Insights.

Straight answers for business owners and entrepreneurs planning software — what it costs, how long it takes, who to hire, and when an off-the-shelf tool is the smarter call. Written by founder Nick McCandless and the Eltherion team.

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AI Engineering PracticeMay 2, 20267 min read

Model evaluation pipeline: metrics, costs, and rollout

Model evaluation pipeline is the gatekeeper for production AI: shipping a new model without a disciplined pipeline increases user-facing regressions by 2–5× more than picking the wrong base model. A clear evaluation pipeline reduces failure modes and operational cost while increasing trust and rollout velocity.

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App & Web EngineeringMay 1, 20267 min read

Next.js server components: when to adopt and when to avoid

Next.js server components change where your React runs — and that shift is a tax on servers, not an instant frontend win. Next.js server components reduce client bundle sizes by 40–80% but increase per-request server CPU and egress; adopt them where client cost is the bottleneck and avoid them when you can’t pay a 2–6× rise in backend cost.

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SaaS & Platform EngineeringApr 30, 20266 min read

Cloud egress optimization: how to cut network charges

Cloud egress optimization is the most overlooked lever on a SaaS cost model — and it’s where a $50k/month AWS bill can become $30k/month without touching CPU or database size. This piece shows the measurement, architectural trade-offs, and a 3-step checklist to reclaim network cost and latency for production platforms.

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