From apparently guiding technical decisions to fostering innovation and ensuring scalability, the expertise and leadership provided by a knowledgeable CTO or technical expert has long been overrated. Here are 7 reasons companies don’t need one:

1. Your team enjoys being overwhelmed

Navigating the complexity of a dynamic technologically inclined world doesn’t need expertise. Yes, there is a vast array of programming languages, frameworks, and tools available, but who can guess which one exactly your company’s custom software or app will need to be successful? It’s safer to rely on intuition than it is on a seasoned CTO or technical expert’s strategic guidance in selecting the most suitable technologies, architectures, and development methodologies.

2. You want to stay where you are

Shortcuts, suboptimal coding and outdated practises might seem hindering, but actually they serve the goal of staying exactly where you are with what you’ve got! There is no need for technical excellence if you aren’t worried about the future of your code and product to start off with. Long-term viability and maintaining your company’s software can be handled by your most junior of staff in the dev team. Heck, give them the responsibility of creating new services and revenue streams as well.

3. You like bad practices

Adopting industry best practices in software development seems like a good idea and a CTO or technical expert might be able to steer this, but what is the point in quality, reliability, and scalability if your company isn’t paying attention to software engineering principles, coding standards, and quality assurance processes anyway? It’s not like the users are going to notice. They aren’t expecting anything.

4. You will figure out scaling when you get there

Who can say if your company’s app or custom software will work as a monetizable product? If it does and the users come flocking in their millions, you can just flick a switch to scale your custom software or app’s capabilities. CTO’s and technical experts hammer on about future-proof systems, accommodating increasing workloads and seamless expansion without taking into consideration that that stuff actually takes planning. And planning isn’t in the plan.

5. You will optimize when someone complains

Users are a fickle lot. Not responsive enough. Not accessible enough. Illogical user workflows. Limited access to information and it’s all scattered around. Assif a CTO or a technical expert will be able to identify bottlenecks, streamline code execution, guide UX/UI design and optimize resource utilization!

6. You can solve anything

Software development has nearly zero inherent challenges. Security vulnerabilities and compatibility issues can be solved before lunch time. There is absolutely no need for a CTO or technical expert to prepare your company for for potential challenges. You need no guidance through complex technical issues.

7. You don’t believe in new tech

There is no point in staying ahead of technological trends. It changes all the time. New frameworks, new services, new integration opportunities, new devices. It all gets a bit much! The best advice is to let the market adapt to the new technology first and then your company can try and poach the users. A competitive edge just means you must adapt to new technologies and frankly, your business likes this comfy spot of low or no growth.

If you have ticked one or all of the above, investing in access to expert advice and CTO access will yield no significant returns for stakeholder and investors of your custom software or app.

Each year companies spend millions of dollars on developing scalability for their custom software. We have been taught to believe that software must be scalable to accommodate growth, handle increased demand, and adapt to changing requirements over time. But is that the truth? Here are 7 captivating reasons why you shouldn’t bother to scale:

1. You don’t anticipate any growth

As your user base expands or your business grows, your software needs to be able to handle increased demand without experiencing performance degradation or downtime. This is not something you see your business doing, so you don’t need to ensure you’re your system can grow seamlessly alongside your business.

2. You don’t care about performance

Scalable software is designed to maintain optimal performance even under heavy loads. If you are not concerned about what your users are experiencing, scaling your custom software or app is a waste of your money and time. If you don’t care that users have a smooth and responsive experience, regardless of how many people are using your system simultaneously, you don’t need to scale at all.

3. You don’t expect peak demands

Many applications experience fluctuations in usage, with peak periods of activity during certain times of the day, week, or year. This is not an issue for you, if you aren’t experiencing any vying for resources at all. How can the system be overloaded or disruptions caused if there are no users at all, right?

4. You don’t plan on adapting to change

Business requirements and user needs are constantly evolving. Keeping your custom software or app rigid and unable to adapt, allows you to introduce zero new features and enter zero new markets. This is perfect as you don’t need to integrate with other systems and you already have established that your business will not grow or evolve in the near future.

