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Muhammad Arslan Aslam

📍 Lahore, Pakistan https://sociilabs.com

You Don't Need to Rebuild Your SaaS to Add AI — You Need a Strategy

We get this one a lot: a founder comes in with a CTO quote of $280,000 and eight months to "add AI" to their SaaS platform. We ask what they actually want the AI to do. They think for a second and say: "Just help my

The 4-Week MVP: A Real Build Plan (Not a Motivational Framework)

A founder called me two months ago. Smart guy, technical background, already had a Figma file with 47 screens. He wanted to "move fast." His timeline: four weeks to MVP. I looked at the Figma file and told him he had six months of work sitting in there.

The $40K Code Review Tax: Why Manual Reviews Are Bleeding Your Engineering Budget

Your senior engineers spend 8-12 hours per week reviewing code. At $150K salary, that's $9,600/year per engineer just on reviews. For a team of 5 seniors? That's nearly $48,000 annually. And here's the kicker: most of that time isn't

Web App or Mobile App? Choosing Your MVP Platform

Last Tuesday, a founder asked me: "Should I build a mobile app or a web app first?" I asked her three questions: * Where are your users when they need your product most? * Can they accomplish the core task on a laptop? * Do you have 16 weeks or 8

What is the 40-20-40 Rule in Software Engineering? (And Why Your Startup Probably Needs It)

Here's a question I get from founders at least once a week: "Why is my development team so slow?" Usually, they're not slow. They're just drowning. Drowning in feature requests from customers who threaten to churn. Drowning in technical debt that'

How We Use AI to Speed Up Development (Without Sacrificing Quality)

Look, I'm tired of reading blog posts that are basically "We use ChatGPT and it's amazing!" This isn't that. Last month, a client came to us with a broken MVP, two weeks until launch, and almost no budget left. They had spent

Build vs Buy: When to Go Custom (And When Not To)

You've validated your idea. You've got early customers. Now comes the million-dollar question: Do you build custom software or buy off-the-shelf? It's one of the most consequential tech decisions a founder makes. Get it right, and you unlock competitive advantage and long-term scalability. Get