Stop guessing.
Start proving.
Before you commit months and budget to a technology bet, we build just enough production code to tell you if it works — in your context, with your data, at your scale. You get evidence, not opinions.
The cost of guessing
New architecture, new platform, new vendor. You won't know if it works until you try it in your context, with your data, at your scale.
The usual approach? A slide deck, a vendor demo, and a leap of faith. When it doesn't work out, the cost compounds: unwinding the wrong choice always costs more than making it.
Failed technology bets don't just waste budget. They burn months of engineering time, damage credibility with the board, and leave your team maintaining something nobody believes in.
66%
of technology projects end in partial or total failure
Standish Group CHAOS Report
45%
average budget overrun on large IT projects
McKinsey & Oxford
100×
costlier to fix a wrong decision in production vs. during design
IBM Systems Sciences Institute
Cost to correct course
A spike catches wrong assumptions at 1×. The alternative is finding them at 100×.
Build your way to certainty
A software spike is a time-boxed, fixed-scope exploration designed to answer a specific technical question. The code is production-grade and becomes your foundation if the answer is yes.
We define the hypothesis, design experiments that test it, and build just enough to get a real answer. Clear deliverables, no ambiguity.
The usual approach
Slide decks and vendor demos
Months of debate about what to do
Big commitments up front
With a spike
Working software you can touch.
Evidence-based decisions in weeks.
Small bets that de-risk the big ones.
How a spike works
Every spike is different, but they follow the same core structure. The specific mix depends on what question you're trying to answer.
Frame the question
What exactly are we trying to learn? Define success criteria, identify the riskiest assumptions, agree on what evidence would change the decision.
Map the landscape
Understand constraints, evaluate options, analyze trade-offs. The research that should happen before anyone writes code.
Build and test
Targeted experiments on the risky parts. Does it perform? Does it integrate? Do vendor claims hold up? Real code, real data.
Deliver the verdict
Working software, documented findings, honest recommendation. Go, pivot, or stop, all backed by evidence.
What you get
By the end of the spike, you have:
Working software that proves or disproves the concept
Clear documentation of what works, what doesn't, and why
Production-ready code your team can build on if you continue
Honest assessment of whether to proceed, pivot, or stop
We might discover the concept works brilliantly, or that it needs a different approach, or that you shouldn't build it at all. All of those are valuable outcomes.
What this looks like
A SaaS company wanted to move authentication out of their application and into a dedicated identity provider — but didn't know whether the migration was worth the effort or which IdP to bet on. We evaluated the shortlist against their specific requirements, built a working proof-of-concept with the frontrunner, and delivered a clear recommendation. They moved forward with confidence instead of committee paralysis.
A SaaS company's preferred vendor promised sub-100ms response times at scale. We tested the claim with production-shaped data and realistic load. It didn't hold. They chose a different path before signing a multi-year contract.
An engineering team had spent six months debating whether to rewrite or modernize an aging Rails monolith. A four-week spike proved a strangler fig approach could ship production value in weeks — not the 18 months the team feared.
Evaluating a new architecture? A spike will tell you if it holds. Vendor promises sound too good? A spike will prove them — or break them. Team stuck debating options? A spike turns opinions into evidence. Board asking for proof before budget? A spike is that proof.
Got a hypothesis?
Let's talk about what you're trying to learn. Get in touch for a free 30-minute discovery call to figure out if a spike is the right move.