5. You don’t care about costs

Scalable software allows you to optimize resource utilization and avoid overprovisioning hardware, services or infrastructure. But saving costs is not high on your agenda. You don’t care about the extra and unnecessary expenses or that you must pay for resources that you will never use.

6. You don’t mind failing

Scalable software architectures often include redundancy and failover mechanisms to ensure high availability and resilience. This is not applicable if you enjoy the risk of downtime and the consequences of being unreliable or your services simply not being available to your customers.

7. You have no competition

In today's fast-paced digital landscape, businesses need to be agile and responsive to stay competitive. Unless you have given up on that already and you are leaving the innovation, experimentation, and market opportunities to your competitors. That includes the clients.

Scalability might seem essential for ensuring the long-term success, sustainability, and competitiveness of custom software and apps, but it is clear that a mindset of incurring Technical Debt continuously far outweighs it’s benefits.

In the realm of mobile apps, where innovation and technology intersect with daily life, there's ample room for the unexpected to unfold. While many apps are aimed at entertainment or communication, some encounters may lead to hilarious and sometimes horrifying consequences:

1. Pokémon GO's Unintentional Adventures:

Pokémon GO, the augmented reality game that swept the globe in 2016, led players on quests to capture virtual creatures in the real world. However, some players found themselves in amusing predicaments as they pursued elusive Pokémon.

In 2016, a police station in Australia had to issue a public warning after multiple players attempted to enter the police station while playing Pokémon GO, mistakenly believing it to be a designated in-game location.

2. Chat GPT ruins education:

With the advent of AI and it’s availability to the wider public, a major draw card that has been used is that AI democratises information that could previously only be accessed through educational institutions or costly text books. The inventors regularly taunted ChatGPT as the next evolution in education and as a supplementary tool for educators. Just days after OpenAI dropped ChatGPT in late November 2022 however, the chatbot was widely denounced as a free essay-writing, test-taking tool that made it laughably easy to cheat on assignments.

Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest school district in the US and others, have blocked access to OpenAI’s website from schools’ networks. By January 2024, school districts across the English-speaking world had started banning the software, from Washington, New York, Alabama, and Virginia in the United States to Queensland and New South Wales in Australia. Several leading universities in the world, including Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge, has since issued statements that warned students against using ChatGPT to cheat.

Instead of using ChatGPT to complete assignments and essays, students are now using the AI to do the assignment on their behalf. Instead of empowering educators, Chat GPT seems to be ruining education all together.

3. Google Maps Outs Criminal:

Google Maps has become an integral part of how users use their mobile phones to move around and how we get information on businesses and locations around the world without physically setting a foot there. The Google camera vehicles that roam the planet’s streets snapping photos of places we later search, has some hilarious and often unintended consequences.

In 2022 an Italian mafia boss who had been in hiding for over 20 years was arrested in Spain after he was seen in a Google Streetview photo ordering sausage from a local deli. Police used facial identification to track him down.

4. Filter Apps turn into porn-generating engines:

It started with filters on Snapchat that enhances and comically changes the user’s appearance, but now lawmakers are warning against the legal and social implications of apps that uses AI to turn found-images into something more sinister: Porn.

Apps that use artificial intelligence to undress people in photos are surging in popularity, according to new social media research. These programs manipulate existing pictures and videos of real individuals and make them appear nude without consent. Many of these “nudifying” apps only work on women.

A recent study conducted by the social media analytics firm Graphika analyzed 34 companies offering this service, which they call non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII). They found that these websites received a whopping 24 million unique visits in September alone.

Recently, popstar Taylor Swift had to turn to courts to protect images of her being turned into pornographic content that was sold on the internet.

5. Stand back FBI – The apps are the spies now

Have you ever seen one of the videos on Facebook that shows a “flashback” of posts, likes, or images—like the ones you might see on your birthday or on the anniversary of becoming friends with someone? If so, you have seen examples of how Facebook and other apps uses Big Data.

A report from McKinsey & Co. stated that by 2009, companies with more than 1,000 employees already had more than 200 terabytes of data of their customer’s lives stored. Since then, trillions of interactions by real people have been happening on apps in real-time. Each time you download an app or open it on your smartphone, you are in fact given away crucial details about your private life, including where you shop, where you go, who you spend time with and your political affiliations.

