pipeline data in 90 minutes
Merge duplicates, close zombie deals and enforce owners before any system downstream can be trusted.
Replace status meetings with async client updates
Done, next, blocked, risks, a written rhythm clients trust without another calendar block.
Fixed, subscription or hybrid: pick a pricing model deliberately
Your pricing system should enforce how you sell, not let reps accidentally mix models.
Map one workflow bottleneck in 30 minutes
Draw the chain, mark wait times, circle the longest gap, fix policy before you buy tools.
Build vs buy scorecard for SaaS software
Score fit, repetition, integration, ownership and glue work, same sheet every time you evaluate.
Customer approval SLAs that protect your margin
Mutual response times, revision rounds and what happens when feedback is late, agreed in onboarding.
Standardise analytics setup for every customer account
Property structure, key events, UTMs and QA, productise the checklist instead of relying on memory.
Three lines of defence against scope creep
SOW exclusions, visible request logs and weekly out-of-scope review, process before personality.
Sales-to-customer-success handoff: the minimum packet
Signed scope, call summary, margin notes and comms preferences, success accepts or rejects, not inherits.
Which integration to build first
Rank tool pairs by hours saved and data quality, one direction, one object type for version one.
Audit your recurring ops meetings
If the meeting produces no decision, cancel it, replace readouts with async updates.
From timesheets to retainer margin (without theatre)
Track at project level, compare sold vs actual monthly, feed learnings back into pricing.
A one-page brief for SaaS software (not a 40-page RFP)
Problem, users, integrations, success metric, budget and ownership, enough to compare vendors fairly.
Prepare SaaS ops for AI agents (without boiling the ocean)
Structured data, allowed actions, human approval and audit logs, one workflow at a time.
SaaS MVP architecture: what to build in version one
Monolith, auth, database and API boundaries for a first SaaS product that can ship in weeks, not months.
Stripe billing for SaaS MVPs: plans, trials and webhooks
Subscriptions, usage limits and webhook handling without over-engineering payments on day one.
Authentication for SaaS MVPs: email, OAuth and roles
Pick auth that matches your buyers, not your favourite library. Sessions, invites and admin access.
Postgres vs managed databases for early SaaS
When a standard Postgres stack beats Firebase, and what to optimise for in the first 90 days.
SaaS deployment checklist: staging, env vars and rollbacks
Ship behind a private link, promote to production safely, and hand over access the client can run.
Why most SaaS MVPs should stay a monolith
Microservices add coordination cost before you have product-market fit. Start simple, split later.
Roles and permissions in B2B SaaS (without RBAC theatre)
Admin, member, viewer and customer-facing roles. Model what buyers actually ask for in sales calls.
API design for SaaS MVPs: REST, webhooks and version one
Expose what integrations need, hide what they do not. Stable IDs, pagination and error shapes.
Technical debt on SaaS MVPs: what to accept and what to refuse
Speed with guardrails. Copy-paste is fine in UI; data model shortcuts are not.
SaaS onboarding metrics that predict retention
Time-to-value, activation events and support tickets. Measure the funnel before you redesign UI.
Multi-tenant SaaS basics: orgs, workspaces and data isolation
How to model accounts, teams and billing without building enterprise complexity on day one.
Custom admin dashboards vs off-the-shelf BI tools
When Looker or Metabase is enough, and when operators need a dashboard tied to your workflow.
12 discovery questions before scoping custom software
Users, data sources, approvals, integrations and success metrics. A worksheet for the first call.
ROI of internal tools: hours saved vs build cost
A simple model to justify custom software to finance when spreadsheets are still 'free'.
Articles
How to scope a SaaS MVP that actually ships
Practical steps to define scope, avoid creep, and get from idea to launch in weeks, not months.
What to expect from a fixed-scope product studio
Timelines, communication, and how Standen delivers scoped SaaS and custom software builds for founders.
When to build custom software vs use existing SaaS
Deciding between bespoke build and off-the-shelf tools? We break down the trade-offs so you can choose with confidence.
Rapid delivery without cutting corners
How we ship MVPs and web apps in weeks while keeping quality high and tech debt low.
No articles match your search.
Ready to scope a SaaS or custom software build?
Book a short call. We’ll map the simplest system worth building first.
Book a call