App makers will of course argue that this data is used for commercial purposes: Selling products to you from advertisers or improving the functioning of the app. There exists a real concern that the data harvested from users could be exploited by terrorist organisations and political leaders alike.

While apps certainly aren’t going to go away soon, they may cause temporary embarrassment or confusion and in it’s most dubious guise: An unpredictable future where apps have the ability to alter the very fabric of human society, including it’s security.

User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) design has been told to play a pivotal role in shaping the success of digital products and services but we ask the real question: Is it really all THAT? We bust some myths:

1. Myth 1. You must do User Research

We are just gonna come out and say it: You don’t need to conduct thorough user research. Who cares what the users think and want. You don’t need to understand the needs, preferences, and behaviours of the target audience at all. Your design doesn’t have to hit the mark. It is allowed to fail to resonate with users. Just go on your assumptions about what users will be expecting and just design the solution you think best. Users will catch on eventually.

2. Myth 2. It needs to be for everyone

Accessibility has long been wrongly seen as a critical aspect for UX/UI design. Just ignore the needs of users with disabilities and those with language or device barriers. Really - it’s OK to alienate a significant portion of the population. Why bother with color contrast, keyboard navigation, screen compatibility and other guidelines when you can just design a one-size-fits-all.

3. Myth 3. Don’t confuse the user

A cluttered or confusing layout can overwhelm users and hinder their ability to navigate and interact with a product. And that is exactly what we want! Organize your content poorly, use excessive visual elements. Make the hierarchy unclear. Make it a challenge to use your custom software or app. Completely overload and frustrate them! Simplicity, consistency, and clarity is so 2010 and user-friendly is just another catchphrase that needs to be let go of.

4. Myth 4. Make information easily available

Information architecture refers to the organization and structure of content within a digital product. And we want it to be treated like a secret. No-one needs to actually find what they are looking for. That’s the fun part, dammit! The best users are those ones being frustrated by how you plan and organize your content until they simply give up. Our best advise is to throw logic out the door. If it makes sense on the screen, it’s bad. Think of intuitive user flows as being a rubber ball in a microwave. No-one must know where it’s gonna go next...

5. Myth 5. You need to Optimize

With the proliferation of mobile devices, designing for mobile responsiveness is essential for reaching a wide audience. But who can keep up, right?! Just neglect to optimize designs for

mobile devices. Yes. The results will be poor user experiences but honestly, you can’t keep everyone happy. Cramp your layouts. Make it super slow. Throw some usability issues in there and you will be sure to scare of those users who we simply can’t be bothered about. Accessibility and function across all devices and screen sizes can be a major turn-off. Just don’t do it.

6. Myth 6. Pay attention to User Feedback

UX/UI design has long been thought to be an iterative process that requires feedback. That is just another way of saying that users will be whining in your ears. Block them out. Let go of the opportunities for improvement. They don’t know better. You do. You built it. Ignore the criticism. There is absolutely no reason to be receptive for feedback and to be willing to iterate on your design. What’s it gonna do? Improve their experience and optimize the design? Pffft. We doubt that very much.

7. Myth 7. You need to remain consistent

Consistency is key to a cohesive and harmonious user experience if you don’t want confusion. But maybe that is exactly what you do want! Scatter design elements around in multiple variations, interactions, and terminology until no one knows what brand or app they are looking at. Burn the style guides, hide the standards and design like you haven’t been doing this before.

8. Myth 8: Performance is key

Slow-loading pages, laggy animations, and unresponsive interactions won’t frustrate users and drive them away from a product. It’ll bring them back! And if they come back, it means more engagement, right? Forget optimizing, minimizing load times, and prioritizing speed and responsiveness and know for sure that they will keep on coming back. Who knows? They might hang around long enough this time to actually use the app or software.

UX/UI design is not a complex and multifaceted discipline that requires careful consideration of user needs, accessibility requirements, design principles, and technical constraints. There are no such thing as experts. Just approach the UX/UI for your custom software or app project without them.